ENGLAND SEPARATES GRADUALLY FROM THE PAPACY.
(1533.)
[Sidenote: Anne Boleyn.]
When Fryth mounted the scaffold, Anne Boleyn had been seated a month on
the throne of England. The salvoes of artillery which had saluted the
new queen had re-echoed all over Europe. There could be no more doubt:
the Earl of Wiltshire’s daughter, radiant with grace and beauty, wore
the Tudor crown; every one, especially the imperial family, must bear
the consequences of the act. One day Sir John Hacket, English envoy at
Brussels, arrived at court just as Mary, regent of the Low Countries,
was about to mount her horse. ‘Have you any news from England?’ she
asked him in French.—‘None,’ he replied. Mary gave him a look of
surprise,[335] and added: ‘Then I have, and not over good methinks.’ She
then told him of the king’s marriage, and Hacket rejoined with an
unembarrassed air: ‘Madam, I know not if it has taken place, but
everybody who considers it coolly and without family prejudice will
agree that it is a lawful and a conscientious marriage.’ Mary, who was
niece of the unhappy Catherine, replied: ‘Mr. Ambassador, God knows I
wish all may go well; but I do not know how the emperor and the king my
brother will take it, for it touches them as well as me.’—‘I think I may
be certain,’ returned Sir John, ‘that they will take it in good
part.’—‘That I do not know, Mr. Ambassador,’ said the regent, who
doubted it much; and then mounting her horse, she rode out for the
chase.[336]
Charles V. was exasperated: he immediately pressed the pope to
intervene, and on the 12th of May, Clement cited the king to appear at
Rome. The pontiff was greatly embarrassed: having a particular liking
for Benet, Henry’s agent, he took him aside, and said to him
privately:[337] ‘It is an affair of such importance that there has been
none like it for many years. I fear to kindle a fire that neither pope
nor emperor will be able to quench.’ And then he added unaffectedly:
‘Besides, I cannot pronounce the king’s excommunication before the
emperor has an army ready to constrain him.’ Henry being told of this
_aside_ made answer: ‘Having the justice of our cause for us, with the
entire consent of our nobility, commons, and subjects, we do not care
for what the pope may do.’ Accordingly he appealed from the pope to a
general council.
The pope was now more embarrassed than ever; ‘I cannot stand still and
do nothing,’ he said.[338] On the 12th of July he revoked all the
English proceedings and excommunicated the king, but suspended the
effects of his sentence until the end of September. ‘I hope,’ said Henry
contemptuously, ‘that before then the pope will understand his
folly.’[339]
He reckoned on Francis I. to help him to understand it; but that prince
was about to receive the pope’s niece into his family, and Henry made
every exertion, but to no effect, to prevent the meeting of Clement and
Francis at Marseilles. The King of England, who had already against him
the Netherlands, the Empire, Rome, and Spain, saw France also slipping
from him. He was isolated in Europe, and that became a serious matter.
Agitated and indignant, he came to an extraordinary resolution, namely,
to turn to the disciples and friends of that very Luther whom he had
formerly so disdainfully treated.
[Sidenote: Missions Of Vaughan And Mann.]
Stephen Vaughan and Christopher Mann were despatched, the former to
Saxony, the other to Bavaria.[340] Vaughan reached Weimar on the 1st of
September, where he had to wait five days for the Elector of Saxony, who
was away hunting. On the 5th of September he had an audience of the
prince, and spoke to him first in French and then in Latin. Seeing that
the elector, who spoke neither French, English, nor Latin, answered him
only with nods,[341] he begged the chancellor to be his interpreter. A
written answer was sent to Vaughan at seven in the evening: the Elector
of Saxony turned his back on the powerful King of England. He was
unworthy, he said, to have at his court ambassadors from his royal
majesty; and besides, the emperor, who was his only master, might be
displeased. Vaughan’s annoyance was extreme. ‘Strange rudeness!’ he
exclaimed. ‘A more uncourteous refusal has never been made to such a
gracious proposition. And to my greater misfortune, it is the first
mission of kind with which I have ever been entrusted.’ He left Weimar
determined not to deliver his credentials either to the Landgrave of
Hesse or to the Duke of Lauenberg, whom he was instructed to visit: he
did not wish to run the chance of receiving fresh affronts.
A strange lot was that of the King of England! the pope excommunicating
him, and the heretics desiring to have nothing to do with him! No more
allies, no more friends! Be it so: if the nation and the monarch are
agreed, what is there to fear? Besides at the very moment this affront
was offered him, his joy was at its height; the hope of soon possessing
that heir, for whom he had longed so many years, quite transported him.
He ordered an official letter to be prepared announcing the birth of a
prince ‘to the great joy of the king,’ it ran, ‘and of all his loving
subjects.’ Only the date of the letter was left blank.
On the 7th of September, two days after the elector’s refusal, Anne,
then residing in the palace at Greenwich, was brought to bed of a fine
well-formed child, reminding the gossips of the features of both
parents; but alas! it was a girl. Henry, agitated by two strong
affections, love for Anne and desire for a son, had been kept in great
anxiety during the time of labor. When he was told that the child was a
girl, the love he bore for the mother prevailed, and though disappointed
in his fondest wishes, he received the babe with joy. But the famous
letter announcing the birth of a prince ... what must be done with it
now? Henry ordered the queen’s secretary to add an _s_ to the word
_prince_, and despatched the circular without making any change in the
expression of his satisfaction.[342] The christening was celebrated with
great pomp; two hundred torches were carried before the princess, a fit
emblem of the light which her reign would shed abroad. The child was
named Elizabeth, and Henry gave her the title of Princess of Wales,
declaring her his successor, in case he should have no male offspring.
In London the excitement was great; _Te Deums_, bells, and music filled
the air. The adepts of judicial astrology declared that the stars
announced a glorious future. A bright star was indeed rising over
England; and the English people, throwing off the yoke of Rome, were
about to start on a career of freedom, morality, and greatness. The firm
Elizabeth was not destined to shine by the amiability which
distinguished her mother, and the restrictions she placed upon liberty
tend rather to remind us of her father. Yet while on the continent kings
were trampling under foot the independence of their subjects, the
English people, under Anne Boleyn’s daughter, were to develop
themselves, to flourish in letters, and in arts, to extend navigation
and commerce, to reform abuses, to exercise their liberties, to watch
energetically over the public good, and to set up the torch of the
Gospel of Christ.
[Sidenote: English Envoys At Marseilles.]
The king of France very adverse to England’s becoming independent of
Rome, at last prevailed upon Henry to send two English agents (Gardiner
and Bryan) to Marseilles. ‘You will keep your eyes open,’ said Henry
VIII. to them, ‘and lend an attentive ear, but you will keep your mouths
shut.’ The English envoys being invited to a conference with Clement and
Francis, and solicited by those great personages to speak, declared that
they had no powers. ‘Why then were you sent?’ exclaimed the king unable
to conceal his vexation. The ambassadors only answered with a
smile.[343] Francis who meant to uphold the authority of the pope in
France, was unwilling that England should be free: he seems to have had
some presentiment of the happy effects that independence would work for
the rival nation. Accordingly he took the ambassadors aside, and prayed
them to enter immediately on business with the pontiff. ‘We are not here
for his Holiness,’ dryly answered Gardiner, ‘or to negotiate anything
with him, but only to do what the King of England commands us.’ The
tricks of the papacy had ruined it in the minds of the English people.
Francis I., displeased at Gardiner’s silence and irritated by his
stiffness, intimated to the King of England that he would be pleased to
see ‘better instruments’ sent.[344] Henry did send another instrument to
Marseilles, but he took care to choose one sharper still.
Edward Bonner, archdeacon of Leicester, was a clever, active man, but
ambitious, coarse and rude, wanting in delicacy and consideration
towards those with whom he had to deal, violent, and, as he showed
himself later to the protestants, a cruel persecutor. For some time he
had got into Cromwell’s good graces, and as the wind was against popery,
Bonner was against the pope. Henry gave him his appeal to a general
council, and charged him to present it to Clement VII.: it was the ‘bill
of divorcement’ between the pope and England. Bonner, proud of being the
bearer of so important a message, arrived at Marseilles, firmly resolved
to give Henry a proof of his zeal. If Luther had burnt the pope’s bull
at Wittemberg, Bonner would do as much; but while Luther had acted as a
free man, Bonner was only a slave, pushing to fanaticism his submission
to the orders of his despotic master.
Gardiner was astonished when he heard of Bonner’s arrival. What a
humiliation for him! He hung his head, pinched his lips,[345] and then
lifted up his eyes and hands, as if cursing the day and hour when Bonner
appeared. Never were two men more discordant to one another. Gardiner
could not believe the news. A scheme contrived without him! A bishop to
see one of his inferiors charged with a mission more important than his
own! Bonner, having paid him a visit, Gardiner affected great coldness,
and brought forward every reason calculated to dissuade him from
executing his commission.—‘But I have a letter from the king,’ answered
Bonner, ‘sealed with his seal, and dated from Windsor; here it is.’ And
he took from his satchel the letter in which Henry VIII. intimated that
he had appealed from the sentence of the pope recently delivered against
him.[346] ‘Good,’ answered Gardiner, and taking the letter he read: ‘Our
good pleasure is that if you deem it _good_ and _serviceable_ (Gardiner
dwelt upon those two words) you will give the pope notice of the said
appeal, according to the forms required by law; if not, you will
acquaint us with your opinion in that respect.—‘That is clear,’ said
Gardiner; ‘you should advise the king to abstain, for that notice just
now will be neither good nor serviceable.’—‘And I say that it is both,’
rejoined Bonner.
One circumstance brought the two Englishmen into harmony, at least for a
time. Catherine de Medicis, the pope’s niece, had been married to the
son of Francis I., and Clement made four French prelates cardinals. But
not one Englishman, not even Gardiner! That changed the question; there
could be no more doubt. Francis is sacrificing Henry to the pope, and
the pope insults England. Gardiner himself desired Bonner to give the
pontiff notice of the appeal, and the English envoy, fearing refusal if
he asked for an audience of Clement, determined to overleap the usual
formalities, and take the place by assault.
[Sidenote: Clement And Bonner.]
On the 7th of November, the Archdeacon of Leicester, accompanied by
Penniston, a gentleman who had brought him the king’s last orders, went
early to the pontifical palace, preparing to let fall from the folds of
his mantle war between England and the papacy. As he was not expected,
the pontifical officers stopped him at the door; but the Englishman
forced his way in, and entered a hall through which the pope must pass
on his way to the consistory.
Ere long the pontiff appeared, wearing his stole, and walking between
the cardinals of Lorraine and Medicis, his train following behind. His
eyes, which were of remarkable quickness, immediately fell upon the
distant Bonner,[347] and as he advanced he did not take them off the
stranger, as if astonished and uneasy at seeing him. At length he
stopped in the middle of the hall, and Bonner, approaching the datary,
said to him: ‘Be pleased to inform his Holiness that I desire to speak
to him.’ The officer refusing, the intrepid Bonner made as if he would
go towards the pope. Clement, wishing to know the meaning of these
indiscreet proceedings, bade the cardinals stand aside, took off the
stole, and going to a window recess, called Bonner to him. The latter,
without any formality, informed the pope that the King of England
appealed from his decision to a general council, and that he (Bonner),
his Majesty’s envoy, was prepared to hand him the authentic documents of
the said appeal, taking them (as he spoke) from his portfolio. Clement,
who expected nothing like this, was greatly surprised: ‘it was a
terrible breakfast for him,’ says a contemporary document.[348] Not
knowing what to answer, he shrugged his shoulders, ‘after the Italian
fashion;’ and at last, recovering himself a little, he told Bonner that
he was going to the consistory, and desired him to return in the
afternoon. Then beckoning the cardinals, he left the hall.
Henry’s envoy was punctual to the appointment, but had to wait for an
hour and a half, his Holiness being engaged in giving audience. At
length he and Penniston were conducted to the pope’s closet. Clement
fixed his eyes on the latter, and Bonner having introduced him, the pope
remarked with a mistrustful air: ‘It is well, but I also must have some
members of my council;’ and he ordered Simonetta, Capisuchi, and the
datary to be sent for. While waiting their arrival, Clement leant at the
window, and appeared absorbed in thought. At last, unable to contain
himself any longer, he exclaimed: ‘I am greatly surprised that his
Majesty should behave as he does towards me.’ The intrepid Bonner
replied: ‘His Majesty is not less surprised that your Holiness, who has
received so many services from him, repays him with ingratitude.’
Clement started, but restrained himself on seeing the datary enter, and
ordered that officer to read the appeal which Bonner had just delivered
to him.[349]
The datary began: ‘Considering that we have endured from the pope many
wrongs and injuries (_gravaminibus et injuriis_).’... Clasping his hands
and nodding dissent, Clement exclaimed ironically: ‘_O questo è molto
vero!_’ meaning to say that it was false, remarks Bonner.[350] The
datary continued: ‘Considering that his most holy Lordship strikes us
with his spiritual sword, and wishes to separate us from the unity of
the Church; we, desiring to protect with a lawful shield the kingdom
which God has given us,[351] appeal by these presents, for ourselves and
for all our subjects, to a holy universal council.’
[Sidenote: A General Council.]
At these words, the pope burst into a transport of passion,[352] and the
datary stopped. Clement’s gestures and broken words uttered with
vehemence, showed the horror he entertained of a council.... A council
would set itself above the pope; a council might perhaps say that the
Germans and the King of England were right. ‘To speak of a general
council! O good Lord!’ he exclaimed.[353]
The pope gave way to convulsive movements, folding and unfolding his
handkerchief, which was always a sign of great anger in him. At last, as
if to hide his passion, he said: ‘Continue, I am listening.’ When the
datary had ended, the pope said coldly to his officers: ‘It is well
written! _Questo è bene fatto._’
Then turning to Bonner, he asked: ‘Have you anything more to say to me?’
Bonner was not in the humor to show the least consideration. A man of
the north, he took a pleasure in displaying his roughness and
inflexibility in the elegant, crafty, and corrupt society of Rome. He
boldly repeated the protest, and delivered the king’s ‘provocation’ to
the pope, who broke out into fresh lamentations. ‘Ha!’ he exclaimed
vehemently, ‘his Majesty affects much respect for the Church, but does
not show the least to me.’ He _snarled_[354] as he read the new
document.... Just at this moment, one of his officers announced the King
of France. Francis could not have arrived at a more seasonable moment.
Clement rose and went to the door to meet him. The king respectfully
took off his hat, and holding it in his hand made a low bow,[355] after
which he inquired what his Holiness was doing. ‘These English
gentlemen,’ said the pontiff, ‘are here to notify me of certain
provocations and appeals ... and for other matters,’[356] he added,
displaying much ill-humor. Francis sat down near the table at which the
pope was seated; and turning their backs to Henry’s envoy, who had
retired into an adjoining room, they began a conversation in a low tone,
which Bonner, notwithstanding all his efforts, could not hear.
That conversation possibly decided the separation between England and
France. The king showed that he was offended at a course of proceeding
which he characterized as unbecoming; and Clement learnt, to his immense
satisfaction, that the English had not spoken to Francis about the
council. ‘If you will leave me and the emperor free to act against
England,’ he said to the king, ‘I will ensure you possession of the
duchy of Milan.’[357] The monarch promised the obedience of his people
to the decrees of the papacy, and the pope in his joy exclaimed:
‘_Questo è per la bontà vostra!_’ Bonner, who had not lost sight of the
two speakers, remarked that at this moment the king and the pope
‘laughed merrily together,’ and appeared to be the best friends in the
world.
The king having withdrawn, Bonner, again approached the pope, and the
datary finished the reading. The Englishman had not been softened by the
mysterious conversation and laughter of Clement and Francis: he was as
rough and abrupt as the Frenchman had been smooth and amiable. It was
long since the papacy had suffered such insults openly, and even the
German Reformation had not put it to such torture. The Cardinal De
Medicis, chief of the malcontents, who had come in, listened to Bonner,
with head bent down and eyes fixed upon the floor: he was humiliated and
indignant. ‘This is a matter of great importance,’ said Clement; ‘I will
consult the consistory and let you know my answer.’
In the afternoon of Monday, 10th of November, Bonner returned to the
palace to learn the pope’s pleasure: but there was a grand reception
that day, the lords and ladies of the court of Francis I. were presented
to Clement, who did nothing for two hours but bless chaplets, bless the
spectators, and put out his foot for the nobles and dames to kiss.[358]
[Sidenote: Clement’s Answer.]
At last Bonner was introduced: ‘_Domine doctor, quid vultis?_ Sir
doctor, what do you want?’ said the pope. ‘I desire the answer which
your Holiness promised me.’ Clement, who had had time to recover
himself, replied: ‘A constitution of Pope Pius, my predecessor, condemns
all appeals to a general council. I therefore reject his Majesty’s
appeal as unlawful.’ The pope had pronounced these words with calmness
and dignity, but an incident occurred to put him out of temper. Bonner,
hurt at the little respect paid to his sovereign, bluntly informed the
pope that the Archbishop of Canterbury—that Cranmer—desired also to
appeal to a council. This was going too far: Clement, restraining
himself no longer, rose, and approaching Henry’s envoy, said to him: ‘If
you do not leave the room instantly, I will have you thrown into a
caldron of molten lead.’[359]—‘Truly,’ remarked Bonner, ‘if the pope is
a shepherd, he is, as the king my master says, a violent and cruel
shepherd.’[360] And not caring to take a leaden bath, he departed for
Lyons.[361]
Clement was delighted not only at the departure, but still more at the
conduct of Bonner: the insolence of the English envoy helped him
wonderfully; and accordingly he made a great noise about it, complaining
to everybody, and particularly to Francis. ‘I am wearied, vexed,
disgusted with all this,’ said that prince to his courtiers. ‘What I do
with great difficulty in a week for my good brother (Henry VIII.), his
own ministers undo in an hour.’ Clement endeavored in secret
interviews[362] to increase this discontent, and he succeeded. The
mysterious understanding was apparent to every one, and Vannes, the
English agent, who never lost sight either of the pope or the king,
informed Cromwell of the close union of their minds.[363]
When Henry VIII. learnt that the King of France was slipping from him,
he was both irritated and alarmed. Abandoned by that prince, he saw the
pope launching an interdict against his kingdom, the emperor invading
England, and the people in insurrection.[364] He had no repose by night
or day: his anger against the pope continued to increase. Wishing to
prevent at least the revolts which the partisans of the papacy might
excite among his subjects, he dictated a strange proclamation to his
secretary: ‘Let no Englishman forget the most noble and loving prince of
this realm,’ he said, ‘who is most wrongfully judged by the _great
idol_, and most _cruel enemy to Christ’s religion, which calleth himself
Pope_. Princes have two ways to attain right—the general council and the
sword. Now the king, having appealed from the unlawful sentence of the
Bishop of Rome to a general council lawfully congregated, the said
usurper hath rejected the appeal, and is thus outlawed. By holy
Scripture, there is no more jurisdiction granted to the Bishop of Rome
than to any other bishop. Henceforth honor him not as an idol, who is
but a man usurping God’s power and authority; and a man neither in life,
learning, nor conversation like Christ’s minister or disciple.’[365]
Henry having given vent to his irritation, bethought himself, and judged
it more prudent not to publish the proclamation.
At Marseilles England and France separated: the first, because she was
withdrawing from the pope; the other, because she was drawing nearer to
him. It is here that was formed that secret understanding between Paris
and Rome which, adopted by the successors of Francis I., and more or
less courted by other sovereigns of Christendom, has for several
centuries filled glorious countries with despotism and persecution, and
often with immorality. The interview at Marseilles between the pope and
the King of France is the dividing point: since that time, governments
and nations in the train of Rome have been seen to decline, while those
who separated from it have begun to rise.
Footnote 335:
‘She gave me a look as to that she should marvell thereof.’—_State
Papers_, vii. p. 451.
Footnote 336:
‘Setting forward to ride out a hunting.’—_State Papers_, vii. p. 451.
Footnote 337:
‘Taking me aside, showed unto me secretly.’—Ibid. p. 457.
Footnote 338:
‘So sore for him to stand still and do nothing.’—Ibid. p. 469.
Footnote 339:
_State Papers_ (Henry VIII.), vii. p. 496.
Footnote 340:
_State Papers_, (Henry VIII.), vii. p. 501.
Footnote 341:
‘Sed tantum annuit capite.’—Ibid. p. 502.
Footnote 342:
This official document is given in the _State Papers_, i. p. 407. An
examination of the manuscript in the Harleian collection, shows that
the _s_ was added afterwards in the two following passages: ‘bringing
forth of a prince_s_’ and ‘preservation of the said prince_s_.’
Footnote 343:
Le Grand, _Hist. du Divorce_, i. p. 269.
Footnote 344:
Ibid. p. 587.
Footnote 345:
‘Making a plairemouth with his lip.’—Foxe, _Acts_, v. p. 152.
Footnote 346:
Cranmer’s _Memorials_, Appendix, p. 8.
Footnote 347:
‘The pope whose sight is incredulous quick, eyed me.’—Burnet,
_Records_, iii. p. 38.
Footnote 348:
Ibid. p. 51.
Footnote 349:
‘His Holiness, delivering it to the datarie, commanded him to read
it.’—Burnet, _Records_, iii. p. 23.
Footnote 350:
Burnet, _Records_, iii. pp. 37-46; Rymer, _Acta_, vi. pars ii. p. 188.
Footnote 351:
‘Legitimo defensionis clypeo protegere.’—Rymer, _Acta_, vi. pars ii.
p. 188.
Footnote 352:
‘He fell in a marvellous great choler and rage.’—Burnet, _Records_,
iii. p. 54.
Footnote 353:
Ibid.
Footnote 354:
‘Wherein the pope snarling.’—Ibid. p. 42.
Footnote 355:
‘The French king making very low _curtisie_, putting off his bonnet
and keeping it off.’—Burnet, _Records_, iii. p. 42.
Footnote 356:
‘Questi signori Inglesi sono stati quà per intimare certi provocationi
et appellationi. . . . e di fare altre cose.’—Ibid.
Footnote 357:
Le Grand, _Histoire du Divorce_, i. p. 268.
Footnote 358:
Burnet, _Records_, iii. p. 42.
Footnote 359:
Ibid, i. p. 130.
Footnote 360:
‘Immitis et crudelis pastor.’—Rymer, _Acta_, p. 188.
Footnote 361:
Cranmer’s appeal was not written till later, except there be some
error in the date. Burnet, _Records_, iii. p. 24.
Footnote 362:
‘Hæc omnia a pontifice cum rege amotis arbitris tractata.’—_State
Papers_ (Henry VIII.), vii. p. 222.
Footnote 363:
‘De summa animorum conjunctione.’—Ibid. p. 523.
Footnote 364:
Strype, _Eccles. Mem._ i. p. 22.
Footnote 365:
Strype, _Eccles. Mem._ p. 226 (Oxf. 1822).