Arthur, whose widow, Catharine of Aragon, the daughter of
Ferdinand, and consequently the aunt of Charles V. [emperor],
Henry was enabled to marry through a dispensation obtained by
Henry VII. from Pope Julius II.,--marriage with the wife of a
deceased brother being forbidden by the laws of the Church.
Henry was in his twelfth year when the marriage was concluded,
but it was not consummated until the death of his father. ...
The question of Henry's divorce from Catharine soon became a
subject of discussion, and the effort to procure the annulling
of the marriage from the pope was prosecuted for a number of
years. Henry professed, and perhaps with sincerity, that he
had long been troubled with doubts of the validity of the
marriage, as being contrary to the divine law, and therefore
not within the limit of the pope's dispensing power. The death
of a number of his children, leaving only a single daughter,
Mary, had been interpreted by some as a mark of the
displeasure of God. At the same time the English people, in
the fresh recollection of the long dynastic struggle, were
anxious on account of the lack of a male heir to the throne.
On the queen's side it was asserted that it was competent for
the pope to authorize a marriage with a brother's widow, and
that no doubt could possibly exist in the present case, since,
according to her testimony, her marriage with Arthur had never
been completed. The eagerness of Henry to procure the divorce
increased with his growing passion for Anne Boleyn. The
negotiations with Rome dragged slowly on. Catharine was six
years older than himself, and had lost her charms.
{828}
He was enamored of this young English girl, fresh from the
court of France. He resolved to break the marriage bond with
the Spanish princess who had been his faithful wife for nearly
twenty years. It was not without reason that the king became
more and more incensed at the dilatory and vacillating course
of the pope. ... Henry determined to lay the question of the
validity of his marriage before the universities of Europe,
and this he did, making a free use of bribery abroad and of
menaces at home. Meantime, he took measures to cripple the
authority of the pope and of the clergy in England. In these
proceedings he was sustained by a popular feeling, the growth
of centuries, against foreign ecclesiastical interference and
clerical control in civil affairs. The fall of Wolsey was the
effect of his failure to procure the divorce, and of the
enmity of Anne Boleyn and her family. ... In order to convict
of treason this minister, whom he had raised to the highest
pinnacle of power, the king did not scruple to avail himself
of the ancient statute of præmunire, which Wolsey was accused
of having transgressed by acting as the pope's legate in
England--it was dishonestly alleged, without the royal
license. Early in 1531 the king charged the whole body of the
clergy with having incurred the penalties of the same law by
submitting to Wolsey in his legatine character. Assembled in
convocation, they were obliged to implore his pardon, and
obtained it only in return for a large sum of money. In their
petition he was styled, in obedience to his dictation, 'The
Protector and Supreme Head of the Church and Clergy of
England,' to which was added, after long debate, at the
suggestion of Archbishop Warham--'as far as is permitted by
the law of Christ.' The Church, prostrate though it was at the
feet of the despotic king, showed some degree of self-respect
in inserting this amendment. Parliament forbade the
introduction of papal bulls into England. The king was
authorized if he saw fit, to withdraw the annats--first-fruits
of benefices--from the pope. Appeals to Rome were forbidden.
The retaliatory measures of Henry did not move the pope to
recede from his position. On or about January 25, 1533, the
king was privately married to Anne Boleyn. ... In 1534 Henry
was conditionally excommunicated by Clement VII. The papal
decree deposing him from the throne, and absolving his
subjects from their allegiance, did not follow until 1538, and
was issued by Paul III. Clement's bull was sent forth on the
23 of March. On the 23 of November Parliament passed the Act
of Supremacy, without the qualifying clause which the clergy
had attached to their vote. The king was, moreover, clothed
with full power and authority to repress and amend all such
errors, heresies, and abuses as 'by any manner of spiritual
authority or jurisdiction ought or may lawfully be reformed.'
Thus a visitatorial function of vast extent was recognized as
belonging to him. In 1532 convocation was driven to engage not
'to enact or promulge or put in execution' any measures
without the royal license, and to promise to change or to
abrogate any of the 'provincial constitutions' which he should
judge inconsistent with his prerogative. The clergy were thus
stripped of all power to make laws. A mixed commission, which
Parliament ordained for the revision of the whole canon law,
was not appointed in this reign. The dissolution of the king's
marriage thus dissolved the union of England with the papacy."
_G. P. Fisher,
History of the Christian Church,
period 8, chapter 6._
ALSO IN:
_J. S. Brewer,
The Reign of Henry VIII.,
volume 2, chapters 27-35._
_J. A. Froude,
History of England,
volume 1, chapter 2._
_S. H. Burke,
Historical Portraits of the Tudor Dynasty,
volume 1, chapters 8-25._
_J. Lingard,
History of England,
volume 6, chapter 3._
_T. E. Bridgett,
Life and Writings of Sir T. More._
ENGLAND: A. D. 1529-1535.
The execution of Sir Thomas More.
On the 25th of October, 1529, the king, by delivering the
great seal to Sir Thomas More, constituted him Lord
Chancellor. In making this appointment, Henry "hoped to
dispose his chancellor to lend his authority to the projects
of divorce and second marriage, which now agitated the king's
mind, and were the main objects of his policy. ... To pursue
this subject through the long negotiations and discussions
which it occasioned during six years, would be to lead us far
from the life of Sir Thomas More. ... All these proceedings
terminated in the sentence of nullity in the case of Henry's
marriage with Catherine, pronounced by Cranmer, the espousal
of Anne Boleyn by the king, and the rejection of the papal
jurisdiction by the kingdom, which still, however, adhered to
the doctrines of the Roman catholic church. The situation of
More during a great part of these memorable events was
embarrassing. The great offices to which he was raised by the
king, the personal favour hitherto constantly shown to him,
and the natural tendency of his gentle and quiet disposition,
combined to disincline him to resistance against the wishes of
his friendly master. On the other hand, his growing dread and
horror of heresy, with its train of disorders; his belief that
universal anarchy would be the inevitable result of religious
dissension, and the operation of seven years' controversy for
the Catholic church, in heating his mind on all subjects
involving the extent of her authority, made him recoil from
designs which were visibly tending towards disunion with the
Roman pontiff. ... Henry used every means of procuring an
opinion favourable to his wishes from his chancellor, who
excused himself as unmeet for such matters, having never
professed the study of divinity. ... But when the progress
towards the marriage was so far advanced that he saw how soon
the active co-operation of a chancellor must be required, he
made suit to 'his singular dear friend,' the duke of Norfolk,
to procure his discharge from this office. The duke, often
solicited by More, then obtained, by importunate suit, a clear
discharge for the chancellor. ... The king directed Norfolk,
when he installed his successor, to declare publicly, that his
majesty had with pain yielded to the prayers of sir Thomas
More, by the removal of such a magistrate. .... It must be
owned that Henry felt the weight of this great man's opinion,
and tried every possible means to obtain at least the
appearance of his spontaneous approbation. ... The king ...
sent the archbishop of Canterbury, the chancellor, the duke of
Norfolk, and Cromwell, to attempt the conversion of More.
Audley reminded More of the king's special favour and many
benefits. More admitted them; but modestly added, that his
highness had most graciously declared that on this matter More
should be molested no more.
{829}
When in the end they saw that no persuasion could move him,
they then said, 'that the king's highness had given them in
commandment, if they could by no gentleness win him, in the
king's name with ingratitude to charge him, that never was
servant to his master so villainous, nor subject to his prince
so traitorous as he.'. . . By a tyrannical edict, mis-called a
law, in the same session of 1533-4, it was made high treason,
after the 1st of May, 1534, by writing, print, deed, or act,
to do or to procure, or cause to be done or procured, anything
to the prejudice, slander, disturbance, or derogation of the
king's lawful matrimony with queen Anne. If the same offences
were committed by words, they were only misprision. The same
act enjoined all persons to take an oath to maintain the whole
contents of the statute, and an obstinate refusal to make such
oath was subjected to the penalties of misprision. ... Sir T.
More was summoned to appear before these commissioners at
Lambeth, on Monday the 13th of April, 1534. ... After having
read the statute and the form of the oath, he declared his
readiness to swear that he would maintain and defend the order
of succession to the crown as established by parliament. He
disclaimed all censure of those who had imposed, or on those
who had taken, the oath, but declared it to be impossible that
he should swear to the whole contents of it, without offending
against his own conscience. ... He never more returned to his
house, being committed to the custody of the abbot of
Westminster, in which he continued four days; and at the end
of that time he was conveyed to the Tower on Friday the 17th
of April, 1534. ... On the 6th of May, 1535, almost
immediately after the defeat of every attempt to practise on
his firmness, More was brought to trial at Westminster, and it
will scarcely be doubted, that no such culprit stood at any
European bar for a thousand years. ... It is lamentable that
the records of the proceedings against such a man should be
scanty. We do not certainly know the specific offence of which
he was convicted. ... On Tuesday, the 6th of July (St.
Thomas's eve), 1535, sir Thomas Pope, 'his singular good
friend,' came to him early with a message from the king and
council, to say that he should die before nine o'clock of the
same morning. ... The lieutenant brought him to the scaffold,
which was so weak that it was ready to fall, on which he said,
merrily, 'Master Lieutenant, I pray you see me safe up, and
for my coming down let me shift for myself.' When he laid his
head on the block he desired the executioner to wait till he
had removed his beard, for that had never offended his
highness."
_Sir J. Mackintosh,
Sir Thomas More
(Cabinet Cyclopedia:
Eminent British Statesmen, volume 1)._
ALSO IN:
_S. R. Gardiner,
Historical Biographies,
chapter 3._
_T. E. Bridgett,
Life and Writings of Sir Thomas More,
chapters 12-24._
_S. H. Burke,
Historical Portraits of the Tudor Dynasty,
volume 1, chapter 29._
ENGLAND: A. D. 1531-1563,
The genesis of the Church of England.
"Henry VIII. attempted to constitute an Anglican Church
differing from the Roman Catholic Church on the point of the
supremacy, and on that point alone. His success in this
attempt was extraordinary. The force of his character, the
singularly favorable situation in which he stood with respect
to foreign powers, the immense wealth which the spoliation of
the ah beys placed at his disposal, and the support of that
class which still halted between two opinions, enabled him to
bid defiance to both the extreme parties, to burn as heretics
those who avowed the tenets of the Reformers, and to hang as
traitors those who owned the authority of the Pope. But
Henry's system died with him. Had his life been prolonged, he
would have found it difficult to maintain a position assailed
with equal fury by all who were zealous either for the new or
for the old opinions. The ministers who held the royal
prerogatives in trust for his infant son could not venture to
persist in so hazardous a policy; nor could Elizabeth venture
to return to it. It was necessary to make a choice. The
government must either submit to Rome, or must obtain the aid
of the Protestants. The government and the Protestants had
only one thing in common, hatred of the Papal power. The
English reformers were eager to go as far as their brethren on
the Continent. They unanimously condemned as Antichristian
numerous dogmas and practices to which Henry had stubbornly
adhered, and which Elizabeth reluctantly abandoned. Many felt
a strong repugnance even to things indifferent which had
formed part of the polity or ritual of the mystical Babylon.
Thus Bishop Hooper, who died manfully at Gloucester for his
religion, long refused to wear the episcopal vestments. Bishop
Ridley, a martyr of still greater renown, pulled down the
ancient altars of his diocese, and ordered the Eucharist to be
administered in the middle of churches, at tables which the
Papists irreverently termed oyster boards. Bishop Jewel
pronounced the clerical garb to be a stage dress, a fool's
coat, a relique of the Amorites, and promised that he would
spare no labour to extirpate such degrading absurdities.
Archbishop Grindal long hesitated about accepting a mitre from
dislike of what he regarded as the mummery of consecration.
Bishop Parkhurst uttered a fervent prayer that the Church of
England would propose to herself the Church of Zurich as the
absolute pattern of a Christian community. Bishop Ponet was of
opinion that the word Bishop should be abandoned to the
Papist, and that the chief officers of the purified church
should be called Superintendents. When it is considered that
none of these prelates belonged to the extreme section of the
Protestant party, it cannot be doubted that, if the general
sense of that party had been followed, the work of reform
would have been carried on as unsparingly in England as in
Scotland. But, as the government needed the support of the
Protestants, so the Protestants needed the protection of the
government. Much was therefore given up on both sides: an
union was effected; and the fruit of that union was the Church
of England."
_Lord Macaulay,
History of England,
chapter 1._
"The Reformation in England was, singular amongst the great
religious movements of the sixteenth century. It was the least
heroic of them all--the least swayed by religious passion, or
moulded and governed by spiritual and theological necessities.
From a general point of view, it looks at first little more
than a great political change. The exigencies of royal
passion, and the dubious impulses of statecraft, seem its
moving and really powerful springs. But, regarded more
closely, we recognise a significant train both of religious
and critical forces at work. The lust and avarice of Henry,
the policy of Cromwell, and the vacillations of the leading
clergy, attract prominent notice; but there may be traced
beneath the surface a wide-spread evangelical fervour amongst
the people, and, above all, a genuine spiritual earnestness
and excitement of thought at the universities.
{830}
These higher influences preside at the first birth of the
movement. They are seen in active operation long before the
reforming task was taken up by the Court and the bishops."
_J. Tulloch,
Rational Theology and Christian Philosophy
in England in the 17th Century,
volume 1, chapter 2._
"The miserable fate of Anne Boleyn wins our compassion, and
the greatness to which her daughter attained has been in some
degree reflected back upon herself. Had she died a natural
death, and had she not been the mother of Queen Elizabeth, we
should have estimated her character at a very low value
indeed. Protestantism might still, with its usual unhistorical
partizanship, have gilded over her immoralities; but the
Church of England must ever look upon Anne Boleyn with
downcast eyes full of sorrow and shame. By the influence of
her charms, Henry was induced to take those steps which ended
in setting the Church of England free from an uncatholic yoke:
but that such a result should be produced by such an influence
is a fact which must constrain us to think that the land was
guilty of many sins, and that it was these national sins which
prevented better instruments from being raised up for so
righteous an object."
_J. H. Blunt,
The Reformation of the Church of England,
pages 197-198._
"Cranmer's work might never have been carried out, there might
have been no English Bible, no Ten Articles or 'Institution,'
no reforming Primers, nor Proclamations against Ceremonies,
had it not been for the tact, boldness and skill of Thomas
Crumwell, who influenced the King more directly and constantly
than Cranmer, and who knew how to make his influence
acceptable by an unprincipled confiscation and an absurd
exaggeration of the royal supremacy. Crumwell knew that in his
master's heart there was a dislike and contempt of the clergy.
... It is probable that Crumwell's policy was simply
irreligious, and only directed towards preserving his
influence with the King; but as the support of the reforming
part of the nation was a useful factor in it, he was thus led
to push forward religious information in conjunction with
Cranmer. It has been before said that purity and
disinterestedness are not to be looked for in all the actors
in the English Reformation. To this it may be added that
neither in the movement itself nor in those who took part in
it is to be found complete consistency. This, indeed, is not
to be wondered at. Men were feeling their way along untrodden
paths, without any very clear perception of the end at which
they were aiming, or any perfect understanding of the
situation. The King had altogether misapprehended the meaning
of his supremacy. A host of divines whose views as to the
distinction between the secular and the spiritual had been
confused by the action of the Popes, helped to mislead him.
The clergy, accustomed to be crushed and humiliated by the
Popes, submitted to be crushed and humiliated by the King; and
as the tide of his autocratic temper ebbed and flowed, yielded
to each change. Hence there was action and reaction throughout
the reign. But in this there were obvious advantages for the
Church. The gradual process accustomed men's thoughts to a
reformation which should not be drastic or iconoclastic, but
rather conservative and deliberate."
_G. G, Perry,
History of the Reformation in England,
chapter 5._
"With regard to the Church of England, its foundations rest
upon the rock of Scripture, not upon the character of the King
by whom they were laid. This, however, must be affirmed in
justice to Henry, that mixed as the motives were which first
induced him to disclaim the Pope's authority, in all the
subsequent measures he acted sincerely, knowing the importance
of the work in which he had engaged, and prosecuting it
sedulously and conscientiously, even when most erroneous. That
religion should have had so little influence upon his moral
conduct will not appear strange, if we consider what the
religion was wherein he was trained up;--nor if we look at the
generality of men even now, under circumstances immeasurably
more fortunate than those in which he was placed. Undeniable
proofs remain of the learning, ability, and diligence, with
which he applied himself to the great business of weeding out
superstition, and yet preserving what he believed to be the
essentials of Christianity untouched. This praise (and it is
no light one) is his due: and it is our part to be thankful to
that all-ruling Providence, which rendered even his passions
and his vices subservient to this important end."
_R. Southey,
The Book of the Church,
chapter 12._
ENGLAND: A. D. 1535-1539.
The suppression of the Monasteries.
"The enormous, and in a great measure ill-gotten, opulence of
the regular clergy had long since excited jealousy in every
part of Europe. ... A writer much inclined to partiality
towards the monasteries says that they held [in England]
one-fifth part of the kingdom; no insignificant patrimony. ...
As they were in general exempted from episcopal visitation,
and intrusted with the care of their own discipline, such
abuses had gradually prevailed and gained strength by
connivance as we may naturally expect in corporate bodies of
men leading almost of necessity useless and indolent lives,
and in whom very indistinct views of moral obligations were
combined with a great facility of violating them. The vices
that for many ages had been supposed to haunt the monasteries,
had certainly not left their precincts in that of Henry VIII.
Wolsey, as papal legate, at the instigation of Fox, bishop of
Hereford, a favourer of the Reformation, commenced a
visitation of the professed as well as secular clergy in 1523,
in consequence of the general complaint against their manners.
... Full of anxious zeal for promoting education, the noblest
part of his character, he obtained bulls from Rome suppressing
many convents (among which was that of St. Frideswide at
Oxford), in order to erect and endow a new college in that
university, his favourite work, which after his fall was more
completely established by the name of Christ Church. A few
more were afterwards extinguished through his instigation; and
thus the prejudice against interference with this species of
property was somewhat worn off, and men's minds gradually
prepared for the sweeping confiscations of Cromwell [Thomas
Cromwell, who succeeded Wolsey as chief minister of Henry
VIII.]. The king indeed was abundantly willing to replenish
his exchequer by violent means, and to avenge himself on those
who gainsayed his supremacy; but it was this able statesman
who, prompted both by the natural appetite of ministers for
the subjects' money and by a secret partiality towards the
Reformation, devised and
carried on with complete success, if not with the utmost
prudence, a measure of no inconsiderable hazard and
difficulty. ...
{831}
It was necessary, by exposing the gross corruptions of
monasteries, both to intimidate the regular clergy, and to
excite popular indignation against them. It is not to be
doubted that in the visitation of these foundations, under the
direction of Cromwell, as lord vice-gerent of the king's
ecclesiastical supremacy, many things were done in an
arbitrary manner, and much was unfairly represented. Yet the
reports of these visitors are so minute and specific that it
is rather a preposterous degree of incredulity to reject their
testimony whenever it bears hard on the regulars. ... The
dread of these visitors soon induced a number of abbots to
make surrenders to the king; a step of very questionable
legality. But in the next session the smaller convents, whose
revenues were less than £200 a year, were suppressed by act of
parliament, to the number of 376, and their estates vested in
the crown. This summary spoliation led to the great northern
rebellion soon afterwards," headed by Robert Ask, a gentleman
of Yorkshire, and assuming the title of a Pilgrimage of Grace.
_H. Hallam,
Constitutional History of England,
chapter 2._
"Far from benefiting the cause of the monastic houses, the
immediate effect of the Pilgrimage of Grace was to bring ruin
on those monasteries which had as yet been spared. For their
complicity or alleged complicity in it, twelve abbots were
hanged, drawn and quartered, and their houses were seized by
the Crown. Every means was employed by a new set of
Commissioners to bring about the surrender of others of the
greater abbeys. The houses were visited, and their pretended
relics and various tricks to encourage the devotion of the
people were exposed. Surrenders went rapidly on during the
years 1537 and 1538, and it became necessary to obtain a new
Act of Parliament to vest the property of the later surrenders
in the Crown. ... Nothing, indeed, can be more tragical than
the way in which the greater abbeys were destroyed on
manufactured charges and for imaginary crimes. These houses
had been described in the first Act of Parliament as 'great
and honourable,' wherein 'religion was right well kept and
observed.' Yet now they were pitilessly destroyed. A revenue
of about £131,607 is computed to have thus come to the Crown,
while the movables are valued at £400,000. How was this vast
sum of money expended?
(1) By the Act for the suppression of the greater monasteries
the King was empowered to erect six new sees, with their deans
and chapters, namely, Westminster, Oxford, Chester,
Gloucester, Bristol and Peterborough. ...
(2) Some monasteries were turned into collegiate churches, and
many of the abbey churches ... were assigned as parish
churches.
(3) Some grammar schools were erected.
(4) A considerable sum is said to have been spent in making
roads and in fortifying the coasts of the Channel.
(5) But by far the greater part of the monastic property
passed into the hands of the nobility and gentry, either by
purchase at very easy rates, or by direct gift from the Crown.
...
The monks and nuns ejected from the monasteries had small
pensions assigned to them, which are said to have been
regularly paid; but to many of them the sudden return into a
world with which they had become utterly unacquainted, and in
which they had no part to play, was a terrible hardship, ...
greatly increased by the Six Article Law, which ... made the
marriage of the secularized 'religious' illegal under heavy
penalties."
_G. G. Perry,
History of the Reformation in England,
chapter 4._
"The religious bodies, instead of uniting in their common
defence, seem to have awaited singly their fate with the
apathy of despair. A few houses only, through the agency of
their friends, sought to purchase the royal favour with offers
of money and lands; but the rapacity of the king refused to
accept a part when the whole was at his mercy."