FOR THE FAITH
A Story of the Young Pioneers of Reformation in Oxford
by
EVELYN EVERETT-GREEN
CONTENTS
Chapter
Note
I: The House by the Bridge
II: "Christian Brothers"
III: A Neophyte
IV: "Merrie May Day"
V: Sweet Summertide
VI: For Love and the Faith
VII: In Peril
VIII: The Fugitive
IX: A Steadfast Spirit
X: A Startling Apparition
XI: Evil Tidings
XII: "Brought Before Governors"
XIII: In Prison
XV: The Fire At Carfax
XVI: "Reconciled"
XVII: The Clemency Of The Cardinal
XVIII: The Release
Notes
Note
The story of these young pioneers of reformation in Oxford has been
told by many historians. But there are slight discrepancies in the
various accounts, and it is not quite clear who were the small
minority who refused the offered reconciliation, and stood firm to
the last. But there is no doubt that John Clarke, Henry Sumner, and
one other, whose name varies in the different accounts, died from
the effects of harsh imprisonment, unabsolved, and unreconciled to
the offended church, and that Clarke would probably have perished
at the stake had death not taken him from the hands of his
persecutors.
There is equally no doubt that Dalaber, Ferrar, Garret, and many
others "recanted," as it was called, and took part in the burning
of books at Carfax. But these men must not be too hastily condemned
as cowards and renegades. Garret, Ferrar, and several others died
for their faith in subsequent persecutions, whilst others rose to
eminence in the church, which was soon to be reformed and purified
of many of the errors against which these young men had protested.
It is probable, therefore, that they were persuaded by gentle
arguments to this act of submission. They were not in revolt
against their faith or the church, but only eager for greater
liberty of thought and judgment. Kindly persuasion and skilful
argument would have great effect, and the sense of isolation and
loss incurred by sentence of excommunication was such as to cause
acute suffering to the devout. There is no doubt that Wolsey won
over Thomas Garret by kindliness, and not by threats or penalties;
and it is to his honour, and to that of the authorities of Oxford,
that, after the first panic, they were wishful to treat the
culprits with gentleness, save those few who remained obstinate.
And even these were later on given back to their friends, although,
as it turned out; it was only to die.
Chapter I: The House by the Bridge
"Holy Church has never forbidden it," said John Clarke, with a very
intent look upon his thoughtful, scholar's face.
A young man who stood with his elbow on the mantelshelf, his eye
fixed eagerly on the speaker's face, here broke in with a quick
impetuosity of manner, which seemed in keeping with his restless,
mobile features, his flashing dark eyes, and the nervous motion of
his hands, which were never still long together.
"How do you mean? Never forbidden it! Why, then, is all this coil
which has set London aflame and lighted the fires of Paul's Yard
for the destruction of those very books?"
"I did not say that men had never forbidden the reading of the
Scriptures in the vulgar tongue by the unlettered. I said that Holy
Church herself had never issued such a mandate."
"Not by her Popes?" questioned the younger man hastily.
"A papal bull is not the voice of the Holy Catholic Church," spoke
Clarke, slowly and earnestly. "A Pope is not an apostle; though, as
a bishop, and a Bishop of Rome, he must be listened to with all
reverence. Apostles are not of man or by man, but sent direct by
God. Popes elected by cardinals (and too often amid flagrant
abuses) cannot truly be said to hold apostolic office direct from
the Lord. No, I cannot see that point as others do. But let that
pass. What I do maintain, and will hold to with certainty, is that
in this land the Catholic Church has never forbidden men to read
the Scriptures for themselves in any tongue that pleases them. I
have searched statutes and records without end, and held
disputations with many learned men, and never have I been proven to
be in the wrong."
"I trow you are right there, John Clarke," spoke a deep voice from
out the shadows of the room at the far end, away from the long,
mullioned window. "I have ever maintained that our Mother the Holy
Church is a far more merciful and gentle and tolerant mother than
those who seek to uphold her authority, and who use her name as a
cloak for much maliciousness and much ignorance."
Clarke turned swiftly upon the speaker, whose white head could be
plainly distinguished in the shadows of the panelled room. The
features, too, being finely cut, and of a clear, pallid tint, stood
out against the dark leather of the chair in which the speaker sat.
He was habited, although in his own house, in the academic gown to
which his long residence in Oxford had accustomed him. But it was
as a Doctor of the Faculty of Medicine that he had distinguished
himself; and although of late years he had done little in
practising amongst the sick, and spent his time mainly in the study
of his beloved Greek authors, yet his skill as a physician was held
in high repute, and there were many among the heads of colleges
who, when illness threatened them, invariably besought the help of
Dr. Langton in preference to that of any other leech in the place.
Moreover, there were many poor scholars and students, as well as
indigent townsfolk, who had good cause to bless his name; whilst
the faces of his two beautiful daughters were well known in many a
crowded lane and alley of the city, and they often went by the
sobriquet of "The two saints of Oxford."
This was in part, perhaps, due to their names. They were twin
girls, the only children of Dr. Langton, whose wife had died within
a year of their birth. He had called the one Frideswyde, after the
patron saint of Oxford, at whose shrine so many reputed miracles
had been wrought; and the other he named Magdalen, possibly because
he had been married in the church of St. Mary Magdalen, just
without the North Gate.
To their friends the twin sisters were known as Freda and Magda,
and they lived with their father in a quaint riverside house by
Miltham Bridge, where it crossed the Cherwell. This house was a
fragment of some ecclesiastical building now no longer in
existence, and although not extensive, was ample enough for the
needs of a small household, whilst the old garden and fish ponds,
the nut walk and sunny green lawn with its ancient sundial, were a
constant delight to the two girls, who were proud of the flowers
they could grow through the summer months, and were wont to declare
that their roses and lilies were the finest that could be seen in
all the neighbourhood of Oxford.
The room in which the little company was gathered together this
clear, bright April evening was the fragment of the old refectory,
and its groined and vaulted roof was beautifully traced, whilst the
long, mullioned window, on the wide cushioned seat on which the
sisters sat with arms entwined, listening breathlessly to the talk
of their elders, looked southward and westward over green
meadowlands and gleaming water channels to the low hills and
woodlands beyond.
Oxford in the sixteenth century was a notoriously unhealthy place,
swept by constant pestilences, which militated greatly against its
growth as a university; but no one could deny the peculiar charm of
its situation during the summer months, set in a zone of verdure,
amid waterways fringed with alder and willow, and gemmed by water
plants and masses of fritillary.
Besides the two sisters, their learned father, and the two young
men in the garb of students who had already spoken, there was a
third youth present, who looked slightly younger than the dark
faced, impetuous Anthony Dalaber, and he sat on the window seat
beside the daughters of the house, with the look of one who has the
right to claim intimacy. As a matter of fact, Hugh Fitzjames was
the cousin of these girls, and for many years had been a member of
Dr. Langton's household. Now he was living at St. Alban Hall, and
Dalaber was his most intimate friend and comrade, sharing the same
double chamber with him. It was this intimacy which bad first
brought Anthony Dalaber to the Bridge House; and having once come,
he came again and yet again, till he was regarded in the light of a
friend and comrade.
There was a very strong tie asserting itself amongst certain men of
varying ages and academic rank at Oxford at this time. Certain
publications of Martin Luther had found their way into the country,
despite the efforts of those in authority to cheek their
introduction and circulation. And with these books came also
portions of the Scriptures translated into English, which were as
eagerly bought and perused by vast numbers of persons.
Martin Luther was no timid writer. He denounced the corruptions he
had noted in the existing ordinances of the church with no
uncertain note. He exposed the abuses of pardons, pilgrimages, and
indulgences in language so scathing that it set on fire the hearts
of his readers. It seemed to show beyond dispute that in the
prevailing corruption, which had gradually sapped so much of the
true life and light from the Church Catholic, money was the ruling
power. Money could purchase masses to win souls from purgatory;
money could buy indulgences for sins committed; money could even
place unfit men of loose life in high ecclesiastical places. Money
was what the great ones of the church sought--money, not holiness,
not righteousness, not purity.
This was the teaching of Martin Luther; and many of those who read
had no means of knowing wherein he went too far, wherein he did
injustice to the leaven of righteousness still at work in the midst
of so much corruption, or to the holy lives of hundreds and
thousands of those he unsparingly condemned, who deplored the
corruption which prevailed only less earnestly than he did himself.
It was small wonder, then, that those in authority in this and
other lands sought by every means in their power to put down the
circulation of books which might have such mischievous results. And
as one of Martin Luther's main arguments was that if men only read
and studied the Scriptures for themselves in their own mother
tongue, whatever that tongue might be, they would have power to
judge for themselves how far the practice of the church differed
from apostolic precept and from the teachings of Christ, it was
thought equally advisable to keep out of the hands of the people
the translated Scriptures, which might produce such heterodox
changes in their minds; and all efforts were made in many quarters
to stamp out the spreading flames of heresy in the land.
Above all things, it was hoped that the leaven of these new and
dangerous opinions would not penetrate to the twin seats of
learning, the sister universities of Oxford and Cambridge.
Cardinal Wolsey had of late years been busy and enthusiastic over
his munificent gift of a new and larger college to Oxford than any
it had possessed before. To be sure, he did not find all the funds
for it out of his private purse. He swept away the small priory of
St. Frideswyde, finding homes for the prior and few monks, and
confiscating the revenues to his scheme; and other small religious
communities were treated in like manner, in order to contribute to
the expenses of the great undertaking. Now a fair building stood
upon the ancient site of the priory; and two years before, the
first canons of Cardinal College (as Christ Church used to be
called) were brought thither, and established in their new and most
commodious quarters. And amongst the first of these so-called
Canons or Senior Fellows of the Foundation was Master John Clarke,
a Master of Arts at Cambridge, who was also a student of divinity,
and qualifying for the priesthood. Wolsey had made a selection of
eight Cambridge students, of good repute for both learning and good
conduct, and had brought them to Oxford to number amongst his
senior fellows or canons; and so it had come about that Clarke and
several intimate associates of his had been translated from
Cambridge to Oxford, and were receiving the allowance and benefits
which accrued to all who were elected to the fellowships of
Cardinal College.
But though Wolsey had made all due inquiries as to the scholarship
and purity of life and conduct of those graduates selected for the
honour done them, he had shown himself somewhat careless perhaps in
the matter of their orthodoxy, or else he had taken it too much for
granted. For so it was that of the eight Cambridge men thus removed
to Oxford, six were distinctly "tainted" by the new opinions so
fast gaining ground in the country, and though still deeply
attached to the Holy Catholic Church, were beginning to revolt
against many of the abuses of the Papacy which had grown up within
that church, and were doing much to weaken her authority and bring
her into disrepute with thinking laymen--if not, indeed, with her
own more independent-minded priests.
John Clarke was a leading spirit amongst his fellows at Cardinal
College, as he had been at Cambridge amongst the graduates there.
It was not that he sought popularity, or made efforts to sway the
minds of those about him, but there was something in the
personality of the man which seemed magnetic in its properties; and
as a Regent Master in Arts, his lectures had attracted large
numbers of students, and whenever he had disputed in the schools,
even as quite a young man, there had always been an eager crowd to
listen to him.
Last summer an unwonted outbreak of sickness in Oxford had driven
many students away from the city to adjacent localities, where they
had pursued their studies as best they might; and at Poghley, where
some scholars had been staying, John Clarke had both preached and
held lectures which attracted much attention, and aroused
considerable excitement and speculation.
Dr. Langton had taken his two daughters to Poghley to be out of the
area of infection, and there the family had bettered their previous
slight acquaintance with Clarke and some of his friends. They had
Anthony Dalaber and Hugh Fitzjames in the same house where they
were lodging; and Clarke would come and go at will, therein growing
in intimacy with the learned physician, who delighted in the deep
scholarship and the original habit of thought which distinguished
the young man.
"If he live," he once said to his daughters, after a long evening,
in which the two had sat discoursing of men and books and the
topics of the day--"if he live, John Clarke will make a mark in the
university, if not in the world. I have seldom met a finer
intellect, seldom a man of such singleness of mind and purity of
spirit. Small wonder that students flock to his lectures and desire
to be taught of him. Heaven protect him from the perils which too
often threaten those who think too much for themselves, and who
overleap the barriers by which some would fence our souls about.
There are dangers as well as prizes for those about whom the world
speaks aloud."
Now the students had returned to Oxford, the sickness had abated,
and Dr. Langton had brought his daughters back to their beloved
home. But the visits of John Clarke still continued to be frequent.
It was but a short walk through the meadows from Cardinal College
to the Bridge House. On many a pleasant evening, his work being
done, the young master would sally forth to see his friends; and
one pair of soft eyes had learned to glow and sparkle at sight of
him, as his tall, slight figure in its dark gown was to be seen
approaching. Magdalen Langton, at least, never wearied of any
discussion which might take place in her presence, if John Clarke
were one of the disputants.
And, indeed, the beautiful sisters were themselves able to follow,
if not to take part in, most of the learned disquisitions which
took place at their home. Their father had educated them with the
greatest care, consoling himself for the early loss of his wife and
the lack of sons by superintending the education of his twin
daughters, and instructing them not only in such elementary matters
as reading and writing (often thought more than sufficient for a
woman's whole stock in trade of learning), but in the higher
branches of knowledge--in grammar, mathematics, and astronomy, as
well as in the Latin and French languages, and in that favourite
study of his, the Greek language, which had fallen so long into
disrepute in Oxford, and had only been revived with some difficulty
and no small opposition a few years previously.
But just latterly the talk at the Bridge House had concerned itself
less with learned matters of Greek and Roman lore, or the problems
of the heavenly bodies, than with those more personal and burning
questions of the day, which had set so many thinking men to work to
inquire of their own consciences how far they could approve the
action of church and state in refusing to allow men to think and
read for themselves, where their own salvation (as many argued) was
at stake.
It was not the first time that a little group of earnest thinkers
had been gathered together at Dr. Langton's house. The physician
was a person held in high esteem in Oxford. He took no open part
now in her counsels, he gave no lectures; he lived the life of a
recluse, highly esteemed and respected. He would have been a bold
man who would have spoken ill of him or his household, and
therefore it seemed to him that he could very well afford to take
the risk of receiving young men here, who desired to speak freely
amongst themselves and one another in places not so liable to be
dominated by listening ears as the rooms of the colleges and halls
whence they came.
Dr. Langton himself, being a man of liberal views and sound piety,
would very gladly have welcomed some reforms within the church,
which he, in common with all the early Reformers, loved and
venerated far more than modern-day Protestants fully understand.
They could not bear the thought that their Holy Mother was to be
despoiled, and the Body of Christ rent in pieces amongst them. No;
their earnest and ardent wish was that this purging of abuses, this
much-needed reformation, should come from within, should be carried
out by her own priests, headed up, if possible, by the Pope
himself. Such was the dream of many and many a devout and earnest
man at this time; and John Clarke's voice always softened with a
tender reverence as he spoke of the Holy Catholic Church.
So now his eyes lighted with a quick, responsive fire, as he turned
them upon his host.
"That is just what I am ever striving to maintain--that it is not
the church which is in fault, but those who use her name to enforce
edicts which she knows nothing of. 'Search the scriptures, for in
them ye have life,' spoke our Lord. 'Blessed is he that readeth the
words of the prophecy of this book,' wrote St. John in the latter
days. All men know that the Word of God is a lamp to the feet and a
light to the path. How shall we walk without that light to guide
us?"
"The church gives us the light," spoke Hugh Fitzjames softly.
Clarke turned upon him with a brilliant smile.
"She does, she does. She provides in her services that we shall be
enlightened by that light, that we shall be instructed and fed. We
have little or nothing to complain of in that respect. But there
are others--hundreds and thousands--who cannot share our
privileges, who do not understand the words they hear when they are
able to come to public worship. What is to be done for such? Are
their needs sufficiently considered? Who feeds those sheep and
lambs who have gone astray, or who are not able to approach to the
shepherd daily to be fed?"
"Many of such could not read the Scriptures, even were they placed
in their hands," remarked Fitzjames.
"True; and many might read them with blinded eyes, and interpret
them in ignorant fashion, and so the truth might become perverted.
Those are dangers which the church has seen, and has striven
against. I will not say that the danger may not be great. Holy
things are sometimes defiled by becoming too common. But has the
peril become so great that men are forced to use such methods as
those which London is shortly to witness?"
There was a glow in Clarke's eyes which the gathering gloom could
not hide. Magdalen seemed about to speak, but Dalaber was before
her.
"They say that the Tyndale translations are full of glaring errors,
and errors which feed the heresies of the Lollards, and are
directed against the Holy Church."
"That charge is not wholly without foundation," answered Clarke at
once, who as a scholar of the Greek language was well qualified to
give an opinion on that point. "And deeply do I grieve that such
things should be, for the errors cannot all have been through
accident or ignorance, but must have been inserted with a purpose;
and I hold that no man is guiltless who dares to tamper with the
Word of God, even though he think he may be doing God service
thereby. The Holy Spirit who inspired the sacred writers may be
trusted so to direct men's hearts and spirits that they may read
aright what He has written; and it is folly and presumption to
think that man may improve upon the Word of God."
"But there are errors in all versions of the Scriptures, are there
not--in all translations from the original tongue?"
Magdalen was now the speaker, and she looked earnestly at Clarke,
as though his words were words of the deepest wisdom, from which
there was no appeal.
"Errors in all--yes; but our Latin version is marvellously true to
the original, and when Wycliffe translated into English he was far
more correct than Tyndale has been. But it is the Tyndale
Testaments which have had so wide a sale of late in this country,
and which have set London in commotion--these and the writings of
Martin Luther, which the men from the Stillyard have brought up the
river in great quantities. But be the errors never so great, I call
it a shameful and a sinful thing, one that the Holy Church of olden
days would never have sanctioned--that the Word of God should be
publicly burnt, as an unholy and polluted thing, in presence of the
highest ecclesiastics of the land. In truth, I hold it a crime and
a sin. I would that such a scene might even now be averted."
"I should well like to see it!" spoke Dalaber, with that eager
impetuosity which characterized his movements. "I hate the thing
myself, yet I would fain see it, too. It would be something to
remember, something to speak of in future days, when, perchance,
the folly of it will be made manifest.
"Clarke, let us to London tomorrow! Easter is nigh at hand, and
your lectures have ceased for the present. Come with me, and let us
see this sight, and bring back word to our friends here how they
regard this matter in London. What do you say?"
Clarke's face was grave and thoughtful.
"I have some thoughts of visiting London myself during the next
week, but I had not thought to go to see the burning of books at
Paul's Cross."
"But that is what I wish to see!" cried Dalaber. "So, whether you
accompany me thither or not, at least let us travel to London
together, and quickly. It will be a thing to remember in days to
come; for verily I believe that the church will awaken soon, and
like a giant refreshed with wine will show what is in her, and will
gather her children about her as a hen gathers her chickens under
her wings, and will feed them, and care for them, and be as she has
been before to them, and that we shall see an end of the darkness
and indifference which has fallen like a pall upon this land."
Clarke rose with a smile, for the twilight was falling, and he
spoke his farewells to one after another of the doctor's family.
Magdalen's eyes looked longest into his, as his dwelt with a dreamy
softness upon her face.
"Are you really going to London? Will it be safe?"
"As safe as Oxford, sweet mistress. I apprehend no peril either
there or here. But at least I am a stranger there, whilst here any
man who asks may know the thing I believe. I am not afraid or
ashamed to speak the truth I hold."
Clarke and Dalaber went out together, and Magdalen turned anxiously
upon her father.
"What did he mean?"
Dr. Langton smiled, but he also sighed a little.
"Do not be fearful, my children; we know of no peril in the
present. But we may not hide our faces from the fact that in past
days this peril has threatened those who dare to speak and think
the thing they hold to be truth, when that opinion is not shared by
those in high places. Yet let us be thankful in that, for the
present time, no peril threatens either John Clarke and his friends
or Anthony Dalaber, their pupil."