be done with the Bishop of Rochester and Sir Thomas More. They had
remained for a year in the Tower, undisturbed; and there is no reason to
think that they would have been further troubled, except for the fault
of one, if not of both. It appeared, however, on the trial of Father
Reynolds, that Fisher's imprudence or zeal had tempted him again to
meddle with dangerous matters. A correspondence had passed between the
bishop and the king,[442] on the Act of Supremacy, or on some subject
connected with it. The king had taken no public notice of Fisher's
words, but he had required a promise that the letter should not be
shown to any other person. The unwise old man gave his word, but he did
not observe it; he sent copies both of what he had himself written and
of the king's answer to the Sion monks,[443] furnishing them at the same
time with a copy of the book which he had written against the divorce,
and two other books, written by Abel, the queen's confessor, and the
Spanish ambassador. Whether he was discovered to have held any other
correspondence, or whether anything of an analogous kind was proved
against More, I am unable to discover. Both he and Fisher had been
treated with greater indulgence than was usual with prisoners.[444]
Their own attendants had waited on them; they were allowed to receive
visits from their relatives within the Tower walls, and to correspond
with their families and friends.[445] As a matter of course, under such
circumstances, they must have expressed their opinions on the great
subject of the day; and those opinions were made known throughout
England, and, indeed, throughout Europe. Whether they did more than
this, or whether they had only indirectly allowed their influence to be
used against the government, must be left to conjecture. But the
language of a document under the king's hand speaks of their having
given some cause of provocation, of no common kind; and this is
confirmed by Cromwell, who was once deeply attached to More. "When they
were in strait keeping," say the instructions to the Bishop of Hereford,
"having nevertheless the prison at their liberties, they ceased not both
to practise an insurrection within the realm, and also to use all the
devices to them possible in outward parts, as well to defame and slander
his Majesty, and his most virtuous doings and proceedings, as also to
procure the impeachment and other destruction of his most royal
person."[446] Cromwell speaks also of their having been engaged in
definite schemes, the object of which was rebellion;[447] and although
we have here the _ex parte_ statement of the government, and although
such a charge would have been held to be justified by a proof that they
had spoken generally against the Act of Supremacy, it may be allowed to
prove that so far they were really guilty; and it is equally certain
that for these two men to have spoken against the act was to have lent
encouragement to the party of insurrection, the most powerful which that
party could have received.
Thus, by another necessity, Fisher and More, at the beginning of May,
were called upon for their submission. It was a hard case, for the
bishop was sinking into the grave with age and sickness, and More had
the highest reputation of any living man. But they had chosen to make
themselves conspicuous as confessors for Catholic truth; though
prisoners in the Tower, they were in fact the most effectual champions
of the papal claims; and if their disobedience had been passed over, the
statute could have been enforced against no one.
[Sidenote: May 7. A deputation of the council waits upon them in the
Tower. They refuse to admit the supremacy.]
The same course was followed as with the Carthusian monks. On the 7th of
May a deputation of the council waited on the prisoners in the Tower,
for an acknowledgment of the supremacy. They refused: Fisher, after a
brief hesitation, peremptorily; More declining to answer, but also
giving an indirect denial. After repeated efforts had been made to move
them, and made in vain, their own language, as in the preceding trials,
furnished material for their indictment; and the law officers of the
crown who were to conduct the prosecution were the witnesses under whose
evidence they were to be tried. It was a strange proceeding, to be
excused only, if excused at all, by the pressure of the times.[448]
[Sidenote: The government delay their trial.]
Either the king or his ministers, however, were slow in making up their
minds. With the Carthusians, nine days only were allowed to elapse
between the first examination and the final close at Tyburn. The case
against More and Fisher was no less clear than against the monks; yet
five weeks elapsed and the government still hesitated. Perhaps they were
influenced by the high position of the greater offenders,--perhaps there
was some fear of the world's opinion, which, though it might be
indifferent to the sacrifice of a few obscure ecclesiastics, yet would
surely not pass over lightly the execution of men who stood out with so
marked preeminence. The council board was unevenly composed. Cromwell,
who divides with the king the responsibility of these prosecutions, had
succeeded, not to the authority only of Wolsey, but to the hatred with
which the ignoble plebeian was regarded by the patricians who were
compelled to stoop before him. Lord Exeter was already looking with a
cold eye on the revolution; and Norfolk and Suffolk, though zealous as
the king himself for the independence of England, yet had all the
instincts of aristocratic conservatism. Even Cromwell may have desired
the triumph of winning over converts so distinguished, or may have
shrunk from the odium which their deaths would bring upon him. Whatever
was the cause of the delay, the privy council, who had been contented
with a single examination of Haughton and his companions, struggled with
their present difficulty week after week; and it is possible that,
except from an extraneous impulse, some mode of escape might have been
discovered. But as the sentence of Clement sealed the fate of the Nun of
Kent, so the unwisdom of his successor bore similarly fatal fruits.
[Sidenote: The pope names Fisher a cardinal.]
Paul III. had throughout the spring flattered Henry with expressions of
sympathy, and had held out hopes of an approaching change of policy. He
chose the present unfortunate juncture to expose the vanity of these
professions; and as an intimation of the course which he intended to
follow, he named the Bishop of Rochester, the one bishop who remained
attached to Catherine's cause, a cardinal. Henry had appealed to a
council, which the pope had promised to call; and Fisher, of all
Englishmen, was chosen as the person whom the pope desired to represent
the nation on its assembly. Even the very conclave at Rome were taken by
surprise, and expressed themselves in no measured terms at the impolicy
of this most foolish action. Cassalis, aware of the effect which the
news would produce in England, hurried to such friends as he possessed
in the conclave to protest against the appointment. The king, he said,
would inevitably regard it as injurious to the realm and insulting to
himself;[449] and it was madness at such a moment to trifle with Henry's
displeasure.
[Sidenote: Cassalis protests, and the pope condescends to falsehood.]
The Pope, alarmed at the expressions which he was told that Cassalis had
used, sent in haste to urge him, if possible, to allay the storm. He
was not ashamed to stoop to falsehood--but falsehood too awkward to
deceive even the most willing credulity. He had thought, he said, of
nothing but to please Henry. He had been urged by the King of France to
seek a reconciliation with England, and in sending a hat to an English
bishop he had meant nothing but a compliment. The general council would
be held immediately; and it was desirable, according to the constitution
of the church, that a cardinal of every nation should be present. He had
no especial reason for choosing the Bishop of Rochester, except that he
had a high reputation for learning, and he imagined, therefore, that the
king would be gratified.[450] "He implored me," Cassalis wrote, "to make
his excuses to his Majesty, and to assure him how deeply he regretted
his mistake, especially when I assured him that the step was of a kind
which admitted of no excuse."[451]
[Sidenote: The appointment seals Fisher's fate.]
[Sidenote: June 17. He is tried at Westminster,]
[Sidenote: And is condemned.]
Cassalis himself was afterwards disposed to believe that the appointment
was made in thoughtlessness, and that the pope at the moment had really
forgotten Fisher's position.[452] But this could gain no credit in
England. The news reached the government in the middle of June, and
determined the fate of the unfortunate bishop; and with it the fate,
also, of his nobler companion. To the king, the pope's conduct appeared
a defiance; and as a defiance he accepted it. In vain Fisher declared
that he had not sought his ill-timed honours, and would not accept
them. Neither his ignorance nor his refusal could avail him. Once more
he was called upon to submit, with the intimation, that if he refused he
must bear the consequences. His reply remained what it had been; and on
the 17th of June he was taken[453] down in a boat to Westminster Hall,
where the special commission was sitting. The proceedings at his trial
are thus briefly summed up in the official record:--"Thursday after the
feast of St. Barnabas, John Fisher was brought to the bar by Sir William
Kingston, Constable of the Tower. Pleads not guilty. Venire awarded.
Verdict--guilty. Judgment as usual in cases of treason."[454]
It was a swift sentence, and swiftly to be executed. Five days were
allowed him to prepare himself; and the more austere features of the
penalty were remitted with some show of pity. He was to die by the axe.
[Sidenote: June 22. He is beheaded on Tower Hill.]
Mercy was not to be hoped for. It does not seem to have been sought. He
was past eighty. The earth on the edge of the grave was already
crumbling under his feet; and death had little to make it fearful. When
the last morning dawned, he dressed himself carefully--as he said, for
his marriage-day. The distance to Tower Hill was short. He was able to
walk; and he tottered out of the prison-gates, holding in his hand a
closed volume of the New Testament. The crowd flocked about him, and he
was heard to pray that, as this book had been his best comfort and
companion, so in that hour it might give him some special strength, and
speak to him as from his Lord. Then opening it at a venture, he read:
"This is life eternal, to know Thee, the only true God, and Jesus
Christ, whom Thou hast sent." It was the answer to his prayer; and he
continued to repeat the words as he was led forward. On the scaffold he
chanted the _Te Deum_, and then, after a few prayers, knelt down, and
meekly laid his head upon a pillow where neither care nor fear nor
sickness would ever vex it more. Many a spectacle of sorrow had been
witnessed on that tragic spot, but never one more sad than this; never
one more painful to think or speak of. When a nation is in the throes of
revolution, wild spirits are abroad in the storm; and poor human nature
presses blindly forward with the burden which is laid upon it, tossing
aside the obstacles in its path with a recklessness which, in calmer
hours, it would fear to contemplate.
Sir Thomas More followed, his fortunes linked in death as in life to
those of his friend. He was left to the last--in the hope, perhaps, that
the example might produce an effect which persuasion could not. But the
example, if that was the object, worked to far other purpose. From
More's high-tempered nature, such terrors fell harmless, as from
enchanted armour. Death to him was but a passing from one country to
another; and he had all along anticipated that his prison was the
antechamber of the scaffold. He had, indeed, taken no pains to avoid it.
The king, according to the unsuspicious evidence of his daughter,
Margaret Roper, had not accused him without cause of exciting a spirit
of resistance. He had spent his time in encouraging Catholics to
persevere to martyrdom for their faith. In his many conversations with
herself, he had expressed himself with all freedom, and to others he
had doubtless spoken as plainly as to her.[455]
[Sidenote: June 26. A true bill found against Sir Thomas More.]
[Sidenote: July 1. He is brought to the bar.]
[Sidenote: Substance of the indictment.]
On the 7th of May he was examined by the same persons who examined Fisher;
and he was interrogated again and again in subsequent interviews. His
humour did not allow him to answer questions directly: he played with his
catechists, and did not readily furnish them with materials for a charge.
He had corresponded with Fisher in prison, on the conduct which he meant to
pursue. Some of these letters had been burnt; but others were in the hands
of the government, and would have been sufficient to sustain the
prosecution, but they preferred his own words from his own lips. At length
sufficient evidence was obtained. On the 26th of June, a true bill was
found against him by the Grand Jury of Middlesex; and on the 1st of July
the High Commission sat again in Westminster Hall, to try the most
illustrious prisoner who ever listened to his sentence there.[456] He
walked from the Tower--feebly, however, and with a stick, for he was weak
from long confinement. On appearing at the bar, a chair was brought for
him, and he was allowed to sit. The indictment was then read by the
attorney-general. It set forth that Sir Thomas More, traitorously imagining
and attempting to deprive the king of his title as supreme Head of the
Church, did, on the 7th of May, when examined before Thomas Cromwell, the
king's principal secretary, and divers other persons, whether he would
accept the king as Head on earth of the Church of England, pursuant to the
statute, refuse to give a direct answer, but replied, "I will not meddle
with any such matters, for I am fully determined to serve God and to think
upon His passion, and my passage out of this world."[457] He was then
charged with having written to Fisher that "The act of parliament was like
a sword with two edges; for if a man answered one way it would confound his
soul, and if the other way it would confound his body."[458] Finally and
chiefly, he had spoken treasonable words in the Tower to Rich, the
solicitor-general. Rich had endeavoured to persuade him, as Cranmer had
endeavoured in his previous difficulty at Lambeth, that it was his duty as
a subject to obey the law of the land. "Supposing it was enacted by act of
parliament," the solicitor-general had said, "that I, Richard Rich, should
be king, and that it should be treason to deny it, what would be the
offence if you, Sir Thomas More, were to say that I was king?" More had
answered that, in his conscience, he would be bound by the act of
parliament, and would be obliged to accept Rich as king. He would put
another case, however. "Suppose it should be enacted by parliament, _quod
Deus non esset Deus_, and that opposing the act should be treason, if it
were asked of him, Richard Rich, whether he would say _Quod Deus non erat
Deus_, according to this statute, and if he were to say No, would he not
offend?" Rich had replied, "Certainly, because it is impossible, _quod Deus
non esset Deus_; but why, Master More, can you not accept the king as chief
Head of the Church of England, just as you would that I should be made
king, in which case you agree that you would be obliged to acknowledge me
as king?" "To which More, persevering in his treasons, had answered to
Rich, that the cases were not similar, because the king could be made by
parliament and deprived by parliament;[459] but in the first case the
subject could not be obliged, because his consent could not be given for
that in parliament."
[Sidenote: The chancellor urges him to submit.]
This was the substance of the indictment. As soon as it was read, the
lord chancellor rose, and told the prisoner that he saw how grievously
he had offended the king; it was not too late to ask for mercy, however,
which his Majesty desired to show.
[Sidenote: He trusts, however, to remain in his opinion till death.]
[Sidenote: The jury find a verdict of guilty.]
"My lord," More replied, "I have great cause to thank your honour for
your courtesy, but I beseech Almighty God that I may continue in the
mind that I am in through His grace unto death." To the charges against
him he pleaded "not guilty," and answered them at length. He could not
say indeed that the facts were not true; for although he denied that he
had "practised" against the supremacy, he could not say that he had
consented to it, or that he ever would consent; but like the Prior of
the Charterhouse, he could not admit himself guilty when he had only
obeyed his conscience. The jury retired to consider, and in a quarter of
an hour returned with their verdict. The chancellor, after receiving it,
put the usual question, what the prisoner could say in arrest of
judgment. More replied, but replied with a plea which it was impossible
to recognise, by denouncing the statute under which he was tried, and
insisting on the obligation of obedience to the see of Rome. Thus the
sentence was inevitable. It was pronounced in the ordinary form; but the
usual punishment for treason was commuted, as it had been with Fisher,
to death upon the scaffold; and this last favour was communicated as a
special instance of the royal clemency. More's wit was always ready.
"God forbid," he answered, "that the king should show any more such
mercy unto any of my friends; and God bless all my posterity from such
pardons."[460]
The pageant was over, for such a trial was little more. As the
procession formed to lead back the "condemned traitor" to the Tower, the
commissioners once more adjured him to have pity on himself, and offered
to reopen the court if he would reconsider his resolution. More smiled,
and replied only a few words of graceful farewell.
[Sidenote: His last words to the commission.]
"My lords," he said, "I have but to say that, like as the blessed
Apostle St. Paul was present at the death of the martyr Stephen, keeping
their clothes that stoned him, and yet they be now both saints in
heaven, and there shall continue friends for ever, so I trust, and shall
therefore pray, that though your lordships have been on earth my
judges, yet we may hereafter meet in heaven together to our everlasting
salvation; and God preserve you all, especially my sovereign lord the
king, and grant him faithful councillors."
[Sidenote: He returns to the Tower.]
[Sidenote: Margaret Roper.]
He then left the hall, and to spare him the exertion of the walk he was
allowed to return by water. At the Tower stairs one of those scenes
occurred which have cast so rich a pathos round the closing story of
this illustrious man. "When Sir Thomas," writes the grandson, "was now
come to the Tower wharf, his best beloved child, my aunt Roper, desirous
to see her father, whom she feared she should never see in this world
after, to have his last blessing, gave there attendance to meet him;
whom as soon as she had espied she ran hastily unto him, and without
consideration or care for herself, passing through the midst of the
throng and guard of men, who with bills and halberts compassed him
round, there openly in the sight of them all embraced him, and took him
about the neck and kissed him, not able to say any word but 'Oh, my
father! oh, my father!' He, liking well her most natural and dear
affection towards him, gave her his fatherly blessing; telling her that
whatsoever he should suffer, though he were innocent, yet it was not
without the will of God; and that He knew well enough all the secrets of
her heart, counselling her to accommodate her will to God's blessed
pleasure, and to be patient for his loss.
"She was no sooner parted from him, and had gone scarce ten steps, when
she, not satisfied with the former farewell, like one who had forgot
herself, ravished with the entire love of so worthy a father, having
neither respect to herself nor to the press of people about him,
suddenly turned back, and ran hastily to him, and took him about the
neck and divers times together kissed him; whereat he spoke not a word,
but carrying still his gravity, tears fell also from his eyes; yea,
there were very few in all the troop who could refrain hereat from
weeping, no, not the guard themselves. Yet at last with a full heart she
was severed from him, at which time another of our women embraced him;
and my aunt's maid Dorothy Collis did the like, of whom he said after,
it was homely but very lovingly done. All these and also my grandfather
witnessed that they smelt a most odoriferous smell to come from him,
according to that of Isaac, 'The scent of my son is as the scent of a
field which the Lord has blessed.'"[461]
[Sidenote: The last days in the Tower.]
More's relation with this daughter forms the most beautiful feature in
his history. His letters to her in early life are of unequalled grace,
and she was perhaps the only person whom he very deeply loved. He never
saw her again. The four days which remained to him he spent in prayer
and in severe bodily discipline. On the night of the 5th of July,
although he did not know the time which had been fixed for his
execution, yet with an instinctive feeling that it was near, he sent her
his hair shirt and whip, as having no more need for them, with a parting
blessing of affection.
He then lay down and slept quietly. At daybreak he was awoke by the
entrance of Sir Thomas Pope, who had come to confirm his anticipations,
and to tell him it was the king's pleasure that he should suffer at nine
o'clock that morning. He received the news with utter composure. "I am
much bounden to the king," he said, "for the benefits and honours he
has bestowed upon me; and so help me God, most of all am I bounden to
him that it pleaseth his Majesty to rid me so shortly out of the
miseries of this present world."
Pope told him the king desired that he would not "use many words on the
scaffold." "Mr. Pope," he answered, "you do well to give me warning, for
otherwise I had purposed somewhat to have spoken; but no matter
wherewith his Grace should have cause to be offended. Howbeit, whatever
I intended, I shall obey his Highness's command."
He afterwards discussed the arrangements for his funeral, at which he
begged that his family might be present; and when all was settled, Pope
rose to leave him. He was an old friend. He took More's hand and wrung
it, and quite overcome, burst into tears.
"Quiet yourself, Mr. Pope," More said, "and be not discomforted, for I
trust we shall once see each other full merrily, when we shall live and
love together in eternal bliss."[462]
As soon as he was alone he dressed in his most elaborate costume. It was
for the benefit, he said, of the executioner who was to do him so great
a service. Sir William Kingston remonstrated, and with some difficulty
induced him to put on a plainer suit; but that his intended liberality
should not fail, he sent the man a gold angel in compensation, "as a
token that he maliced him nothing, but rather loved him extremely."
[Sidenote: He leaves the Tower.]
"So about nine of the clock he was brought by the Lieutenant out of the
Tower, his beard being long, which fashion he had never before used, his
face pale and lean, carrying in his hands a red cross, casting his eyes
often towards heaven." He had been unpopular as a judge, and one or two
persons in the crowd were insolent to him; but the distance was short
and soon over, as all else was nearly over now.
[Sidenote: On the scaffold.]
[Sidenote: Death.]
The scaffold had been awkwardly erected, and shook as he placed his foot
upon the ladder. "See me safe up," he said to Kingston. "For my coming
down I can shift for myself." He began to speak to the people, but the
sheriff begged him not to proceed, and he contented himself with asking
for their prayers, and desiring them to bear witness for him that he
died in the faith of the holy Catholic church, and a faithful servant of
God and the king. He then repeated the Miserere psalm on his knees; and
when he had ended and had risen, the executioner, with an emotion which
promised ill for the manner in which his part in the tragedy would be
accomplished, begged his forgiveness. More kissed him. "Thou art to do
me the greatest benefit that I can receive," he said. "Pluck up thy
spirit, man, and be not afraid to do thine office. My neck is very
short. Take heed therefore that thou strike not awry for saving of thine
honesty." The executioner offered to tie his eyes. "I will cover them
myself," he said; and binding them in a cloth which he had brought with
him, he knelt and laid his head upon the block. The fatal stroke was
about to fall, when he signed for a moment's delay while he moved aside
his beard. "Pity that should be cut," he murmured, "that has not
committed treason." With which strange words, the strangest perhaps
ever uttered at such a time, the lips most famous through Europe for
eloquence and wisdom closed for ever.
"So," concludes his biographer, "with alacrity and spiritual joy he
received the fatal axe, which no sooner had severed the head from the
body, but his soul was carried by angels into everlasting glory, where a
crown of martyrdom was placed upon him which can never fade nor decay;
and then he found those words true which he had often spoken, that a man
may lose his head and have no harm."[463]
This was the execution of Sir Thomas More, an act which was sounded out
into the far corners of the earth, and was the world's wonder as well
for the circumstances under which it was perpetrated, as for the
preternatural composure with which it was borne. Something of his
calmness may have been due to his natural temperament, something to an
unaffected weariness of a world which in his eyes was plunging into the
ruin of the latter days. But those fair hues of sunny cheerfulness
caught their colour from the simplicity of his faith; and never was
there a Christian's victory over death more grandly evidenced than in
that last scene lighted with its lambent humour.
History will rather dwell upon the incidents of the execution than
attempt a sentence upon those who willed that it should be. It was at
once most piteous and most inevitable. The hour of retribution had come
at length, when at the hands of the Roman church was to be required all
the righteous blood which it had shed, from the blood of Raymond of
Toulouse to the blood of the last victim who had blackened into ashes
at Smithfield. The voices crying underneath the altar had been heard
upon the throne of the Most High, and woe to the generation of which the
dark account had been demanded.
[Sidenote: The effect of these executions in Europe.]
In whatever light, however, we may now think of these things, the effect
in Europe was instantaneous and electrical. The irritation which had
accompanied the excommunication by Clement had died away in the
difficulty of executing the censures. The papal party had endeavoured to
persuade themselves that the king was acting under a passing caprice.
They had believed that the body of the people remained essentially
Catholic; and they had trusted to time, to discontent, to mutiny, to the
consequences of what they chose to regard as the mere indulgence of
criminal passion, to bring Henry to his senses. To threats and
anathemas, therefore, had again succeeded fair words and promises, and
intrigues and flatteries; and the pope and his advisers, so long
accustomed themselves to promise and to mean nothing, to fulminate
censures in form, and to treat human life as a foolish farce upon the
stage, had dreamed that others were like themselves. In the rough
awakening out of their delusion, as with a stroke of lightning, popes,
cardinals, kings, emperors, ambassadors, were startled into seriousness;
and, the diplomatic meshwork all rent and broken, they fell at once each
into their places, with a sense suddenly forced upon them that it was no
child's play any longer. The King of England was in earnest, it seemed.
The assumption of the supremacy was a fixed purpose, which he was
prepared to make a question of life and death; and with this resolution
they must thenceforward make their account.
[Sidenote: The news arrives at Rome of the deaths of the Carthusians.]
On the 1st of June, Cassalis wrote[464] from Rome that the French
ambassador had received a letter concerning certain friars who had been
put to death in England for denying the king to be Head of the Church.
The letter had been read in the consistory, and was reported to be
written in a tone of the deepest commiseration. There had been much
conversation about it, the French bishops having been louder than any in
their denunciations; and the form of the execution was described as
having been most barbarous. Some of the cardinals had said that they
envied the monks their deaths in such a cause, and wished that they had
been with them. "I desired my informant," Cassalis said, "to suggest to
these cardinals, that, if they were so anxious on the subject, they had
better pay a visit to England." And he concluded, in cipher, "I cannot
tell very well what to think of the French. An Italian told me he had
heard the Most Christian king himself say, that although he was obliged
to press upon the pope the requests of the king of England, yet that
these requests were preposterous, and could not be granted."
[Sidenote: And of Fisher, which the pope will make of more account than
the martyrdom of Becket.]
The deaths of a few poor monks would soon have been forgiven; the
execution of Fisher first really revealed the truth. No sooner was the
terrible reply of Henry to his promotion to the cardinalate made known
than the conclave was instantly summoned. Cardinal Tournon described the
scene upon the scaffold in language which moved all his audience to
tears.[465] The pope, in a paroxysm of anger, declared that if he had
seen his own nephews murdered in his presence, it would not have so
much affected him; and Cassalis said he heard, from good authority, that
they would do their worst, and intended to make the Bishop of
Rochester's death of more account than that of the martyr St.
Thomas.[466]
[Sidenote: All Europe unites in amazed displeasure.]
[Sidenote: Francis remonstrates, and recommends that in future political
offenders should be banished.]
Nor was the anger or the surprise confined to Rome. Through England,
through France, through Flanders, even among the Protestants of Germany,
there rose a simultaneous outcry of astonishment. Rumour flew to and fro
with a thousand falsehoods; and the unfortunate leaven of the Anne
Boleyn marriage told fatally to destroy that appearance of probity of
motive so indispensable to the defence of the government. Even Francis
I. forgot his caution, and dared to remonstrate. He wrote to entreat his
good brother in future to content himself for the future with banishing
such offenders, and sparing the extremity of his penalties.
Unfortunately, the question which was at issue was European as well as
English; and every exile who was driven from England would have become,
like Reginald Pole, a missionary of a holy war against the infidel king.
Whatever else might have been possible, banishment was more perilous
than pardon.
[Sidenote: Henry condescends to explanation.]
[Sidenote: His message to Francis.]
[Sidenote: He had made his laws on good and substantial grounds,]
But the indignation was so general and so serious, that Henry thought it
well to offer an explanation of his conduct, both at home and abroad.
With his own people he communicated through the lay authorities, not
choosing to trust himself on this occasion to the clergy. The
magistrates at the quarter sessions were directed "to declare to the
people the treasons committed by the late Bishop of Rochester and Sir
Thomas More; who thereby, and by divers secret practices, of their
malicious minds intended to seminate, engender, and breed a most
mischievous and seditious opinion, not only to their own confusion, but
also of divers others, who have lately suffered execution according to
their demerits."[467] To Francis, Cromwell instructed Gardiner, who was
ambassador in Paris, to reply very haughtily. The English government, he
said had acted on clear proof of treason; treason so manifest, and
tending so clearly to the total destruction of the commonwealth of the
realm, that the condemned persons "were well worthy, if they had a
thousand lives, to have suffered ten times a more terrible death and
execution than any of them did suffer." The laws which the king had made
were "not without substantial grounds;" but had been passed "by great
and mature advice, counsel, and deliberation of the whole policy of the
realm, and" were "indeed no new laws, but of great antiquity, now
renovate and renewed in respect to the common weal of the same realm."
[Sidenote: And is much surprised that he should be advised to banish his
traitors, giving them increased opportunity to injure him.]
With respect to the letter of the King of France, Gardiner was to say,
it was "not a little to his Highness's marvel that the French king would
ever counsel or advise him, if in case hereafter any such like offenders
should happen to be in the realm, that he should rather banish them,
than in such wise execute them, ... supposing it to be neither the
office of a friend nor a brother, that he would counsel the King's
Highness to banish his traitors into strange parts, where they might
have good occasion, time, place, and opportunity to work their feats of
treason and conspiracy the better against the king and this his realm.
In which part," concluded Cromwell, "ye shall somewhat engrieve the
matter, after such sort that it may well appear to the French king that
the King's Highness may take those his counsels both strangely and
unkindly."[468]
[Sidenote: His elaborate despatch to Cassalis intended for the pope.]
With the German princes Henry was scarcely less imperious;[469] and it
is noteworthy that the most elaborate defence which he condescended to
make is that which was sent to Sir Gregory Cassalis, to be laid before
the pope. He chose that the Roman court should understand distinctly the
grounds on which he had acted; and this despatch (which was written by
Cromwell) shows more clearly than any other state paper which remains
to us, the light in which the reforming party desired their conduct to
be regarded.
It was written in reply to the letter in which Cassalis reported the
irritation of the Roman court, and enters into the whole ground of
complaint against More and Fisher.
[Sidenote: He cannot sufficiently marvel at the pope's displeasure.]
"I have signified," wrote Cromwell, "to the King's Highness the purport
of your late letters, and as they contained many things which were very
welcome to his Majesty, so he could not sufficiently marvel that the
pope should have conceived so great offence at the deaths of the Bishop
of Rochester and Sir Thomas More. And albeit his Majesty is not bound to
render account of his actions except to God, whom in thought and deed he
is ever desirous to obey; nevertheless that his royal name may not be
evil spoken of by malicious tongues, from want of knowledge of the
truth, I will tell you briefly what has been done in this matter.
[Sidenote: Fisher and More had obstructed the reforms which had been
introduced into the realm.]
"After that his Majesty, with the favour and assistance of Almighty God,
had brought his cause to an end, by the consent and authority of
unprejudiced persons of the most approved learning in Christendom,--and
after he had confirmed it by the very rule of truth, these men, who had
looked to see a far different conclusion, finding now no hopes of
disturbing the settlement thus made, began to meditate other purposes.
And when our good king, according to his princely duty, was devising
measures for the quiet and good order of the realm, and for the
correction of manners now largely fallen to decay, this, so great a
benefit to the commonweal, they did, so far as in them lay, endeavour,
though without effect, under pretence of dissembled honesty, to obstruct
and oppose. Manifest proofs of their wicked designs were in the hands of
the King's Grace; but his Majesty consented rather to pass over their
offence without notice, hoping to recall them to a better mind, as
having before been in some good estimation with him.
[Sidenote: They had thwarted the measures in progress through
parliament,]
"But they in whom ambition, love of self, and a peculiar conceit of
wisdom had bred another persuasion, obstinately abused this kindness of
their most noble prince. And when on a certain day there was order
issued for the assembly of the great council of the realm, they made
secret inquiry to learn the measures which would there be treated of.
Whatsoever they discovered or conjectured, forthwith they debated in
private council among themselves, arriving upon each point at
conclusions other than those which the interests of the realm did
require; and they fortified those conclusions with such array of
arguments and reasons, that with no great labour the ignorant people
might have been dangerously deceived.
[Sidenote: And had organized seditious opposition in the country.]
[Sidenote: They had in consequence been committed to the Tower, where
they were treated with the utmost kindness.]
[Sidenote: Kindness had, however, produced no effect; they had continued
to obstruct the government; and had therefore been tried and condemned
by the ordinary laws of the realm.]
"At length knowing that they had incurred the king's displeasure, and
fearing lest they might fail of accomplishing their purposes, they chose
out persons on whose courage, readiness, and devotion to themselves they
could depend; and taking these men into their councils, they fed them
with the poison which they had conceived, forgetting their allegiance to
their king, and their duty to their country.[470] Thus were their
seditious opinions scattered over the country. And when his Highness
began to trace this impious conspiracy to its source, Sir Thomas More
and the Bishop of Rochester were found to be the undoubted authors of
the same; and their guilt was proved against them by the evidence of
their own handwrit, and the confessions of their own lips. For these
causes, therefore, and for many others of like kind, our most gracious
sovereign was compelled to imprison them as rebellious subjects, as
disturbers of the public peace, and as movers of sedition and tumult.
Nor was it possible for him to do other than punish them, unless, after
their crimes had been detected, he had so far forgotten his duty as to
leave the contagion to spread unchecked, to the utter destruction of the
nation. They were in consequence thrown into the Tower, where, however,
their treatment was far different from what their demerits had deserved;
they were allowed the society of their friends; their own servants were
admitted to attend upon them, and they received all such indulgences in
food and dress as their families desired. Clemency, however, produced no
effect on persons in whom duty and allegiance had given place to treason
and malice. They chose rather to persist in their wicked courses than to
make trial by repentance of the king's goodness. For after that certain
laws had been decreed by authority of parliament, and had been by the
whole nation admitted and accepted as expedient for the realm, and
agreeable to true religion, they alone refused their consent to these
laws, hoping that something might occur to sustain them in their
impiety; and while professing to have left all care and thought for
human things, they were considering by what arguments, in furtherance
of their seditious purposes, they might, to the common hurt, elude,
refute, and disturb the said laws.
"Of this their treason there are proofs extant--letters written, when
ink failed them, with chalk or charcoal, and passed secretly from one to
the other. Our most merciful king could therefore no longer tolerate
their grievous faults. He allowed them to be tried by process of
ordinary law. They were found guilty of high treason, and sentenced to
death. Their punishment was milder than that which the law prescribed,
or which their crimes had deserved; and many persons have by this
example been brought to a better mind."[471]
To Cromwell evidently the case appeared so clear as to require no
apology. To modern writers it has appeared so clear as to admit of none.
The value of the defence turns upon the point of the actual danger to
the state, and the extent to which the conduct of the sufferers
imperilled the progress of the Reformation. As written for the eyes of
the pope and cardinals, however, such a letter could be understood only
as daring them to do their worst. It ignored the very existence of such
rules of judgment as the heads of the Roman church would alone
acknowledge, and represented the story as it appeared from the position
which England had assumed on its revolt from its old allegiance.
[Sidenote: The reply of the pope.]
There were no more false efforts at conciliation, and open war
thenceforth appeared to be the only possible relation between the papacy
and Henry VIII. Paul III. replied, or designed to reply, with his
far-famed bull of interdict and deposition, which, though reserved at
the moment in deference to Francis of France, and not issued till three
years later, was composed in the first burst of his displeasure.[472]
The substance of his voluminous anathemas may be thus briefly
epitomized.
[Sidenote: The bull of interdict and deposition.]
The pope, quoting and applying to himself the words of Jeremiah,
"Behold, I have set thee over nations and kingdoms, that thou mayest
root out and destroy, and that thou mayest plant and build again,"
addressed Henry as a disobedient vassal. Already lying under the
censures of the church, he had gone on to heap crime on crime; and
therefore, a specific number of days being allowed him to repent and
make his submission, at the expiration of this period of respite the
following sentence was to take effect.
The king, with all who abetted him in his crimes, was pronounced
accursed--cut off from the body of Christ, to perish. When he died, his
body should lie without burial; his soul, blasted with anathema, should
be cast into hell for ever. The lands of his subjects who remained
faithful to him were laid under an interdict: their children were
disinherited, their marriages illegal, their wills invalid; only by one
condition could they escape their fate--by instant rebellion against the
apostate prince. All officers of the crown were absolved from their
oaths; all subjects, secular or ecclesiastic, from their allegiance.
The entire nation, under penalty of excommunication, was commanded no
longer to acknowledge Henry as their sovereign.[473] No true son of the
church should hold intercourse with him or his adherents. They must
neither trade with them, speak with them, nor give them food. The
clergy, leaving behind a few of their number to baptize the new-born
infants, were to withdraw from the accursed land, and return no more
till it had submitted. If the king, trusting to force, persevered in his
iniquity, the lords and commons of England, dukes, marquises, earls, and
all other persons, were required, under the same penalty of
excommunication, to expel him from the throne; and the Christian princes
of Europe were called on to show their fidelity to the Holy See, by
aiding in so godly a work.
In conclusion, as the king had commanded his clergy to preach against
the pope in their churches, so the pope commanded them to retaliate upon
the king, and with bell, book, and candle declare him cursed.
This was loud thunder; nor, when abetted by Irish massacres and English
treasons, was it altogether impotent. If Henry's conceptions of the
royal supremacy were something imperious, the papal supremacy was not
more modest in its self-assertion; and the language of Paul III. went
far to justify the rough measures by which his menaces were parried. If
any misgiving had remained in the king's mind on the legitimacy of the
course which he had pursued, the last trace of it must have been
obliterated by the perusal of this preposterous bombast.
[Sidenote: Peril of Henry's position.]
For the moment, as I said, the bull was suspended through the
interference of Francis. But Francis remained in communion with the See
of Rome: Francis was at that moment labouring to persuade the Lutheran
states in Germany to return to communion with it: and Henry knew, that,
although in their hearts the European powers might estimate the pope's
pretences at their true value, yet the bull of excommunication might
furnish a convenient and dangerous pretext against him in the event of a
Catholic combination. His position was full of peril; and in spite of
himself, he was driven once more to seek for an alliance among the
foreign Protestants, before the French intrigues should finally
anticipate him.
[Sidenote: Intrigues of the French in Germany.]
That he really might be too late appeared an immediate likelihood. The
quarrel between the Lutherans and the followers of Zwingli, the
Anabaptist anarchy and the increasing confusion throughout the
Protestant states, had so weighed on Luther's spirit that he was looking
for the end of all things and the coming of Christ; and although Luther
himself never quailed, too many "murmurers in the wilderness" were
looking wistfully back into Egypt. The French king, availing himself
skilfully of the turning tide, had sent the Bishop of Paris to the
courts of Saxony and Bavaria, in the beginning of August, to feel his
way towards a reconciliation; and his efforts had been attended with
remarkable success.
[Sidenote: Probability of a reconciliation of the Lutherans with the See
of Rome.]
The bishop had been in communication with Melancthon and many of the
leading Lutheran theologians upon the terms on which they would return
to the church. The Protestant divines had drawn up a series of articles,
the first of which was a profession of readiness to recognise the
authority of the pope;[474] accompanying this statement with a
declaration that they would accept any terms not plainly unjust and
impious. These articles were transmitted to Paris, and again
retransmitted to Germany, with every prospect of a mutually satisfactory
result; and Melancthon was waiting only till the bishop could accompany
him, to go in person to Paris, and consult with the Sorbonne.[475]
[Sidenote: Of which Henry is partly the cause.]
[Sidenote: Henry is driven to conciliate the German princes.]
This momentary (for it was only momentary) weakness of the German
Protestants was in part owing to their want of confidence in Henry
VIII.[476] The king had learnt to entertain a respect for the foreign
Reformers, far unlike the repugnance of earlier years; but the prospect
of an alliance with them had hitherto been too much used by him as a
weapon with which to menace the Catholic powers, whose friendship he had
not concealed that he would prefer. The Protestant princes had shrunk
therefore, and wisely, from allowing themselves to be made the
instruments of worldly policy; and the efforts at a combination had
hitherto been illusive and ineffectual. Danger now compelled the king to
change his hesitation into more honest advances. If Germany accepted the
mediation of Francis, and returned to communion with Rome; and if, under
the circumstances of a reunion, a general council were assembled; there
could be little doubt of the attitude in which a council, called
together under such auspices, would place itself towards the movement in
England. To escape so imminent a peril, Henry was obliged (as Elizabeth
after him) to seek the support of a party from which he had shrunk: he
was forced, in spite of himself, to identify his cause with the true
cause of freedom, and consequently to admit an enlarged toleration of
the Reformed doctrines in his own dominions. There could be little doubt
of the support of the Germans, if they could be once assured that they
would not again be trifled with; and a Protestant league, the steady
object of Cromwell's efforts, seemed likely at length to be realized.
[Sidenote: August. Nature of the relations of the Tudors to the German
Protestants.]
[Sidenote: Mission of the Bishop of Hereford to counteract the French.]
Different indeed would have been the future, both of England and for
Germany, if such a league had been possible, if the pressure which
compelled this most natural alliance had continued till it had cemented
into rock. But the Tudors, representatives in this, as in so many other
features of their character, of the people whom they governed, could
never cordially unite themselves with a form of thought which permitted
resistance to authority, and which they regarded as anarchic and
revolutionary. They consented, when no alternative was left them, to
endure for short periods a state of doubtful cordiality; but the
connexion was terminated at the earliest moment which safety permitted;
in their hatred of disorder (for this feeling is the key alike to the
strength and to the weakness of the Tudor family), they preferred the
incongruities of Anglicanism to a complete reformation; and a
"midge-madge"[477] of contradictory formularies to the simplicity of the
Protestant faith. In essentials, the English movement was political
rather than spiritual. What was gained for the faith, we owe first to
Providence, and then to those accidents, one of which had now arisen,
which compelled at intervals a deeper and a broader policy. To
counteract the French emissaries, Christopher Mount, in August, and in
September, Fox, Bishop of Hereford, were despatched to warn the Lutheran
princes against their intrigues, and to point out the course which the
interests of Northern Europe in the existing conjuncture required. The
bishop's instructions were drawn by the king. He was to proceed direct
to the court of Saxony, and, after presenting his letters of credit, was
to address the elector to the following effect:
[Sidenote: Henry's message to the Elector of Saxony.]
[Sidenote: He desires, in connexion with other princes who have the same
cause at heart, to maintain the middle way of truth, according to God's
word.]
[Sidenote: September. He has heard that the Lutherans are again
inclining to Rome; and he desires to know their true intentions.]
"Besides and beyond the love, amity, and friendship which noble blood
and progeny had carnally caused and continued in the heart of the King's
Highness towards the said duke and his progenitors, and besides that
kindness also which of late by mutual communication of gratuities had
been not a little augmented and increased between them, there was also
stirred up in the heart of the King's Highness a spiritual love and
favour towards the said duke and his virtuous intents and proceedings,
for that the said duke persisted and continued in his most virtuous mind
to set forth, maintain, and defend the sincere teaching of the gospel
and the perfect true understanding of the word of God. In that matter
the King's Highness, also illuminated with the same spirit of truth, and
wholly addict and dedicate to the advancement thereof, had employed
great pain and travail to bring the same to the knowledge of his people
and subjects, intending also further and further to proceed therein, as
his Grace by good consultation should perceive might tend to the
augmentation of the glory of God and the true knowledge of his word. His
said Majesty was of such sincere meaning in the advancing [hereof] as
his Grace would neither headily, without good advisement, and
consultation, and conference with his friends, go in any part beyond the
said truth, ne for any respect tarry or stay on this side the truth, but
would proceed in the right straight mean way assuredly agreed upon. He
had known of certainty divers who by their immoderate zeal or the
excessive appetite to novelties had from darkness proceeded to much more
darkness, wherein the Anabaptists and sacramentarians were guilty; so by
secret report he had been advertised, that upon private communications
and conferences, the learned men there [in Germany] had in certain
points and articles yielded and relented from their first asseveration;
by reason whereof it was much doubted whether by other degrees they
might be dissuaded in some of the rest. The King's Highness therefore,
being very desirous to know the truth therein, and to be ascertained in
what points and articles the learned men there were so assuredly and
constantly resolved as by no persuasion of man they could be turned
from the same, had sent the Bishop of Hereford to the said duke,
desiring and praying him in respect of the premises to entertain the
said bishop friendly and familiarly concerning the matter aforesaid, as
the mutual love carnally, and the zeal of both princes to the increase
of the glory of God spiritually, did require."[478]
[Sidenote: He dissuades a council.]
[Sidenote: But if a council is to meet, let them come to a common
understanding with England.]
[Sidenote: The bishop was to apologize for all past coolness,]
[Sidenote: And to conclude with fresh warnings against the pope.]
The bishop was then to speak of the council, the assembling of which he
understood that the German princes so much desired. He was to dissuade
them from pressing it, to the extent of his ability. They would find
themselves opposed inevitably in all essential matters by the pope, the
emperor, and the French king, whose factions united would outnumber and
outvote them; and in the existing state of Europe, a general council
would only compromise their position and embarrass their movements. If,
however, notwithstanding his remonstrances, the princes persisted in
their wish, then the bishop was to urge them to come to some
understanding with England on the resolutions which they desired to
maintain. Let them communicate to the English bishops such points "as
they would stick to without relenting;" and the two countries, "standing
together, would be so much stronger to withstand their adversaries."
Without definitely promising to sign the Confession of Augsburg, Henry
held out strong hopes that he might sign that Confession, if they would
send representatives to London to discuss the articles of it with
himself.[479] The bishop was to apologize for any previous slackness on
the king's part in his communications with the elector, and to express
his hopes, that for the future their relations might be those of cordial
unanimity. He was especially to warn the elector to beware of
re-admitting the papal supremacy under any pretext. The English had
shaken off the pope, "provoked thereunto in such wise as would have
provoked them rather to have expelled him from them by wrong, than to
suffer him so to oppress them with injuries." If in Germany they "opened
the great gate" to let him in again, he would rebuild "the fortresses
that were thrown down, and by little and little bring all to the former
estate again." Finally, with respect to the council--if a council there
was to be--they must take care that it was held in a place indifferent,
where truth might be heard or spoken; "considering that else in a
council, were not the remedy that all good men sought, but the mischief
that all good men did abhor."
These advances, consented to by Henry, were the act of Cromwell, and
were designed as the commencement of a _Foedus Evangelicum_--a league
of the great Reforming nations of Europe. It was a grand scheme, and
history can never cease to regret that it was grasped at with too faint
a hand. The bishop succeeded in neutralizing partially the scheming of
the French, partially in attracting the sympathies of the German powers
towards England; but the two great streams of the Teutonic race, though
separated by but a narrow ridge of difference, were unable to reach a
common channel. Their genius drove them into courses which were to run
side by side for centuries, yet ever to remain divided. And if the lines
in which their minds have flowed seem to be converging at last, and if
hereafter Germans and English are again to unite in a single faith, the
remote meeting point is still invisible, and the terms of possible
agreement can be but faintly conjectured.
NOTES:
[383] "These be no causes to die for," was the favourite phrase of the
time. It was the expression which the Bishop of London used to the
Carthusian monks (_Historia Martyrum Anglorum_), and the Archbishop of
York in his diocese generally.--Ellis, third series, Vol. II. p. 375.
[384] Si Rex Praefatus, vel alii, inhibitioni ac prohibitioni et
interdicto hujusmodi contravenerint, Regem ipsum ac alios omnes
supradictos, sententias censuras et poenas praedictas ex nunc prout ex
tunc incurrisse declaramus, et ut tales publicari ac publice nunciari et
evitari--ac interdictum per totum regnum Angliae sub dictis poenis
observari debere, volumus atque mandamus.--_First Brief of Clement_:
Legrand, Vol. III. pp. 451, 452. The Church of Rome, however, draws a
distinction between a sentence implied and a sentence directly
pronounced.
[385] Strype's _Memorials_, Vol. I. p. 292. Ellis, third series, Vol.
II. p. 336.
[386] It is remarkable that in this paper it seems to be assumed, that
the pope would have fulfilled this engagement if Henry had fully
submitted. "He openly confessed," it says, "that our master had the
right; but because our prince and master would not prejudicate for his
jurisdictions, and uphold his usurped power by sending a proctor, ye may
evidently here see that this was only the cause why the judgment of the
Bishop of Rome was not given in his favour; whereby it may appear that
there lacked not any justice in our prince's cause, but that ambition,
vain glory, and too much mundanity were the lets thereof."
[387] An Order for Preaching: printed in Burnet's _Collectanea_, p. 447.
[388] Ellis, third series, Vol. II. p. 373.
[389] John ap Rice to Secretary Cromwell, with an account of the search
of the Bishop of Durham's chamber: _Rolls House MS._
[390] Bedyll to Cromwell: _State Papers_, Vol. I. p. 422. Bedyll had
been directed by Cromwell to observe how the injunctions were obeyed. He
said that he was "in much despair of the reformation of the friars by
any gentle or favourable means;" and advised, "that fellows who leave
sermons should be put in prison, and made a terrible example of."
[391] _State Papers_, Vol. I. p. 422, et seq.
[392] Strype's _Memorials_, Vol. I. p. 305.
[393] Confessions of Father Forest: _Rolls House MS._ This seems to have
been generally known at the time. Latimer alludes to it in one of his
sermons.
[394] "The confessor can do no good with them (the monks), and the
obstinate persons be not in fear of him; but be in great fear and danger
of his life, by reason of their malice, for that he hath consented to
the king's title, and hath preached the same."--Bedyll to Cromwell:
_State Papers_, Vol. I. p. 424.
[395] Cranmer: but we will hope the story is coloured. It is
characteristic, however, of the mild, tender-hearted man who desired to
glide round difficulties rather than scale and conquer them.
[396] A Deposition concerning the popish Conduct of a Priest: _Rolls
House MS._
[397] Information given by John Maydwell, of treasonable Words spoken
against Henry VIII. and Anne Boleyn: _Rolls House MS._
[398] In this instance we need not doubt that the words were truly
reported, for the offenders were tried and pleaded guilty.
[399] The conspiracy of "young Ryce," or Richard ap Griffyth, is one of
the most obscure passages in the history of this reign. It was a Welsh
plot, conducted at Islington. [Act of Attainder of Richard ap Griffyth,
23 Hen. VIII. cap. 24.] The particulars of it I am unable to discover
further, than that it was a desperate undertaking, encouraged by the
uncertainty of the succession, and by a faith in prophecies (Confession
of Sir William Neville: _Rolls House MS._), to murder the king. Ryce was
tried in Michaelmas term, 1531, and executed. His uncle, who passed
under the name of Brancetor, was an active revolutionary agent on the
Continent in the later years of Henry's reign.--See _State Papers_, Vol.
IV. pp. 647, 651, 653; Vol. VIII. pp. 219, 227, &c.
[400] Trial and Conviction of John Feron, clerk, and John Hale, clerk:
Baga de Secretis; Appendix II. to the _Third Report of the Deputy Keeper
of the Public Records_.
[401] History is never weary of repeating its warnings against narrow
judgments. A year ago we believed that the age of arbitrary severity was
past. In the interval we have seen the rebellion in India; the forms of
law have been suspended, and Hindoo rajahs have been executed for no
greater crime than the possession of letters from the insurgents. The
evidence of a treasonable animus has been sufficient to ensure
condemnation; and in the presence of necessity the principles of the
sixteenth century have been instantly revived.--April, 1858.
[402] Act of Supremacy, 26 Hen. VIII. cap. 1.
[403] To guard against misconception, an explanatory document was drawn
up by the government at the time of the passing of the act, which is
highly curious and significant. "The King's Grace," says this paper,
"hath no new authority given hereby that he is recognised as supreme
Head of the Church of England; for in that recognition is included only
that he have such power as to a king of right appertaineth by the law of
God; and not that he should take any spiritual power from spiritual
ministers that is given to them by the Gospel. So that these words, that
the king is supreme Head of the Church, serve rather to declare and make
open to the world, that the king hath power to suppress all such
extorted powers as well of the Bishop of Rome as of any other within
this realm, whereby his subjects might be grieved; and to correct and
remove all things whereby any unquietness might arise amongst the
people; rather than to prove that he should pretend thereby to take any
powers from the successors of the apostles that was given to them by
God. And forasmuch as, in the session of this former parliament holden
in the twenty-fifth year of this reign, whereby great exactions done to
the king's subjects by a power from Rome was put away, and thereupon the
promise was made that nothing should be interpreted and expounded upon
that statute, that the King's Grace, his nobles or subjects, intended to
decline or vary from the congregation of Christ's church in anything
concerning the articles of the Catholic faith, or anything declared by
Holy Scripture and the Word of God necessary for his Grace's salvation
and his subjects'; it is not, therefore, meet lightly to think that the
self-same persons, continuing the self-same parliament, would in the
next year following make an act whereby the king, his nobles and
subjects, should so vary. And no man may with conscience judge that they
did so, except they can prove that the words of the statute, whereby the
king is recognised to be the supreme Head of the Church of England,
should show expressly that they intended to do so; as it is apparent
that they do not.
"There is none authority of Scripture that will prove that any one of
the apostles should be head of the universal Church of Christendom. And
if any of the doctors of the church or the clergy have, by any of their
laws or decrees, declared any Scripture to be of that effect, kings and
princes, taking to them their counsellors, and such of their clergy as
they shall think most indifferent, ought to be judges whether those
declarations and laws be made according to the truth of Scripture or
not; because it is said in the Psalms, 'Et nunc Reges intelligite,
erudimini qui judicatis terram': that is, 'O kings! understand ye, be ye
learned that judge the world.' And certain it is that the Scripture is
always true; and there is nothing that the doctors and clergy might,
through dread and affection, [so well] be deceived in, as in things
concerning the honour, dignity, power, liberty, jurisdiction, and riches
of the bishops and clergy; and some of them have of likelihood been
deceived therein."--Heads of Arguments concerning the Power of the Pope
and the Royal Supremacy: _Rolls House MS._
[404] 26 Hen. VIII. cap. 2.
[405] 26 Hen. VIII. cap. 13.
[406] More warned Fisher of this. He "did send Mr. Fisher word by a
letter that Mr. Solicitor had showed him, that it was all one not to
answer, and to say against the statute what a man would, as all the
learned men in England would justify."--_State Papers_, Vol. I. p. 434.
[407] The act was repealed in 1547, I Edw. VI. cap. 12. The explanation
which is there given of the causes which led to the enactment of it is
temperate and reasonable. Subjects, says that statute, should obey
rather for love of their prince than for fear of his laws: "yet such
times at some time cometh in the commonwealth, that it is necessary and
expedient for the repressing of the insolence and unruliness of men, and
for the foreseeing and providing of remedies against rebellions,
insurrections, or such mischiefs as God, sometime with us displeased,
doth inflict and lay upon us, or the devil, at God's permission, to
assay the good and God's elect, doth sow and set among us,--the which
Almighty God and man's policy hath always been content to have
stayed--that sharper laws as a harder bridle should be made."
[408] 26 Henry VIII. cap. 14: "An Act for Nomination and Consecration of
Suffragans within the Realm." I have already stated my impression that
the method of nomination to bishopricks by the crown, as fixed by the
20th of the 25th of Henry VIII., was not intended to be perpetual. A
further evidence of what I said will be found in the arrangements under
the present act for the appointment of suffragans. The king made no
attempt to retain the patronage. The bishop of each diocese was to
nominate two persons, and between these the crown was bound to choose.
[409] Parum erraturus sed pauca facturus.--_State Papers_, Vol. VII. p.
581.
[410] Ibid. p. 573.
[411] Nota qu'il ne sera pas paraventure si fort malayse a gaigner ce
roy.--_Note on the margin of the Comte de Nassau's Instructions._
[412]
_Charles V. to his Ambassador at Paris._
"November, 1534.
" ... In addition, the Count de Nassau and yourself may go further in
sounding the King about the Count's proposal--I mean for the marriage of
our cousin the Princess of England with the Duke d'Angoulesme. The Grand
Master, I understand, when the Count spoke of it, seemed to enter into
the suggestion, and mentioned the displeasure which the King of England
had conceived against Anne Boleyn. I am therefore sincerely desirous
that the proposal should be well considered, and you will bring it
forward as you shall see opportunity. You will make the King and the
Grand Master feel the importance of the connexion, the greatness which
it would confer on the Duke d'Angoulesme, the release of the English
debt, which can be easily arranged, and the assurance of the realm of
France.
"Such a marriage will be, beyond comparison, more advantageous to the
King, his realm, and his children, than any benefit for which he could
hope from Milan; while it can be brought about with no considerable
difficulty. But be careful what you say, and how you say it. Speak alone
to the King and alone to the Grand Master, letting neither of them know
that you have spoken to the other. Observe carefully how the King is
inclined, and, at all events, be secret; so that if he does not like the
thing, the world need not know that it has been thought of.
"Should it be suggested to you--as it may be--that Anne Boleyn may be
driven desperate, and may contrive something against the Princess's
life, we answer that we can hardly believe her so utterly abandoned by
conscience: or, again, the Duke of Anjou may possibly object to the
exaltation of his brother; in which case we shall consent willingly to
have our cousin marry the Duke of Anjou; and, in that case, beyond the
right which appertains to the Duke and Princess from their fathers and
mothers, they and either of them shall have the kingdom of Denmark, and
we will exert ourselves to compose any difficulties with our Holy Father
the Pope."--_MS. Archives at Brussels._
[413] _State Papers_, Vol. VII. pp. 584, 585.
[414] Ibid.
[415] This is Cromwell's paraphrase. Francis is not responsible for the
language.
[416] _State Papers_, Vol. VII. pp. 584-590.
[417] See the long and curious correspondence between the English and
Spanish courts in the _State Papers_, Vol. VI.
[418] _State Papers_, Vol. VII. pp. 587, 588.
[419] Ibid. p. 587.
[420] Who were to arrange the betrothal of Elizabeth to the Duke of
Angoulesme.
[421] Henry VIII. to De Bryon: _State Papers_, Vol. VII. p. 589.
[422] _State Papers_, Vol. VII. p. 591.
[423] "Sua sponte solius veritatis propagandae studio; nulla regiae
Majestatis intercessione expectata."--Cromwell to Cassalis: Ibid. p.
592.
[424] Language can scarcely be stronger than that which he directed his
ambassador at Rome to use--short, at least, of absolute menace.--Ibid.
pp. 593, 594.
[425] _Historia Martyrum Anglorum_, cap. 2.
[426] _Historia Martyrum Anglorum_, cap. 8.
[427] _Historia Martyrum_, cap. 9.
[428] Stokesley, Bishop of London, among others: _State Papers_, Vol. I.
pp. 423, 424.
[429] _Historia Martyrum_, cap, 9.
[430] The 60th in the English version.
[431] Printed in Strype's _Memorials_, Vol. I. Appendix, p. 208.
[432] Baga de Secretis; Appendix II. to the _Third Report of the Deputy
Keeper of the Public Records_.
[433] Strype's _Memorials_, Vol. I. p. 305; _Historia Martyrum
Anglorum_.
[434] Father Maurice says that the jury desired to acquit; and after
debating for a night, were preparing a verdict of Not Guilty; when
Cromwell, hearing of their intention, went in person to the room where
they were assembled, and threatened them with death unless they did what
he called their duty. The story is internally improbable. The conditions
of the case did not admit of an acquittal; and the conduct attributed to
Cromwell is inconsistent with his character. Any doubt which might
remain, in the absence of opposing testimony, is removed by the record
of the trial, from which it appears clearly that the jury were not
returned until the 29th of April, and _that the verdict was given in on
the same day_.--Baga de Secretis; Appendix to the _Third Report of the
Deputy Keeper of the Public Records_.
[435] "In thee, O Lord, have I put my trust: let me never be put to
confusion: deliver me in thy righteousness. Bow down thine ear to me;
make haste to deliver me. And be thou my strong rock and house of
defence, that thou mayest save me. For thou art my strong rock, and my
castle; be thou also my guide, and lead me for thy name's sake. Draw me
out of the net that they have laid privily for me: for thou art my
strength. Into thy hands I commend my spirit, for thou hast redeemed me,
O Lord, thou God of truth!"
[436] _Historia Martyrum Anglorum._
[437] On the 19th of June. Hall says they were insolent to Cromwell on
their trial.
[438] "By the hand of God," according to Mr. Secretary Bedyll. "My very
good Lord, after my most hearty commendations, it shall please your
lordship to understand that the monks of the Charterhouse here in London
which were committed to Newgate for their traitorous behaviour, long
time continued against the King's Grace, be almost dispatched by the
hand of God, as may appear to you by this bill enclosed; whereof,
considering their behaviour and the whole matter, I am not sorry, but
would that all such as love not the King's Highness and his worldly
honour were in like case."--Bedyll to Cromwell: _Suppression of the
Monasteries_, p. 162.
[439] Stow, p. 571. And see the Diary of Richard Hilles, merchant, of
London. _MS._, Balliol College, Oxford.
[440] Stow's _Chronicle_, p. 571.
[441] Latimer alludes to the story with no disapproval of the execution
of these men--as we should not have disapproved of it, if we had lived
then, unless we had been Anabaptists ourselves. A brave death, Latimer
says, is no proof of a good cause. "This is no good argument, my
friends; this is a deceivable argument: he went to his death
boldly--ergo, he standeth in a just quarrel. The Anabaptists that were
burnt here in divers towns in England (as I heard of credible men--I saw
them not myself), went to their death intrepide, as you will say;
without any fear in the world--cheerfully: well, let them go. There was
in the old times another kind of poisoned heretics that were called
Donatists; and these heretics went to their execution as they should
have gone to some jolly recreation or banquet."--Latimer's _Sermons_, p.
160.
[442] He wrote to the king on the 14th of June, in consequence of an
examination at the Tower; but that letter could not have been spoken of
on the trial of the Carthusians.--See _State Papers_, Vol. I. p. 431.
[443] "I had the confessor alone in very secret communication concerning
certain letters of Mr. Fisher's, of which Father Reynolds made mention
in his examination; which the said Fisher promised the King's Grace that
he never showed to any other man, neither would. The said confessor hath
confessed to me that the said Fisher sent to him, to the said Reynolds,
and to one other brother of them, the copy of his said letters directed
to the King's Grace, and the copy of the king's answer also. He hath
knowledged to me also that the said Fisher sent unto them with the said
copies a book of his, made in defence of the King's Grace's first
marriage, and also Abel's book, and one other book made by the
emperour's ambassador, as I suppose."--Bedyll to Cromwell: _Suppression
of the Monasteries_, pp. 45, 46.
[444] The accounts are consistent on this subject with a single
exception. A letter is extant from Fisher, in which he complained of
suffering from the cold and from want of clothes. This must have been an
accident. More was evidently treated well (see More's _Life of More_);
and all the circumstances imply that they were allowed to communicate
freely with their friends, and to receive whatever comforts their
friends were pleased to send them. The official statements on this
subject are too positive and too minute to admit of a doubt. Cromwell
writes thus to Cassalis: "Carceribus mancipati tractabantur humanius
atque mitius quam par fuisset pro eorum demeritis; per Regem illis
licebat proximorum colloquio et consuetudine frui. Ii fuerant illis
appositi praescriptique ministri quos a vinclis immunes antea fidos
charosque habebant; id cibi genus eaque condimenta et vestitus eis
concedebantur quae eorum habitudini ac tuendae sanitati, ipsi
consanguinei, nepotes atque affines et amici judicabant esse magis
accommoda."--_State Papers_, Vol. VII. p. 634.
[445] More's _Life of More_.
[446] "Instructions given by the King's Majesty to the Right Reverend
Father in God, his right trusty and well-beloved counsellor the Bishop
of Hereford, whom his Majesty at this time sendeth unto the Princes of
Germany."--_Rolls House MS._
[447] _State Papers_, Vol. VII. p. 635.
[448] Compare _State Papers_, Vol. I. pp. 431-436, with the Reports of
the trials in the Baga de Secretis. Burnet has hastily stated that no
Catholic was ever punished for merely denying the supremacy in official
examinations. He has gone so far, indeed, as to call the assertions of
Catholic writers to this effect "impudent falsehoods." Whether any
Catholic was prosecuted who had not given other cause for suspicion, I
do not know; but it is quite certain that Haughton and Fisher were
condemned solely on the ground of their answers on these occasions, and
that no other evidence was brought against them. The government clearly
preferred this evidence as the most direct and unanswerable, for in both
those cases they might have produced other witnesses had they cared to
do so.
[449] "Omnes Cardinales amicos nostros adivi; eisque demonstravi quam
temere ac stulte fecerint in Roffensi in Cardinalem eligendo unde et
potentissimum Regem et universum Regnum Angliae mirum in modum laedunt et
injuria afficiunt; Roffensem enim virum esse gloriosum ut propter vanam
gloriam in sua opinione contra Regem adhuc sit permansurus; qua etiam de
causa in carcere est et morti condemnatus."--Cassalis to Cromwell:
_State Papers_, Vol. VII. p. 604.
[450] _State Papers_, Vol. VII. p. 604.
[451] Pontifex me vehementer rogavit, ut vias omnes tentare velim,
quibus apud Regiam Majestatem excusatam hanc rem faciam, unde se
plurimum dolere dixit, cum praesertim ego affirmaverim rem esse ejusmodi
ut excusationem non recipiat.--Cassalis to Cromwell: Ibid.
[452] Ibid. p. 616.
[453] _Historia Martyrum Anglorum._
[454] Report of the Trial of John Fisher: Baga de Secretis: Appendix to
the _Third Report of the Deputy Keeper of the Records_.
[455] If his opinions had been insufficient for his destruction, there
was an influence at court which left no hope to him: the influence of
one whose ways and doings were better known then than they have been
known to her modern admirers. "On a time," writes his grandson, "when he
had questioned my aunt Roper of his wife and children, and the state of
his house in his absence, he asked her at last how Queen Anne did. 'In
faith, father,' said she, 'never better. There is nothing else at the
court but dancing and sporting.' 'Never better?' said he; 'alas, Meg,
alas, it pitieth me to remember unto what misery she will shortly come.
These dances of hers will prove such dances that she will spurn our
heads off like footballs, but it will not be long ere her head will
dance the like dance.'"--More's _Life of More_, p. 244.
[456] The composition of the commission is remarkable. When Fisher was
tried, Lord Exeter sate upon it. On the trial of More, Lord Exeter was
absent, but his place was taken by his cousin, Lord Montague, Reginald
Pole's eldest brother, and Lady Salisbury's son. Willingly or
unwillingly, the opposition nobles were made _participes criminis_ in
both these executions.
[457] I take my account of the indictment from the government record. It
is, therefore, their own statement of their own case.--Trial of Sir
Thomas More: Baga de Secretis, pouch 7, bundle 3.
[458] Fisher had unhappily used these words on his own examination; and
the identity of language was held a proof of traitorous confederacy.
[459] If this was the constitutional theory, "divine right" was a Stuart
fiction.
[460] More's _Life of More_, p. 271
[461] More's _Life of More_, pp. 276, 277.
[462] "And, further to put him from his melancholy, Sir Thomas More did
take his urinal, and cast his water, saying merrily, 'I see no danger
but the man that owns this water may live longer, if it please the
king.'"--More's _Life_, p. 283. I cannot allow myself to suppress a
trait so eminently characteristic.
[463] More's _Life of More_, p. 287.
[464] _State Papers_, Vol. VII. p. 606.
[465] Cassalis to Cromwell: _State Papers_, Vol. VII. pp. 620, 621.
[466] _State Papers_, Vol. VII. pp. 620, 621.
[467] Strype's _Memor. Eccles._, Vol. I., Appendix, p. 211. These words
are curious as directly attributing the conduct of the monks to the
influence of More and Fisher.
[468] Cromwell to Gardiner: Burnet's _Collectanea_, pp. 460, 461.
[469] "If the Duke of Saxe, or any of the other princes, shall in their
conference with him, expostulate or show themselves displeased with such
information as they may percase have had, touching the attainder and
execution of the late Bishop of Rochester and Sir Thomas More, the said
Bishop shall thereunto answer and say, that the same were by order of
his laws found to be false traitors and rebels to his Highness and his
crown. The order of whose attainder with the causes thereof, he may
declare unto them, saying that in case the King's Highness should know
that they would conceive any sinister opinion of his Grace, for the
doing of any act within his realm, his Grace should not only have cause
to think they used not with him the office of friendship, which would
not by any report conceive other opinion of so noble a prince as he is
than were both just and honourable; but also to note in them less
constancy of judgment than he verily thinketh they have. And hereupon
the said Bishop shall dissuade them from giving credit to any such
report, as whereby they shall offend God in the judgment of evil upon
their neighbour; and cause his Majesty to muse that they would of him,
being a prince of honour, conceive any other opinion than his honour and
friendship towards them doth require. Setting this forth with such a
stomach and courage as they may not only perceive the false traitorous
dealings of the said persons; but consider what folly it were in them
upon light report to judge of another prince's proceedings otherwise
than they would a foreign prince should judge of them."--Instructions to
the Bishop of Hereford by the King's Highness: _Rolls House MS._
[470] It will be observed that many important facts are alluded to in
this letter, of which we have no other knowledge.
[471] Cromwell to Cassalis: _State Papers_, Vol. VII. p. 633.
[472] Paul himself said that it was reserved at the intercession of the
Princes of Europe. Intercession is too mild a word for the species of
interference which was exerted. The pope sent a draft of the intended
bull to France; and the king having no disposition to countenance
exaggerated views of papal authority, spoke of it as _impudentissimum
quoddam breve_; and said that he must send the Cardinal of Lorraine to
Rome, to warn his Holiness that his pretence of setting himself above
princes could by no means be allowed; by such impotent threats he might
not only do no good, but he would make himself a laughing-stock to all
the world.--Christopher Mount to Henry VIII.: _State Papers_, Vol. VII.
p. 628
[473] His sub excommunicationis poena mandamus ut ab ejusdem Henrici
regis, suorumque officialium judicium et magistratuum quorumcunque
obedientia, penitus et omnino recedant, nec illos in superiores
recognoscant neque illorum mandatis obtemperent.--Bull of Pope Paul
against Henry VIII.
[474] The Venetian Ambassador told Mount that the first article stood
thus, "Admittitur Protestas Pontificis Maximi absolute;" to which Mount
says he answered, "Hoc Latinum magis sapit Sorbonam Parisiensem quam
Witenbergensem Minervam." Du Bellay afterwards said that the saving
clause was attached to it, "Modo secundum verbum Dei omnia judicet;" and
that this had been added at the desire of the French king; which Mount
did not believe--and indeed found great difficulty in discovering any
credible account of what was really taking place, beyond the fact that
the Lutherans were so anxious for an agreement, that they were walking
with open eyes into a net which would strangle them.--See _State
Papers_, Vol. VII. p. 630, &c.
[475] Ibid.
[476] Ego colendissime Patrone (si scribere licet quod sentio) non nihil
nocere puto amicitiae ineundae et confirmandae inter serenissimum Regem
nostrum et Principes Germanos, nimiam serenissimi Regis nostri
prudentiam. Germanorum animi tales sunt ut apertam et simplicem
amicitiam colant et expetant. Ego quoque Germanos Principes super hac
causa saepius expostulantes audivi, ut qui suspensam hanc et causariam
amicitiam not satis probarent. Dixerunt enim hac re fieri ut plerique
alii foedus secum inire detrectarent et refugerunt qui id ultro factum
fuerant si serenissimum Angliae Regem aperte stare cernerent.--Mount to
Cromwell: _State Papers_, Vol. VII. p. 625.
[477] This was Lord Burleigh's word for the constitution of the English
Church.
[478] Instructions to the Bishop of Hereford: _Rolls House MS._
[479] In case they shall require that the King's Majesty shall receive
the whole confession of Germany as it is imprinted, the bishop shall say
that when the King's Highness shall have seen and perused the articles
of the league, and shall perceive that there is in it contained none
other articles but such as may be agreeable with the Gospel, and such as
his Highness ought and conveniently may maintain, it is not to be
doubted, and also, "I durst boldly affirm," the said bishop shall say,
"that the King's Highness will enter the same [league]." But it shall be
necessary for the said duke and the princes confederate to send to the
King's Highness such personages as might devise, conclude, and
condescend in every article.--Instructions to the Bishop of Hereford:
_Rolls House MS._