being in young age or infants, whereby the cure is not substantially looked
into, nor the parishioners taught as they should be; we reply to this that
the thing which is not lawful in others is in spiritual men more
detestable. Benefices should be disposed of not _secundum carnem et
sanguinem, sed secundum merita_. And when there is a default it is not
authorised by the clergy as good, but reproved; whereupon in this the
clergy is not to be blamed, but the default as it may appear must be laid
to particular men.
"And where they say that we take the profit of such benefices for the time
of the minority of our said kinsfolk, if it be done to our own use and
profit it is not well; _if it be bestowed to the bringing up and use of the
same parties_, or applied to the maintenance of the church and God's
service, or distributed among the poor, we do not see but that it may be
allowed.
"Item where they say that divers and many spiritual persons, not contented
with the convenient livings and promotions of the church, daily intromit
and exercise themselves in secular offices and rooms, as stewards,
receivers, auditors, bailiffs, and other temporal occupations, withdrawing
themselves from the good contemplative lives that they have professed, not
only to the damage but also to the perilous example of your loving and
obedient subjects; to this we your bedesmen answer that beneficed men may
lawfully be stewards and receivers to their own bishops, as it evidently
appeareth in the laws of the church; and we by the same laws ought to have
no other. And as for priests to be auditors and bailiffs, we know none
such.
"And where, finally, they, in the conclusion of their supplication, do
repeat and say that forasmuch as there is at this present time, and by a
few years past hath been much misdemeanour and violence upon the one part,
and much default and lack of patience, charity, and good will on the other
part; and marvellous discord in consequence of the quiet, peace, and
tranquillity in which this your realm hath been ever hitherto preserved
through your politic wisdom:
"To the first part as touching such discord as is reported, and also the
misdemeanour which is imputed to us and our doings, we trust we have
sufficiently answered the same, humbly beseeching your Grace so to esteem
and weigh such answer with their supplication as shall be thought good and
expedient by your high wisdom. Furthermore we ascertain your Grace as
touching the violence which they seem to lay to our charge, albeit divers
of the clergy of this your realm have sundry times been _rigorously
handled, and with much violence entreated by certain ill-disposed and
seditious persons of the lay fee, have been injured in their bodies, thrown
down in the kennel in the open_ _streets at mid-day_, even here within your
city and elsewhere, to the great rebuke and disquietness of the clergy of
your realm, the great danger of the souls of the said misdoers, and
perilous example of your subjects. Yet we think verily, and do affirm the
same, that no violence hath been so used on our behalf towards your said
lay subjects in any case; unless they esteem this to be violence that we do
use as well for the health of their souls as for the discharge of our
duties in taking, examining, and punishing heretics according to the law:
wherein we doubt not but that your Grace, and divers of your Grace's
subjects, do understand well what charitable entreaty we have used with
such as have been before us for the same cause of heresy; and what means we
have devised and studied for safeguard specially of their souls; and that
charitably, as God be our judge, and without violence as [far as] we could
possibly devise. In execution thereof, and also of the laws of the church
for repression of sin, and also for reformation of mislivers, it hath been
to our great comfort that your Grace hath herein of your goodness, assisted
and aided us in this behalf for the zeal and love which your Grace beareth
to God's church and to His ministers; especially in defence of His faith
whereof your Grace only and most worthily amongst all Christian princes
beareth the title and name. And for that marvellous discord and grudge
among your subjects as is reported in the supplication of your Commons, we
beseech your Majesty, all the premises considered, to repress those that be
misdoers; protesting in our behalf that we ourselves have no grudge nor
displeasure towards your lay subjects our ghostly children. We intreat your
Grace of your accustomed goodness to us your bedemen to continue our chief
protector, defender, and aider in and for the execution of our office and
duty; specially touching repression of heresy, reformation of sin, and due
behaviour and order of all your Grace's subjects, spiritual and temporal;
which (no doubt thereof) shall be much to the pleasure of God, great
comfort to men's souls, quietness and unity of all your realm; and, as we
think, most principally to the great comfort of your Grace's Majesty. Which
we beseech lowly upon our knees, so entirely as we can, to be the author of
unity, charity, and concord as above, for whose preservation we do and
shall continually pray to Almighty God long to reign and prosper in most
honourable estate to his pleasure."
This was the bishops' defence; the best which, under the circumstances,
they considered themselves capable of making. The House of Commons had
stated their complaints in the form of special notorious facts; the bishops
replied with urging the theory of their position, and supposed that they
could relieve the ecclesiastical system from the faults of its ministers,
by laying the sole blame on the unworthiness of individual persons. The
degenerate representatives of a once noble institution could not perhaps be
expected to admit their degeneracy, and confess themselves, as they really
were, collectively incompetent; yet the defence which they brought forward
would have been valid only so long as the blemishes were the rare
exceptions in the working of an institution which was still generally
beneficent. It was no defence at all when the faults had become the rule,
and when there was no security in the system itself for the selection of
worth and capacity to exercise its functions. The clergy, as I have already
said, claimed the privileges of saints, while their conduct fell below the
standard of that of ordinary men; and the position taken in this answer was
tenable only on the hypothesis which it, in fact, deliberately asserted,
that the judicial authority of the church had been committed to it by God
Himself; and that no misconduct of its ministers in detail could forfeit
their claims or justify resistance to them.
There is something touching in the bishops' evidently sincere
unconsciousness that there could be real room for blame. Warham, who had
been Archbishop of Canterbury thirty years, took credit to himself for the
reforms which, under the pressure of public opinion, he had introduced, in
the last few weeks or months; and did not know that in doing so he had
passed sentence on a life of neglect. In the opinion of the entire bench no
infamy, however notorious, could shake the testimony of a witness in a case
of heresy; no cruelty was unjust when there was suspicion of so horrible a
crime; while the appointment of minors to church benefices (not to press
more closely the edge of the accusation) they admitted while they affected
to deny it; since they were not ashamed to defend the appropriation of the
proceeds of benefices occupied by such persons, if laid out on the
education and maintenance of the minors themselves.
Yet these things were as nothing in comparison with the powers claimed for
convocation; and the prelates of the later years of Henry's reign must have
looked back with strange sensations at the language which their
predecessors had so simply addressed to him. If the canons which
convocation might think good to enact were not consistent with the laws of
the Realm, "His Majesty" was desired to produce the wished-for uniformity
by altering the laws of the Realm; and although the bishops might not
submit their laws to His Majesty's approval, they would be happy, they told
him, to consider such suggestions as he might think proper to make. The
spirit of the Plantagenets must have slumbered long before such words as
these could have been addressed to an English sovereign, and little did the
bishops dream that these light words were the spell which would burst the
charm, and bid that spirit wake again in all its power and terror.
The House of Commons in the mean time had not been idle. To them the
questions at issue were unincumbered with theoretic difficulties. Enormous
abuses had been long ripe for dissolution, and there was no occasion to
waste time in unnecessary debates. At such a time, with a House practically
unanimous, business could be rapidly transacted, the more rapidly indeed in
proportion to its importance. In six weeks, for so long only the session
lasted, the astonished church authorities saw bill after bill hurried up
before the Lords, by which successively the pleasant fountains of their
incomes would be dried up to flow no longer; or would flow only in shallow
rivulets along the beds of the once abundant torrents, The jurisdiction of
the spiritual courts was not immediately curtailed, and the authority which
was in future to be permitted to convocation lay over for further
consideration, to be dealt with in another manner. But probate duties and
legacy duties, hitherto assessed at discretion, were dwarfed into fixed
proportions,[238] not to touch the poorer laity any more, and bearing even
upon wealth with a reserved and gentle hand. Mortuaries were shorn of their
luxuriance; when effects were small, no mortuary should be required; when
large, the clergy should content themselves with a modest share. No velvet
cloaks should be stripped any more from strangers' bodies to save them from
a rector's grasp;[239] no shameful battles with apparitors should disturb
any more the recent rest of the dead.[240] Such sums as the law would
permit should be paid thenceforward in the form of decent funeral fees for
householders dying in their own parishes, and there the exactions should
terminate.[241]
The carelessness of the bishops in the discharge of their most immediate
duties obliged the legislature to trespass also in the provinces purely
spiritual, and undertake the discipline of the clergy. The Commons had
complained in their petition that the clergy, instead of attending to their
duties, were acting as auditors, bailiffs, stewards, or in other
capacities, as laymen; they were engaged in trade also, in farming, in
tanning, in brewing, in doing anything but the duties which they were paid
for doing; while they purchased dispensations for non-residence on their
benefices; and of these benefices, in favoured cases, single priests held
as many as eight or nine. It was thought unnecessary to wait for the
bishops' pleasure to apply a remedy here. If the clergy were unjustly
accused of these offences, a law of general prohibition would not touch
them. If the belief of the House of Commons was well founded, there was no
occasion for longer delay. It was therefore enacted[242]--"for the more
quiet and virtuous increase and maintenance of divine service, the
preaching and teaching the Word of God with godly and good example, for the
better discharge of cures, the maintenance of hospitality, the relief of
poor people, the increase of devotion and good opinion of the lay fee
towards spiritual persons"--that no such persons thenceforward should take
any land to farm beyond what was necessary, _bonâ fide_, for the support of
their own households; that they should not buy merchandise to sell again;
that they should keep no tanneries or brewhouses, or otherwise directly or
indirectly trade for gain. Pluralities were not to be permitted with
benefices above the yearly value of eight pounds, and residence was made
obligatory under penalty in cases of absence without special reason, of ten
pounds for each month of such absence. The law against pluralities was
limited as against existing holders, each of whom, for their natural lives,
might continue to hold as many as four benefices. But dispensations, either
for non-residence or for the violation of any other provision of the act,
were made penal in a high degree, whether obtained from the bishops or from
the court of Rome.
These bills struck hard and struck home. Yet even persons who most
disapprove of the Reformation will not at the present time either wonder at
their enactment or complain of their severity. They will be desirous rather
to disentangle their doctrine from suspicious connection, and will not be
anxious to compromise their theology by the defence of unworthy professors
of it.
The bishops, however, could ill tolerate an interference with the
privileges of the ecclesiastical order. The Commons, it was exclaimed, were
heretics and schismatics;[243] the cry was heard everywhere, of Lack of
faith, Lack of faith; and the lay peers being constitutionally
conservative, and perhaps instinctively apprehensive of the infectious
tendencies of innovation, it seemed likely for a time that an effective
opposition might be raised in the Upper House. The clergy commanded an
actual majority in that House from their own body, which they might employ
if they dared; and although they were not likely to venture alone on so
bold a measure, yet a partial support from the other members was a
sufficient encouragement. The aged Bishop of Rochester was made the
spokesman of the ecclesiastics on this occasion. "My Lords," he said, "you
see daily what bills come hither from the Commons House, and all is to the
destruction of the church. For God's sake see what a realm the kingdom of
Bohemia was; and when the church went down, then fell the glory of that
kingdom. Now with the Commons is nothing but Down with the church, and all
this meseemeth is for lack of faith only."[244] "In result," says Hall,
"the acts were sore debated; the Lords Spiritual would in no wise consent,
and committees of the two Houses sate continually for discussion." The
spiritualty defended themselves by prescription and usage, to which a
Gray's Inn lawyer something insolently answered, on one occasion, "the
usage hath ever been of thieves to rob on Shooter's Hill, _ergo_, it is
lawful." "With this answer," continues Hall, "the spiritual men were sore
offended because their doings were called robberies, but the temporal men
stood by their sayings, insomuch that the said gentlemen declared to the
Archbishop of Canterbury, that both the exaction of probates of testaments
and the taking of mortuaries were open robbery and thefts."
At length, people out of doors growing impatient, and dangerous symptoms
threatening to show themselves, the king summoned a meeting in the
Star-chamber between eight members of both Houses. The lay peers, after
some discussion, conclusively gave way; and the bishops, left without
support, were obliged to yield. They signified their unwilling consent, and
the bills, "somewhat qualified," were the next day agreed to--"to the great
rejoicing of the lay people, and the great displeasure of the spiritual
persons."[245]
Nor were the House of Commons contented with the substance of victory. The
reply to their petition had perhaps by that time been made known to them,
and at any rate they had been accused of sympathy with heresy, and they
would not submit to the hateful charge without exacting revenge. The more
clamorous of the clergy out of doors were punished probably by the stocks;
from among their opponents in the Upper House, Fisher was selected for
special and signal humiliation. The words of which he had made use were
truer than the Commons knew; perhaps the latent truth of them was the
secret cause of the pain which they inflicted; but the special anxiety of
the English reformers was to disconnect themselves, with marked emphasis,
from the movement in Germany, and they determined to compel the offending
bishop to withdraw his words.
They sent the speaker, Sir Thomas Audeley, to the king, who "very
eloquently declared what dishonour it was to his Majesty and the realm,
that they which were elected for the wisest men in the shires, cities, and
boroughs within the realm of England, should be declared in so noble a
presence to lack faith." It was equivalent to saying "that they were
infidels, and no Christians--as ill as Turks and Saracens." Wherefore he
"most humbly besought the King's Highness to call the said bishop before
him, and to cause him to speak more discreetly of such a number as was in
the Commons House."[246] Henry consented to their request, it is likely
with no great difficulty, and availed himself of the opportunity to read a
lesson much needed to the remainder of the bench. He sent for Fisher, and
with him for the Archbishop of Canterbury, and for six other bishops. The
speaker's message was laid before them, and they were asked what they had
to say. It would have been well for the weak trembling old men if they
could have repeated what they believed and had maintained their right to
believe it. Bold conduct is ever the most safe; it is fatal only when there
is courage but for the first step, and fails when a second is required to
support it. But they were forsaken in their hour of calamity, not by
courage only, but by prudence, by judgment, by conscience itself. The
Bishop of Rochester stooped to an equivocation too transparent to deceive
any one; he said that "he meant only the doings of the Bohemians were for
lack of faith, and not the doings of the Commons House"--"which saying was
confirmed by the bishops present." The king allowed the excuse, and the
bishops were dismissed; but they were dismissed into ignominy, and
thenceforward, in all Henry's dealings with them, they were treated with
contemptuous disrespect. For Fisher himself we must feel only sorrow. After
seventy-six years of a useful and honourable life, which he might have
hoped to close in a quiet haven, he was launched suddenly upon stormy
waters, to which he was too brave to yield, which he was too timid to
contend against; and the frail vessel drifting where the waves drove it,
was soon piteously to perish.
Thus triumphant on every side, the parliament, in the middle of December,
closed its session, and lay England celebrated its exploits as a national
victory. "The king removed to Greenwich, and there kept his Christmas with
the queen with great triumph, with great plenty of viands, and disguisings,
and interludes, to the great rejoicing of his people;"[247] the members of
the House of Commons, we may well believe, following the royal example in
town and country, and being the little heroes of the day. Only the bishops
carried home sad hearts within them, to mourn over the perils of the church
and the impending end of all things; Fisher, unhappily for himself, to
listen to the wailings of the Nun of Kent, and to totter slowly into
treason.
Here, for the present leaving the clergy to meditate on their future, and
reconsider the wisdom of their answer to the king respecting the
ecclesiastical jurisdiction (a point on which they were not the less
certain to be pressed, because the process upon it was temporarily
suspended), we must turn to the more painful matter which, for a time
longer, ran parallel with the domestic reformation, and as yet was unable
to unite with it. After the departure of Campeggio, the further hearing of
the divorce cause had been advoked to Rome, where it was impossible for
Henry to consent to plead; while the appearance of the supposed brief had
opened avenues of new difficulty which left no hope of a decision within
the limits of an ordinary lifetime. Henry was still, however, extremely
reluctant[248] to proceed to extremities, and appeal to the parliament. He
had threatened that he would tolerate no delay, and Wolsey had evidently
expected that he would not. Queen Catherine's alarm had gone so far, that
in the autumn she had procured an injunction from the pope, which had been
posted in the churches of Flanders, menacing the king with spiritual
censures if he took any further steps.[249] Even this she feared that he
would disregard, and in March, 1529-30, a second inhibition was issued at
her request, couched in still stronger language.[250] But these measures
were needless, or at least premature. Henry expected that the display of
temper in the country in the late session would produce an effect both on
the pope and on the emperor; and proposing to send an embassy to
remonstrate jointly with them on the occasion of the emperor's coronation,
which was to take place in the spring at Bologna, he had recourse in the
mean time to an expedient which, though blemished in the execution, was
itself reasonable and prudent.
Among the many _technical_ questions which had been raised upon the
divorce, the most serious was on the validity of the original dispensation;
a question not only on the sufficiency of the form the defects of which the
brief had been invented to remedy; but on the more comprehensive
uncertainty whether Pope Julius had not exceeded his powers altogether in
granting a dispensation where there was so close affinity. No one supposed
that the pope could permit a brother to marry a sister; a dispensation
granted in such a case would be _ipso facto_ void.--Was not the
dispensation similarly void which permitted the marriage of a brother's
widow? The advantage which Henry expected from raising this difficulty was
the transfer of judgment from the partial tribunal of Clement to a broader
court. The pope could not, of course, adjudicate on the extent of his own
powers; especially as he always declared himself to be ignorant of the law;
and the decision of so general a question rested either with a general
council, or must be determined by the consent of Christendom, obtained in
some other manner. If such general consent declared against the pope, the
cause was virtually terminated. If there was some approach to a consent
against him, or even if there was general uncertainty, Henry had a legal
pretext for declining his jurisdiction, and appealing to a council.
Thomas Cranmer, then a doctor of divinity at Cambridge,[251] is said to
have been the person who suggested this ingenious expedient, and to have
advised the king, as the simplest means of carrying it out, to consult in
detail the universities and learned men throughout Europe. His notorious
activity in collecting the opinions may have easily connected him with the
origination of the plan, which probably occurred to many other persons as
well as to him; but whoever was the first adviser, it was immediately acted
upon, and English agents were despatched into Germany, Italy, and France,
carrying with them all means of persuasion, intellectual, moral, and
material, which promised to be of most cogent potency with lawyers'
convictions.
This matter was in full activity when the Earl of Wiltshire, Anne Boleyn's
father, with Cranmer, the Bishop of London, and Edward Lee, afterwards
Archbishop of York, was despatched to Bologna to lay Henry's remonstrances
before the emperor, who was come at last in person to enjoy his miserable
triumph, and receive from the pope the imperial crown. Sir Nicholas Carew,
who had been sent forward a few weeks previously, described in piteous
language the state to which Italy had been reduced by him. Passing through
Pavia, the English emissary saw the children crying about the streets for
bread, and dying of hunger; the grapes in midwinter rotting on the vines,
because there was no one to gather them; and for fifty miles scarcely a
single creature, man or woman, in the fields. "They say," added Carew, "and
the pope also showed us the same, that the whole people of that country,
with divers other places in Italia, with war, famine, and pestilence, are
utterly dead and gone."[252] Such had been the combined work of the vanity
of Francis and the cold selfishness of Charles; and now the latter had
arrived amidst the ruins which he had made, to receive his crown from the
hands of a pope who was true to Italy, if false to all the world besides,
and whom, but two years before, he had imprisoned and disgraced. We think
of Clement as the creature of the emperor, and such substantially he
allowed himself to be; but his obedience was the obedience of fear to a
master whom he hated, and the bishop of Tarbès, who was present at the
coronation, and stood at his side through the ceremony, saw him trembling
under his robes with emotion, and heard him sigh bitterly.[253] Very
unwillingly, we may be assured, he was compelled to act his vacillating
part to England, and England, at this distance of time, may forgive him for
faults to which she owes her freedom, and need not refuse him some tribute
of sympathy in his sorrows.
Fallen on evil times, which greater wisdom and greater courage than had for
many a century been found in the successors of St. Peter would have failed
to encounter successfully, Clement VII. remained, with all his cowardice, a
true Italian; his errors were the errors of his age and nation, and were
softened by the presence, in more than usual measure, of Italian genius and
grace. Benvenuto Cellini, who describes his character with much minuteness,
has left us a picture of a hot-tempered, but genuine and kind-hearted man,
whose taste was elegant, and whose wit, from the playful spirit with which
it was pervaded, and from a certain tendency to innocent levity, approached
to humour. He was liable to violent bursts of feeling; and his inability to
control himself, his gesticulations, his exclamations, and his tears, all
represent to us a person who was an indifferent master of the tricks of
dissimulation to which he was reduced, and whose weakness entitles him to
pity, if not to respect. The papacy had fallen to him at the crisis of its
deepest degradation. It existed as a politically organised institution,
which it was convenient to maintain, but from which the private hearts of
all men had fallen away; and it depended for its very life upon the support
which the courts of Europe would condescend to extend to it. Among these
governments, therefore, distracted as they were by mutual hostility, the
pope was compelled to make his choice; and the fatality of his position
condemned him to quarrel with the only prince on whom, at the outset of
these complications, he had a right to depend.
In 1512, France had been on the point of declaring her religious
independence; and as late as 1525, Francis entertained thoughts of offering
the patriarchate to Wolsey.[254] Charles V., postponing his religious
devotion for the leisure of old age, had reserved the choice of his party,
to watch events and to wait upon opportunity; while, from his singular
position, he wielded in one hand the power of Catholic Spain, in the other
that of Protestant Germany, ready to strike with either, as occasion or
necessity recommended. If his Spaniards had annexed the New World to the
papacy, his German lanzknechts had stormed the Holy City, murdered
cardinals, and outraged the pope's person: while both Charles and Francis,
alike caring exclusively for their private interests, had allowed the Turks
to overrun Hungary, to conquer Rhodes, and to collect an armament at
Constantinople so formidable as to threaten Italy itself, and the very
Christian faith. Henry alone had shown hitherto a true feeling for
religion; Henry had made war with Louis XII. solely in the pope's quarrel;
Henry had broken an old alliance with the emperor to revenge the capture of
Rome, and had won Francis back to his allegiance. To Henry, if to any one,
the Roman bishop had a right to look with confidence. But the power of
England was far off, and could not reach to Rome. Francis had been baffled
and defeated, his armies destroyed, his political influence in the
Peninsula annihilated. The practical choice which remained to Clement lay
only, as it seemed, between the emperor and martyrdom; and having, perhaps,
a desire for the nobler alternative, yet being without the power to choose
it, his wishes and his conduct, his words to private persons and his open
actions before the world, were in perpetual contradiction. He submitted
while his heart revolted; and while at Charles's dictation he was
threatening Henry with excommunication if he proceeded further with his
divorce, he was able at that very time to say, in confidence, to the Bishop
of Tarbès, that he would be well contented if the King of England would
marry on his own responsibility, availing himself of any means which he
might possess among his own people, so only that he himself was not
committed to a consent or the privileges of the papacy were not trenched
upon.[255]
Two years later, when the course which the pope would really pursue under
such circumstances was of smaller importance, Henry gave him an opportunity
of proving the sincerity of this language; and the result was such as he
expected it to be. As yet, however, he had not relinquished the hope of
succeeding by a more open course.
In March, 1529-30, the English ambassadors appeared at Bologna. Their
instructions were honest, manly, and straightforward. They were directed to
explain, _ab initio_, the grounds of the king's proceedings, and to appeal
to the emperor's understanding of the obligations of princes. Full
restitution was to be offered of Catherine's dowry, and the Earl of
Wiltshire was provided with letters of credit adequate to the amount.[256]
If these proposals were not accepted, they were to assume a more peremptory
tone, and threaten the alienation of England; and if menaces were equally
ineffectual, they were to declare that Henry, having done all which lay
within his power to effect his purpose with the goodwill of his friends,
since he could not do as he would, must now do as he could, and discharge
his conscience. If the emperor should pretend that he would "abide the law,
and would defer to the pope," they were to say, "that the sacking of Rome
by the Spaniards and Germans had so discouraged the pope and cardinals,
that they feared for body and goods," and had ceased to be free agents; and
concluding finally that the king would fear God rather than man, and would
rely on comfort from the Saviour against those who abused their authority,
they were then to withdraw.[257] The tone of the directions was not
sanguine, and the political complications of Europe, on which the emperor's
reply must more or less have depended, were too involved to allow us to
trace the influences which were likely to have weighed with him. There
seems no primâ facie reason, however, why the attempt might not have been
successful. The revolutionary intrigues in England had decisively failed,
and the natural sympathy of princes, and a desire to detach Henry from
Francis, must have combined to recommend a return of the old cordiality
which had so long existed between the sovereigns of England and Flanders.
But whatever was the cause, the opening interview assured the Earl of
Wiltshire that he had nothing to look for. He was received with distant
courtesy; but Charles at once objected even to hearing his instructions, as
an interested party.[258] The earl replied that he stood there, not as the
father of the queen's rival, but as the representative of his sovereign;
but the objection declared the attitude which Charles was resolved to
maintain, and which, in fact, he maintained throughout. "The emperor,"
wrote Lord Wiltshire to Henry, "is stiffly bent against your Grace's
matter, and is most earnest in it; while the pope is led by the emperor,
and neither will nor dare displease him."[259] From that quarter, so long
as parties remained in their existing attitude, there was no hope. It seems
to have been hinted, indeed, that if war broke out again between Charles
and Francis, something might be done as the price of Henry's surrendering
the French alliance;[260] but the suggestion, if it was made, was probably
ironical; and as Charles was unquestionably acting against his interest in
rejecting the English overtures, it is fair to give him credit for having
acted on this one occasion of his life, upon generous motives. A respectful
compliment was paid to his conduct by Henry himself in the reproaches which
he addressed to the pope.[261]
So terminated the first and the last overture on this subject which Henry
attempted with Charles V. The ambassadors remained but a few days at
Bologna, and then discharged their commission and returned. The pope,
however, had played his part with remarkable skill, and by finessing
dexterously behind the scenes, had contrived to prevent the precipitation
of a rupture with himself. His simple and single wish was to gain time,
trusting to accident or Providence to deliver him from his dilemma. On the
one hand, he yielded to the emperor in refusing to consent to Henry's
demand; on the other, he availed himself of all the intricacies to parry
Catherine's demand for a judgment in her favour. He even seemed to part
with the emperor on doubtful terms. "The latter," said the Bishop of
Tarbès,[262] "before leaving Bologna, desired his Holiness to place two
cardinals' hats at his disposal, to enable him to reward certain services."
His Holiness ventured to refuse. During his imprisonment, he said he had
been compelled to nominate several persons for that office whose conduct
had been a disgrace to their rank; and when the emperor denied his orders,
the pope declared that he had seen them. The cardinals' hats, therefore,
should be granted only when they were deserved, "when the Lutherans in
Germany had been reduced to obedience, and Hungary had been recovered from
the Turks." If this was acting, it was skilfully managed, and it deceived
the eyes of the French ambassador.
Still further to gratify Henry, the pope made a public declaration with
respect to the dispute which had arisen on the extent of his authority,
desiring, or professing to desire, that all persons whatever throughout
Italy should be free to express their opinions without fear of incurring
his displeasure. This declaration, had it been honestly meant, would have
been creditable to Clement's courage: unfortunately for his reputation, his
outward and his secret actions seldom corresponded, and the emperor's
agents were observed to use very dissimilar language in his name. The
double policy, nevertheless, was still followed to secure delay. Delay was
his sole aim,--either that Catherine's death, or his own, or Henry's, or
some relenting in one or other of the two princes who held their minatory
arms extended over him, might spare himself and the church the calamity of
a decision. For to the church any decision was fatal. If he declared for
Charles, England would fall from it; if for Henry, Germany and Flanders
were lost irrecoverably, and Spain itself might follow. His one hope was to
procrastinate; and in this policy of hesitation for two more years he
succeeded, till at length the patience of Henry and of England was worn
out, and all was ended. When the emperor required sentence to be passed, he
pretended to be about to yield; and at the last moment, some technical
difficulty ever interfered to make a decision impossible. When Henry was
cited to appear at Rome, a point of law was raised upon the privilege of
kings, threatening to open into other points of law, and so to multiply to
infinity. The pope, indeed, finding his own ends so well answered by
evasion, imagined that it would answer equally those of the English nation,
and he declared to Henry's secretary that "if the King of England would
send a mandate ad totam causam, then if his Highness would, there might be
given so many delays by reason of matters which his Highness might lay in,
and the remissorials that his Grace might ask, ad partes, that peradventure
in ten years or longer a sentence should not be given."[263] In point of
worldly prudence, his conduct was unexceptionably wise; but something
beyond worldly prudence was demanded of a tribunal which claimed to be
inspired by the Holy Ghost.
The dreary details of the negotiations I have no intention of pursuing.
They are of no interest to any one,--a miserable tissue of insincerity on
one side, and hesitating uncertainty on the other. There is no occasion for
us to weary ourselves with the ineffectual efforts to postpone an issue
which was sooner or later inevitable.
I may not pass over in similar silence another unpleasant episode in this
business,--the execution of Cranmer's project for collecting the sentiments
of Europe on the pope's dispensing power. The details of this transaction
are not wearying only, but scandalous; and while the substantial justice of
Henry's cause is a reason for deploring the means to which he allowed
himself to be driven in pursuing it, we may not permit ourselves either to
palliate those means or to conceal them. The project seemed a simple one,
and likely to be effective and useful. Unhappily, the appeal was still to
ecclesiastics, to a body of men who were characterised throughout Europe by
a universal absence of integrity, who were incapable of pronouncing an
honest judgment, and who courted intimidation and bribery by the readiness
with which they submitted to be influenced by them. Corruption was resorted
to on all sides with the most lavish unscrupulousness, and the result
arrived at was general discredit to all parties, and a conclusion which
added but one more circle to the labyrinth of perplexities. Croke,[264] a
Doctors' Commons lawyer, who was employed in Italy, described the state of
feeling in the peninsula as generally in Henry's favour; and he said that
he could have secured an all but universal consent, except for the secret
intrigues of the Spanish agents, and their open direct menaces, when
intrigue was insufficient. He complained bitterly of the treachery of the
Italians who were in the English pay; the two Cassalis, Pallavicino, and
Ghinucci, the Bishop of Worcester. These men, he said, were betraying Henry
when they were pretending to serve him, and were playing secretly into the
hands of the emperor.[265] His private despatches were intercepted, or the
contents of them by some means were discovered; for the persons whom he
named as inclining against the papal claims, became marked at once for
persecution. One of them, a Carmelite friar, was summoned before the
Cardinal Governor of Bologna, and threatened with death;[266] and a certain
Father Omnibow, a Venetian who had been in active co-operation with Dr.
Croke, wrote himself to Henry, informing him in a very graphic manner of
the treatment to which, by some treachery, he had been exposed. Croke and
Omnibow were sitting one morning in the latter's cell, "when there entered
upon them the emperor's great ambassador, accompanied with many gentlemen
of Spain, and demanded of the Father how he durst be so bold to take upon
him to intermeddle in so great and weighty a matter, the which did not only
lessen and enervate the pope's authority, but was noyful and odious to all
Realms Christened."[267] Omnibow being a man of some influence in Venice,
the ambassador warned him on peril of his life to deal no further with such
things: there was not the slightest chance that the King of England could
obtain a decision in his favour, because the question had been placed in
the hands of six cardinals who were all devoted to the emperor: the pope,
it was sternly added, had been made aware of his conduct, and was
exceedingly displeased, and the general[268] of his order had at the same
time issued an injunction, warning all members to desist at their peril
from intercourse with the English agents. The Spanish party held themselves
justified in resorting to intimidation to defend themselves against English
money; the English may have excused their use of money as a defence against
Spanish intimidation; and each probably had recourse to their several
methods prior to experience of the proceedings of their adversaries, from a
certain expectation of what those proceedings would be. Substantially, the
opposite manoeuvres neutralised each other, and in Catholic countries,
opinions on the real point at issue seem to have been equally balanced. The
Lutheran divines, from their old suspicion of Henry, were more decided in
their opposition to him. "The Italian Protestants," wrote Croke to the
king, "be utterly against your Highness in this cause, and have letted as
much as with their power and malice they could or might."[269] In Germany
Dr. Bames and Cranmer found the same experience. Luther himself had not
forgotten his early passage at arms with the English Defender of the Faith,
and was coldly hostile; the German theologians, although they expressed
themselves with reserve and caution, saw no reason to court the anger of
Charles by meddling in a quarrel in which they had no interest; they
revenged the studied slight which had been passed by Henry on themselves,
with a pardonable indifference to the English ecclesiastical revolt.
If, however, in Germany and Italy the balance of unjust interference lay on
the imperial side, it was more than adequately compensated by the answering
pressure which was brought to bear in England and in France on the opposite
side. Under the allied sovereigns, the royal authority was openly exercised
to compel such expressions of sentiment as the courts of London and Paris
desired; and the measures which were taken oblige us more than ever to
regret the inventive efforts of Cranmer's genius. For, in fact, these
manoeuvres, even if honestly executed, were all unrealities. The question
at issue was one of domestic English politics, and the metamorphosis of it
into a question of ecclesiastical law was a mere delusion. The discussion
was transferred to a false ground, and however the king may have chosen to
deceive himself, was not being tried upon its real merits. A complicated
difficulty vitally affecting the interests of a great nation, was laid for
solution before a body of persons incompetent to understand or decide it,
and the laity, with the alternative before them of civil war, and the
returning miseries of the preceding century, could brook no judgment which
did not answer to their wishes.
The French king, contemptuously indifferent to justice, submitted to be
guided by his interest; feeling it necessary for his safety to fan the
quarrel between Henry and the emperor, he resolved to encourage whatever
measures would make the breach between them irreparable. The reconciliation
of Herod and Pontius Pilate[270] was the subject of his worst alarm; and a
slight exercise of ecclesiastical tyranny was but a moderate price by which
to ensure himself against so dangerous a possibility.
Accordingly, at the beginning of June, the University of Paris was
instructed by royal letters to pronounce an opinion on the extent to which
the pope might grant dispensations for marriage within the forbidden
degrees. The letters were presented by the grand master, and the latter in
his address to the faculty, maintained at the outset an appearance of
impartiality. The doctors were required to decide according to their
conscience, having the fear of God before their eyes; and no open effort
was ventured to dictate the judgment which was to be delivered.
The majority of the doctors understood their duty and their position, and a
speedy resolution was anticipated, when a certain Dr. Beda, an energetic
Ultramontane, commenced an opposition. He said that, on a question which
touched the power of the pope, they were not at liberty to pronounce an
opinion without the permission of his Holiness himself; and that the
deliberation ought not to go forward till they had applied for that
permission and had received it. This view was supported by the Spanish and
Italian party in the university. The debate grew warm, and at length the
meeting broke up in confusion without coming to a resolution. Beda, when
remonstrated with on the course which he was pursuing, did not hesitate to
say that he had the secret approbation of his prince; that, however Francis
might disguise from the world his real opinions, in his heart he only
desired to see the pope victorious. An assertion so confident was readily
believed, nor is it likely that Beda ventured to make it without some
foundation. But being spoken of openly it became a matter of general
conversation, and reaching the ears of the English ambassador, it was met
with instant and angry remonstrance. "The ambassador," wrote the grand
master to Francis, "has been to me in great displeasure, and has told me
roundly that his master is trifled with by us. We give him words in plenty
to keep his beak in the water; but it is very plain that we are playing
false, and that no honesty is intended. Nor are his words altogether
without reason; for many persons declare openly that nothing will be done.
If the alliance of England, therefore, appear of importance to your
Highness, it would be well for you to write to the Dean of the Faculty,
directing him to close an impertinent discussion, and require an answer to
the question asked as quickly as possible."[271] The tone of this letter
proves, with sufficient clearness, the true feelings of the French
government; but at the moment the alternative suggested by the grand master
might not be ventured. Francis could not afford to quarrel with England, or
to be on less than cordial terms with it, and for a time at least his
brother sovereigns must continue to be at enmity. The negotiations for the
recovery of the French princes out of their Spanish prison, were on the
point of conclusion; and, as Francis was insolvent, Henry had consented to
become security for the money demanded for their deliverance. Beda had,
moreover, injured his cause by attacking the Gallican liberties; and as
this was a point on which the government was naturally sensitive, some
tolerable excuse was furnished for the lesson which it was thought proper
to adminster to the offending doctor.
On the seventeenth of June, 1530, therefore, Francis wrote as follows to
the President of the Parliament of Paris:--
"We have learnt, to our great displeasure, that one Beda, an imperialist,
has dared to raise an agitation among the theologians, dissuading them from
giving their voices on the cause of the King of England.--On receipt of
this letter, therefore, you shall cause the said Beda to appear before you,
and you shall show him the grievous anger which he has given us cause to
entertain towards him. And further you shall declare to him, laying these
our present writings before his eyes that he may not doubt the truth of
what you say, that if he does not instantly repair the fault which he has
committed, he shall be punished in such sort as that he shall remember
henceforth what it is for a person of his quality to meddle in the affairs
of princes. If he venture to remonstrate; if he allege that it is matter of
conscience, and that before proceeding to pronounce an opinion it is
necessary to communicate with the pope; in our name you shall forbid him to
hold any such communication: and he and all who abet him, and all persons
whatsoever, not only who shall themselves dare to consult the pope on this
matter, but who shall so much as entertain the proposal of consulting him,
shall be dealt with in such a manner as shall be an example to all the
world. The liberties of the Gallican Church are touched, and the
independence of our theological council, and there is no privilege
belonging to this realm on which we are more peremptorily determined to
insist."[272]
The haughty missive, a copy of which was sent to England,[273] produced the
desired effect. The doctors became obedient and convinced, and the required
declaration of opinion in Henry's favour, was drawn up in the most ample
manner. They made a last desperate effort to escape from the position in
which they were placed when the seal of the university was to be affixed to
the decision; but the resistance was hopeless, the authorities were
inexorable, and they submitted. It is not a little singular that the
English political agent employed on this occasion, and to whose lot it fell
to communicate the result to the king, was Reginald Pole. He it was, who
behind the scenes, and assisting to work the machinery of the intrigue,
first there, perhaps, contracted his disgust with the cause on which he was
embarked. There learning to hate the ill with which he was forced
immediately into contact, he lost sight of the greater ill to which it was
opposed; and in the recoil commenced the first steps of a career, which
brought his mother to the scaffold, which overspread all England with an
atmosphere of treason and suspicion, and which terminated at last after
years of exile, rebellion, and falsehood, in a brief victory of blood and
shame. So ever does wrong action beget its own retribution, punishing
itself by itself, and wrecking the instruments by which it works. The
letter which Pole wrote from Paris to Henry will not be uninteresting. It
revealed his distaste for his occupation, though prudence held him silent
as to his deeper feelings.
"Please it your Highness to be advertised, that the determination and
conclusion of the divines in this university was achieved and finished
according to your desired purpose, upon Saturday last past. The sealing of
the same has been put off unto this day, nor never could be obtained before
for any soliciting on our parts which were your agents here, which never
ceased to labour, all that lay in us, for the expedition of it, both with
the privy president and with all such as we thought might in any part aid
us therein. But what difficulties and stops hath been, to let the obtaining
of the seal of the university, notwithstanding the conclusion passed and
agreed unto by the more part of the faculty, by reason of such oppositions
as the adversary part hath made to embezzle the determination that it
should not take effect nor go forth in that same form as it was concluded,
it may please your Grace, to be advertised by this bearer, Master Fox; who,
with his prudence, diligence, and great exercise in the cause, hath most
holp to resist all these crafts, and to bring the matter to that point as
your most desired purpose hath been to have it. He hath indeed acted
according to that hope which I had of him at the beginning and first
breaking of the matter amongst the faculty here, when I, somewhat fearing
and foreseeing such contentions, altercations, and empeschements as by most
likelihood might ensue, did give your Grace advertisement, how necessary I
thought it was to have Master Fox's presence. And whereas I was informed by
Master Fox how it standeth with your Grace's pleasure, considering my
fervent desire thereon, that, your motion once achieved and brought to a
final conclusion in this university, I should repair to your presence, your
Grace could not grant me at this time a petition more comfortable unto me.
And so, making what convenient speed I may, my trust is shortly to wait
upon your Highness. Thus Jesu preserve your most noble Grace to his
pleasure, and your most comfort and honour. Written at Paris, the seventh
day of July, by your Grace's most humble and faithful servant, REGINALD
POLE."[274]
We must speak of this transaction as it deserves, and call it wholly bad,
unjust, and inexcusable. Yet we need not deceive ourselves into supposing
that the opposition which was crushed so roughly was based on any principal
of real honesty. In Italy, intrigue was used against intimidation. In
France intimidation was used against intrigue; and the absence of rectitude
in the parties whom it was necessary to influence, provoked and justified
the contempt with which they were treated.
The conduct of the English universities on the same occasion was precisely
what their later characters would have led us respectively to expect from
them. At Oxford the heads of houses and the senior doctors and masters
submitted their consciences to state dictation, without opposition, and, as
it seemed, without reluctance. Henry was wholly satisfied that the right
was on his own side; he was so convinced of it, that an opposition to his
wishes among his own subjects, he could attribute only to disloyalty or to
some other unworthy feeling; and therefore, while he directed the
convocation, "giving no credence to sinister persuasions, to show and
declare their just and true learning in his cause," he was able to dwell
upon the answer which he expected from them, as a plain matter of duty; and
obviously as not admitting of any uncertainty whatever.
"We will and command you," he said, "that ye, not leaning to wilful and
sinister opinions of your own several minds, considering that we be your
sovereign liege lord [and] totally giving your time, mind, and affections
to the true overtures of divine learning in this behalf, do show and
declare your true and just learning in the said cause, like as ye will
abide by: wherein ye shall not only please Almighty God, but also us your
liege lord. And we, for your so doing, shall be to you and to our
university there so good and gracious a lord for the same, as ye shall
perceive it well done in your well fortune to come. And in case you do not
uprightly, according to divine learning, handle yourselves herein, ye may
be assured that we, not without great cause, shall so quickly and sharply
look to your unnatural misdemeanour herein, that it shall not be to your
quietness and ease hereafter."[275] The admonitory clauses were
sufficiently clear; they were scarcely needed, however, by the older
members of the university. An enlarged experience of the world which years,
at Oxford as well as elsewhere, had not failed to bring with them, a just
apprehension of the condition of the kingdom, and a sense of the
obligations of subjects in times of political difficulty, sufficed to
reconcile the heads of the colleges to obedience; and threats were not
required where it is unlikely that a thought of hesitation was entertained.
But there was a class of residents which appears to be perennial in that
university, composed out of the younger masters; a class of men who,
defective alike in age, in wisdom, or in knowledge, were distinguished by a
species of theoretic High Church fanaticism; who, until they received their
natural correction from advancing years, required from time to time to be
protected against their own extravagance by some form of external pressure.
These were the persons whom the king was addressing in his more severe
language, and it was not without reason that he had recourse to it.
In order to avoid difficulty, and to secure a swift and convenient
resolution, it was proposed that both at Oxford and Cambridge the
universities should be represented by a committee composed of the heads of
houses, the proctors, and the graduates in divinity and law: that this
committee should agree upon a form of a reply; and that the university seal
should then be affixed without further discussion. This proposition was
plausible as well as prudent, for it might be supposed reasonably that
young half-educated students were incapable of forming a judgment on an
intricate point of law; and to admit their votes was equivalent to allowing
judgment to be given by party feeling. The masters who were to be thus
excluded refused however to entertain this view of their incapacity. The
question whether the committee should be appointed was referred to
convocation, where, having the advantage of numbers, they coerced the
entire proceedings; and some of them "expressing themselves in a very
forward manner" to the royal commissioners,[276] and the heads of houses
being embarrassed, and not well knowing what to do, the king found it
necessary again to interpose. He was unwilling, as he said, to violate the
constitution of the university by open interference, "considering it to
exist under grant and charter from the crown as a body politic, in the
ruling whereof in things to be done in the name of the whole, the number of
private suffrages doth prevail." "He was loth, too," he added, "to show his
displeasure, whereof he had so great cause ministered unto him, unto the
whole in general, whereas the fault perchance consisted and remained in
light and wilful heads," and he trusted that it might suffice if the
masters of the colleges used their private influence and authority[277] in
overcoming the opposition. For the effecting of this purpose, however, and
in order to lend weight to their persuasion, he assisted the convocation
towards a conclusion with the following characteristic missive:--
"To our trusty and well-beloved the heads of houses, doctors, and proctors
of our University of Oxford:
"Trusty and well-beloved, we greet you well; and of late being informed, to
our no little marvel and discontentation, that a great part of the youth of
that our university, with contentious and factious manner daily combining
together, neither regarding their duty to us their sovereign lord, nor yet
conforming themselves to the opinions and orders of the virtuous, wise,
sage, and profound learned men of that university, wilfully do stick upon
the opinion to have a great number of regents and non-regents to be
associate unto the doctors, proctors, and bachelors of divinity for the
determination of our question; which we believe hath not been often seen,
that such a number of right small learning in regard to the other should be
joined with so famous a sort, or in a manner stay their seniors in so
weighty a cause. And forasmuch as this, we think, should be no small
dishonour to our university there, but most especially to you the seniors
and rulers of the same; and as also, we assure you, this their unnatural
and unkind demeanour is not only right much to our displeasure, but much to
be marvelled of, upon what ground and occasion, they being our mere
subjects, should show themselves more unkind and wilful in this matter than
all other universities, both in this and all other regions do: we, trusting
in the dexterity and wisdom of you and other the said discreet and
substantial learned men of that university, be in perfect hope that ye will
conduce and frame the said young persons unto order and conformity as it
becometh you to do. Whereof we be desirous to hear with incontinent
diligence; and doubt you not we shall regard the demeanour of every one of
the university according to their merits and deserts. And if the youth of
the university will play masteries as they begin to do, we doubt not but
they shall well perceive that non est bonum irritare crabrones.[278]
"Given under our hand and seal, at our Castle of Windsor,
"HENRY R."[279]
It is scarcely necessary to say, that, armed with this letter, the heads of
houses subdued the recalcitrance of the overhasty "youth;" and Oxford duly
answered as she was required to answer.
The proceedings at Cambridge were not very dissimilar; but Cambridge being
distinguished by greater openness and largeness of mind on this as on the
other momentous subjects of the day than the sister university, was able to
preserve a more manly bearing, and escape direct humiliation. Cranmer had
written a book upon the divorce in the preceding year, which, as coming
from a well-known Cambridge man, had occasioned a careful ventilation of
the question there; the resident masters had been divided by it into
factions nearly equal in number, though unharmoniously composed. The heads
of houses, as at Oxford, were inclined to the king, but they were
embarrassed and divided by the presence on the same side of the suspected
liberals, the party of Shaxton, Latimer, and Cranmer himself. The agitation
of many months had rendered all members of the university, young and old,
so well acquainted (as they supposed) with the bearings of the difficulty,
that they naturally resisted, as at the other university, the demand that
their power should be delegated to a committee; and the Cambridge
convocation, as well as that of Oxford, threw out this resolution when it
was first proposed to them. A king's letter having made them more amenable,
a list of the intended committee was drawn out, which, containing Latimer's
name, occasioned a fresh storm. But the number in the senate house being
nearly divided, "the labour of certain friends" turned the scale; the vote
passed, and the committee was allowed, on condition that the question
should be argued publicly in the presence of the whole university. Finally,
judgment was obtained on the king's side, though in a less absolute form
than he had required, and the commissioners did not think it prudent to
press for a more extreme conclusion. They had been desired to pronounce
that the pope had no power to permit a man to marry his brother's widow.
They consented only to say that a marriage within those degrees was
contrary to the divine law; but the question of the pope's power was left
unapproached.[280]
It will not be uninteresting to follow this judgment a further step, to the
delivery of it into the hands of the king, where it will introduce us to a
Sunday at Windsor Castle three centuries ago. We shall find present there,
as a significant symptom of the time, Hugh Latimer, appointed freshly
select preacher in the royal chapel, but already obnoxious to English
orthodoxy, on account of his Cambridge sermons. These sermons, it had been
said, contained many things good and profitable, "on sin, and godliness,
and virtue," but much also which was disrespectful to established beliefs,
the preacher being clearly opposed to "candles and pilgrimages," and
"calling men unto the works that God commanded in his Holy Scripture, all
dreams and unprofitable glosses set aside and utterly despised." The
preacher had, therefore, been cited before consistory courts and
interdicted by bishops, "swarms of friars and doctors flocking against
Master Latimer on every side."[281] This also was to be noted about him,
that he was one of the most fearless men who ever lived. Like John Knox,
whom he much resembled, in whatever presence he might be, whether of poor
or rich, of laymen or priests, of bishops or kings, he ever spoke out
boldly from his pulpit what he thought, directly if necessary to particular
persons whom he saw before him respecting their own actions. Even Henry
himself he did not spare where he saw occasion for blame; and Henry, of
whom it was said that he never was mistaken in a _man_--loving a _man_[282]
where he could find him with all his heart--had, notwithstanding, chosen
this Latimer as one of his own chaplains.
The unwilling bearer of the Cambridge judgment was Dr. Buckmaster, the
vice-chancellor, who, in a letter to a friend, describes his reception at
the royal castle.
"To the right worshipful Dr. Edmonds, vicar of Alborne, in Wiltshire, my
duty remembered,--
"I heartily commend me unto you, and I let you understand that yesterday
week, being Sunday at afternoon, I came to Windsor, and also to part of Mr.
Latimer's sermon; and after the end of the same I spake with Mr. Secretary
[Cromwell], and also with Mr. Provost; and so after evensong I delivered
our letters in the Chamber of Presence, all the court beholding. The king,
with Mr. Secretary, did there read them; and did then give me thanks and
talked with me a good while. He much lauded our wisdom and good conveyance
in the matter, with the great quietness in the same. He showed me also what
he had in his hands for our university, according to that which Mr.
Secretary did express unto us, and so he departed from me. But by and bye
he greatly praised Mr. Latimer's sermon; and in so praising said on this
wise: 'This displeaseth greatly Mr. Vice-Chancellor yonder; yon same,' said
he to the Duke of Norfolk, 'is Mr. Vice-Chancellor of Cambridge,' and so
pointed unto me. Then he spake secretly unto the said duke, which, after
the king's departure, came unto me and welcomed me, saying, among other
things, the king would speak with me on the next day. And here is the first
act. On the next day I waited until it was dinner time; and so at the last
Dr. Butts, [king's physician,] came unto me, and brought a reward, twenty
nobles for me, and five marks for the junior proctor which was with me,
saying that I should take that for a resolute answer, and that I might
depart from the court when I would. Then came Mr. Provost, and when I had
shewed him of the answer, he said I should speak with the king after dinner
for all that, and so he brought me into a privy place where after dinner he
would have me wait. I came thither and he both; and by one of the clock the
king entered in. It was in a gallery. There were Mr. Secretary, Mr.
Provost, Mr. Latimer, Mr. Proctor, and I, and no more. The king then talked
with us until six of the clock. I assure you he was scarce contented with
Mr. Secretary and Mr. Provost, that this was not also determined, _an Papa
possit dispensare_. I made the best, and confirmed the same that they had
shewed his Grace before; and how it would never have been so obtained. He
opened his mind, saying he would have it determined after Easter, and of
the same was counselled awhile.
"Much other communication we had, which were too long here to recite. Then
his Highness departed, casting a little holy water of the court; and I
shortly after took my leave of Mr. Secretary and Mr. Provost, with whom I
did not drink, nor yet was bidden, and on the morrow departed from thence,
thinking more than I did say, and being glad that I was out of the court,
where many men, as I did both hear and perceive, did wonder at me. And here
shall be an end for this time of this fable.
"All the world almost crieth out of Cambridge for this act, and specially
on me; but I must bear it as well as I may. I have lost a benefice by it,
which I should have had within these ten days; for there hath one fallen in
Mr. Throgmorton's[283] gift which he hath faithfully promised unto me many
a time, but now his mind is turned and alienate from me. If ye go to court
after Easter I pray you have me in remembrance. Mr. Latimer preacheth
still,--quod æmuli ejus graviter ferunt.
"Thus fare you well. Your own to his power,
WILLIAM BUCKMASTER.[284]
Cambridge, Monday after Easter, 1530."
It does not appear that Cambridge was pressed further, and we may,
therefore, allow it to have acquitted itself creditably, If we sum up the
results of Cranmer's measure as a whole, it may be said that opinions had
been given by about half Europe directly or indirectly unfavourable to the
papal claims; and that, therefore, the king had furnished himself with a
legal pretext for declining the jurisdiction of the court of Rome, and
appealing to a general council. Objections to the manner in which the
opinions had been gained could be answered by recriminations equally just;
and in the technical aspect of the question a step had certainly been
gained. It will be thought, nevertheless, on wider grounds, that the
measure was a mistake; that it would have been far better if the legal
labyrinth had never been entered, and if the divorce had been claimed only
upon those considerations of policy for which it had been first demanded,
and which formed the true justification of it. Not only might a shameful
chapter of scandal have been spared out of the world's history, but the
point on which the battle was being fought lay beside the real issue.
Europe was shaken with intrigue, hundreds of books were written, and tens
of thousands of tongues were busy for twelve months weaving logical
subtleties, and all for nothing. The truth was left unspoken because it was
not convenient to speak it, and all parties agreed to persuade themselves
and accept one another's persuasions, that they meant something which they
did not mean. Beyond doubt the theological difficulty really affected the
king. We cannot read his own book[285] upon it without a conviction that
his arguments were honestly urged, that his misgivings were real, and that
he meant every word which he said. Yet it is clear at the same time that
these misgivings would not have been satisfied, if all the wisdom of the
world--pope, cardinals, councils, and all the learned faculties
together--had declared against him, the true secret of the matter lying
deeper, understood and appreciated by all the chief parties concerned, and
by the English laity, whose interests were at stake; but in all these
barren disputings ignored as if it had no existence.
It was perhaps less easy than it seems to have followed the main road. The
bye ways often promise best at first entrance into them, and Henry's
peculiar temper never allowed him to believe beforehand that a track which
he had chosen could lead to any conclusion except that to which he had
arranged that it should lead. With an intellect endlessly fertile in
finding reasons to justify what he desired, he could see no justice on any
side but his own, or understand that it was possible to disagree with him
except from folly of ill-feeling. Starting always with a foregone
conclusion, he arrived of course where he wished to arrive. His "Glasse of
Truth" is a very picture of his mind. "If the marshall of the host bids us
do anything," he said, "shall we do it if it be against the great captain?
Again, if the great captain bid us do anything, and the king or the emperor
commandeth us to do another, dost thou doubt that we must obey the
commandment of the king or emperor, and contemn the commandment of the
great captain? Therefore if the king or the emperor bid one thing, and God
another, we must obey God, and contemn and not regard neither king nor
emperor." And, therefore, he argued, "we are not to obey the pope, when the
pope commands what is unlawful."[286] These were but many words to prove
what the pope would not have questioned; and either they concluded nothing
or the conclusion was assumed.
We cannot but think that among the many misfortunes of Henry's life his
theological training was the greatest; and that directly or indirectly it
was the parent of all the rest. If in this unhappy business he had trusted
only to his instincts as an English statesman; if he had been contented
himself with the truth, and had pressed no arguments except those which in
the secrets of his heart had weight with him, he would have spared his own
memory a mountain of undeserved reproach, and have spared historians their
weary labour through these barren deserts of unreality.