PARLIAMENT AND ITS GRIEVANCES.
(NOVEMBER 1529.)
[Sidenote: Opening Of The New Parliament.]
On the morning of the 3d of November, Henry went in his barge to the
palace of Bridewell; and, having put on the magnificent robes employed
on great ceremonies, and followed by the lords of his train, he
proceeded to the Blackfriars church, in which the members of the new
parliament had assembled. After hearing the mass of the Holy Ghost,
king, lords, and commons met in parliament; when, as soon as the king
had taken his seat on the throne, the new chancellor, Sir Thomas More,
explained the reason of their being summoned. Thomas Audley, chancellor
of the Duchy of Lancaster, was appointed speaker of the lower house.
Generally speaking, parliament confined itself to passing the
resolutions of the government. The Great Charter had, indeed, been long
in existence, but, until now, it had been little more than a dead
letter. The Reformation gave it life. “Christ brings us out of bondage
into liberty by means of the Gospel,” said Calvin.[13] This
emancipation, which was essentially spiritual, soon extended to other
spheres, and gave an impulse to liberty throughout all Christendom. Even
in England such an impulse was needed. Under the Plantagenets and the
Tudors the constitutional machine existed, but it worked only as it was
directed by the strong hand of the master. Without the Reformation,
England might have slumbered long.
The impulse given by religious truth to the latent liberties of the
people was felt for the first time in the parliament of 1529. The
representatives shared the lively feelings of their constituents, and
took their seats with the firm resolve to introduce the necessary
reforms in the affairs of both Church and State. Indeed, on the very
first day several members pointed out the abuses of the clerical
domination, and proposed to lay the desires of the people before the
king.
The Commons might of their own accord have applied to the task, and, by
proposing rash changes, have given the Reform a character of violence
that might have worked confusion in the State; but they preferred
petitioning the king to take the necessary measures to carry out the
wishes of the nation; and accordingly a petition, respectfully worded,
but in clear and strong language, was agreed to. The Reformation began
in England, as in Switzerland and Germany, with personal conversions.
The individual was reformed first; but it was necessary for the people
to reform afterwards, and the measures requisite to success could not be
taken, in the sixteenth century, without the participation of the
governing powers. Freely, therefore, and nobly, a whole nation was about
to express to their ruler their grievances and wishes.
[Sidenote: Petition Of The Commons.]
On one of the first days of the session the speaker and certain members,
who had been ordered to accompany him, proceeded to the palace. “Your
highness,” they began, “of late much discord, variance, and debate hath
arisen, and more and more daily is likely to increase and ensue amongst
your subjects, to the great inquietation, vexation, and breach of your
peace, of which the chief causes followingly do ensue.”[14]
This opening could not fail to excite the king’s attention and the
Speaker of the House of Commons began boldly to unroll the long list of
the grievances of England. “First, the prelates of your most excellent
realm, and the clergy of the same, have in their convocations made many
and divers laws without your most royal assent, and without the assent
of any of your lay subjects.
“And also many of your said subjects, and specially those that be of the
poorest sort, be daily called before the said spiritual ordinaries or
their commissaries, on the accusement of light and indiscreet persons,
and be excommunicated and put to excessive and impostable charges.
“The prelates suffer the priests to exact divers sums of money for the
sacraments, and sometimes deny the same without the money be first paid.
“Also the said spiritual ordinaries do daily confer and give sundry
benefices unto certain young folks, calling them their nephews or
kinsfolk, being in their minority and within age, not apt nor able to
serve the cure of any such benefice ... whereby the said ordinaries
accumulate to themselves large sums of money, and the poor silly souls
of your people perish without doctrine or any good teaching.
“Also a great number of holydays be kept throughout this your realm,
upon the which many great, abominable, and execrable vices, idle and
wanton sports be used, which holydays might by your majesty be made
fewer in number.
“And also the said spiritual ordinaries commit divers of your subjects
to ward, before they know either the cause of their imprisonment, or the
name of their accuser.”[15]
Thus far the Commons had confined themselves to questions that had been
discussed more than once; they feared to touch upon the subject of
heresy before the Defender of the Roman Faith. But there were
evangelical men among their number who had been eye-witnesses of the
sufferings of the reformed. At the peril, therefore, of offending the
king, the Speaker boldly took up the defence of the pretended heretics.
“If heresy be ordinarily laid unto the charge of the person accused, the
said ordinaries put to them such subtle interrogatories concerning the
high mysteries of our faith, as are able quickly to trap a simple
unlearned layman. And if any heresy be so confessed in word, yet never
committed in thought or deed, they put the said person to make his
purgation. And if the party so accused deny the accusation, witnesses of
little truth or credence are brought forth for the same, and deliver the
party so accused to secular hands.”
The Speaker was not satisfied with merely pointing out the disease: “We
most humbly beseech your Grace, in whom the only remedy resteth, of your
goodness to consent, so that besides the fervent love your Highness
shall thereby engender in the hearts of all your Commons towards your
Grace, ye shall do the most princely feat, and show the most charitable
precedent that ever did sovereign lord upon his subjects.”
The king listened to the petition with his characteristic dignity, and
also with a certain kindliness. He recognized the just demands in the
petition of the Commons, and saw how far they would support the
religious independence to which he aspired. Still, unwilling to take the
part of heresy, he selected only the most crying abuses, and desired his
faithful Commons to take their correction upon themselves. He then sent
the petition to the bishops, requiring them to answer the charges
brought against them, and added that henceforward his consent would be
necessary to give the force of law to the acts of Convocation.
[Sidenote: Reply Of The Bishops.]
This royal communication was a thunderbolt to the prelates. What! the
bishops, the successors of the apostles, accused by the representatives
of the nation, and requested by the king to justify themselves like
criminals!... Had the Commons of England forgotten what a priest was?
These proud ecclesiastics thought only of the indelible virtues which,
in their view, ordination had conferred upon them, and shut their eyes
to the vices of their fallible human nature. We can understand their
emotion, their embarrassment, and their anger. The Reformation which had
made the tour of the continent was at the gates of England; the king was
knocking at their doors. What was to be done? they could not tell. They
assembled, and read the petition again and again. The Archbishop of
Canterbury, and the Bishops of London, Lincoln, St. Asaph, and Rochester
carped at it and replied to it. They would willingly have thrown it into
the fire,—the best of answers in their opinion; but the king was
waiting, and the Archbishop of Canterbury was commissioned to enlighten
him.
Warham did not belong to the most fanatical party; he was a prudent man,
and the wish for reform had hardly taken shape in England when, being
uneasy and timid, he had hastened to give a certain satisfaction to his
flock by reforming abuses which he had sanctioned for thirty years.[16]
But he was a priest, a Romish priest; he represented an inflexible
hierarchy. Strengthened by the clamors of his colleagues, he resolved to
utter the famous _non possumus_, less powerful, however, in England than
in Rome.
“Sire,” he said, “your Majesty’s Commons reproach us with uncharitable
behavior.... On the contrary, we love them with hearty affection, and
have only exercised the spiritual jurisdiction of the Church upon
persons infected with the pestilent poison of heresy. To have peace with
such had been against the gospel of our Saviour Christ, wherein he
saith, _I came not to send peace, but a sword_.
“Your Grace’s Commons complain that the clergy daily do make laws
repugnant to the statutes of your realm. We take our authority from the
Scriptures of God, and shall always diligently apply to conform our
statutes thereto; and we pray that your Highness will, with the assent
of your people, temper your Grace’s laws accordingly; whereby shall
ensue a most sure and hearty conjunction and agreement.
“They accuse us of committing to prison before conviction such as be
suspected of heresy.... Truth it is that certain apostates, friars,
monks, lewd priests, bankrupt merchants, vagabonds, and idle fellows of
corrupt intent have embraced the abominable opinions lately sprung up in
Germany; and by them some have been seduced in simplicity and ignorance.
Against these, if judgment has been exercised according to the laws of
the Church, we be without blame.
“They complain that two witnesses be admitted, be they never so defamed,
to vex and trouble your subjects to the peril of their lives, shames,
costs, and expenses.... To this we reply, the judge must esteem the
quality of the witness; but in heresy no exception is necessary to be
considered, if their tale be likely. This is the universal law of
Christendom, and hath universally done good.
“They say that we give benefices to our nephews and kinsfolk, being in
young age or infants, and that we take the profit of such benefices for
the time of the minority of our said kinsfolk. If it be done to our own
use and profit, it is not well; but if it be bestowed to the bringing up
and use of the same parties, or applied to the maintenance of God’s
service, we do not see but that it may be allowed.”
As for the irregular lives of the priests, the prelates remarked that
they were condemned by the laws of the Church, and consequently there
was nothing to be said on that point.
Lastly, the bishops seized the opportunity of taking the offensive:—“We
entreat of your Grace to repress heresy. This we beg of you, lowly upon
our knees, so entirely as we can.”[17]
Such was the brief of Roman Catholicism in England. Its defence would
have sufficed to condemn it.
Footnote 13:
In Johannem, viii. 36.
Footnote 14:
MS. petition in Record Office: Froude, _History of England_, i. pp.
208, 214.
Footnote 15:
Petition of the Commons: Froude’s _England_, i. pp. 208-216.
Footnote 16:
“Within these ten weeks, I reformed many other things.”—Froude, i.
233, _Reply of the Bishops_.
Footnote 17:
_The Answer of the Ordinaries._ Record Office MS. Froude, i. p. 225.