sufficiently appreciated. He must have shown at least extraordinary tact
and wisdom,--with his reforming tendencies and enlightened views,--not
to come in conflict with his sovereign as Becket did with Henry II. He
had to deal with the most capricious and jealous of tyrants; cruel and
unscrupulous when crossed; a man who rarely retained a friendship or
remembered a service; who never forgave an injury or forgot an affront;
a glutton and a sensualist; although prodigal with his gifts, social in
his temper, enlightened in his government, and with very respectable
abilities and very considerable theological knowledge. This hard and
exacting master Cranmer had to serve, without exciting his suspicions or
coming in conflict with him; so that he seemed politic and vacillating,
for which he would not be excused were it not for his subsequent
services, and his undoubted sincerity and devotion to the Protestant
cause. During the life of Henry we can scarcely call Cranmer a reformer.
The most noted reformer of the day was old Hugh Latimer, the King's
chaplain, who declaimed against sin with the zeal and fire of
Savonarola, and aimed to create a religious life among the people, from
whom, he sprung and whom he loved,--a rough, hearty, honest,
conscientious man, with deep convictions and lofty soul.
In the reforms thus far carried on we perceive that, though popular,
they emanated from princes and not from the people. The people had no
hand in the changes made, as at Geneva, only the ministers of kings and
great public functionaries. And in the reforms subsequently effected,
which really constitute the English Reformation, they were made by the
council of regency, under the leadership of Cranmer and the
protectorship of Somerset.
The first thing which the Government did after the accession of Edward
VI. was to remove images from the churches, as a form of idolatry,--much
to the wrath of Gardiner, Bishop of Winchester, the ablest man of the
old conservative and papal party. But Ridley, afterwards Bishop of
Rochester, preached against all forms of papal superstition with so much
ability and zeal that the churches were soon cleared of these "helps to
devotion."
Cranmer, now unchecked, turned his attention to other reforms, but
proceeded slowly and cautiously, not wishing to hazard much at the
outset. First communion of both kinds, heretofore restricted to the
clergy, was appointed; and, closely connected with it, Masses were put
down. Then a law was passed by Parliament that the appointment of
bishops should vest in the Crown alone, and not, as formerly, be
confirmed by the Pope. The next great thing to which the reformers
directed their attention was the preparation of a new liturgy in the
public worship of God, which gave rise to considerable discussion. They
did not seek to sweep away the old form, for it was prepared by the
sainted doctors of the Church of all ages; but they would purge it of
all superstitions, and retain what was most beautiful and expressive in
the old prayers. The Ten Commandments, the Lord's Prayer, and the early
creeds of course were retained, as well as whatever was in harmony with
primitive usages. These changes called out letters from Calvin at
Geneva, who was now recognized as a great oracle among the Protestants:
he encouraged the work, but advised a more complete reformation, and
complained of the coldness of the clergy, as well as of the general
vices of the times. Martin Bucer of Strasburg, at this time professor at
Cambridge, also wrote letters to the same effect; but the time had not
come for more radical reforms. Then, Parliament, controlled by the
Government, passed an act allowing the clergy to marry,--opposed, of
course, by many bishops in allegiance to Rome. This was a great step in
reform, and removed many popular scandals; it struck a heavy blow at the
superstitions of the Middle Ages, and showed that celibacy sprung from
no law of God, but was Oriental in its origin, encouraged by the popes
to cement their throne. And this act concerning the marriage of the
clergy was soon followed by the celebrated Forty-two Articles, framed by
Cranmer and Ridley, which are the bases of the English Church,--a
theological creed, slightly amended afterwards in the reign of
Elizabeth; evangelical but not Calvinistic, affirming the great ideas of
Augustine and Luther as to grace, justification by faith, and original
sin, and repudiating purgatory, pardons, the worship and invocation of
saints and images; a larger creed than the Nicene or Athanasian, and
comprehensive,--such as most Protestants might accept. Both this and the
book of Common Prayer were written with consummate taste, were the work
of great scholars,--moderate, broad, enlightened, conciliatory.
The reformers then gave their attention to an alteration of
ecclesiastical laws in reference to matters which had always been
decided in ecclesiastical courts. The commissioners--the ablest men in
England, thirty-two in number--had scarcely completed their work before
the young King died, and Mary ascended the throne.
We cannot too highly praise the moderation with which the reforms had
been made, especially when we remember the violence of the age. There
were only two or three capital executions for heresy. Gardiner and
Bonner, who opposed the reformation with unparalleled bitterness were
only deprived of their sees and sent to the Tower. The execution of
Somerset was the work of politicians, of great noblemen jealous of his
ascendency. It does not belong to the reformation, nor do the executions
of a few other noblemen.
Cranmer himself was a statesman rather than a preacher. He left but few
sermons, and these commonplace, without learning, or wit, or
zeal,--ordinary exhortations to a virtuous life. The chief thing,
outside of the reforms I have mentioned, was the publication of a few
homilies for the use of the clergy,--too ignorant to write
sermons,--which homilies were practical and orthodox, but containing
nothing to stir up an ardent religious life. The Bible was also given a
greater scope; everybody could read it if he wished. Public prayer was
restored to the people in a language which they could understand, and a
few preachers arose who appealed to conscience and reason,--like Latimer
and Ridley, and Hooper and Taylor; but most of them were formal and
cold. There must have been great religious apathy, or else these reforms
would have excited more opposition on the part of the clergy, who
generally acquiesced in the changes. But the Reformation thus far was
official; it was not popular. It repressed vice and superstition, but
kindled no great enthusiasm. It was necessary for the English reformers
and sincere Protestants to go through a great trial; to be persecuted,
to submit to martyrdom for the sake of their opinions. The school of
heroes and saints has ever been among blazing fires and scaffolds. It
was martyrdom which first gave form and power to early Christianity. The
first chapter in the history of the early Church is the torments of the
martyrs. The English Reformation had no great dignity or life until the
funeral pyres were lighted. Men had placidly accepted new opinions, and
had Bibles to instruct them; but it was to be seen how far they would
make sacrifices to maintain them.
This test was afforded by the accession of Mary, daughter of Catharine
the Spaniard,--an affectionate and kind-hearted woman enough in ordinary
times, but a fiend of bigotry, like Catherine de' Medicis, when called
upon to suppress the Reformation, although on her accession she
declared that she would force no man's conscience. But the first thing
she does is to restore the popish bishops,--for so they were called then
by historians; and the next thing she does is to restore the Mass, and
the third to shut up Cranmer and Latimer in the Tower, attaint and
execute them, with sundry others like Ridley and Hooper, as well as
those great nobles who favored the claims of the Lady Jane Grey and the
religious reforms of Edward VI. She reconciles herself with Rome, and
accepts its legate at her court; she receives Spanish spies and Jesuit
confessors; she marries the son of Charles V., afterwards Philip II.;
she executes the Lady Jane Grey; she keeps the strictest watch on the
Princess Elizabeth, who learns in her retirement the art of
dissimulation and lying; she forms an alliance with Spain; she makes
Cardinal Pole Archbishop of Canterbury; she gives almost unlimited power
to Gardiner and Bonner, who begin a series of diabolical persecutions,
burning such people as John Rogers, Sanders, Doctor Taylor of Hadley,
William Hunter, and Stephen Harwood, ferreting out all suspected of
heresy, and confining them in the foulest jails,--burning even little
children. Mary even takes measures to introduce the Inquisition and
restore the monasteries. Everywhere are scaffolds and burnings. In three
years nearly three hundred people were burned alive, often with green
wood,--a small number compared with those who were executed and
assassinated in France, about this time, by Catherine de' Medicis, the
Guises, and Charles IX.
In those dreadful persecutions which began with the accession of Mary,
it was impossible that Cranmer should escape. In spite of his dignity,
rank, age, and services, he could hope for no favor or indulgence from
that morose woman in whose sapless bosom no compassion for the
Protestants ever found admission, and still less from those cruel,
mercenary, bigoted prelates whom she selected for her ministers. It was
not customary in that age for the Roman Church to spare heretics,
whether high or low. Would it forgive him who had overturned the
consecrated altars, displaced the ritual of a thousand years, and
revolted from the authority of the supreme head of the Christian world?
Would Mary suffer him to pass unpunished who had displaced her mother
from the nuptial bed, and pronounced her own birth to be stained with an
ignominious blot, and who had exalted a rival to the throne? And
Gardiner and Bonner, too, those bigoted prelates and ministers who would
have sent to the flames an unoffending woman if she denied the authority
of the Pope, were not the men to suffer him to escape who had not only
overturned the papal power in England, but had deprived them of their
sees and sent them to the Tower. No matter how decent the forms of law
or respectful the agents of the crown, Cranmer had not the shadow of a
hope; and hence he was certainly weak, to say the least, to trust to any
deceitful promises made to him. What his enemies were bent upon was his
recantation, as preliminary to his execution; and he should have been
firm, both for his cause, and because his martyrdom was sure. In an evil
hour he listened to the voice of the seducer. Both life and dignities
were promised if he would recant. "Confounded, heart-broken, old," the
love of life and the fear of death were stronger for a time than the
power of conscience or dignity of character. Six several times was he
induced to recant the doctrines he had preached, and profess an
allegiance which could only be a solemn mockery.
True, Cranmer came to himself; he perceived that he was mocked, and felt
both grief and shame in view of his apostasy. His last hours were
glorious. Never did a good man more splendidly redeem his memory from
shame. Being permitted to address the people before his execution,--with
the hope on the part of his tormentors that he would publicly confirm
his recantation,--he first supplicated the mercy and forgiveness of
Almighty God, and concluded his speech with these memorable words: "And
now I come to the great thing that troubleth my conscience more than
anything I ever did or said, even the setting forth of writings
contrary to the truth, which I now renounce and refuse,--those things
written with my own hand contrary to the truth I thought in my heart,
and writ for fear of death and to save my life. And forasmuch as my hand
offended in writing contrary to my heart, therefore my hand shall first
be punished; for if I come to the fire, it shall first be burned. As for
the Pope, I denounce him as Christ's enemy and Antichrist, with all his
false doctrines." Then he was carried away, and a great multitude ran
after him, exhorting him, while time was, to remember himself. "Coming
to the stake," says the Catholic eye-witness, "with a cheerful
countenance and willing mind, he took off his garments in haste and
stood upright in his shirt. Fire being applied, he stretched forth his
right hand and thrust it into the flame, before the fire came to any
other part of his body; when his hand was to be seen sensibly burning,
he cried with a loud voice, 'This hand hath offended.'"
Thus died Cranmer, in the sixty-seventh year of his age, after presiding
over the Church of England above twenty years, and having bequeathed a
legacy to his countrymen of which they continue to be proud. He had not
the intrepidity of Latimer; he was supple to Henry VIII.; he was weak in
his recantation; he was not an original genius,--but he was a man of
great breadth of views, conciliating, wise, temperate in reform, and
discharged his great trust with conscientious adherence to the truth as
he understood it; the friend of Calvin, and revered by the
Protestant world.
Queen Mary reigned, fortunately, but five years, and the persecutions
she encouraged and indorsed proved the seed of a higher morality and a
loftier religious life.
"For thus spake aged Latimer:
I tarry by the stake,
Not trusting in my own weak heart,
But for the Saviour's sake.
Why speak of life or death to me,
Whose days are but a span?
Our crown is yonder,--Ridley, see!
Be strong and play the man!
God helping, such a torch this day
We'll light on English land,
That Rome, with all her cardinals,
Shall never quench the brand!"
The triumphs of Gardiner and Bonner too were short. Mary died with a
bruised heart and a crushed ambition. On her death, and the accession of
her sister Elizabeth, exiles returned from Geneva and Frankfort to
advocate more radical changes in government and doctrine. Popular
enthusiasm was kindled, never afterwards to be repressed.
The great ideas of the Reformation began now to agitate the mind of
England,--not so much the logical doctrines of Calvin as the
emancipating ideas of Luther. The Renaissance had begun, and the two
movements were incorporated,--the religious one of Germany and the Pagan
one of Italy, both favoring liberality of mind, a freer style of
literature, restless inquiries, enterprise, the revival of learning and
art, an intense spirit of progress, and disgust for the Dark Ages and
all the dogmas of scholasticism. With this spirit of progress and
moderate Protestantism Elizabeth herself, the best educated woman in
England, warmly sympathized, as did also the illustrious men she drew to
her court, to whom she gave the great offices of state. I cannot call
her age a religious one: it was a merry one, cheerful, inquiring,
untrammelled in thought, bold in speculation, eloquent, honest, fervid,
courageous, hostile to the Papacy and all the bigots of Europe. It was
still rough, coarse, sensual; when money was scarce and industries in
their infancy, and material civilization not very attractive. But it was
a great age, glorious, intellectual, brilliant; with such statesmen as
Burleigh and Walsingham to head off treason and conspiracy; when great
poets arose, like Jonson and Spenser and Shakspeare; and philosophers,
like Bacon and Sir Thomas Browne; and lawyers, like Nicholas Bacon and
Coke; and elegant courtiers, like Sidney and Raleigh and Essex; men of
wit, men of enterprise, who would explore distant seas and colonize new
countries; yea, great preachers, like Jeremy Taylor and Hall; and great
theologians, like Hooker and Chillingworth,--giving polish and dignity
to an uncouth language, and planting religious truth in the minds
of men.
Elizabeth, with such a constellation around her, had no great difficulty
in re-establishing Protestantism and giving it a new impetus, although
she adhered to liturgies and pomps, and loved processions and fêtes and
banquets and balls and expensive dresses,--a worldly woman, but
progressive and enlightened.
In the religious reforms of that age you see the work of princes and
statesmen still, rather than any great insurrection of human
intelligence or any great religious revival, although the germs of it
were springing up through the popular preachers and the influence of
Genevan reformers. Calvin's writings were potent, and John Knox was on
his way to Scotland.
I pass by rapidly the reforms of Elizabeth's reign, effected by the
Queen and her ministers and the convocation of Protestant bishops and
clergy and learned men in the universities. Oxford and Cambridge were
then in their glory,--crowded with poor students from all parts of
England, who came to study Greek and Latin and read theology, not to
ride horses and row boats, to put on dandified airs and sneer at
lectures, running away to London to attend theatres and flirt with girls
and drink champagne, beggaring their fathers and ruining their own
expectations and their health. In a very short time after the accession
of Elizabeth, which was hailed generally as a very auspicious event,
things were restored to nearly the state in which they were left by
Cranmer in the preceding reign. This was not done by direct authority of
the Queen, but by acts of Parliament. Even Henry VIII. ruled through the
Parliament, only it was his tool and instrument. Elizabeth consulted its
wishes as the representation of the nation, for she aimed to rule by the
affections of her people. But she recommended the Parliament to
conciliatory measures; to avoid extremes; to drop offensive epithets,
like "papist" and "heretic;" to go as far as the wants of the nation
required, and no farther. Though a zealous Protestant, she seemed to
have no great animosities. Her particular aversion was Bonner,--the
violent, blood-thirsty, narrow-minded Bishop of London, who was deprived
of his see and shut up in the Tower, put out of harm's way, not cruelly
treated,--he was not even deprived of his good dinners. She appointed,
as her prerogative allowed, a very gentle, moderate, broad, kind-hearted
man to be Archbishop of Canterbury,--Parker, who had been chaplain to
her mother, and who was highly esteemed by Burleigh and Nicholas Bacon,
her most influential ministers. Parliament confirmed the old act, passed
during the reign of Henry VIII., making the sovereign the head
of the English Church, although the title of "supreme head" was
left out in the oath of allegiance, to conciliate the Catholic
party. To execute this supremacy, the Court of High Commission was
established,--afterwards so abused by Charles I. The Church Service was
modified, and the Act of Uniformity was passed by Parliament, after
considerable debate. The changes were all made in the spirit of
moderation, and few suffered beyond a deprivation of their sees or
livings for refusing to take the oath of supremacy.
Then followed the Thirty-nine Articles, setting forth the creed of the
Established Church,--substantially the creed which Cranmer had
made,--and a new translation of the Bible, and the regulation of
ecclesiastical courts.
But whatever was done was in good taste,--marked by good sense and
moderation,--to preserve decency and decorum, and repress all extremes
of superstition and license. The clergy preached in a black gown and
Genevan bands, using the surplice only in the liturgy; we see no lace or
millinery. The churches were stripped of images, the pulpits became high
and prominent, the altars were changed to communion-tables without
candles and symbols. There was not much account made of singing, for the
lyric version of the Psalms was execrable. For the first time since
Chrysostom and Gregory Nazianzen, preaching became the chief duty of
the clergyman; and his sermons were long, for the people were greedy of
instruction, and were not critical of artistic merits. Among other
things of note, the exiles were recalled, who brought back with them the
learning of the Continent and the theology of Geneva, and an intense
hatred for all the old forms of superstition,--images, crucifixes,
lighted candles, Catholic vestments,--and a supreme regard for the
authority of the Scriptures, rather than the authority of the Church.
These men, mostly learned and pious, were not contented with the
restoration as effected by Elizabeth's reformers,--they wanted greater
simplicity of worship and a more definite and logical creed; and they
made a good deal of trouble, being very conscientious and somewhat
narrow and intolerant. So that, after the re-establishment of
Protestantism, the religious history of the reign is chiefly concerned
with the quarrels and animosities within the Church, particularly about
vestments and modes of worship,--things unessential, minute,
technical,--which led to great acerbity on both sides, and to some
persecution; for these quarrels provoked the Queen and her ministers,
who wanted peace and uniformity. To the Government it seemed strange and
absurd for these returned exiles to make such a fuss about a few
externals; to these intensified Protestants it seemed harsh and cruel
that Government should insist on such a rigid uniformity, and punish
them for not doing as they were bidden by the bishops.
So they separated from the Established Church, and became what were
called Nonconformists,--having not only disgust of the decent ritualism
of the Church, but great wrath for the bishops and hierarchy and
spiritual courts. They also disapproved of the holy days which the
Church retained, and the prayers and the cathedral style of worship, the
use of the cross in baptism, godfathers and godmothers, the confirmation
of children, kneeling at the sacrament, bowing at the name of Jesus, the
ring in marriage, the surplice, the divine right of bishops, and some
other things which reminded them of Rome, for which they had absolute
detestation, seeing in the old Catholic Church nothing but abominations
and usurpations, no religion at all, only superstition and
anti-Christian government and doctrine,--the reign of the beast, the
mystic Babylon, the scarlet mother revelling in the sorceries of ancient
Paganism. These terrible animosities against even the shadows and
resemblances of what was called Popery were increased and intensified by
the persecution and massacres which the Catholics about this time were
committing on the Protestants in France and Germany and the Low
Countries, and which filled the people of England,--especially the
middle and lower classes,--with fear, alarm, anger, and detestation.
I will not enter upon the dissensions which so early crept into the
English Church, and led to a separation or a schism, whatever name it
goes by,--to most people in these times not very interesting or
edifying, because they were not based on any great ideas of universal
application, and seeming to such minds as Bacon and Parker and Jewell
rather narrow and frivolous.