HENRY VIII.
{1538.} THE rough hand of Henry seemed well adapted for rending asunder
those bands by which the ancient superstition had fastened itself on
the kingdom; and though, after renouncing the pope’s supremacy and
suppressing monasteries, most of the political ends of reformation
were already attained, few people expected that he would stop at those
innovations. The spirit of opposition, it was thought, would carry him
to the utmost extremities against the church of Rome; and lead him
to declare war against the whole doctrine and worship, as well as
discipline, of that mighty hierarchy. He had formerly appealed from
the pope to a general council; but now, when a general council was
summoned to meet at Mantua, he previously renounced all submission to
it, as summoned by the pope, and lying entirely under subjection to that
spiritual usurper. He engaged his clergy to make a declaration to the
like purpose; and he had prescribed to them many other deviations
from ancient tenets and practices. Cranmner took advantage of every
opportunity to carry him on in this course; and while Queen Jane lived,
who favored the reformers, he had, by means of her insinuation and
address, been successful in his endeavors. After her death, Gardiner,
who was returned from his embassy to France, kept the king more in
suspense; and by feigning an unlimited submission to his will, was
frequently able to guide him to his own purposes. Fox, bishop of
Hereford, had supported Cranmer in his schemes for a more thorough
reformation; but his death had made way for the promotion of Bonner,
who, though he had hitherto seemed a furious enemy to the court of Rome,
was determined to sacrifice every thing to present interest, and
had joined the confederacy of Gardiner and the partisans of the old
religion. Gardiner himself, it was believed, had secretly entered into
measures with the pope, and even with the emperor; and in concert
with these powers, he endeavored to preserve, as much as possible, the
ancient faith and worship.
Henry was so much governed by passion, that nothing could have retarded
his animosity and opposition against Rome, but some other passion, which
stopped his career, and raised him new objects of animosity. Though he
had gradually, since the commencement of his scruples with regard to his
first marriage, been changing the tenets of that theological system in
which he had been educated, he was no less positive and dogmatical in
the few articles which remained to him, than if the whole fabric had
continued entire and unshaken. And though he stood alone in his opinion,
the flattery of courtiers had so inflamed his tyrannical arrogance, that
he thought himself entitled to regulate, by his own particular standard,
the religious faith of the whole nation. The point on which he chiefly
rested his orthodoxy happened to be the real presence; that very
doctrine, in which, among the numberless victories of superstition
over common sense, her triumph is the most signal and egregious. All
departure from this principle he held to be heretical and detestable;
and nothing, he thought, would be more honorable for him, than, while he
broke off all connections with the Roman pontiff, to maintain, in this
essential article, the purity of the Catholic faith.
There was one Lambert,[*] a schoolmaster in London, who had been
questioned and confined for unsound opinions by Archbishop Warham; but
upon the death of that prelate, and the change of counsels at court, he
had been released. Not terrified with the danger which he had incurred,
he still continued to promulgate his tenets; and having heard Dr. Taylor
afterwards bishop of Lincoln, defend in a sermon the corporal presence,
he could not forbear expressing to Taylor his dissent from that
doctrine; and he drew up his objections under ten several heads. Taylor
communicated the paper to Dr. Barnes, who happened to be a Lutheran, and
who maintained that though the substance of bread and wine remained, in
the sacrament, yet the real body and blood of Christ were there also,
and were, in a certain mysterious manner, incorporated with the material
elements.
* Fox, vol. ii. p. 396.
By the present laws and practice Barnes was no less exposed to the stake
than Lambert; yet such was the persecuting rage which prevailed, that
he determined to bring this man to condign punishment; because of their
common departure from the ancient faith, he had dared to go one step
farther than himself. He engaged Taylor to accuse Lambert before Cranmer
and Latimer, who, whatever their private opinion might be on these
points, were obliged to conform themselves to the standard of orthodoxy
established by Henry. When Lambert was cited before these prelates, they
endeavored to bend him to a recantation; and they were surprised when,
instead of complying, he ventured to appeal to the king.
The king, not displeased with an opportunity where he could at once
exert his supremacy and display his learning, accepted the appeal;
and resolved to mix, in a very unfair manner, the magistrate with the
disputant. Public notice was given that he intended to enter the lists
with the schoolmaster: scaffolds were erected in Westminster Hall,
for the accommodation of the audience: Henry appeared on his throne
accompanied with all the ensigns of majesty: the prelates were placed
on his right hand: the temporal peers on his left. The judges and
most eminent lawyers had a place assigned them behind the bishops; the
courtiers of greatest distinction behind the peers; and in the midst
of this splendid assembly was produced the unhappy Lambert, who was
required to defend his opinions against his royal antagonist.[*]
The bishop of Chichester opened the conference, by saying, that Lambert,
being charged with heretical pravity, had appealed from his bishop to
the king; as if he expected more favor from this application, and as
if the king could ever be induced to protect a heretic: that though
his majesty had thrown off the usurpations of the see of Rome; had
disincorporated some idle monks, who lived like drones in a beehive, had
abolished the idolatrous worship of images; had published the Bible
in English, for the instruction of all his subjects; and had made
some lesser alterations, which every one must approve of; yet was he
determined to maintain the purity of the Catholic faith, and to punish
with the utmost severity all departure from it; and that he had taken
the present opportunity, before so learned and grave an audience, of
convincing Lambert of his errors; but if he still continued obstinate in
them, he must expect the most condign punishment,[**]
* Fox, vol. ii. p. 426
** Goodwin’s Annals
After this preamble, which was not very encouraging, the king asked
Lambert, with a stern countenance, what his opinion was of Christ’s
corporal presence in the sacrament of the altar; and when Lambert began
his reply with some compliment to his majesty, he rejected the praise
with disdain and indignation. He afterwards pressed Lambert with
arguments drawn from Scripture and the schoolmen: the audience applauded
the force of his reasoning, and the extent of his erudition: Cranmer
seconded his proofs by some new topics. Gardiner entered the lists as
a support to Cranmner: Tonstal took up the argument after Gardiner:
Stokesley brought fresh aid to Tonstal; six bishops more appeared
successively in the field after Stokesley. And the disputation, if it
deserve the name, was prolonged for five hours; till Lambert, fatigued,
confounded, browbeaten, and abashed, was at last reduced to silence. The
king, then returning to the charge, asked him whether he were convinced;
and he proposed, as a concluding argument, this interesting question:
Whether he were resolved to live or to die? Lambert, who possessed
that courage which consists in obstinacy, replied, that he cast himself
wholly on his majesty’s clemency: the king told him that he would be no
protector of heretics; and, therefore, if that were his final answer,
he must expect to be committed to the flames Cromwell, as vicegerent,
pronounced the sentence against him.[*] [14]
Lambert, whose vanity had probably incited him the more to persevere on
account of the greatness of this public appearance, was not daunted
by the terrors of the punishment to which he was condemned. His
executioners took care to make the sufferings of a man who had
personally opposed the king as cruel as possible: he was burned at a
slow fire; his legs and thighs were consumed to the stumps; and when
there appeared no end of his torments, some of the guards, more merciful
than the rest, lifted him on their halberts and threw him into the
flames, where he was consumed. While they were employed in this friendly
office, he cried aloud several times, “None but Christ, none but
Christ!” and these words were in his mouth when he expired.[**]
Some few days before this execution, four Dutch Anabaptists, three men
and a woman, had fagots tied to their backs at Paul’s Cross, and were
burned in that manner. Andaman and a woman of the same sect and country
were burned in Smithfield.[***]
* See note N, at the end of the volume.
** Fox’s Acts and Monuments, p. 427. Burnet.
*** Stow, p. 556.
{1539.} It was the unhappy fate of the English during this age, that,
when they labored under any grievance, they had not the satisfaction of
expecting redress from parliament on the contrary, they had reason to
dread each meeting of that assembly, and were then sure of having
tyranny converted into law, and aggravated, perhaps, with some
circumstance which the arbitrary prince and his ministers had not
hitherto devised, or did not think proper of themselves to carry into
execution. This abject servility never appeared more conspicuously than
in a new parliament which the king now assembled, and which, if he had
been so pleased, might have been the last that ever sat in England. But
he found them too useful instruments of dominion ever to entertain
thoughts of giving them a total exclusion.
The chancellor opened the parliament by informing the house of lords,
that it was his majesty’s earnest desire to extirpate from his kingdom
all diversity of opinion in matters of religion; and as this undertaking
was, he owned, important and arduous, he desired them to choose a
committee from among themselves, who might draw up certain articles
of faith; and communicate them afterwards to the parliament. The lords
named the vicar-general, Cromwell, now created peer, the archbishops of
Canterbury and York, the bishops of Durham, Carlisle, Worcester, Bath
and Wells, Bangor, and Ely. The house might have seen what a hopeful
task they had undertaken: this small committee itself was agitated with
such diversity of opinion, that it could come to no conclusion. The duke
of Norfolk then moved in the house, that, since there were no hopes of
having a report from the committee, the articles of faith intended to be
established should be reduced to six; and a new committee be appointed
to draw an act with regard to them. As this peer was understood to speak
the sense of the king, his motion was immediately complied with; and,
after a short prorogation, the bill of the “six articles,” or the bloody
bill, as the Protestants justly termed it, was introduced, and having
passed the two houses, received the royal assent.
In this law the doctrine of the real presence was established, the
communion in one kind, the perpetual obligation of vows of chastity, the
utility of private masses, the celibacy of the clergy, and the necessity
of auricular confession. The denial of the first article, with regard
to the real presence, subjected the person to death by fire, and to the
same forfeiture as in cases of treason; and admitted not the privilege
of abjuring: an unheard-of severity, and unknown to the inquisition
itself The denial of any of the other five articles, even though
recanted, was punishable by the forfeiture of goods and chattels, and
imprisonment during the king’s pleasure: an obstinate adherence to
error, or a relapse, was adjudged to be felony, and punishable with
death. The marriage of priests was subjected to the same punishment.
Their commerce with women was, on the first offence, forfeiture and
imprisonment; on the second, death. The abstaining from confession,
and from receiving the eucharist at the accustomed times, subjected the
person to fine, and to imprisonment during the king’s pleasure; and if
the criminal persevered after conviction, he was punishable by death and
forfeiture, as in cases of felony.[*] Commissioners were to be appointed
by the king for inquiring into these heresies and irregular practices;
and the criminals were to be tried by a jury.
The king in framing this law laid his oppressive hand on both parties;
and even the Catholics had reason to complain, that the friars and nuns,
though dismissed their convent, should be capriciously restrained to
the practice of celibacy:[**] [15] but as the Protestants were chiefly
exposed to the severity of the statute, the misery of adversaries,
according to the usual maxims of party, was regarded by the adherents
to the ancient religion as their own prosperity and triumph. Cranmer
had the courage to oppose this bill in the house; and though the king
desired him to absent himself, he could not be prevailed on to give this
proof of compliance.[***] Henry was accustomed to Cranmer’s freedom
and sincerity; and being convinced of the general rectitude of his
intentions, gave him an unusual indulgence in this particular, and
never allowed even a whisper against him. That prelate, however, was now
obliged, in obedience to the statute, to dismiss his wife, the niece of
Osiander, a famous divine of Nuremburg,[****] and Henry, satisfied with
this proof of submission, showed him his former countenance and favor.
Latimer and Shaxton threw up their bishoprics on account of the law, and
were committed to prison.
* 31 Henry VIII. c. 14. Herbert in Kenuet, p. 219.
** See note O, at the 3 end of the volume.
*** Burnet, vol. i. p. 249, 270. Fox, vol. ii. p. 1037.
**** Herbert in Kennet, p. 219.
The parliament, having thus resigned all their religious liberties,
proceeded to an entire surrender of their civil; and without scruple or
deliberation they made, by one act, a total subversion of the English
constitution. They gave to the king’s proclamation the same force as
to a statute enacted by parliament; and to render the matter worse, if
possible, they framed this law, as if it were only declaratory, and were
intended to explain the natural extent of royal authority. The preamble
contains, that the king had formerly set forth several proclamations
which froward persons had wilfully contemned, not considering what a
king, by his royal power, may do; that this license might encourage
offenders not only to disobey the laws of Almighty God, but also to
dishonor the king’s most royal majesty, “who may full ill bear it;”
that sudden emergencies often occur, which require speedy remedies, and
cannot await the slow assembling and deliberations of parliament; and
that, though the king was empowered by his authority, derived from God,
to consult the public good on these occasions, yet the opposition of
refractory subjects might push him to extremity and violence: for these
reasons the parliament, that they might remove all occasion of doubt,
ascertained by a statute this prerogative of the crown and enabled his
majesty, with the advice of his council, to set forth proclamations
enjoining obedience under whatever pains and penalties he should think
proper; and these proclamations were to have the force of perpetual
laws.[*]
* 31 Henry VIII. c. 8.
What proves either a stupid or a wilful blindness in the parliament,
is, that they pretended, even after this statute, to maintain some
limitations in the government; and they enacted, that no proclamation
should deprive any person of his lawful possessions, liberties,
inheritances, privileges, franchises; nor yet infringe any common law
or laudable custom of the realm. They did not consider, that no penalty
could be inflicted on the disobeying of proclamations, without invading
some liberty or property of the subject; and that the power of enacting
new laws, joined to the dispensing power then exercised by the crown,
amounted to a full legislative authority. It is true, the kings of
England had always been accustomed from their own authority to issue
proclamations, and to exact obedience to them; and this prerogative was,
no doubt, a strong symptom of absolute government: but still there was
a difference between a power which was exercised on a particular
emergence, and which must be justified by the present expedience or
necessity, and an authority conferred by a positive statute, which could
no longer admit of control or limitation.
Could any act be more opposite to the spirit of liberty than this law,
it would have been another of the same parliament. They passed an act of
attainder, not only against the marquis of Exeter, the lords Montacute,
Darcy, Hussey, and others, who had been legally tried and condemned,
but also against some persons of the highest quality, who had never been
accused, or examined, or convicted. The violent hatred which Henry bore
to Cardinal Pole had extended itself to all his friends and relations;
and his mother in particular, the countess of Salisbury, had on that
account become extremely obnoxious to him. She was also accused of
having employed her authority with her tenants, to hinder them from
reading the new translation of the Bible; of having procured bulls from
Rome, which, it is said, had been seen at Coudray, her country seat; and
of having kept a correspondence with her son, the cardinal; but Henry
found, either that these offences could not be proved, or that they
would not by law be subjected to such severe punishments as he desired
to inflict upon her. He resolved, therefore, to proceed in a more
summary and more tyrannical manner; and for that purpose he sent
Cromwell, who was but too obsequious to his will, to ask the judges,
whether the parliament could attaint a person who was forthcoming,
without giving him any trial, or citing him to appear before them?[*]
The judges replied, that it was a dangerous question; and that the high
court of parliament ought to give the example to inferior courts, of
proceeding according to justice; no inferior court could act in that
arbitrary manner, and they thought that the parliament never would.
Being pressed to give a more explicit answer, they replied, that if
a person were attainted in that manner, the attainder could never
afterwards be brought in question, but must remain good in law. Henry
learned by this decision, that such a method of proceeding, though
directly contrary to all the principles of equity, was yet practicable;
and this being all he was anxious to know, he resolved to employ it
against the countess of Salisbury.
* Coke’s 4th Inst. p. 37, 38.
Cromwell showed to the house of peers a banner, on which were
embroidered the five wounds of Christ, the symbol chosen by the northern
rebels; and this banner he affirmed, was found in the countess’s
house.[*] No other proof seems to have been produced in order to
ascertain her guilt: the parliament, without further inquiry, passed
a bill of attainder against her; and they involved in the same bill,
without any better proof, as far as appears, Gertrude marchioness
of Exeter, Sir Adrian Fortescue, and Sir Thomas Dingley. These two
gentlemen were executed; the marchioness was pardoned and survived the
king; the countess received a reprieve.
The only beneficial act passed this session, was that by which the
parliament confirmed the surrender of the monasteries; yet even this act
contains much falsehood, much tyranny, and, were it not that all private
rights must submit to public interest, much injustice and iniquity. The
scheme of engaging the abbots to surrender their monasteries had been
conducted, as may easily be imagined, with many invidious circumstances:
arts of all kinds had been employed; every motive that could work on the
frailty of human nature had been set before them; and it was with great
difficulty that these dignified conventuals were brought to make
a concession, which most of them regarded as destructive of their
interests, as well as sacrilegious and criminal in itself.[**] Three
abbots had shown more constancy than the rest, the abbots of Colchester,
Reading, and Glastenbury; and in order to punish them for their
opposition, and make them an example to others, means had been found
to convict them of treason, they had perished by the hands of the
executioner, and the revenue of the convents had been forfeited.[***]
Besides, though none of these violences had taken place, the king knew
that a surrender made by men who were only tenants for life, would not
bear examination; and he was therefore resolved to make all sure by his
usual expedient, an act of parliament. In the preamble to this act, the
parliament asserts, that all the surrenders made by the abbots had been
“without constraint, of their own accord, and according to due course of
common law.” And in consequence, the two houses confirm the surrenders,
and secure the property of the abbey lands to the king and his
successors forever.[****] It is remarkable, that all the mitred abbots
still sat in the house of peers, and that none of them made any protests
against this injurious statute.
* Rymer, vol. xiv. p. 652.
** Collier, vol. ii. p. 158 et see
*** 31 Henry VIII. c. 10.
**** 31 Henry VIII. c. 13.
In this session, the rank of all the great officers of state was fixed:
Cromwell, as vicegerent, had the precedency assigned him above all of
them. It was thought singular, that a blacksmith’s son, for he was no
other, should have place next the royal family; and that a man possessed
of no manner of literature should be set at the head of the church.
As soon as the act of the six articles had passed, the Catholics were
extremely vigilant in informing against offenders; and no less than five
hundred persons were in a little time thrown into prison. But Cromwell,
who had not had interest enough to prevent that act, was able for the
present to elude its execution. Seconded by the duke of Suffolk and
Chancellor Audley, as well as by Cranmer, he remonstrated against the
cruelty of punishing so many delinquents; and he obtained permission to
set them at liberty. The uncertainty of the king’s humor gave each party
an opportunity of triumphing in its turn. No sooner had Henry passed
this law, which seemed to inflict so deep a wound on the reformers,
than he granted a general permission for every one to have the new
translation of the Bible in his family; a concession regarded by that
party as an important victory.
But as Henry was observed to be much governed by his wives while he
retained his fondness for them, the final prevalence of either party
seemed much to depend on the choice of the future queen. Immediately
after the death of Jane Seymour, the most beloved of all his wives,
he began to think of a new marriage. He first cast his eye towards the
duchess dowager of Milan, niece to the emperor; and he made proposals
for that alliance. But meeting with difficulties, he was carried by his
friendship for Francis rather to think of a French princess. He demanded
the duchess dowager of Longueville, daughter of the duke of Guise, a
prince of the house of Lorraine; but Francis told him, that the lady was
already betrothed to the king of Scotland. The king, however, would
not take a refusal: he had set his heart extremely on the match: the
information which he had received of the duchess’s accomplishments and
beauty, had prepossessed him in her favor; and having privately sent
over Meautys to examine her person, and get certain intelligence of her
conduct, the accounts which that agent brought him served further to
inflame his desires. He learned that she was big made; and he thought
her on that account the more proper match for him who was now become
somewhat corpulent. The pleasure, too, of mortifying his nephew, whom he
did not love, was a further incitement to his prosecution of this match;
and he insisted that Francis should give him the preference to the king
of Scots. But Francis, though sensible that the alliance of England
was of much greater importance to his interests, would not affront his
friend and ally; and to prevent further solicitation, he immediately
sent the princess to Scotland. Not to shock, however, Henry’s humor,
Francis made him an offer of Mary of Bourbon, daughter of the duke of
Vendôme; but as the king was informed that James had formerly rejected
this princess he would not hear any further of such a proposal. The
French monarch then offered him the choice of the two younger sisters of
the queen of Scots; and he assured him, that they were nowise inferior
either in merit or size to their elder sister, and that one of them was
even superior in beauty. The king was as scrupulous with regard to the
person of his wives, as if his heart had been really susceptible of a
delicate passion; and he was unwilling to trust any relations, or even
pictures, with regard to this important particular. He proposed to
Francis, that they should have a conference at Calais on pretence of
business; and that this monarch should bring along with him the two
princesses of Guise, together with the finest ladies of quality in
France, that he might make a choice among them. But the gallant spirit
of Francis was shocked with the proposal: he was impressed with too much
regard, he said, for the fair sex, to carry ladies of the first quality
like geldings to a market, there to be chosen or rejected by the humor
of the purchaser.[*] Henry would hearken to none of these niceties,
but still insisted on his proposal; which, however, notwithstanding
Francis’s earnest desire of obliging him, was finally rejected.
* Le Grand, vol. iii. p. 638
The king then began to turn his thoughts towards a German alliance; and
as the princes of the Smalcaldic league were extremely disgusted with
the emperor on account of his persecuting their religion, he hoped, by
matching himself into one of their families, to renew a connection which
he regarded as so advantageous to him. Cromwell joyfully seconded this
intention; and proposed to him Anne of Cleves, whose father, the duke
of that name, had great interest among the Lutheran princes, and whose
sister, Sibylla, was married to the elector of Saxony, the head of the
Protestant league. A flattering picture of the princess, by Hans Holben,
determined Henry to apply to her father; and after some negotiation, the
marriage, notwithstanding the opposition of the elector of Saxony was at
last concluded; and Anne was sent over to England. The king, impatient
to be satisfied with regard to the person of his bride, came privately
to Rochester and got a sight of her. He found her big, indeed, and tall
as he could wish; but utterly destitute both of beauty and grace; very
unlike the pictures and representations which he had received: he swore
she was a great Flanders mare; and declared that he never could possibly
bear her any affection. The matter was worse when he found that she
could speak no language but Dutch, of which he was entirely ignorant;
and that the charms of her conversation were not likely to compensate
for the homeliness of her person. He returned to Greenwich very
melancholy; and he much lamented his hard fate to Cromwell, as well
as to Lord Russel, Sir Anthony Brown, and Sir Anthony Denny. This last
gentleman, in order to give him comfort, told him, that his misfortune
was common to him with all kings, who could not, like private persons,
choose for themselves, but must receive their wives from the judgment
and fancy of others.
It was the subject of debate among the king’s counsellors, whether the
marriage could not yet be dissolved, and the princess be sent back to
her own country. Henry’s situation seemed at that time very critical.
After the ten years’ truce concluded between the emperor and the king
of France, a good understanding was thought to have taken place between
these rival monarchs; and such marks of union appeared, as gave great
jealousy to the court of England. The emperor, who knew the generous
nature of Francis, even put a confidence in him which is rare to that
degree among great princes. An insurrection had been raised in the Low
Countries by the inhabitants of Ghent, and seemed to threaten the most
dangerous consequences. Charles, who resided at that time in Spain,
resolved to go in person to Flanders, in order to appease those
disorders; but he found great difficulties in choosing the manner of his
passing thither. The road by Italy and Germany was tedious: the voyage
through the channel dangerous, by reason of the English naval power:
he asked Francis’s permission to pass through his dominions; and he
entrusted himself into the hands of a rival, whom he had so mortally
offended. The French monarch received him at Paris with great
magnificence and courtesy; and though prompted both by revenge and
interest, as well as by the advice of his mistress and favorites, to
make advantage of the present opportunity, he conducted the emperor
safely out of his dominions and would not so much as speak to him of
business during his abode in France, lest his demands should bear the
air of violence upon his royal guest.
Henry, who was informed of all these particulars, believed that an
entire and cordial union had taken place between these princes; and that
their religious zeal might prompt them to fall with combined arms upon
England.[*] An alliance with the German princes seemed now more than
ever requisite for his interest and safety; and he knew that if he sent
back the princess of Cleves, such an affront would be highly resented by
her friends and family.
* Stowe, p. 579.
{1540.} He was therefore resolved, notwithstanding his aversion to her,
to complete the marriage; and he told Cromwell, that, since matters had
gone so far, he must put his neck into the yoke. Cromwell, who knew how
much his own interests were concerned in this affair, was very anxious
to learn from the king, next morning after the marriage, whether he now
liked his spouse any better. The king told him, that he hated her worse
than ever; and that her person was more disgusting on a near approach;
he was resolved never to meddle with her: and even suspected her not to
be a true maid: a point about which he entertained an extreme delicacy.
He continued, however, to be civil to Anne; he even seemed to repose his
usual confidence in Cromwell; but though he exerted this command over
himself, a discontent lay lurking in his breast, and was ready to burst
out on the first opportunity.
A session of parliament was held; and none of the abbots were now
allowed a place in the house of peers. The king, by the mouth of the
chancellor, complained to the parliament of the great diversity of
religions which still prevailed among his subjects; a grievance, he
affirmed, which ought the less to be endured, because the Scriptures
were now published in English, and ought universally to be the standard
of belief to all mankind. But he had appointed, he said, some bishops
and divines to draw up a list of tenets to which his people were to
assent; and he was determined, that Christ, the doctrine of Christ, and
the truth, should have the victory. The king seems to have expected more
effect in ascertaining truth from this new book of his doctors, than
had ensued from the publication of the Scriptures. Cromwell, as
vicar-general, made also in the king’s name a speech to the upper
house; and the peers, in return, bestowed great flattery on him, and in
particular said, that he was worthy, by his desert, to be vicar-general
of the universe. That minister seemed to be no less in his master’s good
graces: he received, soon after the sitting of the parliament, the title
of earl of Essex, and was installed knight of the garter.
There remained only one religious order in England; the knights of St.
John of Jerusalem, or the knights of Malta, as they are commonly called.
This order, partly ecclesiastical, partly military, had by their valor
done great service to Christendom; and had very much retarded, at
Jerusalem, Rhodes, and Malta, the rapid progress of the barbarians.
During the general surrender of the religious houses in England, they
had exerted their spirit, and had obstinately refused to yield up
their revenues to the king; and Henry, who would endure no society
that professed obedience to the pope, was obliged to have recourse to
parliament for the dissolution of this order. Their revenues were large;
and formed an addition nowise contemptible to the many acquisitions
which the king had already made. But he had very ill husbanded the great
revenue acquired by the plunder of the church: his profuse generosity
dissipated faster than his rapacity could supply; and the parliament was
surprised this session to find a demand made upon them of four tenths,
and a subsidy of one shilling in the pound during two years: so ill
were the public expectations answered, that the crown was never more to
require any supply from the people. The commons, though lavish of their
liberty, and of the blood of their fellow-subjects, were extremely
frugal of their money; and it was not without difficulty so small
a grant could be obtained by this absolute and dreaded monarch. The
convocation gave the king four shillings in the pound to be levied in
two years. The pretext for these grants was, the great expense which
Henry had undergone for the defence of the realm, in building forts
along the seacoast, and in equipping a navy. As he had at present no
ally on the continent in whom he reposed much confidence, he relied only
on his domestic strength, and was on that account obliged to be more
expensive in his preparations against the danger of an invasion.
The king’s favor to Cromwell and his acquiescence in the marriage with
Anne of Cleves, were both of them deceitful appearances: his aversion
to the queen secretly increased every day; and having at last broken all
restraint, it prompted him at once to seek the dissolution of a marriage
so odious to him, and to involve his minister in ruin, who had been
the innocent author of it. The fall of Cromwell was hastened by other
causes. All the nobility hated a man who, being of such low extraction,
had not only mounted above them by his station of vicar-general, but had
engrossed many of the other considerable offices of the crown: besides
enjoying that commission, which gave him a high and almost absolute
authority over the clergy, and even over the laity, he was privy seal,
chamberlain, and master of the wards: he had also obtained the order
of the garter, a dignity which had ever been conferred only on men
of illustrious families, and which seemed to be profaned by its being
communicated to so mean a person. The people were averse to him, as the
supposed author of the violence on the monasteries; establishments which
were still revered and beloved by the commonalty. The Catholics regarded
him as the concealed enemy of their religion: the Protestants, observing
his exterior concurrence with all the persecutions exercised against
them, were inclined to bear him as little favor; and reproached him with
the timidity, if not treachery, of his conduct. And the king, who found
that great clamors had on all hands arisen against the administration,
was not displeased to throw on Cromwell the load of public hatred; and
he hoped, by making so easy a sacrifice, to regain the affections of his
subjects.
But there was another cause which suddenly set all these motives in
action, and brought about an unexpected revolution in the ministry. The
king had fixed his affection on Catharine Howard, niece to the duke of
Norfolk; and being determined to gratify this new passion, he could find
no expedient, but by procuring a divorce from his present consort,
to raise Catharine to his bed and throne. The duke, who had long been
engaged in enmity with Cromwell, made the same use of her insinuations
to ruin this minister, that he had formerly done of Anne Boleyn’s
against Wolsey; and when all engines were prepared, he obtained a
commission from the king to arrest Cromwell at the council table, on an
accusation of high treason, and to commit him to the Tower. Immediately
after a bill of attainder was framed against him; and the house of peers
thought proper, without trial, examination, or evidence, to condemn
to death a man, whom a few days before they had declared worthy to be
vicar-general of the universe. The house of commons passed the bill,
though not without some opposition. Cromwell was accused of heresy
and treason: but the proofs of his treasonable practices are utterly
improbable, and even absolutely ridiculous.[*] The only circumstance of
his conduct by which he seems to have merited this fate, was his being
the instrument of the king’s tyranny in conducting like iniquitous
bills, in the preceding session, against the countess of Salisbury and
others.
Cromwell endeavored to soften the king by the most humble supplications;
but all to no purpose: it was not the practice of that prince to ruin
his ministers and favorites by halves; and though the unhappy prisoner
once wrote to him in so moving a strain as even to draw tears from his
eyes, he hardened himself against all movements of pity, and refused his
pardon. The conclusion of Cromwell’s letter ran in these words: “I, a
most woful prisoner, am ready to submit to death when it shall please
God and your majesty; and yet the frail flesh incites me to call to your
grace for mercy and pardon of mine offences. Written at the Tower, with
the heavy heart and trembling hand of your highness’s most miserable
prisoner and poor slave, Thomas Cromwell.” And a little below, “Most
gracious prince, I cry for mercy, mercy, mercy.”[**]
* Burnet, vol. i. p. 278.
** Burnet, vol. i. p. 281, 282.
When brought to the place of execution, he avoided all earnest
protestations of his innocence, and all complaints against the sentence
pronounced upon him. He knew that Henry would resent on his son those
symptoms of opposition to his will, and that his death alone would not
terminate that monarch’s vengeance. He was a man of prudence, industry,
and abilities; worthy of a better master and of a better fate. Though
raised to the summit of power from a low origin, he betrayed no
insolence or contempt towards his inferiors; and was careful to remember
all the obligations which, during his more humble fortune, he had owed
to any one. He had served as a private sentinel in the Italian wars;
when he received some good offices from a Lucquese merchant, who had
entirely forgotten his person, as well as the service which he had
rendered him. Cromwell, in his grandeur, happened at London to cast
his eye on his benefactor, now reduced to poverty by misfortunes. He
immediately sent for him, reminded him of their ancient friendship, and
by his grateful assistance reinstated him in his former prosperity and
opulence.[*]
The measures for divorcing Henry from Anne of Cleves were carried on at
the same time with the bill of attainder against Cromwell. The house of
peers, in conjunction with the commons, applied to the king by petition,
desiring that he would allow his marriage to be examined; and orders
were immediately given to lay the matter before the convocation. Anne
had formerly been contracted by her father to the duke of Lorraine, but
she, as well as the duke, were at that time under age, and the contract
had been afterwards annulled by consent of both parties.
The king, however, pleaded this precontract as a ground of divorce; and
he added two reasons more, which may seem a little extraordinary; that,
when he espoused Anne he had not inwardly given his consent, and that he
had not thought proper to consummate the marriage. The convocation was
satisfied with these reasons, and solemnly annulled the marriage
between the king and queen: the parliament ratified the decision of the
clergy;[**] [16] and the sentence was soon after notified to the
princess.
Anne was blest with a happy insensibility of temper, ever in the points
which the most nearly affect her sex; and the king’s aversion towards
her, as well as his prosecution of the divorce, had never given her the
least uneasiness. She willingly hearkened to terms of accommodation with
him; and when he offered to adopt her as his sister, to give her place
next the queen and his own daughter, and to make a settlement of three
thousand pounds a year upon her; she accepted of the conditions, and
gave her consent to the divorce.[***] She even wrote to her brother,
(for her father was now dead,) that she had been very well used in
England, and desired him to live on good terms with the king. The only
instance of pride which she betrayed was, that she refused to return to
her own country after the affront which she had received; and she lived
and died in England.
* Burnet, vol. i. p. 172.
** See note P, at the end of the volume.
*** Herbert, p. 458 459.
Notwithstanding Anne’s moderation, this incident produced a great
coldness between the king and the German princes; but as the situation
of Europe was now much altered, Henry was the more indifferent about
their resentment. The close intimacy which had taken place between
Francis and Charles had subsisted during a very short time: the
dissimilarity of their characters soon renewed, with greater violence
than ever, their former jealousy and hatred. While Charles remained at
Paris, Francis had been imprudently engaged, by his open temper, and
by that satisfaction which a noble mind naturally feels in performing
generous actions, to make in confidence some dangerous discoveries to
that interested monarch; and having now lost all suspicion of his rival,
he hoped that the emperor and he, supporting each other, might neglect
every other alliance. He not only communicated to his guest the state
of his negotiations with Sultan Solyman and the Venetians; he also laid
open the solicitations which he had received from the court of England
to enter into a confederacy against him.[*] Charles had no sooner
reached his own dominions, than he showed himself unworthy of the
friendly reception which he had met with. He absolutely refused to
fulfil his promise, and put the duke of Orleans in possession of the
Milanese; he informed Solyman and the senate of Venice of the treatment
which they had received from their ally; and he took care that Henry
should not be ignorant how readily Francis had abandoned his ancient
friend, to whom he owed such important obligations, and had sacrificed
him to a new confederate: he even poisoned and misrepresented many
things which the unsuspecting heart of the French monarch had disclosed
to him. Had Henry possessed true judgment and generosity, this incident
alone had been sufficient to guide him in the choice of his ally. But
his domineering pride carried him immediately to renounce the friendship
of Francis, who had so unexpectedly given the preference to the emperor;
and as Charles invited him to a renewal of ancient amity, he willingly
accepted of the offer; and thinking himself secure in this alliance, he
neglected the friendship both of France and of the German princes.
* Père Daniel. Du Tillet.
The new turn which Henry had taken with regard to foreign affairs was
extremely agreeable to his Catholic subjects; and as it had perhaps
contributed, among other reasons, to the ruin of Cromwell, it made
them entertain hopes of a final prevalence over their antagonists. The
marriage of the king with Catharine Howard, which followed soon after
his divorce from Anne of Cleves, was also regarded as a favorable
incident to their party; and the subsequent events corresponded to their
expectations. The king’s councils being now directed by Norfolk and
Gardiner, a furious persecution commenced against the Protestants; and
the law of the six articles was executed with rigor. Dr. Barnes, who had
been the cause of Lambert’s execution, felt, in his turn, the severity
of the persecuting spirit; and, by a bill which passed in parliament,
he was, without trial, condemned to the flames, together with Jerome and
Gerrard. He discussed theological questions even at the stake; and as
the dispute between him and the sheriff turned upon the invocation of
saints, he said, that he doubted whether the saints could pray for
us; but if they could, he hoped in half an hour to be praying for the
sheriff and all the spectators. He next entreated the sheriff to carry
to the king his dying request, which he fondly imagined would have
authority with that monarch who had sent him to the stake. The purport
of his request was, that Henry, besides repressing superstitious
ceremonies, should be extremely vigilant in preventing fornication and
common swearing.[*]
While Henry was exerting this violence against the Protestants, he
spared not the Catholics who denied his supremacy; and a foreigner, at
that time in England, had reason to say, that those who were against the
pope were burned, and those who were for him were hanged.[**] The king
even displayed in an ostentatious manner this tyrannical impartiality,
which reduced both parties to subjection, and infused terror into every
breast. Barnes, Gerrard, and Jerome had been carried to the place of
execution on three hurdles; and along with them there was placed on
each hurdle a Catholic, who was also executed for his religion. These
Catholics were Abel, Fetherstone, and Powel, who declared, that the
most grievous part of their punishment was the being coupled to such
heretical miscreants as suffered with them.[***]
* Burnet, vol. i. p. 298. Fox.
** Fox, vol. ii, p. 529.
*** Saunders, de Schism. Angl.
Though the spirit of the English seemed to be totally sunk under the
despotic power of Henry, there appeared some symptoms of discontent.
An inconsiderable rebellion broke out in Yorkshire, headed by Sir John
Nevil; but it was soon suppressed, and Nevil, with other ringleaders,
was executed.
The rebels were supposed to have been instigated by the intrigues
of Cardinal Pole; and the king was instantly determined to make the
countess of Salisbury, who already lay under sentence of death, suffer
for her son’s offences. He ordered her to be carried to execution;
and this venerable matron maintained still, in these distressful
circumstances, the spirit of that long race of monarchs from whom she
was descended.[*] She refused to lay her head on the block, or submit
to a sentence where she had received no trial. She told the executioner,
that if he would have her head, he must win it the best way he could:
and thus, shaking her venerable gray locks, she ran about the scaffold:
and the executioner followed with his axe, aiming many fruitless blows
at her neck, before he was able to give the fatal stroke. Thus perished
the last of the line of Plantagenet, which, with great glory, but still
greater crimes and misfortunes, had governed England for the space of
three hundred years. Lord Leonard Grey, a man who had formerly rendered
service to the crown, was also beheaded for treason, soon after the
countess of Salisbury. We know little concerning the grounds of his
prosecution.
* Hertert, p. 468.
{1541.} The insurrection in the north engaged Henry to make a progress
thither, in order to quiet the minds of his people, to reconcile them to
his government, and to abolish the ancient superstitions, to which those
parts were much addicted. He had also another motive for this journey:
he purposed to have a conference at York with his nephew the king of
Scotland, and, if possible, to cement a close and indissoluble union
with that kingdom.
The same spirit of religious innovation which had seized other parts
of Europe had made its way into Scotland, and had begun, before this
period, to excite the same jealousies fears, and persecutions. About the
year 1527, Patrick Hamilton, a young man of a noble family, having been
created abbot of Fene, was sent abroad for his education, but had fallen
into company with some reformers; and he returned into his own country
very ill disposed towards that church, on which his birth and his merit
entitled him to attain the highest dignities, The fervor of youth
and his zeal for novelty made it impossible for him to conceal his
sentiments and Campbell, prior of the Dominicans, who, under color of
friendship, and a sympathy in opinion, had insinuated himself into
his confidence, accused him before Beaton, archbishop of St. Andrews.
Hamilton was invited to St. Andrews, in order to maintain with some of
the clergy a dispute concerning the controverted points; and after much
reasoning with regard to justification, free will, original sin, and
other topics of that nature, the conference ended with their condemning
Hamilton to be burned for his errors. The young man, who had been deaf
to the insinuations of ambition, was less likely to be shaken with the
fears of death; while he proposed to himself, both the glory of
bearing testimony to the truth, and the immediate reward attending his
martyrdom. The people, who compassionated his youth, his virtue, and
his noble birth, were much moved at the constancy of his end; and
an incident which soon followed still more confirmed them in their
favorable sentiments towards him. He had cited Campbell, who still
insulted him at the stake, to answer before the judgment seat of Christ;
and as that persecutor, either astonished with these events, or overcome
with remorse, or perhaps seized casually with a distemper, soon after
lost his senses, and fell into a fever, of which he died; the people
regarded Hamilton as a prophet as well as a martyr.[*]
Among the disciples converted by Hamilton, was one friar Forrest, who
became a zealous preacher; and who, though he did not openly discover
his sentiments, was suspected to lean towards the new opinions. His
diocesan, the bishop of Dunkel, enjoined him, when he met with a good
epistle or good gospel, which favored the liberties of holy church, to
preach on it, and let the rest alone. Forrest replied, that he had read
both Old and New Testament, and had not found an ill epistle or ill
gospel in any part of them. The extreme attachment to the Scriptures was
regarded, in those days, as a sure characteristic of heresy; and Forrest
was soon after brought to trial, and condemned to the flames. While the
priests were deliberating on the place of his execution, a bystander
advised them to burn him in a cellar; for that the smoke of Mr. Patrick
Hamilton had infected all those on whom it blew.[**]
* Spotswood’s Hist. of the Church of Scotland, p. 62.
** Spotswood’s Hist. of the Church of Scotland, p. 65.
The clergy were at that time reduced to great difficulties, not only
in Scotland, but all over Europe. As the reformers aimed at a total
subversion of ancient establishments, which they represented as
idolatrous, impious, detestable; the priests, who found both their
honors and properties at stake, thought that they had a right to resist,
by every expedient, these dangerous invaders, and that the same simple
principles of equity which justified a man in killing a pirate or
a robber, would acquit them for the execution of such heretics. A
toleration, though it is never acceptable to ecclesiastics, might,
they said, be admitted in other cases; but seemed an absurdity where
fundamentals were shaken, and where the possessions and even the
existence of the established clergy were brought in danger. But though
the church was thus carried by policy, as well as inclination, to kindle
the fires of persecution, they found the success of this remedy very
precarious; and observed, that the enthusiastic zeal of the reformers,
inflamed by punishment, was apt to prove contagious on the compassionate
minds of the spectators. The new doctrine, amidst all the dangers to
which it was exposed, secretly spread itself every where; and the minds
of men were gradually disposed to a revolution in religion.
But the most dangerous symptom for the clergy in Scotland was, that the
nobility, from the example of England, had cast a wishful eye on the
church revenues, and hoped, if a reformation took place, to enrich
themselves by the plunder of the ecclesiastics. James himself, who was
very poor, and was somewhat inclined to magnificence, particularly in
building, had been swayed by like motives; and began to threaten the
clergy with the same fate that had attended them in the neighboring
country. Henry also never ceased exhorting his nephew to imitate his
example; and being moved, both by the pride of making proselytes, and
the prospect of security, should Scotland embrace a close union with
him, he solicited the king of Scots to meet him at York; and he obtained
a promise to that purpose.
The ecclesiastics were alarmed at this resolution of James, and they
employed every expedient in order to prevent the execution of it. They
represented the danger of innovation; the pernicious consequences of
aggrandizing the nobility, already too powerful; the hazard of putting
himself into the hands of the English, his hereditary enemies; the
dependence on them which must ensue upon his losing the friendship of
France, and of all foreign powers. To those considerations they added
the prospect of immediate interest, by which they found the king to be
much governed: they offered him a present gratuity of fifty thousand
pounds: they promised him that the church should always be ready to
contribute to his supply: and they pointed out to him the confiscation
of heretics, as the means of filling his exchequer, and of adding
a hundred thousand pounds a year to the crown revenues.[*] The
insinuations of his new queen, to whom youth, beauty, and address had
given a powerful influence over him, seconded all these reasons; and
James was at last engaged, first to delay his journey, then to send
excuses to the king of England, who had already come to York in order to
be present at the interview.[**]
* Buchanan, lib. xiv. Drummond in Ja. V. Pitscotie, ibid.
Knox.
** Henry had sent some books, richly ornamented, to his
nephew, who, as soon as he saw by the titles, that they had
a tendency to defend the new doctrines, threw them into the
fire, in the presence of the person who brought them;
adding, it was better he should destroy them, than they him.
See Epist. Reginald Pole, part i. p. 172.
Henry, vexed with the disappointment, and enraged at the affront, vowed
vengeance against his nephew; and he began, by permitting piracies at
sea and incursions at land, to put his threats in execution. But he
received soon after, in his own family, an affront to which he was much
more sensible, and which touched him in a point where he always showed
an extreme delicacy. He had thought himself very happy in his new
marriage: the agreeable person and disposition of Catharine had
entirely captivated his affections; and he made no secret of his devoted
attachment to her. He had even publicly, in his chapel, returned solemn
thanks to Heaven for the felicity which the conjugal state afforded him;
and he directed the bishop of Lincoln to compose a form of prayer
for that purpose. But the queen’s conduct very little merited this
tenderness: one Lascelles brought intelligence of her dissolute life to
Cranmer; and told him that his sister, formerly a servant in the family
of the old duchess of Norfolk, with whom Catharine was educated, had
given him a particular account of her licentious manners. Derham and
Mannoc, both of them servants to the duchess, had been admitted to her
bed; and she had even taken little care to conceal her shame from
the other servants of the family. The primate, struck with this
intelligence, which it was equally dangerous to conceal or to discover,
communicated the matter to the earl of Hertford and to the chancellor.
They agreed, that the matter should by no means be buried in silence;
and the archbishop himself seemed the most proper person to disclose it
to the king. Cranmer, unwilling to speak on so delicate a subject, wrote
a narrative of the whole, and conveyed it to Henry, who was infinitely
astonished at the intelligence. So confident was he of the fidelity of
his consort, that at first he gave no credit to the information; and he
said to the privy-seal, to Lord Russel, high admiral, Sir Anthony Brown,
and Wriothesley, that he regarded the whole as a falsehood. Cranmer was
now in a very perilous situation; and had not full proof been found,
certain and inevitable destruction hung over him. The king’s impatience,
however, and jealousy prompted him to search the matter to the bottom;
the privy-seal was ordered to examine Lascelles, who persisted in the
information he had given; and still appealed to his sister’s testimony.
That nobleman next made a journey, under pretence of hunting, and went
to Sussex, where the woman at that time resided: he found her both
constant in her former intelligence, and particular as to the facts; and
the whole bore but too much the face of probability. Mannoc and Derham,
who were arrested at the same time, and examined by the chancellor, made
the queen’s guilt entirely certain by their confession; and discovered
other particulars, which redounded still more to her dishonor. Three
maids of the family were admitted into her secrets; and some of them
had even passed the night in bed with her and her lovers. All the
examinations were laid before the king, who was so deeply affected, that
he remained a long time speechless, and at last burst into tears. He
found to his surprise, that his great skill in distinguishing a true
maid, of which he boasted in the case of Anne of Cleves, had failed him
in that of his present consort. The queen, being next questioned,
denied her guilt; but when informed that a full discovery was made, she
confessed that she had been criminal before marriage; and only insisted
that she had never been false to the king’s bed. But as there was
evidence that one Colepepper had passed the night with her alone since
her marriage; and as it appeared that she had taken Derham, her old
paramour, into her service, she seemed to deserve little credit in this
asseveration; and the king, besides, was not of a humor to make any
difference between these degrees of guilt.
{1542.} Henry found that he could not by any means so fully or
expeditiously satiate his vengeance on all these criminals as by
assembling a parliament, the usual instrument of his tyranny. The two
houses, having received the queen’s confession, made an address to the
king. They entreated him not to be vexed with this untoward accident, to
which all men were subject; but to consider the frailty of human nature,
and the mutability of human affairs; and from these views to derive a
subject of consolation. They desired leave to pass a bill of attainder
against the queen and her accomplices; and they begged him to give his
assent to this bill, not in person, which would renew his vexation,
and might endanger his health, but by commissioners appointed for that
purpose. And as there was a law in force making it treason to speak ill
of the queen as well as of the king, they craved his royal pardon if any
of them should, on the present occasion, have transgressed any part of
the statute.
Having obtained a gracious answer to these requests, the parliament
proceeded to vote a bill of attainder for treason against the queen, and
the viscountess of Rocheford, who had conducted her secret amours; and
in this bill Colepepper and Derham were also comprehended. At the same
time they passed a bill of attainder for misprision of treason against
the old duchess of Norfolk, Catharine’s grandmother; her uncle, Lord
William Howard, and his lady, together with the countess of Bridgewater,
and nine persons more; because they knew the queen’s vicious course of
life before her marriage, and had concealed it. This was an effect of
Henry’s usual extravagance, to expect that parents should so far forget
the ties of natural affection, and the sentiments of shame and decency,
as to reveal to him the most secret disorders of their family. He
himself seems to have been sensible of the cruelty of this proceeding;
for he pardoned the duchess of Norfolk and most of the others condemned
for misprision of treason.
However, to secure himself for the future, as well as his successors,
from this fatal accident, he engaged the parliament to pass a law
somewhat extraordinary. It was enacted, that any one who knew, or
vehemently suspected, any guilt in the queen, might, within twenty days,
disclose it to the king or council, without incurring the penalty of any
former law against defaming the queen; but prohibiting every one at
the same time, from spreading the matter abroad, or even privately
whispering it to others. It was also enacted, that if the king married
any woman who had been incontinent, taking her for a true maid, she
should be guilty of treason, if she did not previously reveal her guilt
to him. The people made merry with this singular clause, and said that
the king must henceforth look out for a widow; for no reputed maid would
ever be persuaded to incur the penalty of the statute.[*] After all
these laws were passed, the queen was beheaded on Tower Hill, together
with Lady Rocheford. They behaved in a manner suitable to their
dissolute life; and as Lady Rocheford was known to be the chief
instrument in bringing Anne Boleyn to her end, she died unpitied; and
men were further confirmed, by the discovery of this woman’s guilt, in
the favorable sentiments which they had entertained of that unfortunate
queen.
The king made no demand of any subsidy from this parliament; but he
found means of enriching his exchequer from another quarter: he took
further steps towards the dissolution of colleges, hospitals, and other
foundations of that nature. The courtiers had been practising on the
presidents and governors to make a surrender of their revenues to the
king, and they had been successful with eight of them. But there was an
obstacle to their further progress: it had been provided by the local
statutes of most of these foundations, that no president, or any number
of fellows, could consent to such a deed without the unanimous vote
of all the fellows; and this vote was not easily obtained. All such
statutes were annulled by parliament; and the revenues of these houses
were now exposed to the rapacity of the king and his favorites.[**] [17]
The Church had been so long their prey, that nobody was surprised at any
new inroads made upon her. From the regular, Henry now proceeded to make
devastations on the secular clergy. He extorted from many of the bishops
a surrender of chapter lands; and by this device he pillaged the sees
of Canterbury, York, and London, and enriched his greedy parasites and
flatterers with their spoils.
* Burnet, vol. i. p. 314.
** See note Q, at the end of the volume.
The clergy have been commonly so fortunate as to make a concern for
their temporal interests go hand in hand with a jealousy for orthodoxy;
and both these passions be regarded by the people, ignorant and
superstitious, as proofs of zeal for religion: but the violent and
headstrong character of Henry now disjoined these objects. His rapacity
was gratified by plundering the church, his bigotry and arrogance by
persecuting heretics. Though he engaged the parliament to mitigate
the penalties of the six articles, so far as regards the marriage
of priests, which was now only subjected to a forfeiture of goods,
chattels, and lands during life, he was still equally bent on
maintaining a rigid purity in speculative principles. He had appointed
a commission, consisting of the two archbishops and several bishops
of both provinces, together with a considerable number of doctors of
divinity; and by virtue of his ecclesiastical supremacy, he had
given them in charge to choose a religion for his people. Before the
commissioners had made any progress in this arduous undertaking, the
parliament, in 1541, had passed a law by which they ratified all the
tenets which these divines should thereafter establish with the king’s
consent: and they were not ashamed of thus expressly declaring that they
took their religion upon trust, and had no other rule, in spiritual
as well as temporal concerns, than the arbitrary will of their master.
There is only one clause of the statute which may seem at first sight
to savor somewhat of the spirit of liberty: it was enacted, that the
ecclesiastical commissioners should establish nothing repugnant to the
laws and statutes of the realm. But in reality this proviso was inserted
by the king to serve his own purposes. By introducing a confusion and
contradiction into the laws, he became more master of every one’s life
and property. And as the ancient independence of the church still gave
him jealousy, he was well pleased, undercover of such a clause, to
introduce appeals from the spiritual to the civil courts. It was for a
like reason that he would never promulgate a body of canon law; and he
encouraged the judges on all occasions to interpose in ecclesiastical
causes, wherever they thought the law of royal prerogative concerned; a
happy innovation, though at first invented for arbitrary purposes.
The king, armed by the authority of parliament, or rather by their
acknowledgment of that spiritual supremacy which he believed inherent
in him, employed his commissioners to select a system of tenets for
the assent and belief of the nation. A small volume was soon after
published, called the Institution of a Christian Man, which was received
by the convocation, and voted to be the standard of orthodoxy. All the
delicate points of justification, faith, free will, good works, and
grace, are there defined, with a leaning towards the opinion of the
reformers: the sacraments, which a few years before were only allowed to
be three, were now increased to the number of seven, conformable to
the sentiments of the Catholics. The king’s caprice is discernible
throughout the whole; and the book is in reality to be regarded as his
composition. For Henry while he made his opinion a rule for the nation,
would tie his own hands by no canon or authority, not even by any which
he himself had formerly established.
The people had occasion soon after to see a further instance of the
king’s inconstancy. He was not long satisfied with his Institution of
a Christian Man: he ordered a new book to be composed, called the
Erudition of a Christian Man; and without asking the assent of the
convocation, he published, by his own authority and that of the
parliament, this new model of orthodoxy. It differs from the
Institution;[*] but the king was no less positive in his new creed than
he had been in the old; and he required the belief of the nation to veer
about at his signal. In both these compositions, he was particularly
careful to inculcate the doctrine of passive obedience; and he was
equally careful to retain the nation in the practice.
While the king was spreading his own books among the people, he seems to
have been extremely perplexed, as were also the clergy, what course to
take with the Scriptures. A review had been made by the synod of the
new translation of the Bible; and Gardiner had proposed that, instead
of employing English expressions throughout, several Latin words should
still be preserved; because they contained, as he pretended, such
peculiar energy and significance, that they had no correspondent terms
in the vulgar tongue.[**] Among these were “ecclesia, poenitentia,
pontifex, contritus, holocausta, sacramentum, elementa, ceremonia,
mysterium, presbyter, sacrificium, humilitas, satisfactio, peccatum,
gratia, hostia, charitos,” etc. But as this mixture would have appeared
extremely barbarous, and was plainly calculated for no other purpose
than to retain the people in their ancient ignorance, the proposal
was rejected. The knowledge of the people, however, at least their
disputative turn, seemed to be an inconvenience still more dangerous;
and the king and parliament,[***] soon after the publication of the
Scriptures retracted the concession which they had formerly made; and
prohibited all but gentlemen and merchants from perusing them[****].
* Collier, vol. ii. p. 190.
** Burnet, vol. i. p. 315.
*** Which met on the 22d of January, 1543.
**** 33 Henry VIII. c 1. The reading of the Bible, however,
could not at that time have much effect in England, where so
few persons had learned to read. There were but five hundred
copies printed of this first authorized edition of the
Bible; a book of which there are now several millions of
copies in the kingdom.
Even that liberty was not granted without an apparent hesitation, and a
dread of the consequences: these persons were allowed to read, “so it
be done quietly and with good order.” And the preamble to the act sets
forth “that many seditious and ignorant persons had abused the liberty
granted them of reading the Bible, and that great diversity of opinion,
animosities, tumults, and schisms had been occasioned by perverting
the sense of the Scriptures.” It seemed very difficult to reconcile the
king’s model for uniformity with the permission of free inquiry.
The mass book also passed under the king’s revisal; and little
alteration was as yet made in it: some doubtful or fictious saints
only were struck out; and the name of the pope was erased. This latter
precaution was likewise used with regard to every new book that was
printed, or even old book that was sold. The word “pope” was carefully
omitted or blotted out;[*] as if that precaution could abolish the term
from the language, or as if such a persecution of it did not rather
imprint it more strongly in the memory of the people.
The king took care about this time to clear the churches from another
abuse which had crept into them. Plays, interludes, and farces were
there often acted in derision of the former superstitions; and the
reverence of the multitude for ancient principles and modes of worship
was thereby gradually effaced.[**] We do not hear that the Catholics
attempted to retaliate by employing this powerful engine against their
adversaries, or endeavored by like arts to expose that fanatical spirit
by which it appears the reformers were frequently actuated. Perhaps
the people were not disposed to relish a jest on that side: perhaps
the greater simplicity and the more spiritual abstract worship of the
Protestants gave less hold to ridicule, which is commonly founded on
sensible representations. It was, therefore, a very agreeable concession
which the king made to the Catholic party, to suppress entirely these
religious comedies.
* Parl. Hist. vol. iii. p. 113.
** Burnet, vol. i p. 318.
Thus Henry labored incessantly by arguments, creeds, and penal statutes,
to bring his subjects to a uniformity in their religious sentiments:
but as he entered himself with the greatest earnestness into all those
scholastic disputes, he encouraged the people by his example to apply
themselves to the study of theology; and it was in vain afterwards to
expect, however present fear might restrain their tongues or pens, that
they would cordially agree in any set of tenets or opinions prescribed
to them.