I. COLET PREACHES AGAINST THE CONTINENTAL WARS--THE FIRST CAMPAIGN
(1512-13).
If Colet returned to his pulpit after a narrow escape of being burned for
heresy, it was to continue to do his duty, and not to preach in future
only such sermons as might escape the censure of his bishop. His honesty
and boldness were soon again put to the test.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: Continental wars.]
It was in the summer of 1512 that Henry VIII. for the first time mingled
the blood of English soldiers in those Continental wars which now for some
years became the absorbing object of attention.
European rulers had not yet accepted the modern notion of territorial
sovereignty. Instead of looking upon themselves as the rulers of nations,
living within the settled boundaries of their respective countries, they
still thirsted for war and conquest, and dreamed of universal dominion. To
how great an extent this was so, a glance at the ambitious schemes of the
chief rulers of Europe at this period will show.
How Pope Julius II. was striving to add temporal to spiritual sovereignty,
and desired to be the ‘lord and master of the game of the world,’ has been
already noticed in mentioning how it called forth the satire of Erasmus,
in his ‘Praise of Folly.’ This warlike Pope was still fighting in his old
age. Side by side with Pope Julius was Cæsar Maximilian, Archduke of
Austria, King of the Romans, Emperor of Germany, &c.--fit representative
of the ambitious House of Hapsburg! Not contented with all these titles
and dominions, Maximilian was intriguing to secure by marriages the
restoration of Hungary and Bohemia, and the annexation of the Netherlands,
Franche-Comté, and Artois, as well as of Castile and Arragon, to the
titles and possessions of his royal house. And what he could not secure by
marriages he was trying to secure by arms. Had his success equalled his
lust of dominion, east and west would have been united in the one ‘Holy
Empire’ of which he dreamed, independent even of Papal interference, and
hereditary for ever in the House of Hapsburg. Then there was Louis XII.,
the ‘Most Christian’ King of France, laying claim to a great part of
Italy, pushing his influence and power so far as to strike terror into the
minds of other princes; assuming to himself the rank of the first prince
in Christendom; his chief minister aspiring to succeed Julius II. in the
Papal chair; his son Francis ready to become a candidate for the Empire on
the death of Maximilian. And, lastly, there was Henry VIII. of England,
eager to win his spurs, and to achieve military renown at the first
opportunity; reviving old obsolete claims on the crown of France; ready to
offer himself as a candidate for the Empire when it became vacant, and to
plot to secure the election of Wolsey to the Papal chair! Throw all these
rival claims and objects of ambition into a wild medley, consider to what
plots and counterplots, leagues and breaches of them, all this vast
entanglement of interests and ambitions must give rise, and some faint
idea may be gained of the state of European politics.
[Sidenote: First English expedition.]
Already in December 1511, a Holy Alliance had been formed between Pope
Julius, Maximilian, Ferdinand, and Henry VIII., to arrest the conquests
and humble the ambition of Louis XII. How the clergy had been induced to
tax themselves in support of this holy enterprise has already been seen.
Parliament also had granted a subsidy of two fifteenths and tenths, and
had made some needful provision for the approaching war. Everything was
ready, and in the summer of 1512 the first English expedition sailed.
[Sidenote: Its complete failure.]
Ferdinand persuaded Henry VIII. to aid him in attacking Guienne, and, all
unused to the stratagems of war, he fell into the snare. While his
father-in-law was playing his selfish game, and reducing the kingdom of
Navarre, Henry’s fleet and soldiers were left to play their part alone.
The whole expedition, owing to delays and gross mismanagement, wofully
miscarried. There were symptoms of mutiny and desertion; and at length the
English army returned home utterly demoralised, and in the teeth of their
commands. The English flag was disgraced in the eyes of Europe. French
wits wrote biting satires ‘De Anglorum e Galliis Fugâ,’[426] and in bitter
disappointment Henry VIII., to avoid further disgrace, was obliged to hush
up the affair, allowing the disbanded soldiers to return to their homes
without further inquiry.[427] It was in vain that More replied to the
French wits with epigram for epigram, correcting their exaggerated satire,
and turning the tables upon their own nation.[428] He laid the foundation
of a controversy by which he was annoyed in after-years,[429] and did
little at the time to remove the general feeling of national disgrace
which resulted from this first trial of Henry VIII. at the game of war.
[Sidenote: Colet preaches against the war.]
Meanwhile Colet, ever prone to speak out plainly what he thought, had
publicly from his pulpit expressed his strong condemnation of the war. And
the old Bishop of London, ever lying in wait, like the persecuting
Pharisees of old, to find an occasion of evil against him, eagerly made
use of this pretext to renew the attempt to get him into trouble. He had
failed to bring down upon the Dean the terrors of ecclesiastical
authority, but it would answer his purpose as well if he could provoke
against him royal displeasure. He therefore informed the King, now eagerly
bent upon his Continental wars, that Colet had condemned them; that he had
publicly preached, in a sermon, that an unjust peace was ‘to be preferred
before the justest war.’ While the Bishop was thus whispering evil against
him in the royal ear, others of his party were zealously preaching up the
war, and launching out invectives against Colet and ‘_the poets_,’ as they
designated those who were suspected of preferring classical Latin and
Greek to the ‘_blotterature_,’ as Colet called it, of the monks. By these
means they appear to have hoped to bring Colet into disgrace, and
themselves into favour, with the King.
But it would seem that they watched and waited in vain for any visible
sign of success. The King appeared strangely indifferent alike to the
treasonable preaching of the Dean and to their own effervescent loyalty.
[Sidenote: The King supports Colet against his enemies.]
Unknown to them, the King sent for Colet, and privately encouraged him to
go on boldly reforming by his teaching the corrupt morals of the age, and
by no means to hide his light in times so dark. He knew full well, he
said, what these bishops were plotting against him, and also what good
service he had done to the British nation both by example and teaching.
And he ended by saying, that he would put such a check upon the attempts
of these men, as would make it clear to others that if any one chose to
meddle with Colet it would not be with impunity!
Upon this Colet thanked the King for his kind intentions, but, as to what
he proposed further, beseeched him to forbear. ‘He had no wish,’ he said,
‘that any one should be the worse on his account; he had rather resign his
preferment than it should come to that.’[430]
II. COLET’S SERMON TO HENRY VIII. (1513).
[Sidenote: Preparations for another campaign.]
The spring of 1513 was spent by Henry VIII. in energetic preparations for
another campaign, in which he hoped to retrieve the lost credit of his
arms. The young King, in spite of his regard for better counsellors, was
intent upon warlike achievements. His first failure had made him the more
eager to rush into the combat again. Wolsey, the only man amongst the war
party whose energy and tact were equal to the emergency, found in this
turn of affairs the stepping-stone to his own ambitious fortune. The
preparations for the next campaign were entrusted to his hands.
Rumours were heard that the French would be likely to invade England if
Henry VIII. long delayed his invasion of France. To meet this contingency,
the sheriffs of Somerset and Dorset had been already ordered to issue
proclamations, that every man between sixty and sixteen should be ready in
arms[431] to defend his country. Ever and anon came tidings that the
French navy was moving restlessly about on the opposite shore,[432] in
readiness for some unknown enterprise. Diplomatists were meanwhile weaving
their wily webs of diplomacy, deceiving and being deceived. Even between
the parties to the League there were constant breaches of confidence and
double-dealing. The entangled meshes of international policy were thrown
into still greater confusion, in February, by the death of Julius II., the
head of the Holy Alliance. The new Pope might be a Frenchman, instead of
the leader of the league against France, for anything men knew. The moment
was auspicious for the attempt to bring about a peace. But Henry VIII. was
bent upon war. He urged on the equipment of the fleet, and was impatient
of delay. On March 17 he conferred upon Sir Edward Howard the
high-sounding title of ‘Admiral of England, Wales, Ireland, Normandy,
Gascony, and Aquitaine.’[433] On Saturday, the 21st, he went down to
Plymouth to inspect the fleet in person, and left orders to the Admiral to
put to sea. He had set his heart upon his fleet, and in parting from
Howard commanded him to send him word ‘how every ship did sail.’[434]
With his royal head thus full of his ships and sailors, and eagerly
waiting for tidings of the result of their first trial-trip in the
Channel, Henry VIII. entered upon the solemnities of Holy Passion Week.
[Sidenote: Good Friday.]
On Good Friday, the 27th, the King attended Divine service in the Chapel
Royal. Dean Colet was the preacher for the day. It must have been
especially difficult and even painful for Colet, after the kindness shown
to him so recently by the King, again to express in the royal presence his
strong condemnation of the warlike policy upon which Henry VIII. had
entered in the previous year, and in the pursuit of which he was now so
eagerly preparing for a second campaign. The King too, coming directly
from his fleet full of expectation, was not likely to be in a mood to be
thwarted by a preacher. But Colet was firm in his purpose, and as, when
called to preach before Convocation, he had chosen his text expressly for
the bishops, so now in the royal presence he preached his sermon to the
King.
[Sidenote: Colet’s sermon to Henry VIII.]
‘He preached wonderfully’ (says Erasmus) ‘on the _victory of Christ_,
exhorting all Christians to fight and conquer under the banner of their
King. He showed that when wicked men, out of hatred and ambition, fought
with and destroyed one another, they fought under the banner, not of
Christ, but of the devil. He showed, further, how hard a thing it is to
die a Christian death [on the field of battle]; how few undertake a war
except from hatred or ambition; how hardly possible it is for those who
really have that brotherly love without which “no one can see the Lord”
to thrust their sword into their brother’s blood; and he urged, in
conclusion, that instead of imitating the example of Cæsars and
Alexanders, the Christian ought rather to follow the example of Christ his
Prince.’[435]
[Sidenote: Renewed attempts to get Colet into trouble.]
[Sidenote: The King again supports Colet.]
So earnestly had Colet preached, and with such telling and pointed
allusion to the events of the day, that the King was not a little afraid
that the sermon might damp the zeal of his newly enlisted soldiers.
Thereupon, like birds of evil omen, the enemies of Colet hovered round him
as though he were an owl, hoping that at length the royal anger might be
stirred against him. The King sent for Colet. He came at the royal
command. He dined at the Franciscan monastery adjoining the Palace at
Greenwich. When the King knew he was there, he went out into the monastery
garden to meet him, dismissing all his attendants. And when the two were
quite alone, he bade Colet to cover his head and be at ease with him. ‘I
did not call you here, Dean,’ he said to him, ‘to interrupt your holy
labours, for of these I altogether approve, but to unburden my conscience
of some scruples, that by your advice I may be able more fully to do my
duty.’ They talked together nearly an hour and a half; Colet’s enemies,
meanwhile, impatiently waiting in the court, scarcely able to contain
their fury, chuckling over the jeopardy in which they thought Colet at
last stood with the King. As it was, the King approved and agreed with
Colet in everything he said. But he was glad to find that Colet had not
intended to declare absolutely that there could be no just war, no doubt
persuading himself that his own was one of the very few just ones. The
conversation ended in his expressing a wish that Colet would some time or
other explain himself more clearly, lest the raw soldiers should go away
with a mistaken notion, and think that he had really said that _no_ war is
lawful to Christians.[436] ‘And thus’ (continues Erasmus) ‘Colet, by his
singular discretion and moderation, not only satisfied the mind of the
King, but even rose in his favour.’ When he returned to the palace at
parting, the King graciously drank to his health, embracing him most
warmly, and, promising all the favours which it was in the power of a most
loving prince to grant, dismissed him. Colet was no sooner gone than the
courtiers flocked again round the King, to know the result of his
conference in the convent garden. Whereupon the King replied, in the
hearing of all: ‘Let every one have his own doctor, and let every one
favour his own; this man is the doctor for me.’ Upon this the hungry
wolves departed without their bone, and thereafter no one ever dared to
meddle with Colet. This is Erasmus’s version[437] of an incident which,
especially when placed in its proper historical setting, may be looked
upon as a jewel in the crown both of the young King and of his upright
subject. It has been reported that Colet complied with the King’s wish,
and preached another sermon in favour of the war against France, of the
necessity and justice of which, as strictly _defensive_, the King had
convinced him. But with reference to this second sermon, if ever it was
preached, Erasmus is silent.[438]
III. THE SECOND CAMPAIGN OF HENRY VIII. (1513).
While the King was trying to pacify his conscience, and allay the scruples
raised in his mind by Colet’s preaching, his ambassador (West) was
listening to a Good Friday sermon at the Chapel Royal of Scotland, and
using the occasion to urge upon the Queen to use her influence with the
Scotch king in favour of peace with England. There were rumours that the
Scotch king was playing into the hands of the King of France--that he was
going to send a ‘great ship’ to aid him in his wars. A legacy happened to
be due from England to the Queen of Scotland, and West was instructed to
threaten to withhold payment unless James would promise to keep the peace
with England. James gave shuffling and unsatisfactory replies. There were
troubles ahead in that quarter![439]
[Sidenote: Leo X. in favour of peace.]
The news sent by West from Scotland must have raised some forebodings in
Henry’s mind. The chance of finding one enemy behind him, if he attempted
to invade France, in itself was not encouraging. As to any scruples raised
by Colet’s preaching, his head was probably far too full of the
approaching campaign, and his heart too earnestly set upon the success of
his fleet, to admit of his impartially considering the right and the wrong
of the war in which he was already involved, or the evils it would bring
upon his country. Meanwhile, probably only a few days after Colet’s
sermon was preached, the anxiously expected news reached England of the
election to the Papal chair of Cardinal de’ Medici, an acquaintance of
Erasmus, and the fellow-student of his friend Linacre, under the title of
Leo X. The letter which conveyed the news to Henry VIII. spoke of the
‘gentleness, innocence, and virtue’ of the new Pope, and his anxiety for a
‘_universal peace_.’ He had declared that he would abide by the League,
but the writer expressed his opinion that ‘he would not be fond of war
like Julius--that he would favour literature and the arts, and employ
himself in building [St. Peter’s], but not enter upon any war except from
compulsion, unless it might be against the infidels.’[440]
[Sidenote: Henry VIII. will not listen to it.]
Henry--just then receiving reports from his fleet, dating to April 5,[441]
full of eager expectation and confidence on the part of the Admiral, ‘that
an engagement with the French might be looked for in five or six days, and
that by the aid of God and of St. George they hoped to have a fair day
with them’--was not at all in a humour to hear of a general peace. So on
April 12, all good advice of Colet’s forgotten, he wrote to his minister
at Rome,[442] instructing him to express his joy that Leo X. had adhered
to the Holy League, and to state that he (Henry) could not think of
entertaining any propositions for peace, considering the magnitude and
vast expense of his preparations, at all events without the consent of all
parties. A fleet of 12,000 soldiers, the minister was to say, was already
at sea, and Henry was preparing to invade France himself with 40,000
more, and powerful artillery. It would be most expedient to cripple the
power of the King of France _now_, and prevent his ambition for the
future.[443]
This letter was written on April 12. On the 17th Sir Arthur Plantagenet
came with letters from the fleet, under leave of absence. He could ill be
spared, wrote the Admiral; but his ship had struck upon a rock, and in
great peril he had made a vow that, if it pleased God to deliver him, he
would not eat flesh or fish till he had made a pilgrimage to the shrine of
Our Lady of Walsingham;[444] and accordingly thither he was bound.
[Sidenote: Admiral Howard lost.]
This was only the beginning of troubles. On April 25, Admiral Howard, with
a personal bravery and daring which immortalised his name, boarded the
ship of the French admiral with sixteen companions, but, in the struggle
which ensued, was thrust overboard with ‘morris pykes’ and lost. The
English fleet, disheartened by the loss of its brave admiral, returned to
Plymouth without proper orders, and without having inflicted any
considerable blow upon the French fleet.[445]
The King, just then preparing to cross over to Calais with his main army,
to invade France in person, hastily appointed Thomas Lord Howard admiral
in the place of his brother; and in letters to the captains, gave vent to
his royal displeasure at their return to Plymouth without his
orders--letters which disheartened still more an army which the new
Admiral found ‘very badly ordered, more than half on land, and a great
number stolen away.’[446]
[Sidenote: Henry VIII. invades France in person.]
But still Henry was determined to press on with his enterprise. He wrote
to his ambassadors to urge the King of Spain at once to invade Guienne or
Gascony, as the English navy, though amounting to 10,000 men, was not
sufficient to meet the combined forces of the enemy without Ferdinand’s
aid. Yet for all this, they were to say, ‘he would not forbear the
invasion of France.’[447] He was not even deterred by receipt of
intelligence, before he set sail, that his treacherous father-in-law had
already forsaken him, and made a year’s truce with France.[448] On June 30
the watchers on the walls of Calais beheld the King, with ‘such a fleet as
Neptune never saw before,’ approaching amid ‘great firing of guns from the
ships and towers,’ to commence in good earnest his invasion of France.
Little as did the ‘Oxford Reformers’ sympathise with the war, they were no
indifferent spectators. Even Erasmus for the time could not but share the
feelings of an Englishman, though he had many friends in France, and hated
the war. From the list of the ships of the navy, in the handwriting of
Wolsey, it appears that one or more of them had been christened
‘_Erasmus_.’[449] Some of his intimate friends followed the army in the
King’s retinue. Ammonius, the King’s Latin secretary, was one of them; and
Erasmus was kept informed by his letters of what was going on, and amused
by his quaint sketches of camp-life.[450] He was even ready himself with
an epigram upon the flight of the French after the Battle (or rather the
no-battle) of Spurs. He could not resist the temptation to turn the tables
upon the French poets, who had indulged their vein of satire at the
expense of the English during the last year’s campaign, and had thereby so
nettled the spirit of More and his friends. To the ‘_De Anglorum e Galliis
fugâ_’ of the French poet, Erasmus was now ready with a still more biting
satire, ‘_In fugam Gallorum insequentibus Anglis_.’[451] More also wrote
an epigram, in which he contrasted the bloody resistance of the Nervii to
Cæsar with the feeble opposition offered by their modern French successors
to Henry VIII.[452]
[Sidenote: Success of the campaign.]
It would be out of place here to follow the details of the campaign.
Suffice it to say that, like the first game of a child, it was carelessly
and blunderingly played,--not, however, without buoyant spirit, and that
air of exaggerated grandeur which betokens the inexperienced hand. The
towns of Terouenne and Tournay were indeed taken, and that without much
bloodshed; but they were taken under the selfish advice of Maximilian, who
throughout never lost sight of his own interest, and was pleased enough to
use the lavish purse and the ardent ambition of his young ally to his own
advantage. The power of France was not crippled by the taking of these
unimportant towns. The whole enterprise was confined within the narrow
limits of so remote a corner of France that her soil could hardly be
regarded as really invaded. So small a portion of the French army was
engaged in opposing it, that it was scarcely a war with Louis XII. Henry
VIII. himself spent more time in tournaments and brilliant pageants than
in actual fighting. He was emphatically playing at the game of war.
[Sidenote: Scotch invasion of England.]
[Sidenote: Battle of Flodden.]
But while Henry was thus engaged in France, King James of Scotland, in
spite of treaties and promises, treacherously took opportunity to cross
the borders, and recklessly to invade England with a large but ill-trained
army. Queen Katherine, whom Henry had appointed Regent during his absence,
sharing his love of chivalrous enterprise, zealously mustered what forces
were left in England; and thus it came about, that just as Henry was
entering Tournay, the news arrived of the Battle of Flodden. From 500 to
1,000 English and about 10,000 Scotch, it was reported, lay dead upon that
bloody field. The King of Scots fell near his banner, and at his side
Scotch bishops, lords, and noblemen, amongst whom was the friend and pupil
of Erasmus--the young Archbishop of St. Andrew’s. Queen Katherine wrote,
with a thankful heart, to her royal husband, giving an account of the
great victory, and informing him that she was about to go on pilgrimage to
Our Lady of Walsingham, in performance of past promises, and to pray for
his return.
Before the end of October the King, finding nothing better to do, amid
great show of triumph returned to England. Thus ended this second
campaign, with just sufficient success to induce the King and Wolsey to
prepare for a third.[453]
IV. ERASMUS VISITS THE SHRINE OF OUR LADY OF WALSINGHAM (1513).
While Sir Arthur Plantagenet and Queen Katherine were going on pilgrimage
to the shrine of Our Lady of Walsingham, to give thanks, the one for the
defeat of the Scots, and the other for deliverance from shipwreck, Erasmus
took it into his head to go on pilgrimage also. He had told his friend
Ammonius, in May, that he meant to visit the far-famed shrine to pray for
the success of the Holy League, and to hang up a _Greek Ode_ as a votive
offering.[454] He appears to have made the pilgrimage from Cambridge in
the autumn of 1513, accompanied by his young friend Robert Aldridge,[455]
afterwards Bishop of Carlisle. It was probably this visit which Erasmus so
graphically described many years afterwards in his Colloquy of the
‘_Religious Pilgrimage_.’
[Sidenote: Erasmus visits the shrine of Our Lady of Walsingham.]
The College of Canons, under their Sub-prior, maintained chiefly by the
offerings left by pilgrims upon the Virgin’s altar; the Priory Church, a
relic of which still stands to attest its architectural beauty; the small
unfinished chapel of the Virgin herself, the sea-winds whistling through
its unglazed windows; the inner windowless wooden chapel, with its two
doors for pilgrims’ ingress and egress; the Virgin’s shrine, rich in
jewels, gold and silver ornaments, lit up by burning tapers; the dim
religious light and scented air; the Canon at the altar, with jealous eye
watching each pilgrim and his gift, and keeping guard against sacrilegious
theft; the little wicket in the gateway through the outer wall, so small
that a man must stoop low to pass through it, and yet through which, by
the Virgin’s aid, an armed knight on horseback once escaped from his
pursuer; the plate of copper, on which the knight’s figure was engraved in
ancient costume with a beard like a goat, and his clothes fitting close to
his body, with scarcely so much as a wrinkle in them; the little chapel
towards the east, containing the middle joint of St. Peter’s finger, so
large, the pilgrims thought, that Peter must needs have been a very lusty
man; the house hard by, which it was said was ages ago brought suddenly,
one winter time, when all things were covered with snow, from a place a
great way off (though to the eyes of Erasmus its thatch, timber, walls,
and everything about it, seemed of modern date); the concreted milk of the
Holy Virgin, which looked like beaten chalk tempered with the white of an
egg; the bold request of Erasmus, to be informed what evidence there was
of its really being the milk of the Virgin; the contracted brows of the
verger, as he referred them to the ‘authentic record’ of its pedigree,
hung up high against the wall,--all this is described with so much of the
graphic detail of an eyewitness, that one feels, in reading the
‘Colloquy,’ that it must record the writer’s vivid recollections of his
own experience.
[Sidenote: The Greek Ode of Erasmus.]
The concluding incident of the ‘Colloquy,’ whether referring to a future
visit, or only an imaginary one, evidently alludes to the Greek Ode
mentioned in the letter to Ammonius. It tells how that, before they left
the place, the Sub-prior, with some hesitation, modestly ventured to ask
whether his present visitor was the same man who, about two years before,
had hung up a votive tablet inscribed in _Hebrew_ letters: for Erasmus
remarks, they call everything Hebrew which they cannot understand. The
Sub-prior is then made to relate what great pains had been taken to read
the Greek verses; what wiping of glasses; how one wise man thought they
were written in Arabic letters, and another in altogether fictitious ones;
how at length one had been able to make out the title, which was Latin
written in Roman capitals--the verses themselves being in Greek, and
written in Greek capitals. In reward for the explanation and translation
of the Ode, the ‘Colloquy’ goes on to relate that the Sub-prior pulled out
of his bag, and presented to his visitors a piece of wood cut from a beam
on which the Virgin mother had been seen to rest.
Whether this concluding incident related in the ‘Colloquy’ was a real
occurrence or not, it, at all events, confirms the testimony of the
‘Colloquy’ itself to the fact that Erasmus made this pilgrimage in a
satirical and unbelieving mood, and that his votive ode was rather a joke
played upon the ignorant canons, than any proof that he himself was a
worshipper of the Virgin, or a believer in the efficacy of pilgrimages to
her shrine.