THE KING DESPOILS THE POPE AND THE CLERGY.
(MARCH TO MAY 1532.)
Henry VIII. having permitted the bishops to execute their task of
persecution, proceeded to carry out his own, that of making the papacy
disgorge. Unhappily for the clergy, the king could not attack the pope,
and they entirely escaped the blows. The duel between Henry and Clement
was about to become more violent, and in the space of three months
(March, April, and May) the Romish Church, stripped of important
prerogatives, would learn that, after so many ages of wealth and honor,
the hour of its humiliation had come at last.
Henry was determined, above all things, not to permit his cause to be
tried at Rome. What would be thought if he yielded? ‘Could the pope,’
wrote Henry to his envoys, ‘constrain kings to leave the charge God had
entrusted to them, in order to humble themselves before him? That would
be to tread under foot the glory of our person and the privileges of our
kingdom. If the pope persists, take your leave of the pontiff, and
return to us immediately,’—‘The pope,’ added Norfolk, ‘would do well to
reflect if he intend the continuance of good obedience of England to the
see apostolic.’[168]
Catherine on her part did not remain behind: she wrote a pathetic letter
to the pope, informing him that her husband had banished her from the
palace. Clement, in the depths of his perplexity, behaved, however, very
properly: he called upon the king (25th January) to take back the queen,
and to dismiss Anne Boleyn from court. Henry spiritedly rejected the
pontiff’s demand. ‘Never was a prince treated by a pope as your Holiness
has treated me,’ he said; ‘not painted reason,[169] but the truth alone,
must be our guide.’ The king prepared to begin the emancipation of
England.
[Sidenote: Character Of Cromwell.]
Thomas Cromwell is the representative of the political reform achieved
by that prince. He was one of those powerful natures which God creates
to work important things. His prompt and sure judgment taught him what
it would be possible to do under a Tudor king, and his intrepid energy
put him in a position to accomplish it. He had an instinctive horror of
superstitions and abuses, tracked them to their remotest corner, and
threw them down with a vigorous arm. Every obstacle was scattered under
the wheels of his car. He even defended the evangelicals against their
persecutors, without committing himself, however, and encouraged the
reading of Holy Scripture; but the royal supremacy, of which he was the
originator, was his idol.
The exactions of Rome in England were numerous: the king and Cromwell
were content for the moment to abolish one, the appropriation by the
papacy of the first year’s income of all ecclesiastical benefices.
‘These _annates_,’ said Cromwell, ‘have cost England eight hundred
thousand ducats since the second year of Henry VII.[170] If, in
consequence of the abolition of annates, the pope does not send a bishop
his bull of ordination, the archbishop or two bishops shall ordain him,
as in the old times.’ Accordingly, in March, 1532, the Lower House
agreed to a resolution, which they expressed in these words: _A cest
bille les communes sont assentes_, To this bill the Commons assent.
The bishops were overjoyed: they had to incur great expenses for their
establishment, and the first money arising from their benefice went to
the pope. Their friends used to make them pecuniary advances; but if the
bishop died shortly after his enthronization, these advances were lost.
Some of the bishops, fearing the opposition of the pope, exclaimed:
‘These exactions are contrary to God’s law. St. Paul bids us withdraw
ourselves from all such as walk inordinately. Therefore, if the pope
claims to keep the annates, let it please your Majesty and parliament to
withdraw the obedience of the people from the see of Rome.’[171] The
king was more moderate than the prelates: he said he would wait a year
or two before giving his assent to the bill.
If the bishops refused the pope his ancient revenue, they refused the
king the new authority claimed by the crown, and maintained that no
secular power had any right to meddle with them.[172] Cromwell resisted
them, and determined to carry out the reform of abuses. ‘The clergy,’
said the Commons to the king, ‘make laws in convocation without your
assent and ours which are in opposition to the statutes of the realm,
and then excommunicate those who violate such laws.’[173] A second time
the frightened bishops vainly prayed the king to make his laws harmonize
with theirs. Henry VIII. insisted that the Church should conform to the
State, and not the State to the Church, and he was inexorable. The
bishops knew well that it was their union with powerful pontiffs, always
ready to defend them against kings, which had given them so much
strength in the middle ages, and that now they must yield. They
therefore lowered their flag before the authority which they had
themselves set up. Convocation did, indeed, make a last effort. It
represented that ‘the authority of bishops proceeds immediately from
God, and from no power of any secular prince, as _your Highness hath
shown in your own book most excellently written against Martin Luther_.’
But the king was firm, and made the prelates yield at last.[174] Thus
was a great revolution accomplished: the spiritual power was taken away
from those arrogant priests who had so long usurped the rights of the
members of the Church. It was only justice; but it ought to have been
placed in better hands than those of Henry VIII.
[Sidenote: Contradictory Oaths.]
Cromwell was preparing a fresh blow that would strike the pontiff’s
triple crown. He drew his master’s attention to the oaths which the
bishops took at their consecration, both to the king and to the pope.
Henry first read the oath to the pope. ‘I swear,’ said the bishop, ‘to
defend the papacy of Rome, the regality of St. Peter, against all men.
If I know of any plot against the pope, I will resist it with all my
might, and will give him warning. Heretics, schismatics, and rebels to
our holy father, I shall resist and persecute with all my power.’[175]
On the other hand, the bishops took an oath to the king at the same
time, wherein they renounced every clause or grant which, coming from
the pope, might be in any way detrimental to his Majesty. In one breath
they must obey the pope and disobey him.
Such contradictions could not last: the king wanted the English to be,
not with Rome but with England. Accordingly he sent for the Speaker of
the Commons, and said to him: ‘On examining the matter closely, I find
that the bishops, instead of being wholly my subjects, are only so by
halves. They swear an oath to the pope quite contrary to that they swear
to the crown; so that they are the pope’s subjects rather than
mine.[176] I refer the matter to your care.’ Parliament was prorogued
three days later on account of the plague; but the prelates declared
that they renounced all orders of the pope prejudicial to his Majesty’s
rights.[177]
The political party was delighted, the papal party confounded. The
convents reëchoed with rumors, maledictions, and the strangest projects.
The monks, during the visits they made in their daily rounds, raved
against the encroachments made on the power of the pope. When they went
up into the pulpit, they declaimed against the sacrilege of which
Cromwell (they said) was the author and the English people the victims.
To the last the English priests had hoped in Sir Thomas More. That
disciple of Erasmus had acted like his master. After assailing the
Romish superstitions with biting jests, he had turned round, and seeing
the Reformation attack them with weapons still more powerful, he had
fought against the evangelicals with fire. For two years he had filled
the office of lord-chancellor with unequalled activity and integrity.
Convocation having offered him four thousand pounds sterling ‘for the
pains he had taken in God’s quarrel,’[178] he answered: ‘I will receive
no recompense save from God alone;’ and when the priests urged him to
accept the money he said: ‘I would sooner throw it into the Thames.’ He
did not persecute from any mercenary motives; but the more he advanced,
the more bigoted and fanatical he became. Every Sunday he put on a
surplice and sang mass at Chelsea. The Duke of Norfolk surprised him one
day in this equipment. ‘What do I see?’ he exclaimed. ‘My
lord-chancellor acting the parish clerk ... you dishonour your office
and your king.’[179]—‘Not so,’ answered Sir Thomas, seriously, ‘for I am
honoring his master and ours.’
The great question of the bishop’s oath warned him that he could not
serve both the king and the pope. His mind was soon made up. In the
afternoon of the 16th of May he went to Whitehall gardens, where the
king awaited him, and in the presence of the Duke of Norfolk resigned
the seals.[180] On his return home, he cheerfully told his wife and
daughters of his resignation, but they were much disturbed by it. As for
Sir Thomas, delighted at being freed from his charge, he indulged more
than ever in his flagellations, without renouncing his witty
sayings—Erasmus and Loyola combined in one.
Henry gave the seals to Sir Thomas Audley, a man well disposed towards
the Gospel: this was preparing the emancipation of England. Yet the
Reformation was still exposed to great danger.
[Sidenote: Real Founders Of Reform.]
Henry VIII. wished to abolish popery and set catholicism in its
place—maintain the doctrine of Rome, but substitute the authority of the
king for that of the pontiff. He was wrong in keeping the catholic
doctrine; he was wrong in establishing the jurisdiction of the prince in
the church. Evangelical Christians had to contend against these two
evils in England, and to establish the supreme and exclusive sovereignty
of the Word of God. Can we blame them if they have not entirely
succeeded? To attain their object they willingly have poured out their
blood.
Footnote 168:
_State Papers_, vol. vii. p. 349.
Footnote 169:
Burnet, _Records_, i. p. 100.
Footnote 170:
This was equivalent to two millions and a half sterling of our money.
Burnet, _Records_, ii. p. 96. _Statutes of the Realm_, iii. p. 388.
Footnote 171:
Strype, _Eccl. Memor._ i. pt. ii. p. 158.
Footnote 172:
‘There needeth not any temporal power to concur with the
same.’—Strype, _Eccl. Memor._ i. p. 202.
Footnote 173:
‘Declaring the infringers to incur into the terrible sentence of
excommunication’—Wilkins, _Concilia_, iii. p. 751.
Footnote 174:
‘The king made them buckle at last.’—Strype, _Eccles. Memorials_, i.
p. 204.
Footnote 175:
‘Prosequar et impugnabo.’—Burnet, _Reformation_, i. p. 250 (Oxford,
1829).
Footnote 176:
Burnet, _Hist. Reform._ i. p. 249 (Oxford, 1829).
Footnote 177:
Wilkins, _Concilia_, iii. p. 354.
Footnote 178:
Thomas More, by his grandson, p. 187.
Footnote 179:
Ibid. p. 193.
Footnote 180:
‘In horto suo.’—Rymer, vi. p. 171.