History of England,
volume 6, chapter 4._
Some of the social results of the suppression "may be summed
up in a few words. The creation of a large class of poor to
whose poverty was attached the stigma of crime; the division
of class from class, the rich mounting up to place and power,
the poor sinking to lower depths; destruction of custom as a
check upon the exactions of landlords; the loss by the poor of
those foundations at schools and universities intended for
their children, and the passing away of ecclesiastical tithes
into the hands of lay owners."
_F. A. Gasquet,
Henry VIII. and the English Monasteries,
volume 2, page 523._
ENGLAND: A. D. 1536-1543.
Trial and execution of Anne Boleyn.
Her successors, the later wives of Henry VIII.
Anne Boleyn had been secretly married to the king in January,
1533, and had been crowned on Whitsunday of that year. "The
princess Elizabeth, the only surviving child, was born on the
7th of September following. ... The death of Catherine, which
happened at Kimbolton on the 29th of January, 1536, seemed to
leave queen Anne in undisturbed possession of her splendid
seat." But the fickle king had now "cast his affections on
Jane Seymour, the daughter of Sir John Seymour, a young lady
then of the Queen's bed-chamber, as Anne herself had been in
that of Catherine." Having lost her charms in the eyes of the
lustful despot who had wedded her, her influence was gone--
and her safety. Charges were soon brought against the
unfortunate woman, a commission (her own father included in
it) appointed to inquire into her alleged misdeeds, and "on
the 10th of May an indictment for high treason was found by
the grand jury of Westminster against the Lady Anne, Queen of
England; Henry Norris, groom of the stole; Sir Francis Weston
and William Brereton, gentlemen of the privy chamber; and Mark
Smeaton, a performer on musical instruments, and a person 'of
low degree,' promoted to be a groom of the chamber for his
skill in the fine art which he professed. It charges the queen
with having, by all sorts of bribes, gifts, caresses, and
impure blandishments, which are described with unblushing
coarseness in the barbarous Latinity of the indictment,
allured these members of the royal household into a course of
criminal connection with her, which had been carried on for
three years. It included also George Boleyn viscount Rochford,
the brother of Anne, as enticed by the same lures and snares
with the rest of the accused, so as to have become the
accomplice of his sister, by sharing her treachery and
infidelity to the king. It is hard to believe that Anne could
have dared to lead a life so unnaturally dissolute, without
such vices being more early and very generally known in a
watchful and adverse court.
{832}
It is still more improbable that she should in every instance
be the seducer. ... Norris, Weston, Brereton, and Smeaton were
tried before a commission of oyer and terminer at Westminster,
on the 12th of May, two days after the bill against them was
found. They all, except Smeaton, firmly denied their guilt to
the last moment. On Smeaton's confession it must be observed
that we know not how it was obtained, how far it extended, or
what were the conditions of it. ... On the 12th of May, the
four commoners were condemned to die. Their sentence was
carried into effect amidst the plaints of the bystanders. ...
On the 15th of May, queen Anne and her brother Rochford were
tried." The place of trial was in the Tower, "which concealed
from the public eye whatever might be wanting in justice."
Condemnation duly followed, and the unhappy queen was executed
May 19, 1536. The king lost little time in wedding Jane
Seymour. "She died in childbed of Edward VI. on the 13th of
October, 1537. The next choice made by or for Henry, who
remained a widower for the period of more than two years," was
the "princess Anne, sister of the duke of Cleves, a
considerable prince on the lower Rhine. ... The pencil of
Holbein was employed to paint this lady for the king, who,
pleased by the execution, gave the flattering artist credit
for a faithful likeness. He met her at Dover, and almost
immediately betrayed his disappointment. Without descending
into disgusting particulars, it is necessary to state that,
though the marriage was solemnised, the king treated the
princess of Cleves as a friend." At length, by common action
of an obsequious parliament and a more obsequious convocation
of the church, the marriage was declared to be annulled, for
reasons not specified. The consent of the repudiated wife was
"insured by a liberal income of £3,000 a year, and she lived
for 16 years in England with the title of princess Anne of
Cleves. ... This annulment once more displayed the triumph of
an English lady over a foreign princess." The lady who now
captivated the brutally amorous monarch was lady Catherine
Howard, niece to the duke of Norfolk, who became queen on the
8th of August, 1540. In the following November, the king
received such information of lady Catherine's dissolute life
before marriage "as immediately caused a rigid inquiry into
her behaviour. ... The confessions of Catherine and of lady
Rochford, upon which they were attainted in parliament, and
executed in the Tower on the 14th of February, are not said to
have been at any time questioned. ... On the 10th of July,
1543, Henry wedded Catherine Parr, the widow of Lord Latimer,
a lady of mature age," who survived him.
_Sir J. Mackintosh,
History of England (L. L. C.),
volume 2, chapters 7-8._
ALSO IN:
_P. Friedmann,
Ann Boleyn._
_H. W. Herbert,
Memoirs of Henry VIII. and his Six Wives._
ENGLAND: A. D. 1539.
The Reformation checked.
The Six Articles.
"Yielding to the pressure of circumstances, he [Henry VIII.]
had allowed the Reformers to go further than he really
approved. The separation from the Church of Rome, the
absorption by the Crown of the powers of the Papacy, the unity
of authority over both Church and State centred in himself, had
been his objects. In doctrinal matters he clung to the Church
of which he had once been the champion. He had gained his
objects because he had the feeling of the nation with him. In
his eagerness he had even countenanced some steps of doctrinal
reform. But circumstances had changed. ... Without detriment
to his position he could follow his natural inclinations. He
listened, therefore, to the advice of the reactionary party,
of which Norfolk was the head. They were full of bitterness
against the upstart Cromwell, and longed to overthrow him as
they had overthrown Wolsey. The first step in their triumph
was the bill of the Six Articles, carried in the Parliament of
1539. These laid down and fenced round with extraordinary
severity the chief points of the Catholic religion at that
time questioned by the Protestants. The bill enacted, first,
'that the natural body and blood of Jesus Christ were present
in the Blessed Sacrament,' and that 'after consecration there
remained no substance of bread and wine, nor any other but the
substance of Christ'; whoever, by word or writing, denied this
article was a heretic, and to be burned. Secondly, the
Communion in both kinds was not necessary, both body and blood
being present in each element; thirdly, priests might not
marry; fourthly, vows of chastity by man or woman ought to be
observed; fifthly, private masses ought to be continued;
sixthly, auricular confession must be retained. Whoever wrote
or spoke against these ... Articles, on the first offence his
property was forfeited; on the second offence he was a felon,
and was put to death. Under this 'whip with six strings' the
kingdom continued for the rest of the reign. The Bishops at
first made wild work with it. Five hundred persons are said to
have been arrested in a fortnight; the king had twice to
interfere and grant pardons. It is believed that only
twenty-eight persons actually suffered death under it."
_J. F. Bright,
History of England,
volume 2, page 411._
ALSO IN:
_J. H. Blunt,
Reformation of the Church of England,
volume 1, chapter 8-9._
_S. H. Burke,
Men and Women of the English Reformation,
volume 2, pages 17-24._
ENGLAND: A. D. 1542-1547.
Alliance with Charles V. against Francis I.
Capture and restoration of Boulogne.
Treaty of Guines.
See FRANCE: A. D. 1532-1547.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1544-1548.
The wooing of Mary Queen of Scots.
See SCOTLAND: A. D. 1544-1548.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1547.
Accession of King Edward VI.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1547-1553.
The completing of the Reformation.
Henry VIII., dying on the 28th of January, 1547, was succeeded
by his son Edward,--child of Jane Seymour,--then only nine
years old. By the will of his father, the young king (Edward
VI.) was to attain his majority at eighteen, and the
government of his kingdom, in the meantime, was entrusted to a
body of sixteen executors, with a second body of twelve
councillors to assist with their advice. "But the first act of
the executors and counsellors was to depart from the
destination of the late king in a material article. No sooner
were they met, than it was suggested that the government would
lose its dignity for want of some head who might represent the
royal majesty." The suggestion was opposed by none except the
chancellor, Wriothesley,--soon afterwards raised to the
peerage as Earl of Southampton. "It being therefore agreed to
name a protector, the choice fell of course on the Earl of
Hertford [afterwards Duke of Somerset], who, as he was the
king's maternal uncle, was strongly interested in his safety."
{833}
The protector soon manifested an ambition to exercise his
almost royal authority without any constraint, and, having
found means to remove his principal opponent, Southampton,
from the chancellorship, and to send him into disgrace, he
procured a patent from the infant king which gave him
unbounded power. With this power in his hand he speedily
undertook to carry the work of church reform far beyond the
intentions of Henry VIII. "The extensive authority and
imperious character of Henry had retained the partisans of
both religions in subjection; but upon his demise, the hopes
of the Protestants, and the fears of the Catholics began to
revive, and the zeal of these parties produced every where
disputes and animosities, the usual preludes to more fatal
divisions. The protector had long been regarded as a secret
partisan of the reformers; and being now freed from restraint,
he scrupled not to discover his intention of correcting all
abuses in the ancient religion, and of adopting still more of
the Protestant innovations. He took care that all persons
intrusted with the king's education should be attached to the
same principles; and as the young prince discovered a zeal for
every kind of literature, especially the theological, far
beyond his tender years, all men foresaw, in the course of his
reign, the total abolition of the Catholic faith in England;
and they early began to declare themselves in favour of those
tenets which were likely to become in the end entirely
prevalent. After Southhampton's fall, few members of the
council seemed to retain any attachment to the Romish
communion; and most of the counsellors appeared even sanguine
in forwarding the progress of the reformation. The riches
which most of them had acquired from the spoils of the clergy,
induced them to widen the breach between England and Rome; and by
establishing a contrariety of speculative tenets, as well as
of discipline and worship, to render a coalition with the
mother church altogether impracticable. Their rapacity, also,
the chief source of their reforming spirit, was excited by the
prospect of pillaging the secular, as they had already done
the regular clergy; and they knew, that while any share of the
old principles remained, or any regard to the ecclesiastics,
they could never hope to succeed in that enterprise. The
numerous and burdensome superstitions with which the Romish
church was loaded had thrown many of the reformers, by the
spirit of opposition, into an enthusiastic strain of devotion;
and all rites, ceremonies, pomp, order, and extreme
observances were zealously proscribed by them, as hindrances
to their spiritual contemplations, and obstructions to their
immediate converse with heaven."
_D. Hume,
History of England,
volume 3, chapter 34._
"'This year' [1547] says a contemporary, 'the Archbishop of
Canterbury [Cranmer] did eat meat openly in Lent in the hall
of Lambeth, the like of which was never seen since England was
a Christian country.' This significant act was followed by a
rapid succession of sweeping changes. The legal prohibitions
of Lollardry were removed; the Six Articles were repealed; a
royal injunction removed all pictures and images from the
churches; priests were permitted to marry; the new communion
which had taken the place of the mass was ordered to be
administered in both kinds, and in the English tongue; an
English Book of Common Prayer, the Liturgy, which with slight
alterations is still used in the Church of England, replaced
the missal and breviary, from which its contents are mainly
drawn; a new catechism embodied the doctrines of Cranmer and
his friends; and a Book of Homilies compiled in the same sense
was appointed to be read in churches. ... The power of
preaching was restricted by the issue of licenses only to the
friends of the Primate. ... The assent of the nobles about the
Court was won by the suppression of chantries and religious
guilds, and by glutting their greed with the last spoils of
the Church. German and Italian mercenaries were introduced to
stamp out the wider popular discontent which broke out in the
East, in the West, and in the Midland counties. ... The rule
of the upstart nobles who formed the Council of Regency became
simply a rule of terror. 'The greater part of the people,' one
of their creatures, Cecil, avowed, 'is not in favour of
defending this cause, but of aiding its adversaries, the
greater part of the nobles who absent themselves from court,
all the bishops save three or four, almost all the judges and
lawyers, almost all the justices of the peace, the priests who
can move their flocks any way; for the whole of the commonalty
is in such a state of irritation that it will easily follow
any stir towards change.' But with their triumph over the
revolt, Cranmer and his colleagues advanced yet more boldly in
the career of innovation. ... The Forty-two Articles of
Religion, which were now [1552] introduced, though since
reduced by omissions to thirty-nine, have remained to this day
the formal standard of doctrine in the English Church."
_J. R. Green,
Short History of the English People,
chapter 7, section 1._
ALSO IN:
_J. Strype,
Memorials of Cranmer,
book 2._
_G. Burnet,
History of the Reformation of Church of England,
volume 2, book 1._
_L. Von Ranke,
History of England,
book 2, chapter 6._
ENGLAND: A. D. 1548.
First Act for encouragement of Newfoundland fisheries.
See NEWFOUNDLAND: A. D. 1501-1578.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1553.
The right of succession to the throne,
on the death of Edward VI.
"If Henry VII. be considered as the stock of a new dynasty, it
is clear that on mere principles of hereditary right, the
crown would descend, first, to the issue of Henry VIII.;
secondly, to those of [his elder sister] Margaret Tudor, queen
of Scots; thirdly, to those of [his younger sister] Mary
Tudor, queen of France. The title of Edward was on all
principles equally undisputed; but Mary and Elizabeth might be
considered as excluded by the sentence of nullity, which had
been pronounced in the case of Catharine and in that of Anne
Boleyn, both which sentences had been confirmed in parliament.
They had been expressly pronounced to be illegitimate
children. Their hereditary right of succession seemed thus to
be taken away, and their pretensions rested solely on the
conditional settlement of the crown on them, made by their
father's will, in pursuance of authority granted to him by act
of parliament. After Elizabeth Henry had placed the
descendants of Mary, queen of France, passing by the progeny
of his eldest sister Margaret. Mary of France, by her second
marriage with Charles Brandon, duke of Suffolk, had two
daughters,--lady Frances, who wedded Henry Grey, marquis of
Dorset, created duke of Suffolk; and lady Elinor, who espoused
Henry Clifford, earl of Cumberland.
{834}
Henry afterwards settled the crown by his will on the heirs of
these two ladies successively, passing over his nieces
themselves in silence. Northumberland obtained the hand of
lady Jane Grey, the eldest daughter of Grey duke of Suffolk,
by lady Frances Brandon, for lord Guilford Dudley, the
admiral's son. The marriage was solemnised in May, 1553, and
the fatal right of succession claimed by the house of Suffolk
devolved on the excellent and unfortunate lady Jane."
_Sir J. Mackintosh,
History of England,
volume 2, chapter 9._
ENGLAND: A. D. 1553.
Accession of Queen Mary.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1553.
The doubtful conflict of religions.
"Great as was the number of those whom conviction or self
interest enlisted under the Protestant banner, it appears
plain that the Reformation moved on with too precipitate a
step for the majority. The new doctrines prevailed in London,
in many large towns, and in the eastern counties. But in the
north and west of England, the body of the people were
strictly Catholics. The clergy, though not very scrupulous
about conforming to the innovations, were generally averse to
most of them. And, in spite of the church lands, I imagine
that most of the nobility, if not the gentry, inclined to the
same persuasion. ... An historian, whose bias was certainly
not unfavourable to Protestantism [Burnet, iii. 190, 196]
confesses that all endeavours were too weak to overcome the
aversion of the people towards reformation, and even intimates
that German troops were sent for from Calais on account of the
bigotry with which the bulk of the nation adhered to the old
superstition. This is somewhat an humiliating admission, that
the protestant faith was imposed upon our ancestors by a
foreign army. ... It is certain that the re-establishment of
popery on Mary's accession must have been acceptable to a
large part, or perhaps to the majority, of the nation."
_H. Hallam,
Constitutional History of England,
volume 1, chapter 2._
"Eight weeks and upwards passed between the proclaiming of
Mary queen and the Parliament by her assembled; during which
time two religions were together set on foot, Protestantism
and Popery; the former hoping to be continued, the latter
labouring to be restored. ... No small justling was there
betwixt the zealous promoters of these contrary religions. The
Protestants had possession on their side, and the protection
of the laws lately made by King Edward, and still standing in
free and full force unrepealed. ... The Papists put their
ceremonies in execution, presuming on the queen's private
practice and public countenance. ... Many which were neuters
before, conceiving to which side the queen inclined, would not
expect, but prevent her authority in alteration: so that
superstition generally got ground in the kingdom. Thus it is
in the evening twilight, wherein light and darkness at first
may seem very equally matched, but the latter within little
time doth solely prevail."
_T. Fuller,
Church History of Britain,
book 8, section 1, ¶ 5._
ALSO IN:
J. II. Blunt, Reformation of the Church of England,
volume 1; chapters 8-9.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1554.
Wyat's Insurrection.
Queen Mary's marriage with Philip of Spain was opposed with
great bitterness of popular feeling, especially in London and
its neighborhood. Risings were undertaken in Kent, Devonshire,
and the Midland counties, intended for the frustration of the
marriage scheme; but they were ill-planned and soon
suppressed. That in Kent, led by Sir Thomas Wyat, threatened
to be formidable at first, and the Queen's troops retreated
before it. Wyat, however, lost his opportunity for securing
London, by delays, and his followers dispersed. He was taken
prisoner and executed. "Four hundred persons are said to have
suffered for this rebellion."
_D. Hume,
History of England,
chapter 36._
ENGLAND: A. D. 1555-1558.
The restoration of Romanism.
The persecution of Protestants by Queen Mary.
"An attempt was made, by authority of King Edward's will, to
set aside both his sisters from the succession, and raise Lady
Jane Grey to the throne, who had lately been married to one of
Northumberland's sons. This was Northumberland's doing; he was
actuated by ambition, and the other members of the government
assented to it, believing, like the late young King, that it
was necessary for the preservation of the Protestant faith.
Cranmer opposed the measure, but yielded. ... But the
principles of succession were in fact well ascertained at that
time, and, what was of more consequence, they were established
in public opinion. Nor could the intended change be supported
on the ground of religion, for popular feeling was decidedly
against the Reformation. Queen Mary obtained possession of her
rightful throne without the loss of a single life, so
completely did the nation acknowledge her claim; and an after
insurrection, rashly planned and worse conducted, served only
to hasten the destruction of the Lady Jane and her husband.
... If any person may be excused for hating the Reformation,
it was Mary. She regarded it as having arisen in this country
from her mother's wrongs, and enabled the King to complete an
iniquitous and cruel divorce. It had exposed her to
inconvenience, and even danger, under her father's reign, to
vexation and restraint under her brother; and, after having
been bastardized in consequence of it, ... an attempt had been
made to deprive her of the inheritance, because she continued
to profess the Roman Catholic faith. ... Had the religion of
the country been settled, she might have proved a good and
beneficent, as well as conscientious, queen. But she delivered
her conscience to the direction of cruel men; and, believing
it her duty to act up to the worst principles of a persecuting
Church, boasted that she was a virgin sent by God to ride and
tame the people of England. ... The people did not wait till
the laws of King Edward were repealed; the Romish doctrines
were preached, and in some places the Romish clergy took
possession of the churches, turned out the incumbents, and
performed mass in jubilant anticipation of their approaching
triumph. What course the new Queen would pursue had never been
doubtful; and as one of her first acts had been to make
Gardiner Chancellor, it was evident that a fiery persecution
was at hand. Many who were obnoxious withdrew in time, some
into Scotland, and more into Switzerland and the Protestant
parts of Germany. Cranmer advised others to fly; but when his
friends entreated him to preserve himself by the like
precaution, he replied, that it was not fitting for him to
desert his post. ... The Protestant Bishops were soon
dispossessed of their sees; the marriages which the Clergy and
Religioners had contracted were declared unlawful, and their
children bastardized.
{835}
The heads of the reformed Clergy, having been brought forth to
hold disputations, for the purpose rather of intimidating than
of convincing them, had been committed to different prisons,
and after these preparatories the fiery process began."
_R. Southey,
Book of the Church,
chapter 14._