CHAPTER VII

THE LAST EFFORTS OF DIPLOMACY

I have now to resume the thread of the political history where it was

dropped at the sentence of divorce pronounced by Cranmer, and the

coronation of the new queen. The effect was about to be ascertained of

these bold measures upon Europe; and of what their effect would be, only so

much could be foretold with certainty, that the time for trifling was past,

and the pope and Francis of France would be compelled to declare their true

intentions. If these intentions were honest, the subordination of England

to the papacy might be still preserved in a modified form. The papal

jurisdiction was at end, but the spiritual supremacy of the Bishop of Rome,

with a diminished but considerable revenue attached to it, remained

unaffected; and it was for the pope to determine whether, by fulfilling at

last his original engagements, he would preserve these remnants of his

power and privileges, or boldly take up the gage, excommunicate his

disobedient subjects, and attempt by force to bring them back to their

allegiance.

The news of what had been done did not take him wholly by surprise. It was

known at Brussels at the end of April that the king had married. The queen

regent[595] spoke of it to the ambassador sternly and significantly, not

concealing her expectation of the mortal resentment which would be felt by

her brothers;[596] and the information was forwarded with the least

possible delay to the cardinals of the imperial faction at Rome. The true

purposes which underlay the contradiction of Clement's language are

undiscoverable. Perhaps in the past winter he had been acting out a deep

intrigue--perhaps he was drifting between rival currents, and yielded in

any or all directions as the alternate pressure varied; yet whatever had

been the meaning of his language, whether it was a scheme to deceive Henry,

or was the expression only of weakness and good-nature desiring to avoid a

quarrel to the latest moment, the decisive step which had been taken in the

marriage, even though it was nominally undivulged, obliged him to choose

his course and openly adhere to it. After the experience of the past, there

could be no doubt what that course would be.

On the 12th of May a citation was issued against the King of England,

summoning him to appear by person or proxy at a stated day. It had been

understood that no step of such a kind was to be taken before the meeting

of the pope and Francis; Bennet, therefore, Henry's faithful secretary,

hastily inquired the meaning of this measure. The pope told him that it

could not be avoided, and the language which he used revealed to the

English agent the inevitable future. The king, he said, had defied the

inhibitory brief which had been lately issued, and had incurred

excommunication; the imperialists insisted that he should be proceeded

against for contempt, and that the excommunication should at once be

pronounced. However great might be his own personal reluctance, it was not

possible for him to remain passive; and if he declined to resort at once to

the more extreme exercise of his power, the hesitation was merely until the

emperor was prepared to enforce the censures of the church with the strong

hand. It stood not "with his honour to execute such censures," he said,

"and the same not to be regarded."[597] But there was no wish to spare

Henry; and if Francis could be detached from his ally, and if the condition

of the rest of Christendom became such as to favour the enterprise, England

might evidently look for the worst which the pope, with the Catholic

powers, could execute. If the papal court was roused into so menacing a

mood by the mere intimation of the secret marriage, it was easy to foresee

what would ensue when the news arrived of the proceedings at Dunstable.

Bennet entreated that the process should be delayed till the interview; but

the pope answered coldly that he had done his best and could do no more;

the imperialists were urgent, and he saw no reason to refuse their

petition.[598] This was Clement's usual language, but there was something

peculiar in his manner. He had been often violent, but he had never shown

resolution, and the English agents were perplexed. The mystery was soon

explained. He had secured himself on the side of France; and Francis, who

at Calais had told Henry that his negotiations with the see of Rome were

solely for the interests of England, that for Henry's sake he was marrying

his son into a family beneath him in rank, that Henry's divorce was to form

the especial subject of his conference with the pope, had consented to

allow these dangerous questions to sink into a secondary place, and had

relinquished his intention, if he had ever seriously entertained it, of

becoming an active party in the English quarrel.

The long-talked-of interview was still delayed. First it was to have taken

place in the winter, then in the spring; June was the date last fixed for

it, and now Bennet had to inform the king that it would not take place

before September; and that, from the terms of a communication which had

just passed between the parties who were to meet, the subjects discussed at

the conference would not be those which he had been led to expect. Francis,

in answer to a question from the pope, had specified three things which he

proposed particularly to "intreat." The first concerned the defence of

Christendom against the Turks, the second concerned the general council,

and the third concerned "the extinction of the Lutheran sect."[599] These

were the points which the Most Christian king was anxious to discuss with

the pope. For the latter good object especially, "he would devise and treat

for the provision of an army." In the King of England's cause, he trusted

"some means might be found whereby it might be compounded;"[600] but if

persuasion failed, there was no fear lest he should have recourse to any

other method.

It was this which had given back to the pope his courage. It was this which

Bennet had now to report to Henry. The French alliance, it was too likely,

would prove a broken reed, and pierce the hand that leant upon it.

Henry knew the danger; but danger was not a very terrible thing either to

him or to his people. If he had conquered his own reluctance to risk a

schism in the church, he was not likely to yield to the fear of isolation;

and if there was something to alarm in the aspect of affairs, there was

also much to encourage. His parliament was united and resolute. His queen

was pregnant. The Nun of Kent had assigned him but a month to live after

his marriage; six months had passed, and he was alive and well; the

supernatural powers had not declared against him; and while safe with

respect to enmity from above, the earthly powers he could afford to defy.

When he finally divorced Queen Catherine, he must have foreseen his present

position at least as a possibility, and if not prepared for so swift an

apostasy in Francis, and if not yet wholly believing it, we may satisfy

ourselves he had never absolutely trusted a prince of metal so

questionable.

The Duke of Norfolk was waiting at the French court, with a magnificent

embassy, to represent the English king at the interview. The arrival of the

pope had been expected in May. It was now delayed till September; and if

Clement came after all, it would be for objects in which England had but

small concern. It was better for England that there should be no meeting at

all, than a meeting to devise schemes for the massacre of Lutherans. Henry

therefore wrote to the Duke, telling him generally what he had heard from

Rome; he mentioned the three topics which he understood were to form the

matter of discussion; but he skilfully affected to regard them as having

originated with the imperialists, and not with the French king. In a long

paper of instructions, in which earnestness and irony were strangely

blended, he directed the ambassador to treat his good brother as if he were

still exclusively devoted to the interests of England; and to urge upon

him, on the ground of this fresh delay, that the interview should not take

place at all.[601]

"Our pleasure is," he wrote, "that ye shall say--that we be not a little

moved in our heart to see our good brother and us, being such princes of

Christendom, to be so handled with the pope, so much to our dishonour, and

to the pope's and the emperor's advancement; seeming to be at the pope's

commandment to come or tarry as he or his cardinals shall appoint; and to

depend upon his pleasure when to meet--that is to say, when he list or

never. If our good brother and we were either suitors to make request, the

obtaining whereof we did much set by, or had any particular matter of

advantage to entreat with him, these proceedings might be the better

tolerated; but our good brother having no particular matter of his own, and

being ... that [no] more glory nor surety could happen to the emperour than

to obtain the effect of the three articles moved by the pope and his

cardinals, we think it not convenient to attend the pleasure of the pope,

to go or to abyde. We could have been content to have received and taken at

the pope's hand, jointly with our good brother, pleasure and friendship in

our great cause; [but] on the other part, we cannot esteem the pope's part

so high, as to have our good brother an attendant suitor therefore ...

desiring him, therefore, in anywise to disappoint for his part the said

interview; and if he have already granted thereto--upon some new good

occasion, which he now undoubtedly hath--to depart from the same.

"For we, ye may say, having the justness of our cause for us, with such an

entire and whole consent of our nobility and commons of our realm and

subjects, and being all matters passed, and in such terms as they now be,

do not find such lack and want of that the pope might do, with us or

against us, as we would for the obtaining thereof be contented to have a

French king our so perfect a friend, to be not only a mediator but a suitor

therein, and a suitor attendant to have audience upon liking and after the

advice of such cardinals as repute it among pastymes to play and dally with

kings and princes; whose honour, ye may say, is above all things, and more

dear to us in the person of our good brother, than is any piece of our

cause at the pope's hands. And therefore, if there be none other thing but

our cause, and the other causes whereof we be advertised, our advice,

counsel, special desire also and request is, [that our good brother shall]

break off the interview, unless the pope will make suit to him; and

[unless] our said good brother hath such causes of his own as may

particularly tend to his own benefit, honour, and profit--wherein he shall

do great and singular pleasure unto us; _giving to understand to the pope,

that me know ourselves and him both, and look to be esteemed accordingly._"

Should it appear that on receipt of this communication, Francis was still

resolved to persevere, and that he had other objects in view to which Henry

had not been made privy, the ambassadors were then to remind him of the

remaining obligations into which he had entered; and to ascertain to what

degree his assistance might be calculated upon, should the pope pronounce

Henry deposed, and the emperor attempt to enforce the sentence.

After forwarding these instructions, the king's next step was to anticipate

the pope by an appeal which would neutralise his judgment should he venture

upon it; and which offered a fresh opportunity of restoring the peace of

Christendom, if there was true anxiety to preserve that peace. The hinge of

the great question, in the form which at last it assumed, was the validity

or invalidity of the dispensation by which Henry had married his brother's

widow. Being a matter which touched the limit of the pope's power, the pope

was himself unable to determine it in his own favour; and the only

authority by which the law could be ruled, was a general council. In the

preceding winter, the pope had volunteered to submit the question to this

tribunal; but Henry believing that it was on the point of immediate

solution in another way, had then declined, on the ground that it would

cause a needless delay. He was already married, and he had hoped that

sentence might be given in his favour in time to anticipate the publication

of the ceremony. But he was perfectly satisfied that justice was on his

side; and was equally confident of obtaining the verdict of Europe, if it

could be fairly pronounced. Now, therefore, under the altered

circumstances, he accepted the offered alternative. He anticipated with

tolerable certainty the effect which would be produced at Rome, when the

news should arrive there of the Dunstable divorce; and on the 29th of June,

he appealed formally, in the presence of the Archbishop of York, from the

pope's impending sentence, to the next general council.[602]

Of this curious document the substance was as follows:--It commenced with a

declaration that the king had no intention of acting otherwise than became

a good Catholic prince; or of injuring the church or attacking the

privileges conceded by God to the Holy See. If his words could be lawfully

shown to have such a tendency he would revoke, emend, and correct them in a

Catholic spirit.

The general features of the case were then recapitulated. His marriage with

his brother's wife had been pronounced illegal by the principal

universities of Europe, by the clergy of the two provinces of the Church of

England, by the most learned theologians and canonists, and finally, by the

public judgment of the church.[603] He therefore had felt himself free;

and, "by the inspiration of the Host High, had lawfully married another

woman." Furthermore, "for the common weal and tranquillity of the realm of

England, and for the wholesome rule and government of the same, he had

caused to be enacted certain statutes and ordinances, by authority of

parliaments lawfully called for that purpose." "Now, however," he

continued, "we fearing that his Holyness the Pope ... having in our said

cause treated us far otherwise than either respect for our dignity and

desert, or the duty of his own office required at his hands, and having

done us many injuries which we now of design do suppress, but which

hereafter we shall be ready, should circumstances so require, to divulge

... may now proceed to acts of further injustice, and heaping wrong on

wrong, may pronounce the censures and other penalties of the spiritual

sword against ourselves, our realm, and subjects, seeking thereby to

deprive us of the use of the sacraments, and to cut us off, in the sight of

the world, from the unity of the church, to the no slight hurt and injury

of our realm and subjects:

"Fearing these things, and desiring to preserve from detriment not only

ourselves, our own dignity and estimation, but also our subjects, committed

to us by Almighty God; to keep them in the unity of the Christian faith,

and in the wonted participation in the sacraments; that, when in truth they

be not cut off from the integrity of the church, nor can nor will be so cut

off in any manner, they may not appear to be so cut off in the estimation

of men; [desiring further] to check and hold back our people whom God has

given to us, lest, in the event of such injury, they refuse utterly to obey

any longer the Roman Pontiff, as a hard and cruel pastor: [for these

causes] and believing, from reasons probable, conjectures likely, and words

used to our injury by his Holiness the Pope, which in divers manners have

been brought to our ears, that some weighty act may be committed by him or

others to the prejudice of ourselves and of our realm;--We, therefore, in

behalf of all and every of our subjects, and of all persons adhering to us

in this our cause, do make our appeal to the next general council, which

shall be lawfully held, in place convenient, with the consent of the

Christian princes, and of such others as it may concern--not in contempt of

the Holy See, but for defence of the truth of the Gospel, and for the other

causes afore rehearsed. And we do trust in God that it shall not be

interpreted as a thing ill done on our part, if preferring the salvation of

our soul and the relief of our conscience to any mundane respects or

favours, we have in this cause regarded more the Divine law than the laws

of man, and have thought it rather meet to obey God than to obey man."[604]

By the appeal and the causes which were assigned for it, Henry pre-occupied

the ground of the conflict; he entrenched himself in the "debateable land"

of legal uncertainty; and until his position had been pronounced untenable

by the general voice of Christendom, any sentence which the pope could

issue would have but a doubtful validity. It was, perhaps, but a slight

advantage; and the niceties of technical fencing might soon resolve

themselves into a question of mere strength; yet, in the opening of great

conflicts, it is well, even when a resort to force is inevitable, to throw

on the opposing party the responsibility of violence; and Henry had been

led, either by a refinement of policy, or by the plain straightforwardness

of his intentions, into a situation where he could expect without alarm the

unrolling of the future.

The character of that future was likely soon to be decided. The appeal was

published on the 29th of June; and as the pope must have heard, by the

middle of the month at latest, of the trial and judgment at Dunstable, a

few days would bring an account of the manner in which he had received the

intelligence. Prior to the arrival of the couriers, Bennet, with the

assistance of Cardinal Tournon, had somewhat soothed down his exasperation.

Francis, also, having heard that immediate process was threatened, had

written earnestly to deprecate such a measure;[605] and though he took the

interference "very displeasantly,"[606] the pope could not afford to lose,

by premature impatience; the fruit of all his labour and diplomacy, and had

yielded so far as to promise that nothing of moment should be done. To this

state of mind he had been brought one day in the second week of June. The

morning after, Bennet found him "sore altered." The news of "my Lord of

Canterbury's proceedings" had arrived the preceding night; and "his

Holiness said that [such] doings were too sore for him to stand still at

and do nothing."[607] It was "against his duty towards God and the world to

tolerate them." The imperialist cardinals, impatient before, clamoured that

the evil had been caused by the dilatory timidity with which the case had

been handled from the first.[608] The consistory sate day after day with

closed doors;[609] and even such members of it as had before inclined to

the English side, joined in the common indignation. "Some extreme process"

was instantly looked for, and the English agents, in their daily interviews

with the pope, were forced to listen to language which it was hard to bear

with equanimity. Bennet's well-bred courtesy carried him successfully

through the difficulty; his companion Bonner was not so fortunate. Bonner's

tongue was insolent, and under bad control. He replied to menace by

impertinence; and on one occasion was so exasperating, that Clement

threatened to burn him alive, or boil him in a caldron of lead.[610] When

fairly roused, the old man was dangerous; and the future Bishop of London

wrote to England in extremity of alarm. His letter has not been found, but

the character of it may be perceived from the reassuring reply of the king.

The agents, Henry said, were not to allow themselves to be frightened; they

were to go on calmly, with their accustomed diligence and dexterity,

disputing the ground from point to point, and trust to him. Their cause was

good, and, with God's help, he would be able to defend them from the malice

of their adversaries.[611]

Fortunately for Bonner, the pope's passion was of brief duration, and the

experiment whether Henry's arm could reach to the dungeons of the Vatican

remained untried. The more moderate of the cardinals, also, something

assuaged the storm; and angry as they all were, the majority still saw the

necessity of prudence. In the heat of the irritation, final sentence was to

have been pronounced upon the entire cause, backed by interdict,

excommunication, and the full volume of the papal thunders. At the close of

a month's deliberation they resolved to reserve judgement on the original

question, and to confine themselves for the present to revenging the insult

to the pope by "my Lord of Canterbury." Both the king and the archbishop

had disobeyed a formal inhibition. On the 12th of July, the pope issued a

brief, declaring Cranmer's judgment to have been illegal, the English

process to have been null and void, and the king, by his disobedience, to

have incurred, _ipso facto_, the threatened penalties of excommunication.

Of his clemency he suspended these censures till the close of the following

September, in order that time might be allowed to restore the respective

parties to their old positions: if within that period the parties were not

so restored, the censures would fall.[612] This brief was sent into

Flanders, and fixed in the usual place against the door of a church in

Dunkirk.

Henry was prepared for a measure which was no more than natural. He had

been prepared for it as a possibility when he married. Both he and Francis

must have been prepared for it on their meeting at Calais, when the French

king advised him to marry, and promised to support him through the

consequences. His own measures had been arranged beforehand, and he had

secured himself in technical entrenchments by his appeal. After the issue

of the brief, however, he could allow no English embassy to compliment

Clement by its presence on his visit to France. He "knew the pope," as he

said. Long experience had shown him that nothing was to be gained by

yielding in minor points; and the only chance which now remained of

preserving the established order of Christendom, was to terrify the Vatican

court into submission by the firmness of his attitude. For the present

complications, the court of Rome, not he, was responsible. The pope, with a

culpable complacency for the emperor, had shrunk from discharging a duty

which his office imposed upon him; and the result had been, that the duty

was discharged by another. Henry could not blame himself for the

consequences of Clement's delinquency. He rather felt himself wronged in

having been driven to so extreme a measure against his will. He resolved,

therefore, to recall the embassy, and once more, though with no great hope

that he would be successful, to invite Francis to fulfil his promise, and

to unite with himself in expressing his resentment at the pope's conduct.

His despatch to the Duke of Norfolk on this occasion was the natural sequel

of what he had written a few weeks previously. That letter had failed

wholly of its effect. The interview was resolved upon for quite other

reasons than those which were acknowledged, and therefore was not to be

given up. A promise, however, had been extracted, that it should be given

up, if in the course of the summer the pope "innovated anything" against

the King of England; and Henry now required, formally, that this engagement

should be observed. "A notorious and notable innovation" had been made, and

Francis must either deny his words, or adhere to them. It would be evident

to all the world, if the interview took place under the present

circumstances, that the alliance with England was no longer of the

importance with him which it had been; that his place in the struggle, when

the struggle came, would be found on the papal side.

The language of Henry throughout this paper was very fine and noble. He

reminded Francis that substantially the cause at issue was the cause of all

princes; the pope claiming a right to summon them to plead in the courts of

Rome, and refusing to admit their exemption as sovereign rulers. He had

been required not only to undo his marriage, and cancel the sentence of

divorce, but, as a condition of reconciliation with the Holy See, to undo

also, the Act of Appeals, and to restore the papal jurisdiction. He desired

it to be understood, with emphasis, that these points were all equally

sacred, and the repeal of the act was as little to be thought of as the

annulling the marriage. "The pope," he said, "did inforce us to excogitate

some new thing, whereby we might be healed and relieved of that continual

disease, to care for our cause at Rome, where such defence was taken from

us, as by the laws of God, nature, and man, is due unto us. Hereupon

depended the wealth of our realm; hereupon consisted the surety of our

succession, which by no other means could be well assured." "And

therefore," he went on, "you [the Duke] shall say to our good brother, that

the pope persisting in the ways he hath entered, ye must needs despair in

any meeting between the French king and the pope, to produce any such

effect as to cause us to meet in concord with the pope; but we shall be

even as far asunder as is between yea and nay. For to the pope's enterprise

to revoke or put back anything that is done here, either in marriage,

statute, sentence, or proclamation[613]--of which four members is knit and

conjoined the surety of our matter, nor any can be removed from the other,

lest thereby the whole edifice should be destroyed--we will and shall, by

all ways and means say nay, and declare our nay in such sort as the world

shall hear, and the pope feel it. Wherein ye may say our firm trust,

perfect hope, and assured confidence is, that our good brother will agree

with us; as well for that it should be partly dishonourable for him to see

decay the thing that was of his own foundation and planting: as also that

it should be too much dishonourable for us--having travelled so far in this

matter, and brought it to this point, that all the storms of the year

passed, it is now come to harvest, trusting to see shortly the fruit of our

marriage, to the wealth, joy, and comfort of all our realm, and our own

singular consolation--that anything should now be done by us to impair the

same, and to put our issue either in peril of bastardy, or otherwise

disturb that [which] is by the whole agreement of our realm established for

their and our commodity, wealth, and benefit. And in this determination ye

know us to be so fixed, and the contrary hereof to be so infeasible, either

at our hands, or by the consent of the realm, that ye must needs despair of

any order to be taken by the French king with the pope. For if any were by

him taken wherein any of these four pieces should be touched--that is to

say, the marriage of the queen our wife, the revocation of the Bishop of

Canterbury's sentence, the statute of our realm, or our late proclamation,

which be as it were one--and as walls, covering, the foundation make a

house, so they knit together, establish, and make one matter--ye be well

assured, and be so ascertained from us, that in no wise we will relent, but

will, as we have before written, withstand the same. Whereof ye may say

that ye have thought good to advertise him, to the intent he make no

farther promise to the pope therein than may be performed."

The ambassadors were the more emphatically to insist on the king's

resolution, lest Francis, in his desire for conciliation, might hold out

hopes to the pope which could not be realised. They were to say, however,

that the King of England still trusted that the interview would not take

place. The see of Rome was asserting a jurisdiction which, if conceded,

would encourage an unlimited usurpation. If princes might be cited to the

papal courts in a cause of matrimony, they might be cited equally in other

causes at the pope's pleasure; and the free kingdoms of Europe would be

converted into dependent provinces of the see of Rome. It concerned alike

the interest and the honour of all sovereigns to resist encroachments which

pointed to such an issue; and, therefore, Henry said he hoped that his good

brother would use the pope as he had deserved, "doing him to understand his

folly, and [that] unless he had first made amends, he could not find in his

heart to have further amity with him."

If notwithstanding, the instructions concluded, "all these persuasions

cannot have place to let the said meeting, and the French king shall say it

is expedient for him to have in his hands the duchess,[614] under pretence

of marriage for his son, which he cannot obtain but by this means, ye shall

say that ye remember ye heard him say once he would never conclude that

marriage but to do us good, which is now infaisible; and now in the voice

of the world shall do us both more hurt in the diminution of the reputation

of our amity than it should do otherwise profit. Nevertheless, [if] ye

cannot let his precise determination, [ye] can but lament and bewail your

own chance to depart home in this sort; and that yet of the two

inconvenients, it is to you more tolerable to return to us nothing done,

than to be present at the interview and to be compelled to look patiently

upon your master's enemy."

After having entered thus their protest against the French king's conduct,

the embassy was to return to England, leaving a parting intimation of the

single condition under which Henry would consent to treat. If the pope

would declare that "the matrimony with the Lady Catherine was and is

nought, he should do somewhat not to be refused;" except with this

preliminary, no offer whatever could be entertained.[615]

This communication, as Henry anticipated, was not more effectual than the

former in respect of its immediate object. At the meeting of Calais the

interests of Francis had united him with England, and in pursuing the

objects of Henry he was then pursuing his own. The pope and the emperor had

dissolved the coalition by concessions on the least dangerous side. The

interests of Francis lay now in the other direction, and there are few

instances in history in which governments have adhered to obligations

against their advantage from a spirit of honour, when the purposes with

which they contracted those obligations have been otherwise obtained. The

English embassy returned as they were ordered; the French court pursued

their way to Marseilles; not quarrelling with England; intending to abide

by the alliance, and to give all proofs of amity which did not involve

inconvenient sacrifices; but producing on the world at large by their

conduct the precise effect which Henry had foretold. The world at large,

looking to acts rather than to words, regarded the interview as a

contrivance to reconcile Francis and the emperor through the intervention

of the pope, as a preliminary for a packed council, and for a holy war

against the Lutherans[616]--a combination of ominous augury to Christendom,

from the consequences of which, if Germany was to be the first sufferer,

England would be inevitably the second.

Meanwhile, as the French alliance threatened to fail, the English

government found themselves driven at last to look for a connection among

those powers from whom they had hitherto most anxiously disconnected

themselves. At such a time. Protestant Germany, not Catholic France, was

England's natural friend. The Reformation was essentially a Teutonic

movement; the Germans, the English, the Scotch, the Swedes, the Hollanders,

all were struggling on their various roads towards an end essentially the

same. The same dangers threatened them, the same inspiration moved them;

and in the eyes of the orthodox Catholics they were united in a black

communion of heresy. Unhappily, though this identity was obvious to their

enemies, it was far from obvious to themselves. The odium theologicum is

ever hotter between sections of the same party which are divided by

trifling differences, than between the open representatives of antagonist

principles; and Anglicans and Lutherans, instead of joining hands across

the Channel, endeavoured only to secure each a recognition of themselves at

the expense of the other. The English plumed themselves on their orthodoxy.

They were "not as those publicans," heretics, despisers of the keys,

disobedient to authority; they desired only the independence of their

national church, and they proved their zeal for the established faith with

all the warmth of persecution. To the Germans national freedom was of

wholly minor moment, in comparison with the freedom of the soul; the

orthodoxy of England was as distasteful to the disciples of Luther as the

orthodoxy of Rome--and the interests of Europe were sacrificed on both

sides to this foolish and fatal disunion. Circumstances indeed would not

permit the division to remain in its first intensity, and their common

danger compelled the two nations into a partial understanding. Yet the

reconciliation, imperfect to the last, was at the outset all but

impossible. Their relations were already embittered by many reciprocal acts

of hostility. Henry VIII. had won his spurs as a theologian by an attack on

Luther. Luther had replied by a hailstorm of invectives. The Lutheran books

had been proscribed, the Lutherans themselves had' been burnt by Henry's

bishops. The Protestant divines in Germany had attempted to conciliate the

emperor by supporting the cause of Catherine; and Luther himself had spoken

loudly in condemnation of the king. The elements of disunion were so many

and so powerful, that there was little hope of contending against them

successfully. Nevertheless, as Henry saw, the coalition of Francis and the

emperor, if the pope succeeded in cementing it, was a most serious danger,

to which an opposite alliance would alone be an adequate counterpoise; and

the experiment might at least be tried whether such an alliance was

possible. At the beginning of August, therefore, Stephen Vaughan was sent

on a tentative mission to the Elector of Saxe, John Frederick, at

Weimar.[617] He was the bearer of letters containing a proposal for a

resident English ambassador; and if the elector gave his consent, he was to

proceed with similar offers to the courts of the Landgrave of Hesse and the

Duke of Lunenberg.[618] Vaughan arrived in due time at the elector's court,

was admitted to audience and delivered his letters. The prince read them,

and in the evening of the same day returned for answer a polite but wholly

absolute refusal. Being but a prince elector, he said, he might not aspire

to so high an honour as to be favoured with the presence of an English

ambassador. It was not the custom in Germany, and he feared that if he

consented he should displease the emperor.[619] The meaning of such a reply

delivered in a few hours was not to be mistaken, however disguised in

courteous language. The English emissary saw that he was an unwelcome

visitor, and that he must depart with the utmost celerity. "The elector,"

he wrote,[620] "thirsted to have me gone from him, which I right well

perceived by evident tokens which declared unto me the same." He had no

anxiety to expose to hazard the toleration which the Protestant dukedoms as

yet enjoyed from the emperor, by committing himself to a connection with a

prince with whose present policy he had no sympathy, and whose conversion

to the cause of the Reformation he had as yet no reason to believe

sincere.[621]

The reception which Vaughan met with at Weimar satisfied him that he need

go no further; neither the Landgrave nor the Duke of Lunenberg would be

likely to venture on a course which the elector so obviously feared. He,

therefore, gave up his mission, and returned to England.

The first overtures in this direction issued in complete failure, nor was

the result wholly to be regretted. It taught Henry (or it was a first

commencement of the lesson) that so long as he pursued a merely English

policy he might not expect that other nations would embroil themselves in

his defence. He must allow the Reformation a wider scope, he must permit it

to comprehend within its possible consequences the breaking of the chains

by which his subjects' minds were bound--not merely a change of jailors.

Then perhaps the German princes might return some other answer.

The disappointment, however, fell lightly; for before the account of the

failure had reached England, an event had happened, which, poor as the king

might be in foreign alliances, had added most material strength to his

position in England. The full moment of that event he had no means of

knowing. In its immediate bearing it was matter for most abundant

satisfaction. On the seventh of September, between three and four in the

afternoon, at the palace of Greenwich, was born a princess, named three

days later in her baptism, after the king's mother, Elizabeth.[622] A son

had been hoped for. The child was a daughter only; yet at least Providence

had not pronounced against the marriage by a sentence of barrenness; at

least there was now an heir whose legitimacy the nation had agreed to

accept. Te Deums were sung in all the churches; again the river decked

itself in splendour; again all London steeples were musical with bells. A

font of gold was presented for the christening. Francis, in compensation

for his backslidings, had consented to be godfather; and the infant, who

was soon to find her country so rude a stepmother, was received with all

the outward signs of exulting welcome. To Catherine's friends the offspring

of the rival marriage was not welcome, but was an object rather of bitter

hatred; and the black cloud of a sister's jealousy gathered over the cradle

whose innocent occupant had robbed her of her title and her expectations.

To the king, to the parliament, to the healthy heart of England, she was an

object of eager hope and an occasion for thankful gratitude; but the seeds

were sown with her birth of those misfortunes which were soon to overshadow

her, and to form the school of the great nature which in its maturity would

re-mould the world.

Leaving Elizabeth for the present, we return to the continent, and to the

long-promised interview, which was now at last approaching. Henry made no

further attempt to remonstrate with Francis; and Francis assured him, and

with all sincerity, that he would use his best efforts to move the pope to

make the necessary concessions. The English embassy meanwhile was

withdrawn. The excommunication had been received as an act of hostility, of

which Henry would not even condescend to complain; and it was to be

understood distinctly that in any exertions which might be made by the

French king, the latter was acting without commission on his own

responsibility. The intercession was to be the spontaneous act of a mutual

friend, who, for the interests of Christendom, desired to heal a dangerous

wound; but neither directly nor indirectly was it to be interpreted as an

expression of a desire for a reconciliation on the English side.

It was determined further, on the recal of the Duke of Norfolk, that the

opportunity of the meeting should be taken to give a notice to the pope of

the king's appeal to the council; and for this purpose, Bennet and Bonner

were directed to follow the papal court from Rome. Bennet never

accomplished this journey, dying on the route, worn out with much

service.[623] His death delayed Bonner, and the conferences had opened for

many days before his arrival. Clement had reached Marseilles by ship from

Genoa, about the 20th of October. As if pointedly to irritate Henry, he had

placed himself under the conduct of the Duke of Albany.[624] He was

followed two days later by his fair niece, Catherine de Medici; and the

preparations for the marriage were commenced with the utmost swiftness and

secrecy. The conditions of the contract were not allowed to transpire, but

they were concluded in three days; and on this 25th of October the pope

bestowed his precious present on the Duke of Orleans, he himself performing

the nuptial ceremony, and accompanying it with his paternal benediction on

the young pair, and on the happy country which was to possess them for its

king and queen. France being thus securely riveted to Rome, other matters

could be talked of more easily. Francis made all decent overtures to the

pope in behalf of Henry; if the pope was to be believed indeed, he was

vehemently urgent.[625] Clement in turn made suggestions for terms of

alliance between Francis and Charles, "to the advantage of the Most

Christian king;"[626] and thus parried the remonstrances. The only point

positively clear to the observers, was the perfect understanding which

existed between the King of France and his spiritual father.[627] Unusual

activity was remarked in the dockyards; Italian soldiers of fortune were

about the court in unusual numbers, and apparently in favour.[628] An

invasion of Lombardy was talked of among the palace retinue; and the

emperor was said to distrust the intentions of the conference. Possibly

experience had taught all parties to doubt each other's faith. Possibly

they were all in some degree waiting upon events; and had not yet resolved

upon their conduct.

In the midst of this scene arrived Doctor Bonner, in the beginning of

November, with Henry's appeal. He was a strange figure to appear in such a

society. There was little probity, perhaps, either in the court of France,

or in their Italian visitors: but of refinement, of culture, of those

graces which enable men to dispense with the more austere excellences of

character--which transform licentiousness into elegant frailty, and

treachery and falsehood into pardonable finesse--of these there was very

much: and when a rough, coarse, vulgar Englishman was plunged among these

delicate ladies and gentlemen, he formed an element which contrasted

strongly with the general environment. Yet Banner, perhaps, was not without

qualifications which fitted him for his mission. He was not, indeed,

virtuous; but he had a certain downright honesty about him, joined with an

entire insensibility to those finer perceptions which would have interfered

with plain speaking, where plain speaking was desirable; he had a broad,

not ungenial humour, which showed him things and persons in their genuine

light, and enabled him to picture them for us with a distinctness for which

we owe him lasting thanks.

He appeared at Marseilles on the 7th of November, and had much difficulty

in procuring an interview. At length, weary of waiting, and regardless of

the hot lead with which he had been lately threatened, he forced his way

into the room where "the pope was standing, with the Cardinals De Lorraine

and Medici, ready apparelled with his stole to go to the consistory."

"Incontinently upon my coming thither," he wrote to Henry,[629] "the pope,

whose sight is incredulous quick, eyed me, and that divers times; making a

good pause in one place; at which time I desired the datary to advertise

his Holiness that I would speak with him; and albeit the datary made no

little difficulty therein, yet perceiving that upon refusal I would have

gone forthwith to the pope, he advertised the pope of my said desire. His

Holiness dismissing as then the said cardinals, and letting his vesture

fall, went to a window in the said chamber, calling me unto him. At which

time I showed unto his Holiness how that your Highness had given me express

and strait commandment to intimate unto him how that your Grace had

solemnly provoked and appealed unto the general council; submitting

yourself to the tuition and defence thereof; which provocation and appeal I

had under authentic writings then with me, to show for that purpose. And

herewithal I drew out the said writing, showing his said Holiness that I

brought the same in proof of the premises, and that his Holiness might see

and perceive all the same. The pope having this for a breakfast, only

pulled down his head to his shoulders, after the Italian fashion, and said

that because he was as then fully ready to go into the consistory, he would

not tarry to hear or see the said writings, but willed me to come at

afternoon."

The afternoon came, and Bonner returned, and was admitted. There was some

conversation upon indifferent matters; the pope making good-natured

inquiries about Bennet, and speaking warmly and kindly of him.

"Presently," Bonner continues, "falling out of that, he said that he

marvelled your Highness would use his Holiness after such sort as it

appears ye did. I said that your Highness no less did marvel that his

Holiness having found so much benevolence and kindness at your hands in all

times past, would for acquittal show such unkindness as of late he did. And

here we entered in communication upon two points: one was that his

Holiness, having committed in times past, and in most ample form, the cause

into the realm, promising not to revoke the said commission, and over that,

to confirm the process and sentence of the commissaries, should not at the

point of sentence have advoked the cause, retaining it at Rome--forasmuch

as Rome was a place whither your Highness could not, ne yet ought,

personally to come unto, and also was not bound to send thither your

proctor. The second point was, that your Highness's cause being, in the

opinion of the best learned men in Christendom, approved good and just, and

so [in] many ways known unto his Holiness, the same should not so long have

retained it in his hands without judgment.

"His Holiness answering the same, as touching the first point, said that if

the queen (meaning the late wife of Prince Arthur, calling her always in

his conversation the queen) had not given an oath refusing the judges as

suspect, he would not have advoked the matter at all, but been content that

it should have been determined and ended in your realm. But seeing she gave

that oath, appealing also to his court, he might and ought to hear her, his

promise made to your Highness, which was qualified, notwithstanding. As

touching the second point, his Holiness said that your Highness only was

the default thereof, because ye would not send a proxy to the cause. These

matters, however, he said, had been many times fully talked upon at Rome;

and therefore [he] willed me to omit further communication thereupon, and

to proceed to the doing of such things that I was specially sent for.

"Whereupon making protestation of your Highness's mind and intent towards

the see apostolic--not intending anything to do in contempt of the same--I

exhibited unto his Holiness the commission which your Highness had sent

unto me; and his Holiness delivering it to the datary, commanded him to

read it; and hearing in the same the words (referring to the injuries which

he had done to your Highness), he began to look up after a new sort, and

said, 'O questo et multo vero! (this is much true!)' meaning that it was

not true indeed. And verily, sure not only in this, but also in many parts

of the said commission, he showed himself grievously offended; insomuch

that, when those words, 'To the next general council which shall be

lawfully held in place convenient,' were read, he fell in a marvellous

great choler and rage, not only declaring the same by his gesture and

manner, but also by words: speaking with great vehemence, and saying, 'Why

did not the king, when I wrote to my nuncio this year past, to speak unto

him for this general council, give no answer unto my said nuncio, but

referred him for answer to the French king? at what time he might perceive

by my doing, that I was very well disposed, and much spake for it.' 'The

thing so standing, now to speak of a general council! Oh, good Lord! but

well! his commission and all his other writings cannot be but welcome unto

me;' which words methought he spake willing to hide his choler, and make me

believe that he was nothing angry with their doings, when in vary deed I

perceived, by many arguments, that it was otherwise. And one among others

was taken here for infallible with them that knoweth the pope's conditions,

that he was continually folding up and unwinding of his handkerchief, which

he never doth but when he is tickled to the very heart with great choler."

At length the appeal was read through; and at the close of it Francis

entered, and talked to the pope for some time, but in so low a voice that

Bonner could not hear what was passing. When he had gone, his Holiness said

that he would deliberate upon the appeal with the consistory, and after

hearing their judgments would return his answer.

Three days passed, and then the English agent was informed that he might

again present himself. The pope had recovered his calmness. When he had

time to collect himself, Clement could speak well and with dignity; and if

we could forget that his conduct was substantially unjust, and that in his

conscience he knew it to be unjust, he would almost persuade us to believe

him honest. "He said," wrote Bonner, "that his mind towards your Highness

always had been to minister justice, and to do pleasure to you; albeit it

hath not been so taken: and he never unjustly grieved your Grace that he

knoweth, nor intendeth hereafter to do. As concerning the appeal, he said

that, forasmuch as there was a constitution of Pope Pius, his predecessor,

that did condemn and reprove all such appeals, he did therefore reject your

Grace's appeal as frivolous, forbidden, and unlawful." As touching the

council, he said generally, that he would do his best that it should meet;

but it was to be understood that the calling a general council belonged to

him, and not to the King of England.

The audience ended, and Bonner left the pope convinced that he intended, on

his return to Rome, to execute the censures and continue the process

without delay. That the sentence which he would pronounce would be against

the king appeared equally certain.

It appeared certain, yet after all no certain conclusion is possible.

Francis I., though not choosing to quarrel with the see of Rome to do a

pleasure to Henry, was anxious to please his ally to the extent of his

convenience; at any rate, he would not have gratuitously deceived him; and

still less would he have been party to an act of deliberate treachery. When

Bonner was gone he had a last interview with the pope, in which he urged

upon him the necessity of complying with Henry's demands; and the pope on

this occasion said that he was satisfied that the King of England was

right; that his cause was good; and that he had only to acknowledge the

papal jurisdiction by some formal act, to find sentence immediately

pronounced in his favour. Except for his precipitation, and his refusal to

depute a proxy to plead for him, his wishes would have been complied with

long before. In the existing posture of affairs, and after the measures

which had been passed in England with respect to the see of Rome, he

himself, the pope said, could not make advances without some kind of

submission; but a single act of acknowledgment was all which he

required.[630]

Extraordinary as it must seem, the pope certainly bound himself by this

engagement: and who can tell with what intention? To believe him sincere

and to believe him false seems equally impossible. If he was persuaded that

Henry's cause _was_ good, why did he in the following year pronounce

finally for Catherine? why had he imperilled so needlessly the interests of

the papacy in England? why had his conduct from the beginning pointed

steadily to the conclusion at which he at last arrived? and why throughout

Europe were the ultramontane party, to a man, on Catherine's side? On the

other hand, what object at such a time can be conceived for falsehood? Can

we suppose that he designed to dupe Henry into submission by a promise

which he had predetermined to break? It is hard to suppose even Clement

capable of so elaborate an act of perfidy; and it is, perhaps, idle to

waste conjectures on the motives of a weak, much-agitated man. He was,

probably, but giving a fresh example of his disposition to say at each

moment whatever would be most agreeable to his hearers. This was his

unhappy habit, by which he earned for himself a character for dishonesty, I

labour to think, but half deserved.

If, however, Clement meant to deceive, he succeeded, undoubtedly, in

deceiving the French king. Francis, in communicating to Henry the language

which the pope had used, entreated him to reconsider his resolution. The

objection to pleading at Rome might be overcome; for the pope would meet

him in a middle course. Judges could be appointed, who should sit at

Cambray, and pass a sentence in condemnation of the original marriage; with

a definite promise that their sentence should not again be called in

question. To this arrangement there could be no reasonable objection; and

Francis implored that a proposal so liberal should not be rejected.

Sufficient danger already threatened Christendom, from heretics within and

from the Turks without; and although the English parliament were agreed to

maintain the second marriage, it was unwise to provoke the displeasure of

foreign princes. To allow time for the preliminary arrangements, the

execution of the censures had been further postponed; and if Henry would

make up the quarrel, the French monarch was commissioned to offer a league,

offensive and defensive, between England, France, and the Papacy. He

himself only desired to be faithful to his engagements to his good brother;

and as a proof of his good faith, he said that he had been offered the

Duchy of Milan, if he would look on while the emperor and the pope attacked

England.[631]

This language bears all the character of sincerity; and when we remember

that it followed immediately upon a close and intimate communication of

three weeks with Clement, it is not easy to believe that he could have

mistaken the extent of the pope's promises. We may suppose Clement for the

moment to have been honest, or wavering between honesty and falsehood; we

may suppose further that Francis trusted him because it was undesirable to

be suspicious, in the belief that he was discharging the duty of a friend

to Henry, and of a friend to the church, in offering to mediate upon these

terms.

But Henry was far advanced beyond the point at which fair words could move

him. He had trusted many times, and had been many times deceived. It was

not easy to entangle him again. It mattered little whether Clement was weak

or false; the result was the same--he could not be trusted. To an open

English understanding there was something monstrous in the position of a

person professing to be a judge, who admitted that a cause which lay before

him was so clear that he could bind himself to a sentence upon it, and

could yet refuse to pronounce that sentence, except upon conditions. It was

scarcely for the interests of justice to leave the distribution of it in

hands so questionable.

Instead, therefore, of coming forward, as Francis hoped, instead of

consenting to entangle himself again in the meshes of diplomatic intrigue,

the king returned a peremptory refusal.

The Duke of Norfolk, and such of the council as dreaded the completion of

the schism, assured d'Inteville, the French ambassador, that for themselves

they considered Francis was doing the best for England which could be done,

and that they deprecated violent measures as much as possible; but in all

this party there was a secret leaning to Queen Catherine, a dislike of

Queen Anne and the whole Boleyn race, and a private hope and belief that

the pope would after all be firm. Their tongues were therefore tied. They

durst not speak except alone in whispers to each other; and the French

ambassador, who did dare, only drew from Henry a more determined expression

of his resolution.

As to his measures in England, the king said, the pope had begun the

quarrel by issuing censures and by refusing to admit his reasons for

declining to plead at Rome. He was required to send a proctor, and was told

that the cause should be decided in favour of whichever party was so

represented there. For the sake of all other princes as well as himself, he

would send no proctor, nor would he seem to acquiesce in the pretences of

the papal see. The King of France told him that the pope admitted the

justice of his cause. Let the pope do justice, then. The laws passed in

parliament were for the benefit of the commonwealth, and he would never

revoke them. He demanded no reparation, and could make no reparation. He

asked only for his right, and if he could not obtain it, he had God and

truth on his side, and that was enough. In vain d'Inteville answered

feebly, that his master had done all that was in his power; the king

replied that the French council wished to entangle him with the pope; but

for his own part he would never more acknowledge the pope in his pretended

capacity. He might be bishop of Rome, or pope also, if he preferred the

name; but the see of Rome should have no more jurisdiction in England, and

he thought he would be none the worse Christian on that account, but rather

the better. Jesus Christ he would acknowledge, and him only, as the true

Lord of Christian men, and Christ's word only should be preached in

England. The Spaniards might invade him as they threatened. He did not fear

them. They might come, but they might not find it so easy to return.[632]

The King had taken his position and was prepared for the consequences. He

had foreseen for more than a year the possibility of an attempted invasion;

and since his marriage, he had been aware that the chances of success in

the adventure had been discussed on the Continent by the papal and imperial

party. The pope had spoken of his censures being enforced, and Francis had

revealed to Henry the nature of the dangerous overtures which had been made

to himself. The Lutheran princes had hurriedly declined to connect

themselves in any kind of alliance with England; and on the 25th of

September, Stephen Vaughan had reported that troops were being raised in

Germany, which rumour destined for Catherine's service.[633] Ireland, too,

as we shall hear in the next chapter, was on the verge of an insurrection,

which had been fomented by papal agents.

Nevertheless, there was no real danger from an invasion, unless it was

accompanied with an insurrection at home, or with a simultaneous attack

from Scotland; and while of the first there appeared upon the surface no

probability, with Scotland a truce for a year had been concluded on the 1st

of October.[634] The king, therefore, had felt himself reasonably secure.

Parliament had seemed unanimous; the clergy were submissive; the nation

acquiescent or openly approving;[635] and as late as the beginning of

November, 1533, no suspicion seems to have been entertained of the spread

of serious disaffection. A great internal revolution had been accomplished;

a conflict of centuries between the civil and spiritual powers had been

terminated without a life lost or a blow struck. Partial murmurs there had

been, but murmurs were inevitable, and, so far as the government yet knew,

were harmless. The Scotch war had threatened to be dangerous, but it had

been extinguished. Impatient monks had denounced the king from the pulpits,

and disloyal language had been reported from other quarters, which had

roused vigilance, but had not created alarm. The Nun of Kent had forced

herself into the royal presence with menacing prophecies; but she had

appeared to be a harmless dreamer, who could only be made of importance by

punishment. The surface of the nation was in profound repose. Cromwell,

like Walsingham after him, may perhaps have known of the fire which was

smouldering below, and have watched it silently till the moment came at

which to trample it out; but no symptom of uneasiness appears either in the

conduct of the government or in the official correspondence. The

organisation of the friars, the secret communication of the Nun with

Catherine and the Princess Mary, with the papal nuncio, or with noble lords

and reverend bishops, was either unknown, or the character of those

communications was not suspected. That a serious political conspiracy

should have shaped itself round the ravings of a seeming lunatic, to all

appearance had not occurred as a possibility to a single member of the

council, except to those whose silence was ensured by their complicity.

So far as we are able to trace the story (for the links of the chain which

led to the discovery of the design's which were entertained, are something

imperfect), the suspicions of the government were first roused in the

following manner:

Queen Catherine, as we have already seen, had been called upon, at the

coronation of Anne Boleyn, to renounce her title, and she had refused. Mary

had been similarly deprived of her rank as princess; but either her

disgrace was held to be involved in that of her mother, or some other

cause, perhaps the absence of immediate necessity, had postponed the demand

for her own personal submission. As, however, on the publication of the

second marriage, it had been urged on Catherine that there could not be two

queens in England, so on the birth of the Princess Elizabeth, an analogous

argument required the disinheritance of Mary. It was a hard thing; but her

mother's conduct obliged the king to be peremptory. She might have been

legitimatised by act of parliament, if Catherine would have submitted. The

consequences of Catherine's refusal might be cruel, but they were

unavoidable.

Mary was not with her mother. It had been held desirable to remove her from

an influence which would encourage her in a useless opposition; and she was

residing at Beaulieu, afterwards New Hall, in Essex, under the care of Lord

Hussey and the Countess of Salisbury. Lord Hussey was a dangerous guardian;

he was subsequently executed for his complicity in the Pilgrimage of Grace,

the avowed object of which was the restoration of Mary to her place as

heir-apparent. We may believe, therefore, that while under his surveillance

she experienced no severe restraint, nor received that advice with respect

to her conduct which prudence would have dictated. Lord Hussey, however,

for the present enjoyed the confidence of the king, and was directed to

inform his charge, that for the future she was to consider herself not as

princess, but as the king's natural daughter, the Lady Mary Tudor. The

message was a painful one; painful, we will hope, more on her mother's

account than on her own; but her answer implied that, as yet, Henry VIII.

was no object of especial terror to his children.

"Her Grace replied," wrote Lord Hussey to the council in communicating the

result of his undertaking,[636] that "she could not a little marvel that I

being alone, and not associate with some other the king's most honourable

council, nor yet sufficiently authorised neither by commission not by any

other writing from the King's Highness, would attempt to declare such a

high enterprise and matter of no little weight and importance unto her

Grace, in diminishing her said estate and name; her Grace not doubting that

she is the king's true and legitimate daughter and heir procreate in good

and lawful matrimony; [and] further adding, that unless she were advertised

from his Highness by his writing that his Grace was so minded to diminish

her estate, name, and dignity, which she trusteth his Highness will never

do, she would not believe it."

Inasmuch as Mary was but sixteen at this time, the resolution which she

displayed in sending such a message was considerable. The early English

held almost Roman notions on the nature of parental authority, and the tone

of a child to a father was usually that of the most submissive reverence.

Nor was she contented with replying indirectly through her guardian. She

wrote herself to the king, saying that she neither could nor would in her

conscience think the contrary, but that she was his lawful daughter born in

true matrimony, and that she thought that he in his own conscience did

judge the same.[637]

Such an attitude in so young a girl was singular, yet not necessarily

censurable. Henry was not her only parent, and if we suppose her to have

been actuated by affection for her mother, her conduct may appear not

pardonable only, but spirited and creditable. In insisting upon her

legitimacy, nevertheless, she was not only asserting the good name and fame

of Catherine of Arragon, but unhappily her own claim to the succession to

the throne. It was natural that under the circumstances she should have

felt her right to assert that claim; for the injury which she had suffered

was patent not only to herself, but to Europe. Catherine might have been

required to give way that the king might have a son, and that the

succession might be established in a prince; but so long as the child of

the second marriage was a daughter only, it seemed substantially monstrous

to set aside the elder for the younger. Yet the measure was a harsh

necessity; a link in the chain which could not be broken. The harassed

nation insisted above all things that no doubt should hang over the future,

and it was impossible in the existing complications to recognise the

daughter of Catherine without excluding Elizabeth, and excluding the prince

who was expected to follow her. By asserting her title, Mary was making

herself the nucleus of sedition, which on her father's death would lead to

a convulsion in the realm. She might not mean it, but the result would not

be affected by a want of purpose in herself; and it was possible that her

resolution might create immediate and far more painful complications. The

king's excommunication was imminent, and if the censures were enforced by

the emperor, she would be thrust into the unpermitted position of her

father's rival.

The political consequences of her conduct, notwithstanding, although

evident to statesmen, might well be concealed from a headstrong, passionate

girl. There was no suspicion that she herself was encouraging any of these

dangerous thoughts, and Henry looked upon her answer to Lord Hussey and her

letter to himself as expressions of petulant folly. Lord Oxford, the Earl

of Essex, and the Earl of Sussex were directed to repair to Beaulieu, and

explain to her the situation in which she had placed herself.

"Considering," wrote the king to them, "how highly such contempt and

rebellion done by our daughter and her servants doth touch not only us, and

the surety of our honour and person, but also the tranquillity of our

realm; and not minding to suffer the pernicious example hereof to spread

far abroad, but to put remedy to the same in due time, we have given you

commandment to declare to her the great folly, temerity, and indiscretion

that she hath used herein, with the peril she hath incurred by reason of

her so doing. By these her ungodly doings hitherto she hath most worthily

deserved our high indignation and displeasure, and thereto no less pain and

punition than by the order of the laws of our realm doth appertain in case

of high treason, unless our mercy and clemency should be shewed in that

behalf. [If, however, after] understanding our mind and pleasure, [she

will] conform herself humbly and obediently to the observation of the same,

according to the office and duty of a natural daughter, and of a true and

faithful subject, she may give us cause hereafter to incline our fatherly

pity to her reconciliation, her benefit and advancement."[638]

The reply of Mary to this message is not discoverable; but it is certain

that she persisted in her resolution, and clung either to her mother's

"cause" or to her own rank and privilege, in sturdy defiance of her father.

To punish her insubordination or to tolerate it was equally difficult; and

the government might have been in serious embarrassment had not a series of

discoveries, following rapidly one upon the other, explained the mystery of

these proceedings, and opened a view with alarming clearness into the

under-currents of the feeling of the country.

Information from time to time had reached Henry from Rome, relating to the

correspondence between Catherine and the pope. Perhaps, too, he knew how

assiduously she had importuned the emperor to force Clement to a

decision.[639] No effort, however, had been hitherto made to interfere with

her hospitalities, or to oblige her visitors to submit to scrutiny before

they could be admitted to her presence. She was the mistress of her own

court and of her own actions; and confidential agents, both from Rome,

Brussels, and Spain, had undoubtedly passed and repassed with reciprocal

instructions and directions.

The crisis which was clearly approaching had obliged Henry, in the course

of this autumn, to be more watchful; and about the end of October, or the

beginning of November,[640] two friars were reported as having been at

Bugden, whose movements attracted suspicion from their anxiety to escape

observation. Secret agents of the government, who had been "set" for the

purpose, followed the friars to London, and notwithstanding "many wiles and

cautells by them invented to escape," the suspected persons were arrested

and brought before Cromwell. Cromwell, "upon examination" could gather

nothing from them of any moment or great importance; but, "entering on

further communication," he said, "he found one of them a very seditious

person, and so committed them to ward." The king was absent from London,

but had left directions that, in the event of any important occurrence of

the kind, Archbishop Cranmer should be sent for; but Cranmer not being

immediately at hand, Cromwell wrote to Henry for instructions; inasmuch as,

he said, "it is undoubted that they (the monks) have intended, and would

confess, some great matter, if they might be examined as they ought to

be--that is to say, by pains."

The curtain here falls over the two prisoners; we do not know whether they

were tortured, whether they confessed, or what they confessed; but we may

naturally connect this letter, directly or indirectly, with the events

which immediately followed. In the middle of November we find a commission

sitting at Lambeth, composed of Cromwell, Cranmer, and Latimer, ravelling

out the threads of a story, from which, when the whole was disentangled, it

appeared that by Queen Catherine, the Princess Mary, and a large and

formidable party in the country, the king, on the faith of a pretended

revelation, was supposed to have forfeited the crown; that his death,

either by visitation of God or by visitation of man, was daily expected;

and that whether his death took place or not, a revolution was immediately

looked for, which would place the princess on the throne.

The Nun of Kent, as we remember, had declared that if Henry persisted in

his resolution of marrying Anne, she was commissioned by God to tell him

that he should lose his power and authority. She had not specified the

manner in which the sentence would be carried into effect against him. The

form of her threats had been also varied occasionally; she said that he

should die, but whether by the hands of his subjects, or by a providential

judgment, she left to conjecture;[641] and the period within which his

punishment was to fall upon him was stated variously at one month or at

six.[642] She had attempted no secresy with these prophecies; she had

confined herself in appearance to words; and the publicity which she

courted having prevented suspicion of secret conspiracy, Henry quietly

accepted the issue, and left the truth of the prophecy to be confuted by

the event. He married. The one month passed; the six months passed;

eight--nine months. His child was born and was baptised, and no divine

thunder had interposed; only a mere harmless verbal thunder, from a poor

old man at Rome. The illusion, as he imagined, had been lived down, and had

expired of its own vanity.

But the Nun and her friar advisers were counting on other methods of

securing the fulfilment of the prophecy than supernatural assistance. It is

remarkable that hypocrites and impostors as they knew themselves to be,

they were not without a half belief that some supernatural intervention was

imminent; but the career on which they had entered was too fascinating to

allow them to forsake it when their expectation failed them. They were

swept into the stream which was swelling to resist the Reformation, and

allowed themselves to be hurried forward either to victory or to

destruction.

The first revelation being apparently confuted by facts, a second was

produced as an interpretation of it; which, however, was not published like

the other, but whispered in secret to persons whose dispositions were

known.[643]

"When the King's Grace," says the report of the commissioners, "had

continued in good health, honour, and prosperity more than a month, Dr.

Bocking shewed the said Nun, that as King Saul, abjected from his kingdom

by God, yet continued king in the sight of the world, so her said

revelations might be taken. And therefore the said Nun, upon this

information, forged another revelation, that her words should be

understanded to mean that the King's Grace should not be king in the

reputation or acceptation of God, not one month or one hour after that he

married the Queen's Grace that now is. The first revelation had moved a

great number of the king's subjects, both high and low, to grudge against

the said marriage before it was concluded and perfected; and also induced

such as were stiffly bent against that marriage, daily to look for the

destruction of the King's Grace within a month after he married the Queen's

Grace that now is. And when they were deluded in that expectation, the

second revelation was devised not only as an interpretation of the former,

but to the intent to induce the king's subjects to believe that God took

the King's Grace for no king of this realm, and that they should likewise

take him for no righteous king, and themselves not bounden to be his

subjects; which might have put the King and the Queen's Grace in jeopardy

of their crown and of their issue, and the people of this realm in great

danger of destruction."[644]

It was no light matter to pronounce the king to be in the position of Saul

after his rejection; and read by the light of the impending

excommunication, the Nun's words could mean nothing but treason. The

speaker herself was in correspondence with the pope; she had attested her

divine commission by miracles, and had been recognised as a saint by an

Archbishop of Canterbury; the regular orders of the clergy throughout the

realm were known to regard her as inspired; and when the commission

recollected that the king was threatened further with dying "a villain's

death;" and that these and similar prophecies were carefully written out,

and were in private circulation through the country, the matter assumed a

dangerous complexion: it became at once essential to ascertain how far, and

among what classes of the state, these things had penetrated. The Friars

Mendicant were discovered to be in league with her, and these itinerants

were ready-made missionaries of sedition. They had privilege of vagrancy

without check or limit; and owing to their universal distribution and the

freemasonry among themselves, the secret disposition of every family in

England was intimately known to them. No movement, therefore, could be

securely over-looked in which these orders had a share; the country might

be undermined in secret; and the government might only learn their danger

at the moment of explosion.

No sooner, therefore, were the commissioners in possession of the general

facts, than the principal parties--that is to say, the Nun herself and five

of the monks of Christ Church at Canterbury--with whom her intercourse was

most constant, were sent to the Tower to be "examined"--the monks it is

likely by "torture," if they could not otherwise be brought to confession.

The Nun was certainly not tortured. On her first arrest, she was obstinate

in maintaining her prophetic character; and she was detected in sending

messages to her friends, "to animate them to adhere to her and to her

prophecies."[645] But her courage ebbed away under the hard reality of her

position. She soon made a full confession, in which her accomplices joined

her; and the half-completed web of conspiracy was ravelled out. They did

not attempt to conceal that they had intended, if possible, to create an

insurrection. The five monks--Father Bocking, Father Rich, Father Rysby,

Father Dering, and Father Goold--had assisted the Nun in inventing her

"Revelations;" and as apostles, they had travelled about the country to

communicate them in whatever quarters they were likely to be welcome. When

we remember that Archbishop Warham had been a dupe of this woman, and that

even Wolsey's experience and ability had not prevented him from believing

in her power, we are not surprised to find high names among those who were

implicated. Vast numbers of abbots and priors, and of regular and secular

clergy, had listened eagerly; country gentlemen also, and London merchants.

The Bishop of Rochester had "wept for joy" at the first utterances of the

inspired prophetess; and Sir Thomas More, "who at first did little regard

the said revelations, afterwards did greatly rejoice to hear of them."[646]

We learn, also, that the Nun had continued to _communicate with "the Lady

Princess Dowager" and "the Lady Mary, her daughter."_[647]

These were names which might have furnished cause for regret, but little

for surprise or alarm. The commissioners must have found occasion for other

feelings, however, when among the persons implicated were found the

Countess of Salisbury and the Marchioness of Exeter, with their chaplains,

households, and servants; Sir Thomas Arundel, Sir George Carew, and "many

of the nobles of England."[648] A combination headed by the Countess of

Salisbury, if she were supported even by a small section of the nobility,

would under any circumstances have been dangerous; and if such a

combination was formed in support of an invasion, and was backed by the

blessings of the pope and the fanaticism of the clergy, the result might be

serious indeed. So careful a silence is observed in the official papers on

this feature of the Nun's conspiracy, that it is uncertain how far the

countess had committed herself; but she had listened certainly to avowals

of treasonable intentions without revealing them, which of itself was no

slight evidence of disloyalty; and that the government were really alarmed

may be gathered from the simultaneous arrest of Sir William and Sir George

Neville, the brothers of Lord Latimer. The connection and significance of

these names I shall explain presently; in the meantime I return to the

preparations which had been made by the Nun.

As the final judgment drew near--which, unless the king submitted, would be

accompanied, with excommunication, and a declaration that the English

nation was absolved from allegiance,--"the said false Nun," says the

report, "surmised herself to have made a petition to God to know, when

fearful war should come, whether any man should take my Lady Mary's part or

no; and she feigned herself to have answer by revelation that no man should

fear but that she should have succour and help enough; and that no man

should put her from her right that she was born unto. And petitioning next

to know when it was the pleasure of God that her revelations should be put

forth to the world, she had answer that knowledge should be given to her

ghostly father when it should be time."[649]

With this information Father Goold had hastened down to Bugden, encouraging

Catherine to persevere in her resistance;[650] and while the imperialists

at Rome were pressing the pope for sentence (we cannot doubt at Catherine's

instance), the Nun had placed herself in readiness to seize the opportunity

when it offered, and to blow the trumpet of insurrection in the panic which

might be surely looked for when that sentence should be published.

For this purpose she had organised, with considerable skill, a corps of

fanatical friars, who, when the signal was given, were simultaneously to

throw themselves into the midst of the people, and call upon them to rise

in the name of God. "To the intent," says the report, "to set forth this

matter, certain spiritual and religious persons were appointed, as they had

been chosen of God, to preach the false revelations of the said Nun, when

the time should require, if warning were given them; and some of these

preachers have confessed openly, and subscribed their names to their

confessions, that if the Nun had so sent them word, they would have

preached to the king's subjects that the pleasure of God was that they

should take him no longer for their king; and some of these preachers were

such as gave themselves to great fasting, watching, long prayers, wearing

of shirts of hair and great chains of iron about their middle, whereby the

people had them in high estimation of their great holiness,--and this

strait life they took on them by the counsel and exhortation of the said

Nun."[651]

Here, then, was the explanation of the attitude of Catherine and Mary.

Smarting under injustice, and most naturally blending their private quarrel

with the cause of the church, they had listened to these disordered visions

as to a message from heaven, and they had lent themselves to the first of

those religious conspiracies which held England in chronic agitation for

three quarters of a century. The innocent Saint at Bugden was the

forerunner of the prisoner at Fotheringay; and the Observant friars, with

their chain girdles and shirts of hair, were the antitypes of Parsons and

Campion. How critical the situation of England really was, appears from the

following letter of the French ambassador. The project for the marriage of

the Princess Mary with the Dauphin had been revived by the Catholic party;

and a private arrangement, of which this marriage was to form the

connecting link, was contemplated between the Ultramontanes in France, the

pope, and the emperor.

_D'Inteville to Cardinal Tournon._[652]

"MY LORD,--You will be so good as to tell the Most Christian king that the

emperor's ambassador has communicated with the old queen. The emperor sends

a message to her and to her daughter, that he will not return to Spain till

he has seen them restored to their rights.

"The people are so much attached to the said ladies that they will rise in

rebellion, and join any prince who will undertake their quarrel. You

probably know from other quarters the intensity of this feeling. It is

shared by all classes, high and low, and penetrates even into the royal

household.

"The nation is in marvellous discontent. Every one but the relations of the

present queen, is indignant on the ladies' account. Some fear the overthrow

of religion; others fear war and injury to trade. Up to this time, the

cloth, hides, wool, lead, and other merchandise of England have found

markets in Flanders, Spain, and Italy; now it is thought navigation will be

so dangerous that English merchants must equip their ships for war if they

trade to foreign countries; and besides the risk of losing all to the

enemy, the expense of the armament will swallow the profits of the voyage.

In like manner, the emperor's subjects and the pope's subjects will not be

able to trade with England. The coasts will be blockaded by the ships of

the emperor and his allies; and at this moment men's fears are aggravated

by the unseasonable weather throughout the summer, and the failure of the

crops. There is not corn enough for half the ordinary consumption.

"The common people, foreseeing these inconveniences, are so violent against

the queen, that they say a thousand shameful things of her, and of all who

have supported her in her intrigues. On them is cast the odium of all the

calamities anticipated from the war.

"When the war comes, no one doubts that the people will rebel as much from

fear of the dangers which I have mentioned, as from the love which is felt

for the two ladies, and especially for the Princess. She is so entirely

beloved that, notwithstanding the law made at the last Parliament, and the

menace of death contained in it, they persist in regarding her as Princess.

No Parliament, they say, can make her anything but the king's daughter,

born in marriage; and so the king and every one else regarded her before

that Parliament.

"Lately, when she was removed from Greenwich, a vast crowd of women, wives

of citizens and others, walked before her at their husbands' desire,

weeping and crying that notwithstanding all she was Princess. Some of them

were sent to the Tower, but they would not retract.

"Things are now so critical, and the fear of war is so general, that many

of the greatest merchants in London have placed themselves in communication

with the emperor's ambassador, telling him, that if the emperor will

declare war, the English nation will join him for the love they bear the

Lady Mary.

"You, my Lord, will remember that when you were here, it was said you were

come to tell the king that he was excommunicated, and to demand the hand of

the Princess for the Dauphin. The people were so delighted that they have

never ceased to pray for you. We too, when we arrived in London, were told

that the people were praying for us. They thought our embassy was to the

Princess. They imagined her marriage with the Dauphin had been determined

on by the two kings, and the satisfaction was intense and universal.

"They believe that, except by this marriage, they cannot possibly escape

war; whereas, can it be brought about, they will have peace with the

emperor and all other Christian princes. They are now so disturbed and so

desperate that, although at one time they would have preferred a husband

for her from among themselves, that they might not have a foreign king,

there now is nothing which they desire more. Unless the Dauphin will take

her, they say she will continue disinherited; or, if she come to her

rights, it can only be by battle, to the great incommodity of the country.

The Princess herself says publicly that the Dauphin is her husband, and

that she has no hope but in him. I have been told this by persons who have

heard it from her own lips.

"The emperor's ambassador inquired, after you came, whether we had seen

her. He said he knew she was most anxious to speak with us; she thought we

had permission to visit her, and she looked for good news. He told us,

among other things, that she had been more strictly guarded of late, by the

orders of the queen that now is, who, knowing her feeling for the Dauphin,

feared there might be some practice with her, or some attempt to carry her

off.

"The Princess's ladies say that she calls herself the Dauphin's wife. A

time will come, she says, when God will see that she has suffered pain and

tribulation sufficient; the Dauphin will then demand her of the king her

father, and the king her father will not be able to refuse.

"The lady who was my informant heard, also, from the Princess, that her

governess, and the other attendants whom the queen had set to watch her,

had assured her that the Dauphin was married to the daughter of the

emperor; but she, the Princess, had answered it was not true--the Dauphin

could not have two wives, and they well knew that she was his wife: they

told her that story, she said, to make her despair, and agree to give up

her rights; but she would never part with her hopes.

"You may have heard of the storm that broke out between her and her

governess when we went to visit her little sister. She was carried off by

force to her room, that she might not speak with us; and they could neither

pacify her nor keep her still, till the gentleman who escorted us told her

he had the king's commands that she was not to show herself while we were

in the house. You remember the message the same gentleman brought to you

from her, and the charge which was given by the queen.

"Could the king be brought to consent to the marriage, it could be a fair

union of two realms, and to annex Britain to the crown of France would be a

great honour to our Sovereign; the English party desire nothing better; the

pope will be glad of it; the pope fears that, if war break out again,

France will draw closer to England on the terms which the King of England

desires; and he may thus lose the French tribute as he has lost the

English. He therefore will urge the emperor to agree, and the emperor will

assist gladly for the love which he bears to his cousin.

"If the emperor be willing, the King of England can then be informed; and

he can be made to feel that, if he will avoid war, he must not refuse his

consent. The king, in fact, has no wish to disown the Princess, and he

knows well that the marriage with the Dauphin was once agreed on.

"Should he be unwilling, and should his wife's persuasions stil have

influence with him, he will hesitate before he will defy, for her sake, the

King of France and the emperor united. His regard for the queen is less

than it was, and diminishes every day. He has a new fancy,[653] as you are

aware."

The actual conspiracy, in the form which it had so far assumed, was rather

an appeal to fanaticism than a plot which could have laid hold of the

deeper mind of the country; but as an indication of the unrest which was

stealing over the minds of men, it assumed an importance which it would not

have received from its intrinsic character.

The guilt of the principal offenders admitted of no doubt. As soon as the

commissioners were satisfied that there was nothing further to be

discovered, the Nun, with the monks, was brought to trial before the Star

Chamber; and conviction followed as a matter of course.[654]

The unhappy girl finding herself at this conclusion, after seven years of

vanity, in which she had played with popes, and queens, and princesses, and

archbishops, now, when the dream was thus rudely broken, in the revulsion

of feeling could see nothing in herself but a convicted impostor. We need

not refuse to pity her. The misfortunes of her sickness had exposed her to

temptations far beyond the strength of an ordinary woman: and the guilt

which she passionately claimed for herself rested far more truly with the

knavery of the Christ Church monks and the incredible folly of Archbishop

Warham.[655] But the times were too stern to admit of nice distinctions. No

immediate sentence was pronounced, but it was thought desirable for the

satisfaction of the people that a confession should be made in public by

the Nun and her companions. The Sunday following their trial they were

placed on a raised platform at Paul's Cross by the side of the pulpit, and

when the sermon was over they one by one delivered their "bills" to the

preacher, which by him were read to the crowd.[656]

After an acknowledgment of their imposture the prisoners were remanded to

the Tower, and their ultimate fate reserved for the consideration of

parliament, which was to meet in the middle of January.

The chief offenders being thus disposed of, the council resolved next that

peremptory measures should be taken with respect to the Princess Mary.[657]

Her establishment was broken up, and she was sent to reside as the Lady

Mary in the household of the Princess Elizabeth--a hard but not unwholesome

discipline.[658] As soon as this was done, being satisfied that the leading

shoot of the conspiracy was broken, and that no immediate danger was now to

be feared, they proceeded leisurely to follow the clue of the Nun's

confession, and to extend their inquiries. The Countess of Salisbury was

mentioned as one of the persons with whom the woman had been in

correspondence. This lady was the daughter of the Duke of Clarence, brother

of Edward IV. Her mother was a Neville, a child of Richard the Kingmaker,

the famous Earl of Warwick, and her only brother had been murdered to

secure the shaking throne of Henry VII. Margaret Plantagenet, in recompense

for the lost honours of the house, was made Countess of Salisbury in her

own right. The title descended from her grandfather, who was Earl of

Salisbury and Warwick; but the prouder title had been dropped as suggestive

of dangerous associations. The Earldom of Warwick remained in abeyance, and

the castle and the estates attached to it were forfeited to the Crown. The

countess was married after her brother's death to a Sir Richard Pole, a

supporter and relation[659] of the king; and when left a widow she received

from Henry VIII. the respectful honour which was due to the most nobly born

of his subjects, the only remaining Plantagenet of unblemished descent. In

his kindness to her children the king had attempted to obliterate the

recollection of her brother's wrongs, and she had been herself selected to

preside over the household of the Princess Mary. During the first twenty

years of Henry's reign the countess seems to have acknowledged his

attentions with loyal regard, and if she had not forgotten her birth and

her childhood, she never connected herself with the attempts which during

that time were made to revive the feuds of the houses. Richard de la Pole,

nephew of Edward IV.,[660] and called while he lived "the White Rose," had

more than once endeavoured to excite an insurrection in the eastern

counties; but Lady Salisbury was never suspected of holding intercourse

with him; she remained aloof from political disputes, and in lofty

retirement she was contented to forget her greatness for the sake of the

Princess Mary, to whom she and her family were deeply attached. Her

relations with the king had thus continued undisturbed until his second

marriage. As the representative of the House of York she was the object of

the hopes and affections of the remnants of their party, but she had

betrayed no disposition to abuse her influence, or to disturb the quiet of

the nation for personal ambition of her own.

If it be lawful to interpret symptoms in themselves trifling by the light

of later events, it would seem as if her attitude now underwent a material

change. Her son Reginald had already quarrelled with the king upon the

divorce. He was in suspicious connection with the pope, and having been

required to return home upon his allegiance, had refused obedience. His

mother, and his mother's attached friend, the Marchioness of Exeter, we now

find among those to whom the Nun of Kent communicated her prophecies and

her plans. It does not seem that the countess thought at any time of

reviving her own pretensions; it does seem that she was ready to build a

throne for the Princess Mary out of the ruined supporters of her father's

family. The power which she could wield might at any moment become

formidable. She had two sons in England, Lord Montague and Sir Geoffrey

Pole. Her cousin, the Marquis of Exeter, a grandson himself of Edward

IV.,[661] was, with the exception of the Duke of Norfolk, the most powerful

nobleman in the realm; and he, to judge by events, was beginning to look

coldly on the king.[662] We find her surrounded also by the representatives

of her mother's family--Lord Abergavenny, who had been under suspicion when

the Duke of Buckingham was executed, Sir Edward Neville, afterwards

executed, Lord Latimer, Sir George and Sir William Neville, all of them

were her near connections, all collateral heirs of the King-maker,

inheriting the pride of their birth, and resentfully conscious of their

fallen fortunes. The support of a party so composed would have added

formidable strength to the preaching friars of the Nun of Kent; and as I

cannot doubt that the Nun was endeavouring to press her intrigues in a

quarter where disaffection if created would be most dangerous, so the lady

who ruled this party with a patriarchal authority had listened to her

suggestions; and the repeated interviews with her which were sought by the

Marchioness of Exeter were rendered more than suspicious by the secresy

with which these interviews were conducted.[663]

These circumstances explain the arrest, to which I alluded above, of Sir

William and Sir George Neville, brothers of Lord Latimer. They were not

among "the many noblemen" to whom the commissioners referred; for their

confessions remain, and contain no allusion to the Nun; but they were

examined at this particular time on general suspicion; and the arrest,

under such circumstances, of two near relatives of Lady Salisbury,

indicates clearly an alarm in the council, lest she might be contemplating

some serious movements. At any rate, either on her account or on their own,

the Nevilles fell under suspicion, and while they had no crimes to reveal,

their depositions, especially that of Sir William Neville, furnish singular

evidence of the temper of the times.

The confession of the latter begins with an account of the loss of certain

silver spoons, for the recovery of which Sir William sent to a wizard who

resided in Cirencester. The wizard took the opportunity of telling Sir

William's fortune: his wife was to die, and he himself was to marry an

heiress, and be made a baron; with other prospective splendours. The wizard

concluded, however, with recommending him to pay a visit to another dealer

in the dark art more learned than himself, whose name was Jones, at Oxford.

"So after that," said Sir William [Midsummer, 1532], "I went to Oxford,

intending that my brother George and I should kill a buck with Sir Simon

Harcourt, which he had promised me; and there at Oxford, in the said

Jones's chamber, I did see certain stillatories, alembics, and other

instruments of glass, and also a sceptre and other things, which he said

did appertain to the conjuration of the four kings; and also an image of

white metal; and in a box, a serpent's skin, as he said, and divers books

and things, whereof one was a book which he said was my Lord Cardinal's,

having pictures in it like angels. He told me he could make rings of gold,

to obtain favour of great men; and said that my Lord Cardinal had such; and

promised my said brother and me, either of us, one of them; and also he

showed me a round thing like a ball of crystal.

"He said that if the King's Grace went over to France [the Calais visit of

October, 1532], his Grace should marry my Lady Marchioness of Pembroke

before that his Highness returned again; and that it would be dangerous to

his Grace, and to the most part of the noblemen that should go with him;

saying also that he had written to one of the king's council to advise his

Highness not to go over, for if he did, it should not be for his Grace's

profit."

The wizard next pretended that he had seen a vision of a certain room in a

tower, in which a spirit had appeared with a coat of arms in his hand, and

had "delivered the same to Sir William Neville." The arms being described

as those of the Warwick family, Sir William, his brother, and Jones rode

down from Oxford to Warwick, where they went over the castle. The wizard

professed to recognise in a turret chamber the room in which he had seen

the spirit, and he prophesied that Sir William should recover the earldom,

the long-coveted prize of all the Neville family.

On their return to Oxford, Jones, continues Sir William, said further,

"That there should be a field in the north about a se'n-night before

Christmas, in which my Lord my brother [Lord Latimer] should be slain; the

realm should be long without a king; and much robbery would be within the

realm, specially of abbeys and religious houses, and of rich men, as

merchants, graziers, and others; so that, if I would, he at that time would

advise me to find the means to enter into the said castle for mine own

safeguard, and divers persons would resort unto me. _None of Cadwallader's

blood_, he told me, _should reign more than twenty-four years;_ and also

that Prince Edward [son of Henry VI. and Margaret of Anjou, killed at

Tewkesbury], had issue a son which was conveyed over sea; and there had

issue a son which was yet alive, either in Saxony or Almayne; and that

either he or the King of Scots should reign next after the King's Grace

that now is. To all which I answered," Sir William concluded, "that there

is nothing which the will of God is that a man shall obtain, but that he of

his goodness will put in his mind the way whereby he shall come by it; and

that surely I had no mind to follow any such fashion; and that, also, the

late Duke of Buckingham and others had cast themselves away by too much

trust in prophecies, and other jeoparding of themselves, and therefore I

would in no wise follow any such way. He answered, if I would not, it would

be long ere I obtained it. Then I said I believed that well, and if it

never came, I trusted to God to live well enough."[664]

Sir George Neville confirmed generally his brother's story, protesting that

they had never intended treason, and that "at no time had he been of

counsel" when any treason was thought of.[665]

The wizard himself was next sent for. The prophecies about the king he

denied wholly. He admitted that he had seen an angel in a dream giving Sir

William Neville the shield of the earldom in Warwick Castle, and that he

had accompanied the two brothers to Warwick, to examine the tower. Beyond

that, he said that he knew nothing either of them or of their intentions.

He declared himself a good subject, and he would "jeopard his life" to make

the philosopher's stone for the king in twelve months if the king pleased

to command him. He desired "no longer space than twelve months upon silver

and twelve and a half upon gold;" to be kept in prison till he had done it;

and it would be "better to the King's Grace than a thousand men."[666]

The result of these examinations does not appear, except it be that the

Nevilles were dismissed without punishment; and the story itself may be

thought too trifling to have deserved a grave notice. I see in it, however,

an illustration very noticeworthy of the temper which was working in the

country. The suspicion of treason in the Neville family may not have been

confirmed, although we see them casting longing looks on the lost

inheritance of Warwick; but their confessions betray the visions of

impending change, anarchy, and confusion, which were haunting the popular

imagination. A craving after prophecies, a restless eagerness to search

into the future by abnormal means, had infected all ranks from the highest

to the lowest; and such symptoms, when they appear, are a sure evidence of

approaching disorder, for they are an evidence of a present madness which

has brought down wisdom to a common level with folly. At such times, the

idlest fancy is more potent with the mind than the soundest arguments of

reason. The understanding abdicates its functions; and men are given over,

as if by magic, to the enchantments of insanity.

Phenomena of this eccentric kind always accompany periods of intellectual

change. Most men live and think by habit; and when habit fails them, they

are like unskilful sailors who have lost the landmarks of their course, and

have no compass and no celestial charts by which to steer. In the years

which preceded the French Revolution, Cagliostro was the companion of

princes--at the dissolution of paganism the practicers of curious arts, the

watches and the necromancers, were the sole objects of reverence in the

Roman world;--and so, before the Reformation, archbishops and cardinals saw

an inspired prophetess in a Kentish servant girl; Oxford heads of colleges

sought out heretics with the help of astrology; Anne Boleyn blessed a basin

of rings, her royal fingers pouring such virtue into the metal that no

disorder could resist it;[667] Wolsey had a magic crystal; and Cromwell,

while in Wolsey's household, "did haunt to the company of a wizard."[668]

These things were the counterpart of a religion which taught that slips of

paper, duly paid for, could secure indemnity for sin. It was well for

England that the chief captain at least was proof against the epidemic--no

random scandal seems ever to have whispered that such delusions had touched

the mind of the king.[669]

While the government were prosecuting these inquiries at home, the law at

the Vatican had run its course; November passed, and as no submission had

arrived, the sentence of the 12th of July came into force, and the king,

the queen, and the Archbishop of Canterbury were declared to have incurred

the threatened censures.

The privy council met on the 2nd of December, and it was determined in

consequence that copies of the "Act of Appeals," and of the king's

"provocation" to a general council, should be fixed without delay on every

church door in England. Protests were at the same time to be drawn up and

sent into Flanders, and to the other courts in Europe, "to the intent the

falsehood and injustice of the Bishop of Rome might appear to all the

world." The defences of the country were to be looked to; and "spies" to be

sent into Scotland to see "what they intended there," "and whether they

would confeder themselves with any outward princes." Finally, it was

proposed that the attempt to form an alliance with the Lutheran powers

should be renewed on a larger scale; that certain discreet and grave

persons should be appointed to conclude "some league or amity with the

princes of Germany"--"that is to say, the King of Poland, the King of

Hungary,[670] the Duke of Saxony, the Duke of Bavaria, the Duke of

Brandenburg, the Landgrave of Hesse, and other potentates."[671] Vaughan's

mission had been merely tentative, and had failed. Yet the offer of a

league, offensive and defensive, the immediate and avowed object of which

was a general council at which the Protestants should be represented, might

easily succeed where vague offers of amity had come to nothing. The

formation of a Protestant alliance, however, would have been equivalent to

a declaration of war against Catholic Europe; and it was a step which could

not be taken, consistently with the Treaty of Calais,--without first

communicating with Francis.

Henry, therefore, by the advice of the council, wrote a despatch to Sir

John Wallop, the ambassador at Paris, which was to be laid before the

French court. He explained the circumstances in which he was placed, with

the suggestion which the council had made to him. He gave a list of the

princes with whom he had been desired by his ministers to connect

himself--and the object was nothing less than a coalition of Northern

Europe. He recapitulated the injuries which he had received from the pope,

who at length was studying "to subvert the rest and peace of the realm;"

"yea, and so much as in him was, utterly to destroy the same." The nobles

and council, he said, for their own sake as well as for the sake of the

kingdom, had entreated him to put an end, once for all, to the pope's

usurpation; and to invite the Protestant princes, for the universal weal of

Christendom, to unite in a common alliance. In his present situation he was

inclined to act upon this advice. "As concerning his own realm, he had

already taken such order with his nobles and subjects, as he would shortly

be able to give to the pope such a buffet as he never had heretofore;" but

as a German alliance was a matter of great weight and importance,

"although," he concluded, "we consider it to be right expedient to set

forth the same with all diligence, yet we intend nothing to do therein

without making our good brother first privy thereunto. And for this cause

and consideration only, you may say that we have at this time addressed

these letters unto you, commanding you to declare our said purpose unto our

good brother, and to require of him on our behalf his good address and best

advice. Of his answer we require you to advertise us with all diligence,

for according thereunto we intend to attemper our proceedings. We have

lately had advertisements how that our said good brother should, by the

labour of divers affectionate Papists, be minded to set forth something

with his clergy in advancement of the pope and his desires. This we cannot

believe that he will do."[672]

The meaning of this letter lies upon the surface. If the European powers

were determined to leave him no alternative, the king was prepared to ally

himself with the Lutherans. But however he might profess to desire that

alliance, it was evident that he would prefer, if possible, a less extreme

resource. The pope had ceased to be an object of concern to him; but he

could not contemplate, without extreme unwillingness, a separation from the

orderly governments who professed the Catholic faith. The pope had injured

him; Francis had deceived him; they had tempted his patience because they

knew his disposition. The limit of endurance had been reached at length;

yet, on the verge of the concluding rupture, he turned once more, as if to

offer a last opportunity of peace.

The reply of Francis was an immediate mission of the Bishop of Bayonne (now

Bishop of Paris), first into England, and from England to Rome, where he

was to endeavour, to the best of his ability, to seam together the already

gaping rent in the church with fair words--a hopeless task--the results of

which, however, were unexpectedly considerable, as will be presently seen.

Meanwhile, on the side of Flanders, the atmosphere was dubious and

menacing. The refugee friars, who were reported to be well supplied with

money from England, were labouring to exasperate the people, Father Peto

especially distinguishing himself upon this service.[673] The English

ambassador, Sir John Hacket, still remained at Brussels, and the two

governments were formally at peace; but when Hacket required the

queen-regent to forbid the publication of the brief of July in the

Netherlands, he was met with a positive refusal. "M. Ambassador," she said,

"the Emperor, the King of Hungary, the Queen of France, the King of

Portugal, and I, understand what are the rights of our aunt--our duty is to

her--and such letters of the pope as come hither in her favour we shall

obey. Your master has no right to complain either of the emperor or of

myself, if we support our aunt in a just cause."[674] At the same time,

formal complaints were made by Charles of the personal treatment of Queen

Catherine, and the clouds appeared to be gathering for a storm. Yet here,

too, there was an evident shrinking from extremities. A Welsh gentleman had

been at Brussels to offer his services against Henry, and had met with

apparent coldness. Sir John Hacket wrote, on the 15th of December, that he

was assured by well-informed persons, that so long as Charles lived, he

would never be the first to begin a war with England, "which would rebound

to the destruction of the Low Countries."[675] A week later, when the

queen-regent was suffering from an alarming illness, he said it was

reported that, should she die, Catherine or Mary, if either of them was

allowed to leave England, would be held "meet to have governance of the Low

Countries."[676] This was a generous step, if the emperor seriously

contemplated it. The failure of the Nun of Kent had perhaps taught him that

there was no present prospect of a successful insurrection. In his conduct

towards England, he was seemingly governing himself by the prospect which

might open for a successful attack upon it. If occasion offered to strike

the government in connection with an efficient Catholic party in the nation

itself, he would not fail to avail himself of it.[677] Otherwise, he would

perhaps content himself with an attitude of inactive menace; unless menaced

himself by a Protestant confederation.