it may readily be imagined how keenly they watched the progress of
his quarrel with the pope, and how loud became their utterances as
he gradually threw off his allegiance to Rome and persecuted all who
hesitated to follow in his footsteps. He soon showed, however, that
he allowed none to precede him, and that all consciences were to be
measured by the royal ell-wand. Thus his proceedings against the
Carthusians and Franciscans in 1534 were varied by a proclamation
directed against seditious books and priestly marriages. As we have
seen, some unions had taken place, and all who had committed the
indiscretion were deprived of their functions and reduced to the laity,
though the marriages seem to have been recognized as valid. Future
transgressions, moreover, were threatened with the royal indignation
and further punishment—words of serious import at such a time and under
such a monarch.[1194]
In spite of all this, the chief advisers of Henry did not scruple to
connive at infractions of the proclamation. Both Cranmer and Cromwell
favored the Reformation; the former was himself secretly married, and
even ventured to urge the king to reconsider his views on priestly
celibacy;[1195] while the latter, though, as a layman, without any such
personal motive, was disposed to relax the strictness of the rule of
celibacy. During the visitation of the monasteries, for instance, the
Abbot of Walden had little hesitation in confessing to Ap Rice, the
visitor, that he was secretly married, and asked to be secured from
molestation. The confidence thus manifested in the friendly disposition
of the vicar-general was satisfactorily responded to. Cromwell replied,
merely warning him to “use his remedy” without, if possible, causing
scandal.[1196] A singular petition, addressed to him in 1536 by the
secular clergy of the diocese of Bangor, illustrates forcibly both the
confidence felt in his intentions, and the necessity of the Abbot of
Walden’s “remedy” in the fearful state of immorality which prevailed.
There had been a visitation in which the petitioners admit that many of
them had been found in fault, and as their women had been consequently
taken away, they pray the vicar-general to devise some means by which
their consorts may be restored. They do not venture to ask directly for
marriage, but decency forbids the supposition that they could openly
request Cromwell to authorize a system of concubinage. Nothing can
be more humiliating than their confession of the relations existing
between themselves, as ministers of Christ, and the flocks entrusted
to their spiritual care. After pleading that without women they cannot
keep house and exercise hospitality, they add: “We ourselves shall
be driven to seek our living at ale-houses and taverns, for mansions
upon the benefices and vicarages we have none. _And as for gentlemen
and substantial honest men, for fear of inconvenience, knowing our
frailty and accustomed liberty, they will in nowise board us in their
houses._”[1197]
The tendencies thus exhibited by the king’s advisers called forth
the remonstrances of the conservatives. In June, 1536, the lower
house of convocation presented a memorial inveighing strongly against
the progress of heresy, and among the obnoxious opinions condemned
was “That it is preached and taught that all things awght to be in
comen and that Priests shuld have wiffes,” and they added that books
containing heretical opinions were printed “cum privilegio,” were
openly sold among the people, and were not condemned by those in
authority.[1198] Possibly it was in consequence of this that in the
following November Henry issued a circular letter to his bishops in
which he commanded them—“Whereas we be advertised that divers Priests
have presumed to marry themselves contrary to the custom of our Church
of England, Our Pleasure is, Ye shall make secret enquiry within your
Diocess, whether there be any such resiant within the same or not”—and
any such offenders who had presumed to continue the performance of
their sacred functions were ordered to be reported to him or to be
arrested and sent to London.[1199] Curiously enough, there is no
reference to the subject in the “Articles devised by the Kinges Highnes
Majestie to stablyshe Christen Quietnes and Unitie amonge us,” issued
by Henry in this year.[1200]
Notwithstanding the ominous threat in the letter to the Bishops there
appears, about this period, to have been great uncertainty in the
public mind respecting the state of the law and the king’s intentions.
Two letters happen to have been preserved, written within a few days
of each other, in June, 1537, to Cromwell, which reveal the condition
of opinion at the time. One of these complains that the vicar of
Mendelsham, in Suffolk, has brought home a wife and children, whom he
claims to be lawfully his own, and that it is permitted by the king.
Although “thys acte by hym done is in thys countre a monstre, and many
do growdge at it,” yet, not knowing the king’s pleasure, no proceedings
can be had, and appeal is therefore made for authority to prosecute,
lest “hys ensample wnponnyched shall be occasion for other carnall
evyll dysposed prestes to do in lyke manner.” The other letter is
from an unfortunate priest who had recently married, supposing it to
be lawful. The “noyse of the peopull,” however, had just informed him
that a royal order had commanded the separation of such unions, and
he had at once sent his wife to her friends, threescore miles away.
He therefore hastens to make his peace, protesting that he had sinned
through ignorance, though he makes bold to argue that “yf the kyngys
grace could have founde yt laufull that prestys mught have byn maryd,
they wold have byn to the crowne dubbyll and dubbyll faythefull; furste
in love, secondly for fere that the byschoppe of Rome schuld sette yn
hys powre unto ther desolacyon.”[1201]
It is evident from these letters that there was still a genuine popular
antipathy to clerical marriage, and yet that the royal supremacy was so
firmly established by Henry’s ruthless persecutions that this antipathy
was held subject to the pleasure of the court, and could at any moment
have been dissipated by proclamation. In fact, the only wonder is that
any convictions remained in the minds of those who had seen the objects
of their profoundest veneration made the sport of avarice and derision.
Stately churches torn to pieces, the stone sold to sacrilegious
builders, the lead put up at auction to the highest bidder, the
consecrated bells cast into cannon, the sacred vessels melted down,
the holy relics snatched from the shrines and treated as old bones and
offal, the venerated images burned at Smithfield—all this could have
left little sentiment of respect for worn-out religious observances in
those who watched and saw the sacrilege remain unpunished.
Notwithstanding the reforming influences with which he was surrounded,
Henry sternly adhered to the position which he had assumed.[1202] When,
in 1538, the princes of the Schmalkaldic League offered to place him at
its head, and even to alter, if possible, the Augsburg Confession so as
to make it a common basis of union for all the elements of opposition
to Rome, Henry was well inclined to obtain the political advantages
of the position tendered him, but hesitated to accept it until all
doctrinal questions should be settled. The three points on which the
Germans insisted were the communion in both elements, the worship in
the vulgar tongue, and the marriage of the clergy. In the Convocation
of that year a series of questions was submitted for decision embracing
the contested points, and the clergy decided in favor of celibacy,
private masses, and communion in one element.[1203] Thus sustained,
Henry was firm, and the ambassadors of the League spent two months in
conferences with the English bishops and doctors without result. On
their departure (August 5th, 1538), they addressed him a letter arguing
the subjects in debate—the refusal of the cup, private masses, and
sacerdotal celibacy—to which Henry replied at some length, defending
his position on these topics with no little skill and dexterity, and
refusing his assent finally.[1204] The reformers, however, did not yet
despair, and the royal preachers even ventured occasionally to debate
the propriety of clerical marriage freely before him in their sermons,
but in vain.[1205] An epistle which Melanchthon addressed him in April,
1539, arguing the same questions again, had no better effect.[1206]
In the spring of 1539 Henry renewed negotiations with the German
princes, and his envoys in soliciting another visit from deputies
of the League held out some vague promises of his yielding on the
point of celibacy. The Germans in turn, to show their earnest desire
for union with England, submitted a series of propositions, in which
they suggested that the marriage of priests might be left to the
discretion of the pope, and that if it were to be prohibited only
persons advanced in life should be ordained.[1207] Both parties,
however, were too firmly set in their opinions for accord to be
possible. Notwithstanding any seeming hesitation caused by the policy
of the moment, Henry’s mind was fully made up, and the consequences
of endeavoring to persuade him against his prejudices soon became
apparent. Even while the negotiations were in progress he had issued
a series of injunctions degrading from the priesthood all married
clergy, and threatening with imprisonment and his displeasure all who
should thereafter marry.[1208] Argumentation confirmed his opinions,
and he proceeded to enforce them on his subjects in his own savage
manner, “for though on all other points he had set up the doctrines of
the Augsburg Confession,” yet on these he had committed himself as a
controversialist, and the worst passions of polemical authorship—the
true “odium theologicum”—acting through his irresponsible despotism,
rendered him the cruellest of persecutors. But a few weeks after
receiving the letter of Melanchthon, he answered it in cruel fashion.
In May a new parliament met, chosen under great excitement, for the
people were inflamed on the subject of religion, and animosities
ran high. The principal object of the session was known to be a
settlement of the national church, and as the reformers were in a
minority against the court, the temper of the Houses was not likely
to be encouraging for them.[1209] On the 5th of May, a week after its
assembling, a committee was appointed, at the king’s request, to take
into consideration the differences of religious opinion. On the 16th,
the Duke of Norfolk, who was not a member of the committee, reported
that no agreement could be arrived at, and he therefore laid before
the House of Lords, for full discussion, articles embracing—1st.
Transsubstantiation; 2d. Communion in both kinds; 3d. Vows of Chastity;
4th. Private Masses; 5th. Sacerdotal Marriages; and 6th. Auricular
Confession. Cranmer opposed them stoutly, arguing against them for
three days, and especially endeavoring to controvert the third and
fifth, which enjoined celibacy, but his efforts and those of his
friends were vain, when pitted against the known wishes of the king,
who himself took an active part in the debate, and argued in favor of
the articles with much vigor. Under such circumstances, the adoption
of the Six Articles was a foregone conclusion. On the 30th of May the
chancellor reported that the House had agreed upon them, and that it
was the king’s pleasure “that some penal statute should be enacted to
compel all his subjects who were in any way dissenters or contradicters
of these articles to obey them.” The framing of such a bill was
intrusted to two committees, one under the lead of Cranmer, the other
under that of the Archbishop of York, and they were instructed to lay
their respective plans before the king within forty-eight hours. Of
course the report of the Archbishop of York was adopted. Introduced on
the 7th of June, Cranmer again resisted it gallantly, but it passed
both Houses by the 14th, and received the royal assent on the 28th. It
was entitled “An Act for abolishing Diversity of Opinions in certain
Articles concerning Christian Religion,” and it stands as a monument of
the cruel legislation of a barbarous age. The Third Article was “that
Priests after the order of Priesthood might not marry by the Law of
God;” the Fourth, “that Vows of Chastity ought to be observed by the
Law of God,” and those who obstinately preached or disputed against
them were adjudged felons, to suffer death without benefit of clergy.
Any opposition, either in word or writing, subjected the offender
to imprisonment during the king’s pleasure, and a repetition of the
offence constituted a felony, to be expiated with the life of the
culprit. Priestly marriages were declared void, and a priest persisting
in living with his wife was to be executed as a felon. Concubinage was
punishable with deprivation of benefice and property, and imprisonment,
for a first offence; a second lapse was visited with a felon’s death,
while in all cases the wife or concubine shared the fate of her
partner in guilt. Quarterly sessions were provided, to be held by the
bishops and other commissioners appointed by the king, for the purpose
of enforcing these laws, and the accused were entitled to trial by
jury.[1210] Vows of chastity were only binding on those who had taken
them of their own free will when over twenty-one years of age.[1211]
According to the Act, the wives of priests were to be put away by June
24th, but on that day, as the act was not yet signed, an order was
mercifully made extending the time to July 12th.[1212]
Cranmer argued, reasonably enough, that it was a great hardship, in the
case of the ejected monks, to insist on the observance of the vow of
chastity, when those of poverty and obedience were dispensed with, and
when the unfortunates had been forcibly deprived of all the advantages,
safeguards, and protection of monastic life.[1213] The matter, however,
was not decided by reason, but by the whimsical perversity of a
self-opinionated man, who, unfortunately, had the power to condense his
polemical notions in the blood of his subjects.
To comprehend the full iniquity of this savage measure we must
remember the rapid progress which the new opinions had been making in
England for twenty years; the tacit encouragement given them by the
suppression of the religious houses, and by the influence of the king’s
confidential advisers; and the hopes naturally excited by Henry’s
quarrel with Rome and negotiations with the League of Schmalkalden.
In spite, therefore, of the comparatively mild punishments hitherto
imposed on priestly marriage, which were no doubt practically almost
obsolete, such unions may safely be assumed as numerous. Even Cranmer
himself, the primate of Henry’s church, was twice married, his second
wife, then living, the niece of Osiander, being kept under a decent
veil of secrecy in his palace.[1214] When, after his fruitless
resistance to the Six Articles, the bill was passed, he sent his wife
to her friends in Germany, until the death of his master enabled him
to bring her back and acknowledge her openly;[1215] but vast numbers
of unfortunate pastors could not have had the opportunity, and perhaps
lacked the self-control, thus to arrange their domestic affairs.
Even the gentle Melanchthon was moved from his ordinary equanimity,
and ventured to address to his royal correspondent a remonstrance
expressing his horror of the cruelty which could condemn to the
scaffold a man whose sole guilt consisted in not abandoning the wife
to whom he had promised fidelity through good and evil, before God and
man—a cruelty which could find no precedent in any code that man had
previously dared to frame.[1216]
As might be expected, numerous divorces of married priests followed
this Draconian legislation, and these divorces were held good by
the act of 1549, which, under Edward VI., granted full liberty in
the premises to ecclesiastics.[1217] Even Henry, however, began to
feel that he had gone too far, and the influence of Cromwell was
sufficient to prevent the harshest features of the law from being
enforced in all their odious severity, especially as the projected
marriage with Ann of Cleves and the alliance with the German Lutherans
rendered active persecution in the highest degree impolitic. When
the comedy of Henry’s fourth marriage culminated in the tragedy of
Cromwell’s ruin (June, 1540), the reactionary elements again gathered
strength. There can be no little doubt that the atrocity of the law
had greatly interfered with its efficient execution and had aroused
popular feeling, for now, although the Vicar-General was removed, the
Catholics passed with speedy alacrity a bill moderating the act of the
Six Articles, in so far as it related to marriage and concubinage. For
capital punishment was substituted the milder penalty of confiscation
to the king of all the property and revenue of the offenders.[1218]
The Six Articles, as thus modified, remained the law of England during
the concluding years of Henry’s reign, nor is it likely that any one
ventured to urge upon him seriously a relaxation of the principles to
which he had committed himself thus definitely. The fall of Cromwell
and the danger to which Cranmer was exposed for several years were
sufficient to insure him against troublesome remonstrants, even if
his increasing irritability and capriciousness had not made those
around him daily more alive to the danger of thwarting or resisting
his idlest humor. How little progress, indeed, the Reformation had
thus far made in England is shown in a letter written in 1546 by John
Hooper, afterwards Bishop of Gloucester and Worcester, during the exile
into which he was forced by the act of the Six Articles—“Our king has
destroyed the pope, but not popery; he has expelled all the monks
and nuns, and pulled down their monasteries; he has caused all their
possessions to be transferred into his exchequer, and yet they are
bound, even the frail female sex, by the king’s command, to perpetual
chastity. England has at this time at least ten thousand nuns, not
one of whom is allowed to marry. The impious mass, the most shameful
celibacy of the clergy, the invocation of saints, auricular confession,
superstitious abstinence from meats, and purgatory, were never before
held by the people in greater esteem than at the present moment.”[1219]
On the 28th of January, 1547, Henry VIII. died, and Edward VI.
succeeded to the perilous throne. Not yet ten years of age, his
government of course received its direction from those around him,
and the rivalry between the protector Somerset and the chancellor
Wriothesley, Earl of Southampton, threw the former into the hands
of the progressives, as the latter was the acknowledged head of the
reactionary party. The ruin of Southampton and the triumph of Somerset,
strengthened by his successful campaign in Scotland, soon began to
develop their natural consequences on the religion of the country.
Under the auspices of Cranmer, a Convocation was assembled, which was
empowered to decide all questions in controversy. When the primate was
anxious to again enjoy the solace of his wife’s company and to relieve
both her and himself from the stigma of unlawful marriage, it is easy
to understand that the subject of celibacy would receive early and
appropriate attention; and so confident were the reformers of success
that they did not hesitate to enter into matrimony without waiting
for any formal sanction.[1220] Accordingly, on December 17, 1547, a
proposition was submitted to the effect that all canons, statutes,
laws, decrees, usages, and customs, interfering with or prohibiting
marriage, should be abrogated, and it was carried by a vote of 53 to
22. No time was lost. Two days afterwards a bill was introduced in the
Commons permitting married men to be priests and to hold benefices. It
was received with so much favor that it was read twice the same day,
and on the 21st it was sent up to the Lords; but in the Upper House it
raised debates so prolonged that, as the members were determined to
adjourn before Christmas, it was laid aside. This might be the more
readily agreed to, since on the 23d an act was approved which abolished
numerous severe laws of the former reign, including the statute of the
Six Articles, and was immediately followed by another granting the use
of the cup to the laity and prohibiting private masses.[1221]
The repeal of the Six Articles left the marriage of the clergy subject
to the previous laws of Henry, imposing on it various pains and
penalties, but with the votes recorded in Convocation and Parliament,
it is not likely that much vigor was displayed in their enforcement.
Those interested could thus afford to await the reassembling of the
Houses, which did not take place until November 24, 1548, but they
claimed the reward of their patience by an early hearing in the
session. On the 3d of December a bill was introduced, similar to that
of the previous year, rendering married men eligible to the priesthood;
it passed second reading on the 5th, and third reading on the 6th.
Apparently encouraged by the favorable reception accorded to it, the
friends of the measure resolved on demanding further privileges. The
bill was therefore laid aside, and on the next day a new one was
presented which granted the additional liberty of marriage to those
already in orders. It conceded to the established opinions the fact
that it were better that the clergy should live chaste and single,
yet, “as great filthiness of living had followed on the laws that
compelled chastity and prohibited marriage,” therefore all laws and
canons inhibiting sacerdotal matrimony should be abolished. This bill,
after full discussion, was read a second and third time on the 10th and
12th, and was sent up to the Lords on the 13th. Again the Upper House
was in no haste to pass it. It lay on the table until February 9, 1549,
when it was stoutly contested, and, after being recommitted, it finally
passed on the 19th, with the votes of nine bishops recorded against
it.[1222]