ANNE OF CLEVES, AND THE FALL OF CROMWELL.
[Sidenote: Increasing impatience of the country for the king's
marriage.]
The king's marriage could not be longer delayed. Almost three years had
been wasted in fruitless negotiations, and the state of his health
threatened, more and more clearly, that his life would not be prolonged
to any advanced period. The death of the Duke of Richmond[511] was a
fresh evidence of the absence of vital stamina in Henry's male children;
and the anxious and impatient people saw as yet but a single fragile
life between the country and a disputed succession. The disloyal
Romanists alone desired to throw obstacles between the king and a fresh
connexion--alone calumniated his motives, and looked forward hopefully
to the possible and probable confusion.
[Sidenote: The recommendation of Anne of Cleaves.]
Among the ladies who had been considered suitable to take the place of
Queen Jane, the name had been mentioned, with no especial commendation,
of Anne, daughter of the Duke of Cleves, and sister-in-law of the
Elector of Saxony. She had been set aside in favour of the Duchess of
Milan; but, all hopes in this quarter having been abruptly and
ungraciously terminated, Cromwell once more turned his eyes towards a
connexion which, more than any other, would make the Emperor repent of
his discourtesy--and would further at the same time the great object
which the condition of Europe now, more than ever, showed him to be
necessary--a league of all nations of the Teutonic race in defence of
the Reformation. A marriage between the king and a German Protestant
princess would put a final end to Anglo-Imperial trifling; and,
committing England to a definite policy abroad, it would neutralize at
home the efforts of the framers of the Six Articles, and compel the
king, whether he desired it or not, to return to a toleration of
Lutheran opinions and Lutheran practices.
[Sidenote: The opportunity favourable to a Protestant connexion.]
[Sidenote: Prorogation of parliament.]
[Sidenote: Supposed pre-contract between Anne of Cleves and a Count of
Lorraine.]
[Sidenote: Her appearance and accomplishments.]
[Sidenote: Cromwell neglects a warning.]
[Sidenote: Her portrait taken by Holbein.]
[Sidenote: Barnes goes as commissioner into Germany.]
[Sidenote: The persecution in England ceases.]
The opportunity of urging such an alliance on Henry was more than
favourable. He had been deceived, insulted, and menaced by the Emperor;
his articles of union had been converted by the bishops into articles of
a vindictive persecution; and the Anglicans, in their indiscreet
animosity, had betrayed their true tendencies, and had shown how little,
in a life-and-death struggle with the Papacy, he could depend upon their
lukewarm zeal for independence. Affecting only to persecute heterodoxy,
they had extended their vengeance to every advocate for freedom, to
every enemy of ecclesiastical exemptions and profitable superstitions;
and the king, disappointed and exasperated, was in a humour, while
snatching their victims from their grasp, to consent to a step which
would undo their victory in parliament. The occasion was not allowed to
cool. Parliament was prorogued on the 11th of May, with an intimation
from the crown that the religious question was not to be regarded as
finally settled.[512] The treaty with Cleves was so far advanced on the
17th of July that Lord Hertford[513] was able to congratulate Cromwell
on the consent of Anne's brother and mother.[514] The lady had been
previously intended for a son of a Duke of Lorraine; and Henry, whom
experience had made anxious, was alarmed at the name of a
"pre-contract." But Dr. Wotton, who was sent over to arrange the
preliminaries, and was instructed to see the difficulty cleared, was
informed and believed that the engagement had never advanced to a form
which brought with it legal obligations, and that Anne was at liberty to
marry wherever she pleased.[515] Of her personal attractions Wotton
reported vaguely. He said that she had been well brought up; but ladies
of rank in Germany were not usually taught accomplishments. She could
speak no language except her own, nor could she play on any instrument.
He supposed, however, that she would be able to learn English in no long
time; and he comforted the king by assuring him that at least she had
no taste for "the heavy-headed revels" of her countrymen.[516] Wotton
could not be accused of having lent himself to a deception as to the
lady's recommendations. It would have been well for Cromwell if he too
had been equally scrupulous. He had been warned beforehand of an
unattractiveness, so great as to have overcome the spontaneous belief in
the beauty of royal ladies;[517] but, intent upon the success of his
policy, he disregarded information which his conduct proves him to have
partially believed. Holbein was despatched to take the princess's
picture; and Holbein's inimitable skill would not have failed so wholly
in conveying a true impression of the original if he had not received an
intimation that an agreeable portrait was expected of him; while, as
soon as it was brought into England, Cromwell's agents praised to the
king "her features, beauty, and princely proportions," and assured him
that the resemblance was perfect.[518] The German commission was as
expeditious as the Spanish had been dilatory. To allay any uneasiness
which might remain with respect to the Six Articles, and to furnish a
convincing evidence of the toleration which was practised, Dr. Barnes
was sent over as one of the English representatives; and he carried with
him the comforting assurance that the persecution had been terminated,
and that the Gospel had free way. His assertions were afterwards
confirmed by unsuspicious and independent evidence. "There is no
persecution," wrote a Protestant in London, a few months later, to
Bullinger. "The Word is powerfully preached. Books of every kind may
safely be exposed to sale."[519] "Good pastors," wrote another, "are
freely preaching the truth, nor has any notice been taken of them on
account of the articles."[520] Even the Elector of Saxony, jealous and
distrustful as he had ever been of Henry, was so far satisfied as to
write to him that he understood "the sharpness of the decree of the Six
Articles to be modified by the wisdom and moderation of his Highness,
and the execution of it not put in use."[521]
[Sidenote: Cromwell's dangerous game.]
[Sidenote: His attitude towards the peers,]
All promised well; but it is not to be supposed that Cromwell was
allowed without resistance to paralyse a measure which had been carried
by an almost unanimous parliament. More than half the Privy Council, the
Dukes of Norfolk and Suffolk, the Bishops of Winchester, Durham, and
Chichester, were openly and violently opposed to him. The House of Lords
and the country gentlemen, baffled, as it seemed to them, by his
treachery (for he had professed to go along with their statute while it
was under discussion), maintained an attitude of sullen menace or open
resistance. If the laws against the heretics might not be put in force,
they would lend no help to execute the laws against the Romanists.[522]
They despised Cromwell's injunctions, though supported by orders from
the crown. They would not acknowledge so much as the receipt of his
letters. He was playing a critical and most dangerous game, in which he
must triumph or be annihilated. The king warned him repeatedly to be
cautious;[523] but the terms on which he had placed himself with the
nobility had perhaps passed the point where caution could have been of
use. He answered haughtiness by haughtiness: and he left his fate to the
chances of fortune, careless what it might be, if only he could
accomplish his work while life and power remained to him. One
illustration of his relation with the temporal peers shall be given in
this place, conveying, as it does, other allusions also, the drift of
which is painfully intelligible. The following letter is written in
Cromwell's own hand. The address is lost, but the rank of the person or
persons to whom it was sent is apparent from the contents:--
[Sidenote: Who, to his Majesty's marvel, persist in maintaining the
Papistical sect.]
"After my right hearty commendations, the King's Highness, being
informed that there be two priests in your town, called Sir William
Winstanley, which is now in ward, the other called Sir William
Richardson, otherwise Good Sir William, hath commanded me to signify to
you that, upon the receipt hereof, you shall send both the said priests
hither as prisoners in assured custody. His Grace cannot a little marvel
to hear of the Papistical faction that is maintained in that town, and
by you chiefly that are of his Grace's council. Surely his Majesty
thinketh that you have little respect either to him, or to his laws, or
to the good order of that town, which so little regard him in a matter
of so great weight, which, also, his Highness hath so much to heart; and
willed me plainly to say to you all and every of you, that in case he
shall perceive from henceforth any such abuses suffered or winked at as
have been hitherto, in manner in contempt of his most royal estate, his
Highness will put others in the best of your rooms that so offend him,
by whom he will be better served. It is thought against all reason that
the prayers of women, and their fond flickerings, should move any of you
to do that thing that should in anywise displease your prince and
sovereign lord, or offend his just laws. And, if you shall think any
extremity in this writing, you must thank yourselves that have procured
it; for neither of yourselves have you regarded these matters, nor
answered to many of my letters, written for like purposes and upon like
occasions: wherein, though I have not made any accusation, yet, being in
the place for these things that I am, I have thought you did me therein
too much injury, and such as I am assured his Highness, knowing it,
would not have taken it in good part. But this matter needeth no
aggravation, ne I have done anything in it more than hath been by his
Majesty thought meet, percase not so much; and thus heartily fare you
well.
"Your Lordship's assured
"THOMAS CROMWELL."[524]
[Sidenote: A breach begins to open between the king and the minister.]
[Sidenote: Increasing expenses of the government.]
[Sidenote: Cromwell prepares for his fall.]
[Sidenote: His personal expenditure large, and the sources of his income
exceptionable.]
Between the minister and the king the points of difference were large
and increasing. The conduct which had earned for Cromwell the hatred or
the immense majority of the people, could not but at times have been
regarded disapprovingly by a person who shared so deeply as Henry in the
English conservative spirit; while Cromwell, again, was lavish in his
expenditure; and the outlay upon the fleet and the Irish army, the cost
of suppression of the insurrection, and of the defences of the coast,
at once vast and unusual, were not the less irritating because they
could not be denied to be necessary. A spirit of economy in the reaction
from his youthful extravagance, was growing over Henry with his
advancing years; he could not reconcile himself to a profusion to which,
even with the addition of the Church lands, his resources were
altogether unequal, without trespassing on his subjects' purses; and the
conservative faction in the council took advantage of his ill humour to
whisper that the fault was in the carelessness, the waste, and the
corruption of the privy seal. Cromwell knew it well.[525] Two years
previously he had received full warning that they were on the watch to
take advantage of any momentary displeasure against him in the king.
They were not likely to have been conciliated subsequently by the deaths
of the Marquis of Exeter and Lord Montague, for which he personally was
held responsible; and he prepared for the fate which he foresaw, in
making settlements on his servants, that they might not suffer by his
attainder.[526] The noble lords possessed, undoubtedly, one serious
advantage against him. His own expenses were as profuse as the expenses
of the state under his management. His agents were spread over Europe.
He bought his information anywhere, and at any cost; and secret-service
money for such purposes he must have provided, like his successor in the
same policy, Sir Francis Walsingham, from his own resources. As a
self-raised statesman, he had inherited nothing. His position as a
nobleman was to be maintained; and it was maintained so liberally, that
two hundred poor were every day supplied with food at his gate. The
salaries of his offices and the rents of such estates as the king had
given to him were inadequate for such irregular necessities. In
Cromwell, the questionable practice of most great men of his time--the
practice of receiving pensions and presents for general support and
patronage--was carried to an extent which even then, perhaps, appeared
excessive. It is evident, from his whole correspondence, that he
received as profusely as he spent. We trace in him no such ambitious
splendour as he had seen in Wolsey. He was contented with the moderate
maintenance of a nobleman's establishment. But power was essential to
him; and a power like that which Cromwell wielded required resources
which he obtained only by exposing his reputation while alive, and his
good name in history, to not unmerited blame.
[Sidenote: An attempt to destroy Gardiner.]
[Sidenote: Gardiner escapes;]
[Sidenote: But, with the Bishop of Chichester, is dismissed from the
Privy Council.]
[Sidenote: Cromwell's position is not benefited, however.]
Weighted as he was with faults, which his high purposes but partially
excuse, he fought his battle bravely--alone--against the world. The
German marriage did not pass without a struggle at the council board.
Cromwell had long recognised his strongest and most dangerous enemy in
the person of Stephen Gardiner. So much he dreaded the subtle bishop,
that he had made an effort once to entangle him under the Supremacy
Act;[527] but Gardiner had glided under the shadow of the act, and had
escaped its grasp. Smooth, treacherous, and plausible, he had held his
way along the outer edge of the permitted course, never committing
himself, commanding the sympathy of English conservatism, the patron of
those suspected of Romanism on one side, as Cromwell was the patron of
heretics; but self-possessed and clear-headed, watching the times,
knowing that the reaction must have its day at last, and only careful to
avoid the precipitancy, in future, into which he had blundered after the
Six Articles Bill. His rival's counter-move had checked him, but he
waited his opportunity; and when Barnes was sent as commissioner into
Germany, Gardiner challenged openly before the council the appointment,
for such a purpose, of a man who was "defamed of heresy." He was
supported, apparently, by the Bishop of Chichester, or the latter
ventured to thwart the privy seal in some other manner. Cromwell for the
moment was strong enough to bear his opponents down. They were both
dismissed from the Privy Council.[528] But this arbitrary act was
treated as a breach of the tacit compact by which the opposing parties
endured each other's presence. If the Bishop of Durham's chaplain spoke
the truth, an attempt was made, in which even Lord Southampton bore a
share, to bring Tunstall forward in Gardiner's place.[529] And though
this scheme failed, through the caution of the principal persons
interested, the grievances remained, embittered by a forced submission:
a fresh debt had been contracted, bearing interest till it was paid.
[Sidenote: Protestant imprudence.]
[Sidenote: Persecution of a Catholic preacher in London,]
As great, or a greater, danger embarrassed Cromwell from the folly of
his friends. So long as the tide was in their favour, the Protestants
indulged in insolent excesses, which provoked, and almost justified the
anger with which they were regarded. Hitherto they had held a monopoly
of popular preaching. Tradition and authority had been with the
Catholics: the rhetoric had been mainly with their adversaries. In the
summer the interest of London was suddenly excited on the other side by
a Catholic orator of extraordinary powers, a Dr. Watts, unknown before
or after this particular crisis, but for the moment a principal figure
on the stage. Watts attracted vast audiences; and the Protestants could
not endure a rival, and were as little able as their opponents to
content themselves with refuting him by argument. He was summoned, on a
charge of false doctrine, before the Archbishop of Canterbury; and even
moderate persons were scandalized when they saw Barnes sitting by the
side of Cranmer as assessor in a cause of heresy.[530] It appeared, and
perhaps it was designed, as an insult--as a deliberately calculated
outrage. Ten thousand London citizens proposed to walk in procession to
Lambeth, to require the restoration of their teacher; and, although the
open demonstration was prevented by the City officers, an alderman took
charge of their petition, and offered, unless the preacher's offence was
high treason, to put in bail for him in the name of the
corporation.[531]
[Sidenote: Sept 17. In whose behalf the corporation interfere in vain.]
There were, perhaps, circumstances in the case beyond those which
appear; but, instead of listening to the request of the City, the
archbishop spirited away the preacher into Kent, and his friends
learned, from the boasts of their adversaries, that he was imprisoned
and ill used. He was attached, it seems, to the Victuallers' Company.
"There is no persecution," wrote a Protestant fanatic, "except of the
Victuallers; of which sect a certain impostor of the name of Watts,
formerly of the order of wry-necked cattle, is now holding forth, oh,
shame! in the stocks at Canterbury Bridewell, having been accustomed to
mouth elsewhere against the Gospel."[532]
[Sidenote: Charles V. endeavours to prevent the German marriage.]
While England was thus fermenting towards a second crisis, the German
marriage was creating no less anxiety on the Continent. As it was
Cromwell's chief object to unite England with the Lutherans, so was
Charles V. anxious above all things to keep them separate; and no sooner
was he aware that the Duke of Cleves had consented to give his sister to
Henry than he renewed his offer of the Duchess of Milan. The reply was a
cold and peremptory refusal;[533] and the Emperor seeing that the
English government would not be again trifled with, determined to repair
into Flanders, in order to be at hand, should important movements take
place in Germany.[534] To give menace and significance to his journey,
he resolved, if possible, to pass through France on his way, and in a
manner so unformal and confidential as, perhaps, might contribute
towards substantiating his relations with Francis, or, at least, might
give the world the impression of their entire cordiality.
[Sidenote: He proposes a visit to Paris.]
[Sidenote: Reginald Pole submits a paper to the Pope on the condition of
England.]
[Sidenote: France and Spain are at last united. Let them proclaim the
king a public enemy.]
[Sidenote: Alarm felt in England.]
The proposal of a visit from the Emperor, when made known at Paris, was
met with a warm and instant assent; and many were the speculations to
which an affair so unexpected gave occasion in Europe. But the minds of
men were not long at a loss, and Henry's intended marriage was soon
accepted as an adequate explanation. The danger of a Protestant league
compelled the Catholic powers to bury their rivalries; and a legate was
despatched from Rome to be present at the meeting at Paris.[535]
Reginald Pole, ever on the watch for an opportunity to strike a blow at
his country, caught once more at the opening, and submitted a paper on
the condition of England to the Pope, showing how the occasion might be
improved. The Emperor was aware, Pole said, that England had been lost
to the Holy See in a Spanish quarrel, and for the sake of a Spanish
princess; and he knew himself to be bound in honour, however hitherto he
had made pretexts for delay, to assist in its recovery. His Imperial
oaths, the insults to his family, the ancient alliance between England
and the house of Burgundy, with his own promises so often repeated,
alike urged the same duty upon him; and now, at last, he was able to act
without difficulty. The rivalry between France and Spain had alone
encouraged Henry to defy the opinion of Europe. That rivalry was at an
end. The two sovereigns had only to unite in a joint remonstrance
against his conduct, with a threat that he should be declared a public
enemy if he persisted in his course, and his submission would be
instant. He would not dare to refuse. He could not trust his subjects:
they had risen once of themselves, and he knew too well the broken
promises, the treachery and cruelty with which he had restored order,
to risk their fury, should they receive effective support from abroad.
Without striking a single blow, the Catholic powers might achieve a
glorious triumph, and heal the gaping wound in the body of Christ.[536]
So wrote, and so thought the English traitor, with all human
probabilities in his favour, and only the Eternal Powers on the other
side. The same causes which filled Pole with hope struck terror into
weak and agitated hearts in the country which he was seeking to betray;
the wayfarers on the high-roads talked to each other in despair of the
impending ruin of the kingdom, left naked without an ally to the attacks
of the world.[537]
[Sidenote: Charles enters France.]
Spreading round him such panics and such expectations, the Emperor
entered France almost simultaneously with the departure of Anne of
Cleves from her mother's side to the shores of England. Pity that, in
the game of diplomacy, statesmen are not compelled to use their own
persons for their counters! are not forbidden to cast on others the
burden of their own failures!
[Sidenote: He is received with splendid courtesy,]
[Sidenote: And brings in his train an English traitor named Brancetor.]
Francis, in order to show Charles the highest courtesy, despatched the
constable Montmorency, with the Dauphin and the Duke of Orleans, to
Bayonne, and offered, if the Emperor distrusted him, that his sons
should be detained as pledges for his good faith. Charles would not be
outdone in generosity; when he gave his confidence he gave it without
reserve; and, without accepting the security, he crossed the frontier,
attended only by his personal train, and made his way to the capital,
with the two princes at his side, through a succession of magnificent
entertainments. On the 1st of January he entered Paris, where he was to
remain for a week; and Henry, at once taking the initiative, made an
opportunity to force him, if possible, to a declaration of his
intentions. Attached to the Imperial household was a Welshman named
Brancetor, uncle of "young Rice," who had been executed for a conspiracy
against Henry's life in 1531. This man, having been originally obliged
to leave England for debt, had contrived, while on the Continent, by
assiduity of treason, to assume the more interesting character of a
political refugee. He had attached himself to Pole and to Pole's
fortunes; he had exerted himself industriously in Spain in persuading
English subjects to violate their allegiance; and in the parliament of
the previous spring he had been rewarded by the distinction of a place
in the list of attainted traitors.
[Sidenote: Brancetor is taken by the French police, in compliance with a
demand of Sir Thomas Wyatt.]
Analogous occupations had brought him to Paris; and, in conformity with
treaties, Henry instructed Sir Thomas Wyatt, who was then in England, to
repair to the French court, and require his extradition. Wyatt
imprudently affected to consider that the affair belonged rather to the
police than to the government, and applied to the constable for
Brancetor's arrest. Montmorency was unaware of the man's connexion with
the Emperor. Wyatt informed him merely that an English subject who had
robbed his master, and had afterwards conspired against the king, was in
Paris, and requested his apprehension. He had been watched to his
lodgings by a spy; and the provost-marshal was placed without difficulty
at Wyatt's disposal, and was directed to attend him.
[Sidenote: Brancetor appeals to the Emperor.]
The police surrounded the house where Brancetor was to be found. It was
night. The English minister entered, and found his man writing at a
table. "I told him," Wyatt reported in his account of the story, "that,
since he would not come to visit me, I was come to seek him. His colour
changed as soon as he heard my voice; and with that came in the provost,
and set hand on him. I reached to the letters that he was writing, but
he caught them afore me, and flung them backwards into the fire. I
overthrew him, and cracked them out; but the provost got them."
Brancetor upon this declared himself the Emperor's servant. He made no
attempt to escape, but charged the officer, "that his writings and
himself should be delivered into the Emperor's hands." He took a number
of papers from his pocket, which he placed in the provost's charge; and
the latter not daring to act further in such a matter without further
instructions, left a guard in the room with Wyatt and the prisoner, and
went to make a report to the chancellor. "In the mean time," says Wyatt,
"I used all the soberness I could with Brancetor, advising him to submit
himself to your Majesty; but he made the Emperor his master, and seemed
to regard nothing else. Once he told me he had heard me oft times say
that kings have long hands; but God, quoth he, hath longer. I asked him
what length he thought that would make when God's and kings' hands were
joined together; but he assured himself of the Emperor." Presently the
provost returned, and said that Brancetor was to remain in his charge
till the morning, when Wyatt would hear further. Nothing more could be
done with the provost; and after breakfast Wyatt had an interview with
Cardinal Granvelle and the chancellor. The treaties were plain; a clause
stated in the clearest language that neither France, nor Spain, nor
England should give shelter to each other's traitors; but such a case as
Brancetor's had as clearly not been anticipated when they were drawn;
and the matter was referred to the Emperor.
[Sidenote: Charles grants an audience to Wyatt.]
[Sidenote: He will defend his followers, English or Spanish, treaty or
no treaty.]
Charles made no difficulty in granting an audience, which he seemed
rather to court. He was extremely angry. The man had been in his
service, he said, for years; and it was ill done to arrest a member of
his household without paying him even the courtesy of a first
application on the subject. The English government could scarcely be
serious in expecting that he would sacrifice an old attendant in any
such manner. Wyatt answered sturdily that Brancetor was his master's
subject. There was clear proof, he could vouch for it on his own
knowledge, that the man committed treason in Spain; and he again
insisted on the treaties. The Emperor cared nothing for treaties. Treaty
or no treaty, a servant of his own should pass free; "and if he was in
the Tower of London," he said, "he would never consent so to charge his
honour and conscience." Brancetor had come to Paris under his
protection; and the French government would never do him the dishonour
of permitting the seizure of one of his personal train.
[Sidenote: Wyatt complains of the treatment of English subjects by the
Inquisition.]
He was so displeased, and there was so much truth in what he said, that
Wyatt durst not press him further; but opened ground again with a
complaint which he had been instructed also to make, of the ill usage of
Englishmen in Spain by the Inquisition. Charles again flashed up with
imperious vehemence. "In a loud voice," he replied, "that the authority
of the Inquisition depended not upon him. It had been established in his
realm and countries for good consideration, and such as he would not
break--no, not for his grandame."
It was unreasonable, Wyatt replied, to punish men merely for their want
of allegiance to Rome. They were no heretics, sacramentaries,
Anabaptists. They held the Catholic faith as truly as any man.
[Sidenote: Charles refuses t o interfere.]
"The king is of one opinion," Charles replied, "and I am of another. If
your merchants come with novelties, I can not let the Inquisition. This
is a thing that toucheth our faith."
"What," Wyatt said, "the primacy of the Bishop of Rome!"
"Yea, marry," the Emperor answered, "shall we now come to dispute of
_tibi dabo claves_. I would not alter my Inquisition. No; if I thought
they would be negligent in their office, I would put them out, and put
others in their rooms."
All this was uttered with extraordinary passion and violence. Charles
had wholly lost his self-command. Wyatt went on to say that the Spanish
preached slanders against England, and against the king especially, in
their pulpits.
"As to that," said the Emperor, "preachers will speak against myself
whenever there is cause. That cannot be let. Kings be not kings of
tongues; and if men give cause to be spoken of, they will be spoken of."
[Sidenote: The French court betrays confidence.]
He promised at last, with rather more calmness, to inquire into the
treatment of the merchants, if proper particulars were supplied to
him.[538] If alarm was really felt in the English court at the Emperor's
presence in Paris, Wyatt's report of this interview was not reassuring.
Still less satisfactory was an intimation, which was not long in
reaching England, that Francis, or one of his ministers, had betrayed to
Charles a private article in the treaty of Calais, in 1532. Anticipating
at this time a war with Spain, Henry had suggested, and Francis had
acquiesced in a proposal, should Charles attack them, for a partition of
the Flemish provinces. The opportunity of this visit was chosen by the
French to give an evidence of unmistakeable goodwill in revealing an
exasperating secret.
Keeping these transactions so ominous of evil before our minds, let us
now return to the events which were simultaneously taking place in
England.
[Sidenote: December 11. Anne of Cleves arrives at Calais,]
[Sidenote: Where she remains weather-bound for a fortnight,]
[Sidenote: And learns to play at cards.]
On the 11th of December the Lady Anne of Cleves was conducted, under a
German escort, to Calais, where Lord Southampton and four hundred
English noblemen and gentlemen were waiting to receive her, and conduct
her to her future country. The "Lion" and the "Sweepstake" were in the
harbour--the ships which two years before had fought the Flemings in the
Downs. As she rode into the town the vessels' yards were manned, the
rigging was decorated with flags, and a salute of a hundred and fifty
guns was fired in her honour. By her expectant subjects she was
splendidly welcomed; but the weather was wild; fifteen days elapsed
before she could cross with ease and expedition; and meanwhile she was
left to the entertainment of the lords. Southampton, in despair at her
absence of accomplishments, taught her, as a last resource, to play at
cards. Meantime, he wrote to advertise the king of her arrival, and
thinking, as he afterwards said, that he must make the best of a matter
which it had become too late to remedy, he repeated the praises which
had been uttered so loudly by others of the lady's appearance. He
trusted that, "after all the debating, the success would be to the
consolation of his Majesty, and the weal of his subjects and
realm."[539]
[Sidenote: Dec. 27. She lands in England.]
[Sidenote: Dec 29. Monday. She is received by Cranmer at Canterbury.]
[Sidenote: Wednesday Dec. 31. The king comes to meet her at Rochester.]
At length, on Saturday, December the 27th, as the winter twilight was
closing into night, the intended Queen of England set her foot upon the
shore, under the walls of Deal Castle. The cannon freshly mounted,
flashed their welcome through the darkness; the Duke and Duchess of
Suffolk had waited in the fortress for her landing, and the same night
conducted her to Dover. Here she rested during Sunday. The next morning
she went on, in a storm, to Canterbury; and on Barham Down stood
Cranmer, with five other bishops, in the wind and the rain, to welcome,
as they fondly hoped, the enchantress who would break the spell of the
Six Articles. She was entertained for the evening at Saint Augustine's.
Tuesday she was at Sittingbourne. On New-Year's Eve she reached
Rochester, to which the king was already hastening for the first sight
of the lady, the fame of whose charms had been sounded in his ears so
loudly. He came down in private, attended only by Sir Anthony Brown, the
master of the horse. The interview, agitating under all circumstances,
would be made additionally awkward from the fact that neither the king
nor his bride could understand each other's language. He had brought
with him, therefore, "a little present," a graceful gift of some value,
to soften the embarrassment and conciliate at first sight the lovely
being into whose presence he was to be introduced. The visit was meant
for a surprise; the king's appearance at her lodgings was the first
intimation of his intention; and the master of the horse was sent in to
announce his arrival and request permission for his Highness to present
himself.
[Sidenote: Sensations of the master of the horse on his first
interview.]
[Sidenote: The king is "quite discouraged and amazed."]
[Sidenote: He retreats hastily to Greenwich,]
[Sidenote: And laments the fate of princes.]
Sir Anthony, aware of the nature of Henry's expectations, entered the
room where Anne was sitting. He described his sensations on the
unlooked-for spectacle which awaited him in moderate language, when he
said, "that he was never more dismayed in his life, lamenting in his
heart to see the lady so unlike that she was reported."[540] The graces
of Anne of Cleves were moral only, not intellectual, and not personal.
She was simple, quiet, modest, sensible, and conscientious; but her
beauty existed only in the imagination of the painter. Her presence was
ladylike; but her complexion was thick and dark: her features were
coarse; her figure large, loose, and corpulent. The required permission
was given. The king entered. His heart sank; his presence of mind
forsook him; he was "suddenly quite discouraged and amazed" at the
prospect which was opened before him. He forgot his present; he almost
forgot his courtesy. He did not stay in the room "to speak twenty
words." He would not even stay in Rochester. "Very sad and pensive,"
says Brown, he entered his barge and hurried back to Greenwich, anxious
only to escape, while escape was possible, from the unwelcome
neighbourhood. Unwilling to marry at all, he had yielded only to the
pressure of a general desire. He had been deceived by untrue
representations, and had permitted a foreign princess to be brought into
the realm; and now, as fastidious in his tastes as he was often little
scrupulous in his expression of them, he found himself on the edge of a
connexion the very thought of which was revolting.[541] It was a cruel
fortune which imposed on Henry VIII., in addition to his other burdens,
the labour of finding heirs to strengthen the succession. He "lamented
the fate of princes to be in matters of marriage of far worse sort than
the condition of poor men.'
"Princes take," he said, "as is brought them by others, and poor men be
commonly at their own choice."[542]
[Sidenote: He complains of his disappointment to Cromwell.]
Cromwell, who knew better than others knew the true nature of the king's
adventure, was waiting nervously at Greenwich for the result of the
experiment. He presented himself on the king's appearance, and asked him
"how he liked the Lady Anne." The abrupt answer confirmed his fears.
"Nothing so well as she was spoken of," the king said. "If I had known
as much before as I know now, she should never have come into the
realm." "But what remedy?" he added, in despondency.[543] The German
alliance was already shaking at its base: the court was agitated and
alarmed; the king was miserable. Cromwell, to whom the blame was mainly
due, endeavoured for a moment to shrink from his responsibility, and
accused Southampton of having encouraged false hopes in his letters from
Calais. Southampton answered fairly that the fault did not rest with
him. He had been sent to bring the queen into England, and it was not
his place to "dispraise her appearance." "The matter being so far gone,"
he had supposed his duty was to make the best of it.[544]
[Sidenote: January 2. Friday.]
[Sidenote: Saturday, January 3. Arrival of the Lady Anne at the palace.]
[Sidenote: Henry endeavours to extricate himself,]
[Sidenote: Sunday. January 4.]
[Sidenote: And requires an explanation of the pre-contract]
Among these recriminations passed the night of Friday, while Charles V.
was just commencing his triumphal progress through France. The day
following, the innocent occasion of the confusion came on to Greenwich.
The marriage had been arranged for the Sunday after. The prospects were
altogether dark, and closer inspection confirmed the worst
apprehensions. The ladies of the court were no less shocked than their
husbands. The unfortunate princess was not only unsightly, but she had
"displeasant airs" about her; and Lady Brown imparted to Sir Anthony
"how she saw in the queen such fashions, and manner of bringing up so
gross, that she thought the king would never love her." Henry met her on
the stairs when her barge arrived. He conducted her to her apartments,
and on the way Cromwell saw her with his own eyes. The sovereign and the
minister then retired together, and the just displeasure became visible.
"How say you, my lord?" the king said. "Is it not as I told you? Say
what they will, she is nothing fair. The personage is well and seemly,
but nothing else." Cromwell attempted faintly to soothe him by
suggesting that she had "a queenly manner." The king agreed to
that;[545] but the recommendation was insufficient to overcome the
repugnance which he had conceived; and he could resolve on nothing. A
frail fibre of hope offered itself in the story of the pre-contract with
the Count of Lorraine. Henry caught at it to postpone the marriage for
two days; and, on the Sunday morning he sent for the German suite who
had attended the princess, and requested to see the papers connected
with the Lorraine treaty. Astonished and unprepared, they requested time
to consider. The following morning they had an interview with the
council, when they stated that, never anticipating any such demand, they
could not possibly comply with it on the instant; but the engagement
had been nothing. The instrument which they had brought with them
declared the princess free from all ties whatever. If the king really
required the whole body of the documents, they would send to Cleves for
them; but, in the meantime, they trusted he would not refuse to accept
their solemn assurances.
[Sidenote: Monday, January 5.]
[Sidenote: He exhibits his reluctance to the lady, but in vain.]
[Sidenote: He must put his neck into the yoke,]
[Sidenote: And marries Tuesday, January 6]
Cromwell carried the answer to Henry; and it was miserably unwelcome. "I
have been ill-handled," he said. "If it were not that she is come so far
into England, and for fear of making a ruffle in the world, and _driving
her brother into the Emperor and French king's hands, now being
together_, I would never have her. But now it is too far gone; wherefore
I am sorry."[546] As a last pretext for hesitation, he sent to Anne
herself to desire a protest from her that she was free from contracts; a
proof of backwardness on the side of the king might, perhaps, provoke a
corresponding unwillingness. But the impassive constitution of the lady
would have been proof against a stronger hint. The protest was drawn and
signed with instant readiness. "Is there no remedy," Henry exclaimed,
"but that I must needs, against my will, put my neck into this yoke?"
There was none. It was inevitable. The conference at Paris lay before
him like a thunder-cloud. The divorce of Catherine and the crimes of
Anne Boleyn had already created sufficient scandal in Europe. At such a
moment he durst not pass an affront upon the Germans, which might drive
them also into a compromise with his other enemies. He gathered up his
resolution. As the thing was to be done, it might be done at once; delay
would not make the bitter dose less unpalatable; and the day remained
fixed for the date of its first postponement--Tuesday, the 6th of
January. As he was preparing for the sacrifice, he called Cromwell to
him in the chamber of presence: "My lord," he said openly, "if it were
not to satisfy the world and my realm, I would not do that I must do
this day for none earthly thing."
[Sidenote: His dislike increases to aversion, and his hope of children
is frustrated.]
The marriage was solemnized. A last chance remained to the Privy Seal
and to the eager prelates who had trembled in the storm on Barham Down,
that the affection which could not precede the ceremony might perhaps
follow it. But the tide had turned against the Reformers; and their
contrivances to stem the current were not of the sort which could be
allowed to prosper. Dislike was confirmed into rooted aversion. The
instinct with which the king recoiled from Anne settled into a defined
resolution. He was personally kind to her. His provocations did not
tempt him into discourtesy; but, although she shared his bed, necessity
and inclination alike limited the companionship to a form; and Henry
lamented to Cromwell, who had been the cause of the calamity, that
"surely he would never have any more children for the comfort of the
realm."[547]
[Sidenote: The results of the disappointment not immediately visible.]
[Sidenote: Theological controversy in London between Gardiner and the
Protestants,]
[Sidenote: Who are protected by Cromwell.]
The union of France and the Empire, which had obliged the accomplishment
of this unlucky connexion, meanwhile prevented, so long as it continued,
either an open _fracas_ or an alteration in the policy of the kingdom.
The relations of the king and queen were known only to a few of the
council. Cromwell continued in power, and the Protestants remained in
security. The excitement which had been created in London by the
persecution of Dr. Watts was kept alive by a controversy[548] between
the Bishop of Winchester and three of the Lutheran preachers: Dr.
Barnes, for ever unwisely prominent; the Vicar of Stepney, who had
shuffled over his recantation; and Garrett, the same who had been in
danger of the stake at Oxford for selling Testaments, and had since been
a chaplain of Latimer. It is difficult to exaggerate the audacity with
which the orators of the moving party trespassed on the patience of the
laity. The disputes, which had been slightly turned out of their channel
by the Six Articles, were running now on justification,--a sufficient
subject, however, to give scope for differences, and for the full
enunciation of the Lutheran gospel. The magistrates in the country
attempted to keep order and enforce the law; but, when they imprisoned a
heretic, they found themselves rebuked and menaced by the Privy Seal.
Their prison doors were opened, they were exposed to vexatious suits for
loss or injury to the property of the discharged offenders, and their
authority and persons were treated with disrespect and contumely.[549]
The Reformers had outshot their healthy growth. They required to be
toned down by renewed persecution into that good sense and severity of
mind without which religion is but as idle and unprofitable a folly as
worldly excitement.
[Gardiner preaches a Popish sermon at Paul's Cross.]
[Sidenote: Foolish insolence of Dr. Barnes.]
[Sidenote: Gardiner complains to the king.]
In London, on the first Sunday in Lent, the Bishop of Winchester
preached on the now prominent topic at Paul's Cross: "A very Popish
sermon," says Traheron, one of the English correspondents of Bullinger,
"and much to the discontent of the people."[550] To the discontent it
may have been of many, but not to the discontent of the ten thousand
citizens who had designed the procession to Lambeth. The Sunday
following, the same pulpit was occupied by Barnes, who, calling Gardiner
a fighting-cock, and himself another, challenged the bishop to trim his
spurs for a battle.[551] He taunted his adversary with concealed
Romanism. Like the judges at Fouquier Tinville's tribunal, whose test of
loyalty to the republic was the question what the accused had done to be
hanged on the restoration of the monarchy, Barnes said that, if he and
the Bishop of Winchester were at Rome together, much money would not
save his life, but for the bishop there was no fear--a little
entreatance would purchase favour enough for him.[552] From these
specimens we may conjecture the character of the sermon; and, from
Traheron's delight with it, we may gather equally the imprudent
exultation of the Protestants.[553] Gardiner complained to the king. He
had a fair cause, and was favourably listened to. Henry sent for Barnes,
and examined him in a private audience. The questions of the day were
opened. Merit, works, faith, free-will, grace of congruity, were each
discussed,--once mystic words of power, able, like the writing on the
seal of Solomon, to convulse the world, now mere innocent sounds, which
the languid but still eager lips of a dying controversy breathe in vain.
Barnes, too vain of his supposed abilities to understand the disposition
with which he was dealing, told the king, in an excess of unwisdom, that
he would submit himself to him.
[Sidenote: Interview between Barnes and Henry.]
[Sidenote: Barnes affects to recant.]
Henry was more than angry: "Yield not to me," he said; "I am a mortal
man." He rose as he spoke, and turning to the sacrament, which stood on
a private altar in the room, and taking off his bonnet,--"Yonder is the
Master of us all," he said; "yield in truth to Him; otherwise submit
yourself not to me." Barnes was commanded, with Garrett and Jerome, to
make a public acknowledgment of his errors; and to apologize especially
for his insolent language to Gardiner. It has been already seen how
Jerome could act in such a position. An admirer of these men, in
relating their conduct on the present occasion, declared, as if it was
something to their credit, "how gaily they handled the matter, both to
satisfy the recantation and also, in the same sermon, to utter out the
truth, that it might spread without let of the world."
Like giddy night-moths, they were flitting round the fire which would
soon devour them.
[Sidenote: Confident in the German alliance, the king provokes a quarrel
with the Emperor.]
[Sidenote: He instructs Wyatt to reproach Charles with ingratitude.]
In April, parliament was to meet--the same parliament which had passed
the Six Articles Bill with acclamation. It was to be seen in what temper
they would bear the suspension of their favourite measure. The bearing
of the parliament, was, however, for the moment, of comparative
indifference. The king and his ministers were occupied with other
matters too seriously to be able to attend it. A dispute had arisen
between the Emperor and the Duke of Cleves, on the duchy of Gueldres, to
which Charles threatened to assert his right by force; and, galling as
Henry found his marriage, the alliance in which it had involved him, its
only present recommendation, was too useful to be neglected. The
treatment of English residents in Spain, the open patronage of
Brancetor, and the haughty and even insolent language which had been
used to Wyatt, could not be passed over in silence, whatever might be
the consequences; and, with the support of Germany, he believed that he
might now, perhaps, repay the Emperor for the alarms and anxieties of
years. After staying a few days in Paris, Charles had gone on to
Brussels. On the receipt of Wyatt's despatch with the account of his
first interview, the king instructed him to require in reply the
immediate surrender of the English traitor; to insist that the
proceedings of the Inquisition should be redressed and punished; and to
signify, at the same time, that the English government desired to
mediate between himself and the king's brother-in-law. Nor was the
imperiousness of the message to be softened in the manner of delivery.
More than once Henry had implied that Charles was under obligations to
England for the Empire. Wyatt was instructed to allude pointedly to
these and other wounding memories, and particularly, and with marked
emphasis, to make use of the word "ingratitude." The object was,
perhaps, to show that Henry was not afraid of him; perhaps to express a
real indignation which there was no longer reason to conceal.
[Sidenote: Indignation of the Emperor.]
The directions were obeyed; and Wyatt's English haughtiness was likely
to have fulfilled them to the letter. The effect was magical. The
Emperor started, changed colour, hesitated, and then burst in anger. "It
is too much," he said, "to use the term ingrate to me. The inferior may
be ingrate to the greater. The term is scant sufferable between like."
Perhaps, he added, as Wyatt was speaking in a foreign language, he might
have used a word which he imperfectly comprehended. Wyatt assured him
placidly that there was no error: the word was in his instructions, and
its meaning perfectly understood. "The king took it so." "Kings'
opinions are not always the best," Charles replied. "I cannot tell,
sir," the ambassador answered, "what ye mean by that; but if ye think to
note the king my master of anything that should touch him, I assure you
he is a prince to give reason to God and the world sufficient in his
opinions." Leaving the word as it stood, he required an answer to the
material point.
[Sidenote: He will not surrender Brancetor.]
[Sidenote: If English merchants dislike the Inquisition, they had better
avoid Spain.]
[Sidenote: Henry makes overtures to Francis.]
[Sidenote: He accuses Charles of aiming at universal empire,]
[Sidenote: And suggests a coalition which may end in his capture and
imprisonment.]
If Henry was indifferent to a quarrel, the Emperor seemed to be equally
willing; Wyatt gathered from his manner, either that he was careless of
consequences, or that he desired to provoke the English to strike the
first blow. He answered as before, that Brancetor had committed no crime
that he knew of. If the King of England would be more explicit in his
accusations, he would consider them. His dispute with the Duke of Cleves
he intended to settle by himself, and would allow of no interference;
and as to the merchants, he had rather they should never visit his
countries at all, than visit them to carry thither their heresy.[554]
Irritation is a passion which it is seldom politic to excite; and a
message like that of Wyatt had been better undelivered, unless no doubt
existed of being able to support it by force. A fixed idea in Cromwell's
mind, which we trace in all his correspondence, was the impossibility of
a genuine coalition between Charles and Francis. Either misled by these
impressions, or deceived by rumours, Henry seems to have been acting,
not only in a reliance on the Germans, but in a belief that the
Emperor's visit to Paris had closed less agreeably than it had opened,
that the Milan quarrel had revived, and that the hasty partnership
already threatened a dissolution. Some expectations of the kind he had
unquestionably formed, for, on the arrival of Wyatt's letter with the
Emperor's answer, he despatched the Duke of Norfolk on a mission into
France, which, if successful, would have produced a singular revulsion
in Europe. Francis was to be asked frankly how the Italian question
stood. If the Emperor was dealing in good faith with him, or if he was
himself satisfied, nothing more need be desired; if, on the contrary, he
felt himself "hobbled with a vain hope," there was now an opportunity
for him to take fortune prisoner, to place his highest wishes within his
grasp, and revenge Pavia, and his own and his children's captivity. The
ingratitude story was to be repeated, with Charles's overbearing
indignation; redress for the open and iniquitous oppression of English
subjects had been absolutely refused; and the Emperor's manner could be
interpreted only as bearing out what had long been suspected of him,
that he "aspired to bring Christendom to a monarchy;" that "he thought
himself superior to all kings," and, "by little and little," would work
his way to universal empire. His insolence might be punished, and all
dangers of such a kind for ever terminated, at the present juncture. A
league was in process of formation, for mutual defence, between the King
of England, the Duke of Cleves, the Elector of Saxony, the Landgrave,
and other princes of the Empire. Let Francis join them, and "they would
have the Emperor in such a pitfall, that percase it might be their
chance to have him prisoner at their pleasure, his being so environed
with them, and having no way to start."[555]
[Sidenote: Henry's proposal is communicated to the Emperor.]
The temptation was so well adjusted to the temperament of Francis that
it seemed as if he felt an excuse necessary to explain his declining the
combination. The French chancellor told Norfolk that his master was
growing old, and that war had lost its charm for him. But, in fact, the
proposal was, based upon a blunder for which Cromwell's despair was
probably responsible. Francis, at the moment, was under the influence of
the Cardinal of Ferrara, who had come from Rome on a crusading
expedition; and, so far from then desiring to quarrel with Charles, he
simply communicated to him Henry's suggestions; while the Queen of
Navarre gave a warning to Norfolk that, if the Anglo-German league
assumed an organized form, it would be followed by an alliance as close
and as menacing between France and the Empire.[556]
[Sidenote: The Germans back out also,]
Cromwell had again failed; and another and a worse misadventure
followed. The German princes, for whose sake the Privy Seal had incurred
his present danger, had their own sense of prudence, and were reluctant
to quarrel with the Emperor, so long as it was possible to escape.
Experience had taught Charles the art of trifling with their credulity,
and he flattered them with a hope that from them he would accept a
mediation in behalf of the Duke of Cleves, which he had rejected so
scornfully when offered by England.
[Sidenote: And the foreign policy of Cromwell, as well as the domestic,
fails equally.]
[Sidenote: The Bishop of Chichester is sent to the Tower,]
[Sidenote: And is almost followed by Tunstall.]
Thus was Henry left alone, having been betrayed into an attitude which
he was unable to support, and deserted by the allies for whom he had
entangled himself in a marriage which he detested. Well might his
confidence have been shaken in the minister whose fortune and whose
sagacity had failed together. Driven forward by the necessity of success
or destruction, Cromwell was, at the same time, precipitating the crisis
in England. Gardiner, Tunstall, and Sampson the Bishop of Chichester,
were his three chief antagonists. In April Sampson was sent to the
Tower, on a charge of having relieved "certain traitorous persons" who
had denied the king's supremacy.[557] The two others, it is likely,
would soon have followed: the Bishop of Chichester accused them of
having been the cause of his own misconduct, to such extent as he
admitted himself to have erred;[558] and although Tunstall equivocated,
he at least would not have escaped imprisonment, had the Privy Seal
remained in power, if imprisonment had been the limit of his
sufferings.[559] To the eyes of the world, the destroyer of the
monasteries, the "hammer of the monks," remained absolute as ever. No
cloud, as yet, was visible in the clear sky of his prosperity, when the
moment came, he fell suddenly, as if struck by lightning, on the very
height and pinnacle of his power. If events had been long working
towards the catastrophe, it was none the less abrupt, surprising,
unlooked for.
[Sidenote: April 12. Parliament meets.]
[Sidenote: Cromwell opens the session with a speech on unity of
opinion.]
On the 12th of April, amidst failure abroad and increased discontent at
home, parliament assembled. After the ordinary address from the
chancellor, Cromwell rose to speak a few words on the state of the
kingdom.
"The King's Majesty," he said, "knowing that concord is the only sure
and true bond of security in the commonwealth, knowing that if the head
and all the members of the body corporate agree in one, there will be
wanting nothing to the perfect health of the state, has therefore
sought, prized, and desired concord beyond all other things. With no
little distress, therefore, he learns that there are certain persons who
make it their business to create strife and controversy; that in the
midst of the good seed tares also are growing up to choke the harvest.
The rashness and carnal license of some, the inveterate corruption and
obstinate superstition of others, have caused disputes which have done
hurt to the souls of pious Christians. The names of Papist and heretic
are bandied to and fro. The Holy Word of God, which his Highness, of his
great clemency, has permitted to be read in the vulgar tongue, for the
comfort and edification of his people this treasure of all sacred
things--is abused, and made a servant of errour or idolatry; and such is
the tumult of opinion, that his Highness ill knows how to bear it. His
purpose is to shew no favour to extremes on either side. He professes
the sincere faith of the Gospel, as becomes a Christian prince,
declining neither to the right hand nor to the left, but setting before
his eyes the pure Word of God as his only mark and guide. On this Word
his princely mind is fixed; on this Word he depends for his sole
support; and with all his might his Majesty will labour that errour
shall be taken away, and true doctrines be taught to his people,
modelled by the rule of the Gospel. Of forms, ceremonies, and traditions
he will have the reasonable use distinguished from the foolish and
idolatrous use. He will have all impiety, all superstition, abolished
and put away. And, finally, he will have his subjects cease from their
irreverent handling of God's book. Those who have offended against the
faith and the laws shall suffer the punishment by the laws appointed;
and his first and last prayer is for the prevailing of Christ--the
prevailing of the Word of Christ--the prevailing of the truth."[560]
[Sidenote: Cromwell is created Earl of Essex.]
[Sidenote: Permission granted to bequeath land by will.]
[Sidenote: Monks are released from the vow of poverty.]
[Sidenote: Reduction of the number of sanctuaries, and limitation of
their privileges.]
[Sidenote: Act for the maintenance of the navy.]
[Sidenote: May 3. Bill for a subsidy of four fifteenths and four
tenths.]
A general intimation of intentions, which being so stated every one
would approve, passed quietly, and the subject dropped. It is the
peculiarity of discourses on theological subjects, that they are
delivered and they are heard under an impression, both on the part of
the speaker and of his audience, that each is in possession of the only
reasonable and moderate truth; and so long as particulars are avoided,
moderation is praised, and all men consent to praise it--excess is
condemned, and all agree in the condemnation. Five days after, a public
mark of the king's approbation was bestowed on Cromwell, who was
created Earl of Essex; and the ordinary legislation commenced quietly.
The complaints against the statute of Uses were met by a measure which
silently divided the leading root of the feudal system. Persons holding
lands by military tenure were allowed to dispose of two-thirds in their
wills, as they pleased. Lands held under any other conditions might be
bequeathed absolutely, without condition or restriction.[561] To prevent
disputes on titles, and to clear such confusion of claims as had been
left remaining by the Uses Act, sixty years' possession of property was
declared sufficient to constitute a valid right; and no claim might be
pressed which rested on pretensions of an older date.[562] The Privy
Seal's hand is legible in several acts abridging ecclesiastical
privileges, and restoring monks, who had been dead in law, to some part
of their rights as human beings. The suppression of the religious houses
had covered England with vagrant priests, who, though pensioned, were
tempted, by idleness and immunity from punishment, into crimes. If
convicted of felony, and admitted "to their clergy," such persons were
in future to be burnt in the hand.[563] A bill in the preceding year had
relieved them from their vows of poverty; they were permitted to buy,
inherit, or otherwise occupy property. They were freed by dissolution
from obedience to their superiors, and the reflection naturally
followed, that the justice which had dispensed with two vows would
dispense with the third, and that a permission to marry, in spite of the
Six Articles, would soon necessarily follow. Further inroads were made
also upon the sanctuaries. Institutions which had worn so deep a groove
in the habits of men could not be at once put away; nor, while the
letter of the law continued so sanguinary, was it tolerable to remove
wholly the correctives which had checked its action, and provide no
substitute. The last objection was not perhaps considered a serious one;
but prejudice and instinct survived, as a safeguard of humanity. The
protection of sanctuary was withdrawn for the more flagrant felonies,
for murder, rape, robbery, arson, and sacrilege. Churches and
church-yards continued to protect inferior offenders; and seven
towns--Wells, Westminster, Manchester, Northampton, York, Derby, and
Launceston--retained the same privileges, until, finding that their
exemption only converted them into nests of crime, they petitioned of
themselves for desecration. Some other regulations were also introduced
into the system. Persons taking refuge in a church were allowed to
remain not longer than forty days; at the end of which they were to
abjure before the coroner and leave the country, or were to be consigned
for life to one of the specified towns, where they were to be daily
inspected by the governor, and if absent three days consecutively--no
very barbarous condition--were to forfeit their security.[564] An act
was passed for the better maintenance of the navy; and next, bringing
inevitable ill-will with it to the unpopular minister, appeared the
standard English grievance, a Money Bill. In the preceding session the
Duke of Norfolk had laid before the Lords a statement of the
extraordinary expenses which had been cast upon the Crown, and of the
inadequacy of the revenue.[565] Twelve months' notice had been given,
that the Houses might consider at their leisure the demand which was
likely to be made upon them. It appeared in a bill introduced on the 3d
of May, requiring a subsidy of four fifteenths and four tenths, the
payments to be spread over a period of four years.[566]
[Sidenote: Expenses incurred in the defence of the realm.]
The occasion of a demand of money was always carefully stated: the
preamble set forth that the country had prospered, had lived in wealth,
comfort, and peace under the king, for thirty-one years. His Highness,
in the wisdom which God had given him, had brought his subjects out of
blindness and ignorance to the knowledge of God and his holy Word. He
had shaken off the usurpations of the Bishop of Rome, by whose subtle
devices large sums had been annually drained out of the realm. But in
doing this he had been forced to contend against insurrections at home
and the peril of invasion from the powers of the Continent. He had built
a navy and furnished it. He had raised fortresses, laid out harbours,
established permanent garrisons in dangerous places, with arsenals for
arms and all kinds of military stores. Ireland after an arduous struggle
was at length reduced to obedience; but the conquest was maintained at a
great and continuing cost. To meet this necessary outlay, no regular
provision existed; and the king threw himself confidently upon his
subjects, with an assurance that they would not refuse to bear their
share in the burden.
[Sidenote: Four priests and a woman are attainted for high treason.]
The journals throw no light upon the debate, if debate there was. The
required sum was voted; we know no more.[567] The sand in Cromwell's
hour-glass was almost run. Once more, and conspicuously, his spirit can
be seen in a bill of attainder against four priests, three of whom,
Abel, Fetherston, and Powell, had been attached to the household of
Queen Catherine, and had lingered in the Tower, in resolute denial of
the supremacy; the fourth, Robert Cook, of Doncaster, "had adhered to
the late arrogant traitor Robert Aske." In companionship with them was a
woman, Margaret Tyrrell, who had refused to acknowledge Prince Edward to
be heir to the crown. These five were declared by act of parliament
guilty of high treason; their trial was dispensed with; they were
sentenced to death, and the bill was passed without a dissentient
voice.[568] This was on the 1st of June.[569] It was the same week in
which the Tower seemed likely to be the destiny of Tunstall and
Gardiner; the struggling parties had reached the crisis when one or the
other must fall. Nine days more were allowed to pass; on the tenth the
blow descended.
But I must again go back for a few steps, to make all movements clear.
[Sidenote: June. Progress of the misfortune of the marriage.]
[Sidenote: May. Relations between the king and queen.]
[Sidenote: Conversation between Wriothesley and Cromwell.]
From the day of the king's marriage "he was in a manner weary of his
life."[570] The public policy of the connexion threatened to be a
failure. It was useless abroad, it was eminently unpopular at home;
while the purpose for which the country had burdened him with a wife was
entirely hopeless.[571] To the queen herself he was kindly distant; but,
like most men who have not been taught in early life to endure
inconvenience, he brooded in secret over his misfortune, and chafed the
wound by being unable to forget it. The documents relating to the
pre-contract were not sent; his vexation converted a shadow into a
reality. He grew superstitious about his repugnance, which he regarded
as an instinct forbidding him to do an unlawful thing. "I have done as
much to move the consent of my heart and mind as ever man did," he said
to Cromwell, "but without success."[572] "I think before God," he
declared another time, "she has never been my lawful wife."[573] The
wretched relations continued without improvement till the 9th of May. On
that day a royal circular was addressed to every member of the Privy
Council, requiring them to attend the king's presence, "for the treaty
of such great and weighty matters as whereupon doth consist the surety
of his Highness's person, the preservation of his honour, and the
tranquillity and quietness of themselves and all other his loving and
faithful subjects."[574] It may be conjectured that the king had at this
time resolved to open his situation for discussion. No other matter can
be ascertained to have existed at the time worthy of language so
serious. Yet he must have changed his purpose. For three weeks longer
the secret was preserved, and his course was still undecided. On the
evening of the 6th or 7th of June Sir Thomas Wriothesley repaired to
Cromwell's house with the ordinary reports of public business. He found
the minister alone in a gallery, leaning against a window. "Were there
any news abroad?" Cromwell asked. Wriothesley said he knew of none.
"There is something," the minister said, "which troubles me. The king
loves not the queen, nor ever has from the beginning; insomuch as I
think assuredly she is yet as good a maid for him as she was when she
came to England." "Marry, sir," Wriothesley answered, "I am right sorry
that his Majesty should be so troubled. For God's sake, devise how his
Grace may be relieved by one way or the other." "Yes," Cromwell said,
"but what and how?" Wriothesley said he could not tell on the moment;
but standing the case as it did, he thought some way might be found.
"Well, well," answered the minister, "it is a great matter." The
conversation ended; and Wriothesley left him for the night.
"The next day following," Wriothesley deposed, "having occasion eftsoons
for business to repair unto him, I chanced to say, 'Sir, I have thought
somewhat of the matter you told me, and I find it a great matter. But,
sir, it can be made better than it is. For God's sake, devise for the
relief of the king; for if he remain in this grief and trouble, we shall
all one day smart for it. If his Grace be quiet we shall all have our
parts with him.' 'It is true,' quoth he; 'but I tell you it is a great
matter.' 'Marry,' quoth I, 'I grant; but let the remedy be searched
for.' 'Well,' quoth he; and thus brake off from me."[575]
[Sidenote: Wriothesley hints a divorce,]
[Sidenote: From which Cromwell shrinks,]
Wriothesley's remedy was of course a divorce. It could be nothing else.
Yet, was it not a remedy worse than any possible disorder? Cromwell,
indeed, knew himself responsible. He it was who, with open eyes, had led
the king into his embarrassment. Yet, was a second divorce to give
mortal affront to the Lutherans, as the first had done to the Catholics?
Was another marriage scandal to taint a movement which had already
furnished too much of such material to insolence? What a triumph to the
Pope! What a triumph to the Emperor! How would his own elaborate policy
crumble to ruins! It was a great matter indeed to Cromwell.
[Sidenote: But which the English conservatives would be likely to
favor.]
But how would the whisper of the word sound in the ears of the English
reactionaries? What would the clergy think of it in whose, only not
unanimous, convictions the German alliance had been from the first a
pollution? What would the parliament think of it, who had seen the fruit
of their theological labours so cunningly snatched from them? What would
the Anglican bishops think of it, who had found themselves insulted from
the pulpit, from behind the shield of the hateful connexion--with one of
their body already in the Tower, and the same danger hanging before them
all? Or the laity generally--the wool-growers of the counties, the
merchants of the cities, the taxpayers charged with the new subsidy,
who, in the connexion with the house of Cleves, saw a fresh cause of
quarrel with the Emperor and the ruin of the trade with Flanders; what,
to all these, in the heat and rage of party, must have seemed the
natural remedy for the king's difficulty? Let Queen Catherine and her
friends be avenged by a retribution in kind. Their opinions on the
matter were shortly expressed.
[Sidenote: Cromwell begins to totter.]
[Sidenote: Hasty expressions drop from him.]
[Sidenote: The king's promise.]
Meanwhile, the minister who, in the conduct of the mighty cause which he
was guiding, had stooped to dabble in these muddy waters of intrigue,
was reaping, within and without, the harvest of his errors. The
consciousness of wrong brought with it the consciousness of weakness and
moody alternations of temper. The triumph of his enemies stared him in
the face, and rash words dropped from him, which were not allowed to
fall upon the ground, declaring what he would do if the king were turned
from the course of the Reformation. Carefully his antagonists at the
council-board had watched him for years. They had noted down his public
errors; spies had reported his most confidential language. Slowly, but
surely, the pile of accusations had gathered in height and weight, till
the time should come to make them public. Three years before, when the
northern insurgents had demanded Cromwell's punishment, the king had
answered that the laws were open, and were equal to high and low. Let an
accuser come forward openly, and prove that the Privy Seal had broken
the laws, and he should be punished as surely and as truly as the
meanest criminal. The case against him was clear at last; if brought
forward in the midst of the king's displeasure, the charges could not
fail of attentive hearing, and the release from the detested matrimony
might be identified with the punishment of the author of it.
[Sidenote: Mixed causes for the hatred against Cromwell.]
For struck down Cromwell should be, as his master Wolsey had been, to
rise no more. Not only was he hated on public grounds, as the leader of
a revolution, but, in his multiplied offices, he had usurped the
functions of the ecclesiastical courts; he had mixed himself in the
private concerns of families; he had interfered between wives and
husbands, fathers and sons, brothers and sisters. In his enormous
correspondence[576] he appears as the universal referee--the resource of
all weak or injured persons. The mad Duchess of Norfolk chose him for
her patron against the duke. Lady Burgh, Lady Parr, Lady
Hungerford,[577] alike made him the champion of their domestic wrongs.
Justly and unjustly, he had dragged down upon himself the animosity of
peers, bishops, clergy, and gentlemen, and their day of revenge was
come.
[Sidenote: June 10.]
[Sidenote: He is arrested.]
[Sidenote: Treasonable words are sworn against him.]
[Sidenote: Exultation of the reactionaries in London.]
On the 10th of June he attended as usual at the morning sitting of the
House of Lords. The Privy Council sat in the afternoon, and, at three
o'clock, the Duke of Norfolk rose suddenly at the table: "My Lord of
Essex," he said, "I arrest you of high treason." There were witnesses in
readiness, who came forward and swore to have heard him say "that, if
the king and all his realm would turn and vary from his opinions, he
would fight in the field in his own person, with his sword in his hand,
against the king and all others; adding that, if he lived a year or two,
he trusted to bring things to that frame that it should not lie in the
king's power to resist or let it."[578] The words "were justified to his
face." It was enough. Letters were instantly written to the ambassadors
at foreign courts, desiring them to make known the blow which had been
struck and the causes which had led to it.[579] The twilight of the
summer evening found Thomas Cromwell within the walls of that grim
prison which had few outlets except the scaffold; and far off, perhaps,
he heard the pealing of the church-bells and the songs of revelry in the
streets, with which the citizens, short of sight, and bestowing on him
the usual guerdon of transcendent merit, exulted in his fall. "The Lord
Cromwell," says Hall, "being in the council chamber, was suddenly
apprehended and committed to the Tower of London; the which many
lamented, but more rejoiced, and specially such as either had been
religious men or favoured religious persons; for they banqueted and
triumphed together that night, many wishing that that day had been seven
years before, and some, fearing lest he should escape, although he were
imprisoned, could not be merry; others, who knew nothing but truth by
him, both lamented him and heartily prayed for him. But this is true,
that, of certain of the clergy, he was detestably hated; and specially
of such as had borne swing, and by his means were put from it; for
indeed he was a man that, in all his doings, seemed not to favour any
kind of Popery, nor could not abide the snuffing pride of some
prelates."[580]
[Sidenote: A trial intended, but exchanged for an act of attainder.]
The first intention was to bring him to trial,[581] but a parliamentary
attainder was a swifter process, better suited to the temper of the
victorious reactionists. Five Romanists but a few days previously had
been thus sentenced under Cromwell's direction. The retribution was only
the more complete which rendered back to him the same measure which he
had dealt to others. The bill was brought in a week after his arrest.
His offences, when reduced into ordinary prose out of the passionate
rhetoric with which they were there described, were generally these:--
[Sidenote: He had set at liberty persons convicted or suspected of
treason.]
1. He was accused of having taken upon himself, without the king's
permission, to set at liberty divers persons convicted and attainted of
misprision of high treason, and divers others being apprehended and in
prison for suspicion of high treason. No circumstances and no names
were mentioned; but the fact seemed to be ascertained.
[Sidenote: He had issued commissions on his own authority.]
2. He was said to have granted licences for money; to have issued
commissions in his own name and by his own authority; and, to have
interfered impertinently and unjustly with the rights and liberties of
the king's subjects.
[Sidenote: He had encouraged heresy.]
3. Being a detestable heretic and disposed to set and sow common
sedition and variance amongst people, he had dispersed into all shires
in the realm great numbers of false, erroneous books, disturbing the
faith of the king's subjects on the nature of the Eucharist and other
articles of the Christian faith. He had openly maintained that the
priesthood was a form--that every Christian might equally administer the
Sacraments. Being vicegerent of the king in matters ecclesiastical, and
appointed to correct heresy, he had granted licences to persons detected
or openly defamed of heresy to teach and preach.
[Sidenote: He had released heretics from prison.]
4. He had addressed letters to the sheriffs in various shires, causing
many false heretics to be set at liberty, some of whom had been actually
indicted, and others who had been for good reason apprehended and were
in prison.
[Sidenote: He had rebuked their accusers and prosecutors.]
5. On complaint being made to him of particular heretics and heresies,
he had protected the same heretics from punishment; "he had terribly
rebuked their accusers," and some of them he had persecuted and
imprisoned, "so that the king's good subjects had been in fear to detect
the said heretics and heresies."
[Sidenote: He had threatened to maintain them by force.]
6. In fuller explanation of the expressions sworn against him on his
arrest, he had made a confederation of heretics, it was said, through
the country; and supposing himself to be fully able, by force and
strength, to maintain and defend his said abominable treasons and
heresies, on declaration made to him of certain preachers, Dr. Barnes
and others, preaching against the king's proclamation, "the same Thomas
Cromwell affirming the same preaching to be good, did not let to declare
and say, 'If the king would turn from it, yet I would not turn; and if
the king did turn, and all his people, I would fight in the field, with
my sword in my hand, against him and all others; and if that I live a
year or two, it shall not lie in the king's power to let it if he
would.'"
[Sidenote: He had amassed a fortune by bribery,]
7. By bribery and extortion he had obtained vast sums of money; and
being thus enriched, he had held the nobles in disdain.
[Sidenote: And had menaced the nobility.]
8. Finally, being reminded of his position with respect to the lords,
and of the consequences which he might bring upon himself, he had said,
"If the Lords would handle him so, he would give them such a breakfast
as never was made in England, and that the proudest of them should
know."[582]
[Sidenote: Were the accusations true?]
[Sidenote: And if true, was his escape or acquittal possible?]
The amount and character of the evidence on which these charges were
brought we have no means of judging; but the majority of them carry
probability on their front; and we need not doubt that the required
testimony was both abundant and sound. The case, of course, had been
submitted in all its details to the king before the first step had been
taken; and he was called upon to fulfil the promise which he had made of
permitting justice to have its way. How was the king to refuse? Many a
Catholic had gone to the scaffold for words lighter than those which had
been sworn against Cromwell, by Cromwell's own order. Did he or did he
not utter those words? If it be these to which he alluded in a letter
which he wrote from the Tower to the king,[583] Sir George Throgmorton
and Sir Richard Rich were the witnesses against him; and though he tried
to shake their testimony, his denial was faint, indirect--not like the
broad, absolute repudiation of a man who was consciously clear of
offence.[584] Could he have cleared himself on this one point, it would
have availed him little if he had suspended the action of the law by his
own authority, if he had permitted books to circulate secretly which
were forbidden by act of parliament, if he had allowed prisoners for
high treason or heresy to escape from confinement. Although to later
generations acts such as these appear as virtues, not as crimes, the
king could not anticipate the larger wisdom of posterity. An English
sovereign could know no guidance but the existing law, which had been
manifestly and repeatedly broken. Even if he had himself desired to
shield his minister, it is not easy to see that he could have prevented
his being brought to trial, or, if tried, could have prevented his
conviction, in the face of an exasperated parliament, a furious clergy,
and a clamorous people. That he permitted the council to proceed by
attainder, in preference to the ordinary forms, must be attributed to
the share which he, too, experienced in the general anger.
[Sidenote: Cranmer declares his confidence in Cromwell's integrity.]
Only one person had the courage or the wish to speak for Cromwell.
Cranmer, the first to come forward on behalf of Anne Boleyn, ventured,
first and alone, to throw a doubt on the treason of the Privy Seal. "I
heard yesterday, in your Grace's council," he wrote to the king, "that
the Earl of Essex is a traitor; yet who cannot be sorrowful and amazed
that he should be a traitor against your Majesty--he whose surety was
only by your Majesty--he who loved your Majesty, as I ever thought, no
less than God--he who studied always to set forwards whatsoever was your
Majesty's will and pleasure--he that cared for no man's displeasure to
serve your Majesty--he that was such a servant, in my judgment, in
wisdom, diligence, faithfulness, and experience as no prince in this
realm ever had--he that was so vigilant to preserve your Majesty from
all treasons, that few could be so secretly conceived but he detected
the same in the beginning!--I loved him as my friend, for so I took him
to be; but I chiefly loved him for the love which I thought I saw him
bear ever towards your Grace, singularly above all others. But now, if
he be a traitor, I am sorry that ever I loved or trusted him; and I am
very glad that his treason is discovered in time; but yet, again, I am
very sorrowful; for who shall your Grace trust hereafter, if you may not
trust him? Alas! I lament your Grace's chance herein. I wot not whom
your Grace may trust."[585]
[Sidenote: But inasmuch as he had broken the law openly and repeatedly,]
[Sidenote: And inasmuch as the law in a free country is the only guide
to the magistrate, his condemnation was inevitable.]
The intercession was bravely ventured; but it was fruitless. The illegal
acts of a minister who had been trusted with extraordinary powers were
too patent for denial; and Cranmer himself was forced into a passive
acquiescence, while the enemies of the Reformation worked their revenge.
Heresy and truth, treason and patriotism! these are words which in a war
of parties change their meaning with the alternations of success, till
time and fate have pronounced the last interpretation, and human
opinions and sympathies bend to the deciding judgment. But while the
struggle is still in progress--while the partisans on either side
exclaim that truth is with them, and error with their antagonists, and
the minds of this man and of that man are so far the only
arbiters--those, at such a time, are not the least to be commended who
obey for their guide the law as it in fact exists. Men there are who
need no such direction, who follow their own course--it may be to a
glorious success, it may be to as glorious a death. To such proud
natures the issue to themselves is of trifling moment. They live for
their work or die for it, as their Almighty Father wills. But the law in
a free country cannot keep pace with genius. It reflects the plain
sentiments of the better order of average men; and if it so happen, as
in a perplexed world of change it will happen and must, that a
statesman, or a prophet, is beyond his age, and in collision with a law
which his conscience forbids him to obey, he bravely breaks it, bravely
defies it, and either wins the victory in his living person, or, more
often, wins it in his death. In fairness, Cromwell should have been
tried; but it would have added nothing to his chances of escape. He
could not disprove the accusations. He could but have said that he had
done right, not wrong,--a plea which would have been but a fresh crime.
But, in the deafening storm of denunciation which burst out, the
hastiest vengeance was held the greatest justice. Any charge, however
wild, gained hearing: Chatillon, the French ambassador, informed his
court that the Privy Seal had intended privately to marry the Lady Mary,
as the Duke of Suffolk had married the king's sister, and on Henry's
death proposed to seize the crown.[586] When a story so extravagant
could gain credence, the circular of the council to the ambassadors
rather furnishes matter of suspicion by its moderation.
[Sidenote: The attainder passes.]
[Sidenote: The quarrel with the Emperor is at an end.]
The attainder passed instantly, with acclamations. Francis wrote a
letter of congratulation to the king on the discovery of the
"treason."[587] Charles V., whose keener eyes saw deeper into the nature
of the catastrophe, when the news were communicated to him, "nothing
moved outwardly in countenance or word," said merely, "What, is he in
the Tower of London, and by the king's commandment?"[588] He sent no
message, no expression of regret or of pleasure, no word of any kind;
but from that moment no menacing demonstrations or violent words or
actions ruffled his relations with England, till a new change had
passed upon the stage. His own friends were now in power. He knew it,
and acknowledged them.[589]
[Sidenote: Triumph of the reactionaries.]
The barrier which had stemmed the reactionary tide had now fallen.
Omnipotent in parliament and convocation, the king inclining in their
favour, carrying with them the sympathy of the wealth, the worldliness,
and the harder intellect of the country, freed from the dreaded
minister, freed from the necessity of conciliating the German
Protestants, the Anglican leaders made haste to redeem their lost time,
and develope their policy more wisely than before.
[Sidenote: The Bishop of Bath is despatched to the Duke of Cleves.]
[Sidenote: July 1. Improvement of the machinery for the enforcement of
the Six Articles.]
[Sidenote: July 6. Parliament discusses the marriage.]
Their handiwork is to be traced in the various measures which occupied
the remainder of the session. The first step was to despatch the Bishop
of Bath to the Duke of Cleves, to gain his consent, if possible, to his
sister's separation from the king; Anne, herself, meanwhile, being
recommended, for the benefit of her health, to retire for a few days to
Richmond. The bill of attainder was disposed of on the 19th of June; on
the 22d the bishops brought in a bill for the better payment of tithes,
which in the few years last past certain persons had contemptuously
presumed to withhold.[590] On the 1st of July a bill was read enacting
that, whereas in the parliament of the year preceding "a godly act was
made for the abolishment of diversity of opinion concerning the
Christian religion," the provisions of which, for various reasons, had
not been enforced, for the better execution of the said act the number
of commissioners appointed for that purpose should be further increased;
and the bishops and the bishops' chancellors should be assisted by the
archdeacons and the officials of their courts.[591] This measure, like
the attainder, was passed unanimously.[592] On the 5th a general pardon
was introduced, from which heretics were exempted by a special
proviso.[593] The new spirit was rapid in its manifestation. The day
after (for it was not thought necessary to wait for a letter from
Germany) the Cleves' marriage was brought forward for discussion; and
the care with which the pleadings were parodied which had justified the
divorce of Catherine, resembled rather a deliberate intention to
discredit the first scandal than a serious effort to defend the second;
but we must not judge the conduct of a party blinded with passion by
the appearance which such conduct seems to wear in a calmer retrospect.
[Sidenote: Speech of the Lord Chancellor not to the purpose.]
The chancellor, once more reminding the lords of the wars of the Roses,
and the danger of a disputed succession, informed them that certain
doubts had arisen affecting the legality of the king's present marriage.
The absence of a prospect of issue was the single palliative of the
present proceedings. The chancellor injured the case, so far as it
admitted of injury, by dwelling on the possibility of an issue of
doubtful legitimacy. The questions raised, however, belonged, he said,
to the canon law, and he proposed that they should be submitted to the
clergy then sitting in convocation.
[Sidenote: A delegacy of the two Houses waits upon the king.]
[Sidenote: The queen consents to accept the judgment of convocation.]
When the chancellor had ceased, the peers desired to communicate with
the other House. Six delegates were sent down to repeat the substance of
what they had heard, and returned presently, followed by twenty members
of the House of Commons, who signified a wish to speak with the king in
person. The lords assented, and repaired in a body with the twenty
members to Whitehall. The formality of state interviews may not be too
closely scrutinized. They requested to be allowed to open to his Majesty
a great and important matter, which his Majesty, they were well aware,
had alone permitted them to discuss. His Majesty being confident that
they would make no improper demands, they laid before him the
proposition which they had heard from the woolsack, and added their own
entreaties that he would be pleased to consent.[594] The king was
gracious, but the canon law required also the consent of the queen; for
which, therefore, the Duke of Suffolk, the Bishop of Winchester, and
other noblemen were despatched to Richmond, and with which they soon
returned.[595] Six years were spent over the affair with Queen
Catherine: almost as many days sufficed to dispose of Anne of Cleves.
[Sidenote: July 7. The convocation undertake the investigation.]
[Sidenote: Evidence is given in.]
On the Wednesday morning the clergy assembled, and Gardiner, in "a
luminous oration,"[596] invited them to the task which they were to
undertake. Evidence was sent in by different members of the Privy
Council whom the king had admitted to his confidence; by the ladies of
the court who could speak for the condition of the queen; and, finally,
by Henry himself, in a paper which he wrote with his own hand,
accompanying it with a request that, after reviewing all the
circumstances under which the marriage had been contracted, they would
inform him if it was still binding; and adding at the same time an
earnest adjuration, which it is not easy to believe to have been wholly
a form, that, having God only before their eyes, they would point out to
him the course which justly, honourably, and religiously he was at
liberty to pursue.[597]
His personal declaration was as follows:[598]--
[Sidenote: The king makes a declaration of his own conduct.]
"I depose and declare that this hereafter written is merely the verity,
intended upon no sinister affection, nor yet upon none hatred or
displeasure, and herein I take God to witness. To the matter I say and
affirm that, when the first communication was had with me for the
marriage of the Lady Anne of Cleves, I was glad to hearken to it,
trusting to have some assured friend by it, I much doubting at that time
both the Emperor, and France, and the Bishop of Rome, and also because I
heard so much both of her excellent beauty and virtuous behaviour. But
when I saw her at Rochester, which was the first time that ever I saw
her, it rejoiced my heart that I had kept me free from making any pact
or bond before with her till I saw her myself; for I assure you that I
liked her so ill and [found her to be] so far contrary to that she was
praised, that I was woe that ever she came into England, and deliberated
with myself that if it were possible to find means to break off, I would
never enter yoke with her; of which misliking both the Great Master
(Lord Russell), the Admiral that now is, and the Master of the Horse
(Sir Anthony Brown) can and will bear record. Then after my repair to
Greenwich, the next day after, I think, I doubt not but the Lord of
Essex will and can declare what I then said to him in that case, not
doubting but, since he is a person which knoweth himself condemned to
die by act of parliament, he will not damn his soul, but truly declare
the truth not only at that time spoken by me, but also continually
until the day of the marriage, and also many times after; wherein my
lack of consent I doubt not doth or shall well appear, and also lack
enough of the will and power to consummate the same, wherein both he and
my physicians can testify according to the truth."
[Sidenote: The clergy deliberate for three days, and on the fourth
deliver their sentence.]
Nearly two hundred clergy were assembled, and the ecclesiastical lawyers
were called in to their assistance. The deliberation lasted Wednesday,
Thursday, and Friday.[599] On Saturday they had agreed upon their
judgment, which was produced and read in the House of Lords.
[Sidenote: Owing to the imperfectly cleared pre-contract,]
The contract between the Lady Anne of Cleves and the Marquis of Lorraine
was sufficient, they would not say to invalidate, but to perplex and
complicate any second marriage into which she might have entered.
[Sidenote: Conditions unfulfilled,]
Before the ceremony the king had required the production of the papers
relating to that engagement with so much earnestness, that the demand
might be taken as a condition on which the marriage was completed. But
the papers had not been produced, the uncertainties had not been cleared
... and thus there had not only been a breach of condition, but, if no
condition had been made, the previous objection was further increased.
[Sidenote: The enforced consent of the king,]
Consent had been wanting on the part of the king. False representations
had been held out to bring the lady into the realm and force her upon
his Majesty's acceptance.
The solemnization of the marriage was extorted from his Majesty against
his will under urgent pressure and compulsion by external causes.
[Sidenote: The absence of consummation,]
[Sidenote: And from other causes affecting the interests of the
kingdom,]
Consummation had not followed, nor ought to follow, and the convocation
had been informed--as indeed it was matter of common notoriety--that if
his Majesty could, without the breach of any divine law, be married to
another person, great benefits might thereby accrue to the realm, the
present welfare and safety whereof depended on the preservation of his
royal person, to the honour of God, the accomplishment of His will, and
the avoiding of sinister opinions and scandals.
Considering all these circumstances, therefore, and weighing what the
Church might and could lawfully do in such cases, and had often before
done,[600] the convocation, by the tenor of those their present letters,
declared his Majesty not to be any longer bound by the matrimony in
question, which matrimony was null and invalid; and both his Majesty and
the Lady Anne were free to contract and consummate other marriages
without objection or delay.
[Sidenote: They declare the marriage dissolved.]
[Sidenote: The continuance of the marriage could not have been desired.]
[Sidenote: But the scandal was great and inevitable.]
To this judgment two archbishops, seventeen bishops, and a hundred and
thirty-nine clergy set their hands.[601] Their sentence was undoubtedly
legal, according to a stricter interpretation of the canon law than had
been usual in the ecclesiastical courts. The case was of a kind in which
the queen, on her separate suit, could, with clear right, have obtained
a divorce _a vinculo_ had she desired; and the country had been
accustomed to see separations infinitely more questionable obtained in
the court of the Rota or at home, with easy and scandalous levity.[602]
Nor could the most scrupulous person, looking at the marriage between
Henry and Anne of Cleves on its own merits, pretend that any law, human
or divine, would have been better fulfilled, or that any feeling
entitled to respect would have been less outraged, by the longer
maintenance of so unhappy a connexion. Yet it is much to be regretted
that the clergy should have been compelled to meddle with it; under
however plausible an aspect the divorce might be presented, it gave a
colour to the interpretation which represented the separation from
Catherine as arising out of caprice, and enabled the enemies of the
Church of England to represent her synods as the instruments of the
king's licentiousness.[603]
[Sidenote: The queen signifies her acquiescence.]
[Sidenote: She will remain in England with the rank of a princess;
palaces, pensions, and establishments.]
For good or for evil, however, the judgment was given. The Bishop of
Winchester spoke a few words in explanation to the two houses of
parliament when it was presented;[604] and the next day the Duke of
Suffolk and Wriothesley waited on the queen, and communicated the
fortune which was impending over her. Anne herself--who, after the
slight agitation which the first mooting of the matter naturally
produced, had acquiesced in everything which was proposed to
her--received the intimation with placidity. She wrote at their request
to the king, giving her consent in writing. She wrote also to her
brother, declaring herself satisfied, and expressing her hope that he
would be satisfied as well. So much facility increased the consideration
which her treatment entitled her to claim. The Bishop of Bath had taken
with him to the Duke of Cleves an offer, which ought to have been an
insult, of a pecuniary compensation for his sister's injury. It was
withdrawn or qualified, before it was known to have been refused, to
increase the settlement on the ex-queen. For many reasons the king
desired that she should remain in England; but she had rank and
precedence assigned to her as if she had been a princess of the blood.
Estates were granted for her maintenance producing nearly three thousand
a year. Palaces, dresses, jewels, costly establishments were added in
lavish profusion, to be her dowry, as she was significantly told, should
she desire to make a fresh experiment in matrimony. And she not only (it
is likely) preferred a splendid independence to the poverty of a petty
court in Germany, but perhaps, also, to the doubtful magnificence which
she had enjoyed as Henry's bride.[605]
[Sidenote: Monday, July 12. The bill for the divorce is passed in
parliament.]
[Sidenote: Displeasure of the Duke of Cleves,]
[Sidenote: And want of generosity on the part of the king,]
Parliament made haste with the concluding stroke. On Monday the 12th the
bill for the divorce was introduced: it was disposed of with the
greatest haste which the forms of the Houses would allow; and the
conclusion of the matter was announced to the queen's own family and the
foreign powers almost as soon as it was known to be contemplated. The
Duke of Cleves, on the first audience of the Bishop of Bath, had shown
himself "heavy and hard to pacify and please." When all was over, the
Bishops of Winchester and Durham, with other noble lords, wrote to him
themselves, persuading him to acquiesce in a misfortune which could no
longer be remedied; his sister had already declared her own
satisfaction; and Henry, through his commissioners, informed him in
detail of the proceedings in parliament and convocation, and trusted
that the friendship between the courts would not be interrupted in
consequence. It would have been well had he added nothing to a bare
narrative of facts; but questionable actions are rarely improved in the
manner of their execution. The king was irritated at the humiliation to
which the conduct of the German powers had exposed him in the spring;
and the Duke of Cleves had afterwards increased his displeasure by a
secret intrigue with the court of Paris. Satisfied with his settlements
upon Anne, he avowed an anxiety to be extricated from his offer of money
to the duke, "who might percase, to his miscontentment, employ it by
the advice of others, or at least without commodity to the giver."[606]
In fact, he said, as he had done nothing but what was right, "if the
lady's contentation would not content her friends, it should not be
honourable for him, with detriment and waste of his treasure, to labour
to satisfy those who without cause misliked his doings, which were just,
and without injury to be passed over."[607] Finally, he concluded: "In
case the duke sheweth himself untractable and high-couraged, in such
sort as devising interests and respects, he shall further set forth the
matter, and increase it with words more largely than reason would he
should, alledging, percase, that though the lady is contented, yet he is
not contented, her mother is not contented, requiring why and wherefore,
and such other behaviour as men in high stomach, forgetting reason, shew
and utter, in that case you, the Bishop of Bath, declaring unto the duke
how we sent you not thither to render an account of our just
proceedings, but friendly to communicate them, you shall desire the duke
to license you to depart."[608]
[Sidenote: Which does not contrast favourably with the conduct of the
duke.]
[Sidenote: The duke will not admit that his sister has been honourably
treated; but will not pres his quarrel to a rupture.]
The high style of Henry contrasts unfavourably with the more dignified
moderation of the answer. The duke wrote himself briefly to the king: he
replied through his minister to the ambassador, that "he was sorry for
the the chance, and would well have wished it had been otherwise; yet,
seeing it was thus, he would not depart from his amity for his Majesty
for any such matter. He could have wished that his sister should return
to Germany; but, if she was satisfied to remain, he had confidence that
the king would act uprightly towards her, and he would not press it." Of
the offer of money he took little notice or none.[609] The bishop
laboured to persuade him to pay respect to the judgment of the Church;
this, however, the duke resolutely refused, altogether ignoring it as of
no manner of moment; neither would he allow that the Lady Anne had been
treated honourably, although the bishop much pressed for the admission.
A cold acquiescence in an affront which he was too weak to resent, and a
promise that his private injuries should not cause the dissolution of an
alliance which had been useful to the interests of religion, was the
most which could be extorted from the Duke of Cleves; and, in calmer
moments, Henry could neither have desired nor looked for more. But no
one at that crisis was calm in England. The passions roused in the
strife of convictions which divided rank from rank, which divided
families, which divided every earnest man against himself, extended over
all subjects which touched the central question. The impulse of the
moment assumed the character of right, and everything was wrong which
refused to go along with it.
[Sidenote: The divorce is communicated to Francis,]
Sir Edward Karne made the communication to Francis, prefacing his story
with the usual prelude of the succession, and the anxiety of the country
that the king should have more children. "Even at that point" Francis
started, expecting that something serious was to follow. When Sir Edward
went on to say that "the examination of the king's marriage was
submitted to the clergy," "What," he said, "the matrimony made with the
queen that now is?" Karne assented. "Then he fetched a great sigh, and
spake no more" till the conclusion, when he answered, "he could nor
would take any other opinion of his Highness but as his loving brother
and friend should do;" for the particular matter, "his Highness's
conscience must be judge therein."[610]
[Sidenote: And to the Emperor.]
[Sidenote: The king had lost Germany and gained the Empire.]
"The Emperor," wrote the resident Pate, "when I declared my commission,
gave me good air, with one gesture and countenance throughout, saving
that suddenly, as I touched the pith of the matter, thereupon he
steadfastly cast his eye upon me a pretty while, and then interrupting
me, demanded what the causes were of the doubts concerning the marriage
with the daughter of Cleves." Pate was not commissioned to enter into
details; and Charles, at the end, contented himself with sending his
hearty recommendations, and expressing his confidence that, as the king
was wise, so he was sure he would do nothing "which should not be to the
discharge of his conscience and the tranquillity of his realm."[611] In
confidence, a few days later, he avowed a hope that all would now go
well in England; the enormities of the past had been due to the
pernicious influence of Cromwell; or were "beside the king's pleasure or
knowledge, being a prince," the Emperor said, "no less godly brought up
than endued and imbued with so many virtuous qualities as whom all
blasts and storms could never alter nor move, but as vice might alter
true virtue."[612] On the whole, the impression left by the affair on
the Continent was that Henry "had lost the hearts of the German princes,
but had gained the Emperor instead."[613] Both the loss and the gain
were alike welcome to the English conservatives. The latter, happy in
their victory, and now freed from all impediments, had only to follow up
their advantage.
[Sidenote: Bill for the moderation of the Six Articles in favour of
incontinence.]
[Sidenote: Appointment of a standing committee of religion, with
extraordinary powers.]
On the 12th of July the persecuting bill was passed, and the Tithe Bill
also, after having been recast by the Commons.[614] On the 16th the Six
Articles Bill was moderated, in favour not of heresy, but of the more
venial offence of incontinency. Married clergy and incontinent priests
by the Six Articles Bill were, on the first offence, to forfeit their
benefices; if they persisted they were to be treated as felons. The
King's Highness, graciously considering "that the punishment of death
was very sore, and too much extreme," was contented to relax the penalty
into three gradations. For the first offence the punishment was to be
forfeiture of all benefices but one; for the second, forfeiture of the
one remaining; for the third, imprisonment for life.[615] A few days
later the extension given to the prerogative, by the Act of
Proclamations, was again shortened by communicating to the clergy a
share of the powers which had been granted absolutely to the crown; and
the parliament at the same time restored into the hands of the
spiritualty the control of religious opinion. The Protestants had
shifted their ground from purgatory and masses to free-will and
justification; and had thus defied the bishops, and left the law behind
them. The king's proclamations had failed through general neglect. A
committee of religion was now constituted, composed of the archbishops,
bishops, and other learned doctors of divinity; and an act, which passed
three readings in the House of Lords in a single day, conferred on this
body a power to declare absolutely, under the king's sanction, the
judgment of the English Church on all questions of theology which might
be raised, either at home or on the Continent, and to compel submission
to their decrees, under such pains and penalties as they might think
proper to impose, limited only by the common law and by the restrictions
attached to the Act of Proclamations.[616]
[Sidenote: Bill of attainder against various persons who had conspired
to betray Calais,]
[Sidenote: To which are added the names of Barnes, Garret, and Jerome.]
[Sidenote: Declared guilty of heresy.]
One important matter remained. This statute conferred no powers of life
and death; and there were certain chosen champions of Protestantism who
had resisted authority, had scoffed at recantation, and had insulted the
Bishop of Winchester. Although a penal measure could not be extended to
comprehend their doctrine by special definition, an omnipotent
parliament might, by a stretch of authority, vindicate the bishop's
dignity, and make a conspicuous example of the offenders. A case of high
treason was before the Houses. At the time when the invasion was
impending, a party of conspirators, Sir Gregory Botolph, Clement
Philpot, and three others, had contrived a project to betray Calais
either to the French or the Spaniards. The plot had been betrayed by a
confederate;[617] and the Anglo-Catholics did not intend to repeat the
blunder of showing a leaning towards the Romanists, which had wrecked
their fortunes in the preceding summer: they sentenced the offenders to
death by an attainder; and after so satisfactory a display of loyalty,
the friends of the bishops added three more names to the list in the
following words:[618] "And whereas Robert Barnes, late of London,
clerk, Thomas Garret, late of London, clerk, and William Jerome, late of
Stepney, in the county of Middlesex, clerk, being detestable and
abominable heretics, and amongst themselves agreed and confederated to
set and sow common sedition and variance amongst the king's true and
loving subjects within this his realm, not fearing their most bounden
duty to God nor yet their allegiance towards his Majesty, have openly
preached, taught, set forth, and delivered in divers and sundry places
of this realm, a great number of heresies, false, erroneous opinions,
doctrines, and sayings; and thinking themselves to be men of learning,
have taken upon them most seditiously and heretically to open and
declare divers and many texts of Scripture, expounding and applying the
same to many perverse and heretical senses, understandings, and
purposes, to the intent to induce and lead his Majesty's said subjects
to diffidence and refusal of the true, sincere faith and belief which
Christian men ought to have in Christian religion, the number whereof
were too long here to be rehearsed.... Be it, therefore, enacted that
the said persons Robert Barnes, Thomas Garret, and William Jerome, shall
be convicted and attainted of heresy, and that they and every of them
shall be deemed and adjudged abominable and detestable heretics, and
shall have and suffer pains of death by burning or otherwise, as shall
please the King's Majesty."
[Sidenote: Dissolution of parliament.]
This was the last measure of consequence in the session. Three days
after it closed. On the 24th the king came down to Westminster in
person, to thank the parliament for the subsidy. The Speaker of the
House of Commons congratulated the country on their sovereign. The
chancellor replied, in his Majesty's name, that his only study was for
the welfare of his subjects; his only ambition was to govern them by the
rule of the Divine law, and the Divine love, to the salvation of their
souls and bodies. The bills which had been passed were then presented
for the royal assent; and the chancellor, after briefly exhorting the
members of both houses to show the same diligence in securing the due
execution of these measures as they had displayed in enacting them,
declared the parliament dissolved.[619]
[Sidenote: The close of the Cromwell drama.]
[Sidenote: His letters to the king from the Tower.]
[Sidenote: July 28. He goes to execution.]
The curtain now rises on the closing act of the Cromwell tragedy. In the
condemned cells in the Tower, the three Catholics for whose sentence he
was himself answerable--the three Protestants whom his fall had left
exposed to their enemies--were the companions of the broken minister;
and there for six weeks he himself, the central figure, whose will had
made many women childless, had sat waiting his own unpitied doom. Twice
the king had sent to him "honourable persons, to receive such
explanations as he could offer. He had been patiently and elaborately
heard."[620] Twice he had himself written,--once, by Henry's desire, an
account of the Anne of Cleves marriage,--once a letter, which his
faithful friend Sir Ralph Sadler carried to Henry for him; and this last
the king caused the bearer three times to read over, and "seemed to be
moved therewith."[621] Yet what had Cromwell to say? That he had done
his best in the interest of the commonwealth? But his best was better
than the laws of the commonwealth. He had endeavoured faithfully to
serve the king; but he had endeavoured also to serve One higher than the
king. He had thrown himself in the breach against king and people where
they were wrong. He had used the authority with which he had been so
largely trusted to thwart the parliament and suspend statutes of the
realm. He might plead his services; but what would his services avail
him! An offence in the king's eyes was ever proportioned to the rank,
the intellect, the character of the offender. The _via media Anglicana_,
on which Henry had planted his foot, prescribed an even justice; and as
Cromwell, in this name of the _via media_, had struck down without mercy
the adherents of the Church of Rome, there was no alternative but to
surrender him to the same equitable rule, or to declare to the world and
to himself that he no longer held that middle place which he so
vehemently claimed. To sustain the Six Articles and to pardon the
vicegerent was impossible. If the consent to the attainder cost the king
any pang, we do not know; only this we know, that a passionate appeal
for mercy, such as was rarely heard in those days of haughty endurance,
found no response; and on the 28th of July the most despotic minister
who had ever governed England passed from the Tower to the scaffold.
[Sidenote: A false account of his last words printed by authority.]