THE BISHOPS PLUNDER THE CLERGY, AND PERSECUTE THE PROTESTANTS.
(SEPTEMBER 1531 TO 1532.)
As Henry, by breaking with Catherine, had broken with the pope, he felt
the necessity of uniting more closely with his clergy. Wishing to
proceed to the establishment of his new dignity, he required bishops,
and particularly dexterous bishops. He therefore made Edward Lee,
Archbishop of York, and Stephen Gardiner, Bishop of Winchester; and
these two men, devoted to scholastic doctrines, ambitious and servile,
were commissioned to inaugurate the new ecclesiastical monarchy of the
King of England. Although the pope had hastened to send off their bulls,
they declared they held their dignity ‘immediately and only’ of the
king,[131] and began without delay to organize a strange league. If the
king needed the bishops against the pope, the bishops needed the king
against the reformers. It was not long before this alliance received the
baptism of blood.
But before proceeding so far, the prelates deliberated about the means
of raising the 118,000_l._ they had bound themselves to pay the king.
Each wished to make his own share as small as possible, and throw the
largest part of the burden upon his colleagues. The bishops determined
to place it in great measure on the shoulders of the parochial clergy.
Stokesley, Bishop of London, began the battle. An able, greedy, violent
man, and jealous of his prerogatives, he called a meeting of six or
eight priests on whom he believed he could depend, in order to draw up
with their assistance such resolutions as he could afterwards impose
more easily upon their brethren. These picked ecclesiastics were desired
to meet on the 1st of September, 1531, in the chapter-house of St.
Paul’s.
The bishop’s plan had got wind, and excited general indignation in the
city. Was it just that the victims should pay the fine? Some of the
laity, delighted at seeing the clergy quarrelling, sought to fan the
flame instead of extinguishing it.
[Sidenote: A Clerical Riot.]
When the 1st of September arrived the bishop entered the chapter-house
with his officers, where the conference with the eight priests was to be
held. Presently an unusual noise was heard round St. Paul’s: not only
the six or eight priests, but six hundred, accompanied by a great number
of citizens and common people, made their appearance. The crowd swayed
to and fro before the cathedral gates, shouting and clamoring to be
admitted into the chapter-house on the same footing as the select few.
What was to be done? The prelate’s councillors advised him to add a few
of the less violent priests to those he had already chosen. Stokesley
adopted their advice, hoping that the gates and bolts would be strong
enough to keep out the rest. Accordingly he drew up a list of new
members, and one of his officers, going out to the angry crowd, read the
names of those whom the bishop had selected. The latter came forward,
not without trouble; but at the same time the excluded priests made a
vigorous attempt to enter. There was a fierce struggle of men pushing
and shouting, but the bishop’s officials having passed in quickly, those
who had been nominated hurriedly closed the doors. So far the victory
seemed to rest with the bishop, and he was about to speak, when the
uproar became deafening. The priests outside, exasperated because their
financial matters were to be settled without them, protested that they
ought to hold their own purse-strings. Laying hands on whatever they
could find, and aided by the laity, they began to batter the door of the
chapter-house. They succeeded: the door gave way, and all, priests and
citizens, rushed in together.[132] The bishop’s officials tried in vain
to stop them; they were roughly pushed aside.[133] Their gowns were
torn, their faces streamed with perspiration, their features were
disfigured, and some even were wounded. The furious priests entered the
room at last, storming and shouting. It was more like a pack of hounds
rushing on a stag than the reverend clergy of the metropolis of England
appearing before their bishop. The prelate, who had tact, showed no
anger, but sought rather to calm the rioters. ‘My brethren,’ he said, ‘I
marvel not a little why ye be so heady. Ye know not what shall be said
to you, therefore I pray you hear me patiently. Ye all know that we be
men frail of condition, and by our lack of wisdom have misdemeaned
ourselves towards the king and fallen in a _præmunire_, by reason
whereof all our lands, goods, and chattels were to him a forfeit, and
our bodies ready to be imprisoned. Yet his Grace of his great clemency
is pleased to pardon us, and to accept of a little instead of the whole
of our benefices—about one hundred thousand pounds, to be paid in five
years. I exhort you to bear your parts towards payment of this sum
granted.’[134]
This was just what the priests did not want. They thought it strange to
be asked for money for an offence they had not committed. ‘My lord,’
answered one, ‘we have never offended against the _præmumire_, we have
never meddled with cardinal’s faculties.[135] Let the bishops and abbots
pay; they committed the offence, and they have good places.’—‘My lord,’
added another, ‘twenty nobles[136] a year is but a bare living for a
priest, and yet it is all we have. Everything is now so dear that
poverty compels us to say No. Having no need of the king’s pardon we
have no desire to pay.’ These words were drowned in applause. ‘No,’
exclaimed the crowd, which was getting noisy again, ‘we will pay
nothing.’ The bishop’s officers grew angry, and came to high words; the
priests returned abuse for abuse; and the citizens, delighted to see
their ‘masters’ quarrelling, fanned the strife. From words they soon
came to blows. The episcopal ushers, who tried to restore order, were
‘buffeted and stricken,’ and even the bishop’s life was in danger. At
last the meeting broke up in great confusion. Stokesley hastened to
complain to the chancellor, Sir Thomas More, who, being a great friend
of the prelate’s, sent fifteen priests and five laymen to prison. They
deserved it, no doubt; but the bishops, who, to spare their superfluity,
robbed poor curates of their necessaries, were more guilty still.
[Sidenote: The Bishops And Priests.]
Such was the unity that existed between the bishops and the priests of
England at the very time the Reformation was appearing at the doors. The
prelates understood the danger to which they were exposed through that
evangelical doctrine, the source of light and life. They knew that all
their ecclesiastical pretensions would crumble away before the breath of
the divine Word. Accordingly, not content with robbing of their little
substance the poor pastors to whom they should have been as fathers,
they determined to deprive those whom they called _heretics_, not only
of their money, but of their liberty and life. Would Henry permit this?
The king did not wish to withdraw England from the papal jurisdiction
without the assent of the clergy. If he did so of his own authority, the
priests would rise against him and compare him to Luther. There were at
that time three great parties in Christendom: the evangelical, the
catholic, and the popish. Henry purposed to overthrow popery, but
without going so far as evangelism: he desired to remain in catholicism.
One means occurred of satisfying the clergy. Although they were
fanatical partisans of the Church, they had sacrificed the pope; they
now imagined that, by sacrificing a few heretics, they would atone for
their cowardly submission. In a later age Louis XIV. did the same to
make up for errors of another kind. The provincial synod of Canterbury
met and addressed the king: ‘Your Highness one time defended the Church
with your pen, when you were only a member of it; now that you are its
supreme head, your Majesty should crush its enemies, and so shall your
merits exceed all praise.’[137]
In order to prove that he was not another Luther, Henry VIII. consented
to hand over the disciples of that heretic to the priests, and gave them
authority to imprison and burn them, provided they would aid the king to
resume the power usurped by the pope. The bishops immediately began to
hunt down the friends of the Gospel.
A will had given rise to much talk in the county of Gloucester. William
Tracy, a gentleman of irreproachable conduct and ‘full of good works,
equally generous to the clergy and the laity,’[138] had died, praying
God to save his soul through the merits of Jesus Christ, but leaving no
money to the priests for masses. The primate of England had his bones
dug up and burnt. But this was not enough: they must also burn the
living.
Footnote 131:
‘Immediately and only upon your grace.’—Juramentum. Rymer, _Acta_, vi.
p. 169.
Footnote 132:
‘The rest forced the door, rushed in, and the bishop’s servants were
beaten and ill-used.’—Burnet, i. p. 110.
Footnote 133:
‘They struck the bishop’s officers over the face.’—Hall, _Chronicles
of England_, p. 783.
Footnote 134:
Hall, _Chronicles_.
Footnote 135:
Ibid. p. 783.
Footnote 136:
The noble was worth six shillings and eightpence.
Footnote 137:
‘Tanta ejus Majestatis merita quod nullis laudibus æquari
queant.’—_Concilia_, M. Brit. p. 742.
Footnote 138:
Latimer, _Sermons_, i. p. 46 (Parker Soc.); Tyndale, _Op._ iii. p.
231.