THE REFORMATION IN SCOTLAND.[273]
If civilisation means the art of living together in peace, Scotland was
almost four hundred years behind the rest of Western Europe in the
beginning of the sixteenth century.
The history of her kings is a tale of assassinations, long minorities,
regencies scrambled and fought for by unscrupulous barons; and kingly
authority, which had been growing in other countries, was on the verge
of extinction in Scotland. Her Parliament or Estates of the Realm was a
mere feudal assembly, with more than the usual uncertainty regarding who
were entitled to be present; while its peculiar management by a
Committee of the Estates made it a facile instrument in the hands of the
faction who were for the moment in power, and robbed it of any stable
influence on the country as a whole. The Church, wealthy so far as
acreage was concerned, had become secularised to an extent unknown
elsewhere, and its benefices served to provide for the younger sons of
the great feudal families in a manner which recalls the days of Charles
the Hammer.[274]
Yet the country had been prepared for the Reformation by the education
of the people, especially of the middle class, by constant intercourse
between Scotland and France and the Low Countries, and by the sympathy
which Scottish students had felt for the earlier movements towards
Church reform in England and Bohemia; while the wealth and immorality of
the Romish clergy, the poverty of the nobility and landed gentry, and
the changing political situation, combined to give an impetus to the
efforts of those who longed for a Reformation.
More than one historian has remarked that the state of education in
Scotland had always been considerably in advance of what might have been
expected from its backward civilisation. This has been usually traced to
the enduring influence of the old Celtic Church--a Church which had
maintained its hold on the country for more than seven centuries, and
which had always looked upon the education of the people as a religious
duty. Old Celtic ecclesiastical rules declared that it was as important
to teach boys and girls to read, as to dispense the sacraments, and to
take part in _soul-friendship_ (confession). The Celtic monastery had
always been an educational centre; and when Charles the Great
established the High Schools which grew to be the older Universities of
northern Europe, the Celtic monasteries furnished many of the teachers.
The very complete educational system of the old Church had been taken
over into the Roman Church which supplanted it, under Queen Margaret and
her sons. Hence it was that the Cathedral and Monastery Schools produced
a number of scholars who were eager to enrich their stores of learning
beyond what the mother-country could give them, and the Scotch wandering
student was well known during the Middle Ages on the Continent of
Europe. One Scottish bishop founded a Scots College in Paris for his
countrymen; other bishops obtained from English kings safe-conducts for
their students to reside at Oxford and Cambridge.
This scholastic intercourse brought Scotland in touch with the
intellectual movements in Europe. Scottish students at Paris listened to
the lectures of Peter Dubois and William of Ockham when they taught the
theories contained in the _Defensor Pacis_ of Marsiglio of Padua, who
had expounded that the Church is not the hierarchy, but the Christian
people, and had denied both the temporal and spiritual supremacy of the
Pope. The _Rotuli Scotiæ_,[275] or collection of safe-conducts issued by
English monarchs to inhabitants of the northern kingdom, show that a
continuous stream of Scottish students went to the English Universities
from 1357 to 1389. During the earlier years of this period--that is, up
to 1364--the safe-conducts applied for and granted entitled the bearers
to go to Oxford or Cambridge or any other place of learning in England;
but from 1364 to 1379 Oxford seems to have been the only University
frequented. During one of these years (1365) safe-conducts were given to
no fewer than eighty-one Scottish students to study in Oxford. The
period was that during which the influence of Wiclif was most powerful,
when Oxford seethed with Lollardy; and the teachings of the great
Reformer were thus brought into Scotland.
Lollardy seems to have made great progress. In 1405, Robert, Duke of
Albany, was made Governor of Scotland, and Andrew Wyntoun in his
Metrical Chronicle praises him for his fidelity to the Church:
"He wes a constant Catholike,
All Lollard he hatyt and heretike."[276]
From this time down to the very dawn of the Reformation we find
references to Lollardy in contemporary writers and in Acts of the Scots
Parliament; and all the earlier histories of the Reformation movement in
Scotland relate the story of the Lollards of Kyle and their interview
with King James IV.[277]
The presence of Lollard opinions in Scotland must have attracted the
attention of the leaders of the Hussites in Bohemia. In 1433 (July
23rd), Paul Craw or Crawar was seized, tried before the Inquisitorial
court, condemned, and burnt as a heretic. He had brought letters from
the Hussites of Prag, and acknowledged that he had been sent to interest
the Scots in the Hussite movement--one of the many emissaries who were
despatched in 1431 and 1432 by Procopius and John Rokycana into all
European lands. He was found by the Inquisitor to be a man _in sacris
literis et in allegatione Bibliæ promptus et exercitatus_. Knox tells us
that he was condemned for denying transubstantiation, auricular
confession to the priests, and prayers to saints departed. We learn also
from Knox that at his burning the executioner put a ball of brass in his
mouth that the people might not hear his defence. His execution did not
arrest the progress of Lollardy. The earlier poems of Sir David Lindsay
contain Lollard opinions. By the time that these were published
(1529-1530), Lutheran writings had found their way into Scotland, and
may have influenced the writer; but the sentiments in the _Testament and
Complaynt of the Papyngo_ are more Lollard than Lutheran.
The Romish Church in Scotland was comparatively wealthy, and the rude
Scottish nobles managed to place their younger sons in many a fat
living, with the result that the manners of the clergy did little honour
to their sacred calling. Satirists began to point the moral. John Row
says:
"As for the more particulare means whereby many in Scotland got
some knowledge of God's trueth, in the time of great darkness,
there were some books sett out, such as Sir David Lindesay his
poesie upon the _Four Monarchies_, wherein many other treatises are
conteined, opening up the abuses among the Clergie at that tyme;
Wedderburn's Psalms and _Godlie Ballads_, changing many of the old
Popish songs unto Godlie purposes; a _Complaint_ given in by the
halt, blinde and poore of England, aganis the prelats, preists,
friers, and others such kirkmen, who prodigallie wasted all the
tithes and kirk liveings upon their unlawfull pleasures, so that
they could get no sustentation nor releef as God had ordained. This
was printed and came into Scotland. There were also some
theatricall playes, comedies, and other notable histories acted in
publict; for Sir David Lindesay his Satyre was acted in the
Amphitheater of St. Johnestoun (Perth), before King James the V.,
and a great part of the nobilitie and gentrie, fra morn to even,
whilk made the people sensible of the darknes wherein they lay, of
the wickednes of their kirkmen, and did let them see how God's Kirk
should have bene otherwayes guyded nor it was; all of whilk did
much good for that tyme."[278]
It may be doubted, however, whether the Scottish people felt the real
sting in such satires until they began to be taught by preachers who
had been to Wittenberg, or who had studied the writings of Luther and
other Reformers, or who had learned from private perusal of the
Scriptures what it was to be in earnest about pardon of sin and
salvation of soul.
Some of the towns on the East Coast were centres of trade with the
Continent, and Leith had once been an obscure member of the great
Hanseatic League. Lutheran and other tracts were smuggled into Scotland
from Campvere by way of Leith, Dundee, and Montrose. The authorities
were on the alert, and tried to put an end to the practice. In 1525,
Parliament forbade strangers bringing Lutheran books into Scotland on
pain of imprisonment and forfeiture of their goods and ships;[279] and
in the same year the Government were informed that "sundry strangers and
others within the diocese of Aberdeen were possessed of Luther's books,
and favoured his errors and false opinions." Two years later (1527), the
Act was made to include those who assisted in spreading Lutheran views.
An agent of Wolsey informed the Cardinal that Scottish merchants were
purchasing copies of Tyndale's New Testament in the Low Countries and
sending them to Scotland.[280] The efforts of the Government do not seem
to have been very successful. Another Act of Parliament in 1535 declared
that none but the clergy were to be allowed to purchase heretical books;
all others possessing such were required to give them up within forty
days.[281] This legislation clearly shows the spread of Reformed
writings among the people of Scotland.
The first Scottish martyr was Patrick Hamilton, a younger son of Sir
Patrick Hamilton of Kincavel and Stanehouse. He had studied at Paris and
Louvain. As he took his degree of M.A. in Paris in 1520, he had been
there when the writings of Luther were being studied by all learned men,
including the theological students of the Sorbonne (the theological
faculty).[282] Hamilton must have been impressed by the principles of
the German Reformer, and have made no secret of his views when he
returned to Scotland; for in the beginning of 1527 he was a suspected
heretic, and was ordered to be summoned and accused as such. He fled
from Scotland, went to Wittenberg, was at the opening of Philip of
Hesse's new Evangelical University of Marburg (May 30th, 1527), and
drafted the theses for the first academic Disputation.[283] He felt
constrained, however, to return to his native land to testify against
the corruptions of the Roman Church, and was preaching in Scotland in
the end of autumn 1527. The success attending his ministry excited the
fears of the prelates. He was invited, or rather enticed, to St.
Andrews; allowed for nearly a month to preach and dispute in the
University; and was then arrested and tried in the cathedral. The trial
took place in the forenoon, and at mid-day he was hurried to the stake
(Feb. 27th, 1528). The fire by carelessness rather than with intention
was slow, and death came only after lingering hours of agony.
If the ecclesiastical authorities thought to stamp out the new faith by
this martyrdom, they were soon to discover their mistake. Alexander
Alane (Alesius), who had undertaken to convince Patrick Hamilton of his
errors, had been himself converted. He was arrested and imprisoned, but
escaped to the Continent. The following years witnessed a succession of
martyrs--Henry Forrest (1533), David Stratton and Norman Gourlay (1534),
Duncan Simpson, Forrester, Keillor, Beverage, Forret, Russell, and
Kennedy (1539). The celebrated George Buchanan was imprisoned, but
managed to escape.[284] The Scots Parliament and Privy Council assisted
the Churchmen to extirpate the new faith in a series of enactments which
themselves bear witness to its spread. In 1540, in a series of Acts
(March 14th) it was declared that the Virgin Mary was "to be reverently
worshipped, and prayers made to her" for the King's prosperity, for
peace with all Christian princes, for the triumph of the "Faith
Catholic," and that the people "may remain in the faith and conform to
the statutes of Holy Kirk." Prayers were also ordered to be made to the
saints. It was forbidden to argue against, or impugn, the papal
authority under pain of death and confiscation of "goods movable and
immovable." No one is to "cast down or otherwise treat irreverently or
in any ways dishonour" the images of saints canonised by the Church.
Heretics who have seen the error of their ways are not to discuss with
others any matters touching "our holy faith." No one suspected of
heresy, even if he has recanted, is to be eligible to hold any office,
nor to be admitted to the King's Council. All who assist heretics are
threatened with severe punishment. In 1543, notwithstanding all this
legislation, the Lord Governor (the Earl of Arran) had to confess that
heretics increase rapidly, and spread opinions contrary to the
Church.[285] The terms of some of these enactments show that the new
faith had been making converts among the nobility; and they also
indicate the chief points of attack on the Roman Church in Scotland.
In 1542 (Dec. 14th), James V. died, leaving an infant daughter, Mary (b.
Dec. 8th), who became the Queen of Scots when barely a week old. Thus
Scotland was again harassed with an infant sovereign; and there was the
usual scramble for the Regency, which this time involved questions of
national policy as well as personal aggrandisement.
It was the settled policy of the Tudor kings to detach Scotland from the
old French alliance, and secure it for England. The marriage of Margaret
Tudor to James iv. shows what means they thought to employ, and but for
Margaret's quarrel with the Earl of Angus, her second husband, another
wedding might have bound the nations firmly together. The French
marriages of James V., first with Madeleine, daughter of Francis I.
(1537), and on her premature death with Mary of Guise (1538), showed the
recoil of Scotland from the English alliance. James' death gave Henry
VIII. an opportunity to renew his father's schemes, and his idea was to
betroth his boy Edward to the baby Mary, and get the "little Queen"
brought to England for education. Many Scotsmen thought the proposal a
good one for their country, and perhaps more were induced to think so by
the money which Henry lavished upon them to secure their support They
made the English party in Scotland. The policy of English alliance as
against French alliance was complicated by the question of religion.
Whatever may be thought of the character of the English Reformation at
this date, Henry VIII. had broken thoroughly with the Papacy, and union
with England would have dragged Scotland to revolt against the mediæval
Church. The leader of the French and Romanist party in Scotland was
David Beaton, certainly the ablest and perhaps the most unscrupulous man
there. He had been made Archbishop of St. Andrews, coadjutor to his aged
uncle, in 1538. In the same month, Pope Paul iii., who needed a
Churchman of the highest rank to publish his Bull against Henry VIII. in
a place as near England as was possible to find, had sent him a
Cardinal's Hat. The Cardinal, Beaton, stood in Scotland for France and
Rome against England and the Reformation. The struggle for the Regency
in Scotland in 1542 carried with it an international and a religious
policy. The clouds heralding the storm which was to destroy Mary,
gathered round the cradle of the baby Queen.
At first the English faction prevailed. The claims of the Queen Mother
were scarcely considered. Beaton produced a will, said to have been
fraudulently obtained from the dying King, appointing him and several of
the leading nobles of Scotland, Governors of the kingdom. This
arrangement was soon set aside, the Earl of Arran was appointed Governor
(Jan. 3rd, 1543), and Beaton was confined in Blackness Castle.
The Governor selected John Rough for his chaplain and Thomas Williams
for his preacher, both ardent Reformers. The Acts of the previous reign
against heresy were modified to the extent that men suspect of heresy
might enjoy office, and heretics were accorded more merciful treatment.
Moreover, an Act of Parliament (March 15th, 1543) permitted the
possession and reading of a good and true translation of the Old and New
Testaments. But the masterful policy of Henry VIII. and the weakness of
the Governor brought about a change. Beaton was released from Blackness
and restored to his own Castle of St. Andrews; the Governor dismissed
his Reformed preachers; the Privy Council (June 2nd, 1543) forbade on
pain of death and confiscation of goods all criticism of the mediæval
doctrine of the Sacraments, and forbade the possession of heretical
books. In September, Arran and Beaton were reconciled; in December, the
Parliament annulled the treaties with England consenting to a marriage
between Edward and Mary, and the ancient league with France was renewed.
This was followed by the revival of persecution, and almost all that had
been gained was lost. Henry's ruthless devastation of the Borders did
not mend matters. The more enlightened policy of Lord Protector Somerset
could not allay the suspicions of the Scottish nation. Their "little
Queen" was sent to France to be educated by the Guises, "to the end that
in hir youth she should drynk of that lycour, that should remane with
hir all hir lyfetyme, for a plague to this realme, and for hir finall
destructioun."[286]
But if the Reformation movement was losing ground as a national policy,
it was gaining strength as a spiritual quickening in the hearts of the
people. George Wishart, one of the Wisharts of Pittarrow, who had fled
from persecution in 1538 and had wandered in England, Germany, and
Switzerland, returned to his native country about 1543, consumed with
the desire to bear witness for the Gospel. He preached in Montrose, and
Dundee during a visitation of the plague, and Ayrshire. Beaton's party
were anxious to secure him, and after a preaching tour in the Lothians
he was seized in Ormiston House and handed over to the Earl of Bothwell,
who, breaking pledges he had made, delivered him to the Cardinal; he
lodged him in the dungeon at St. Andrews (end of Jan. 1546), and had him
tried in the cathedral, when he was condemned to the stake (March 1st,
1546).
Wishart was Knox's forerunner, and during this tour in the Lothians,
Knox had been his constant companion. The Romanist party had tried to
assassinate the bold preacher, and Knox carried a two-handed sword ready
to cut down anyone who attempted to strike at the missionary while he
was speaking. All the tenderness which lay beneath the sternness of
Knox's character appears in the account he gives of Wishart in his
_History_. And to Wishart, Knox was the beloved disciple. When he
foresaw that the end was near, he refused to allow Knox to share his
danger.[287]
Assassination was a not infrequent way of getting rid of a political
opponent in the sixteenth century, and Beaton's death had long been
planned, not without secret promptings from England. Three months after
Wishart's martyrdom (May 29th, 1546), Norman Lesley and Kirkcaldy of
Grange at the head of a small band of men broke into the Castle of St.
Andrews and slew the Cardinal. They held the stronghold, and the castle
became a place of refuge for men whose lives were threatened by the
Government, and who sympathised with the English alliance. The
Government laid siege to the place but were unable to take it, and
their troops withdrew. John Rough, who had been Arran's Reformed
chaplain, joined the company, and began to preach to the people of St.
Andrews. Knox, who had become a marked man, and had thought of taking
refuge in Germany, was persuaded to enter the castle, and there, sorely
against his will, he was almost forced to stand forth as a preacher of
the Word. His first sermon placed him at once in the foremost rank of
Scottish Reformers, and men began to predict that he would share the
fate of Wishart. "Master George Wishart spak never so plainelye, and
yitt he was brunt: evin so will he be."[288]
Next to nothing is known about the early history of John Knox. He came
into the world at or near Haddington in the year 1515,[289] but on what
day or month remains hidden. He sprang from the commons of Scotland, and
his forebears were followers of the Earls of Bothwell; he was a papal
notary, and in priest's orders in 1540; he was tutor to the sons of the
lairds of Ormiston and Longniddry in 1545; he accompanied Wishart in
December and January 1545, 1546--these are the facts known about him
before he was called to stand forward as a preacher of the Reformation
in Scotland. He was then thirty-two--a silent, slow ripening man, with
quite a talent for keeping himself in the background.
Knox's work in the castle and town of St. Andrews was interrupted by the
arrival of a French fleet (July 1547), which battered the walls with
artillery until the castle was compelled to surrender. He and all the
inmates were carried over to France. They had secured as terms of
surrender that their lives should be spared; that they should be safely
transported to France; and that if they could not accept the terms there
offered to them by the French King, they should be allowed to depart to
any country they might select for their sojourn, save Scotland. It was
not the custom, however, for French kings to keep promises made to
heretics, and Knox and his companions were made galley-slaves. For
nineteen months he had to endure this living death, which for long drawn
out torture can only be compared with what the Christians of the
earliest centuries had to suffer when they were condemned to the mines.
He had to sit chained with four or six others to the rowing benches,
which were set at right angles to the side of the ship, without change
of posture by day, and compelled to sleep, still chained, under the
benches by night; exposed to the elements day and night alike; enduring
the lash of the overseer, who paced up and down the gangway which ran
between the two lines of benches; feeding on the insufficient meals of
coarse biscuit and porridge of oil and beans; chained along with the
vilest malefactors. The French Papists had invented this method of
treating all who differed from them in religious matters. It could
scarcely make Knox the more tolerant of French policy or of the French
religion. He seldom refers to this terrible experience. He dismisses it
with:
"How long I continewed prisoneir, what torment I susteaned in the
galaies, and what war the sobbes of my harte, is now no time to
receat: This onlie I can nocht conceall, which mo than one have
hard me say, when the body was far absent from Scotland, that my
assured houp was, in oppin audience, to preache in Sanctandrois
befoir I depairted this lyeff."[290]
The prisoners were released from the galleys through the instrumentality
of the English Government in the early months of 1549, and Knox reached
England by the 7th of April. It was there that he began his real work as
a preacher of the Reformation. He spent nearly five years as minister at
Berwick, at Newcastle, and in London. He was twice offered
preferment--the vacant bishopric of Rochester in 1552, and the vicarage
of All Hallows in Bread St., London, in the beginning of 1553. He
refused both, and was actually summoned before the Privy Council to
explain why he would not accept preferment.[291] It is probable that he
had something to do with the production of _The Book of Common Prayer
and Administration of the Sacraments and other Rites and Ceremonies in
the Church of England, 1552_, commonly called the _Second Prayer-Book_
of King Edward VI. The rubric explaining kneeling at the partaking of
the Holy Supper, or at least one sentence in it, is most probably due to
his remonstrances or suggestions.[292] The accession of Mary Tudor to
the throne closed his career in England; but he stuck to his work long
after his companion preachers had abandoned it. He was in London, and
had the courage to rebuke the rejoicings of the crowd at her entry into
the capital--a fearless, outspoken man, who could always be depended on
for doing what no one else dared.
Knox got safely across the Channel, travelled through France by ways
unknown, and reached Geneva. He spent some time with Calvin, then went
on to Zurich to see Bullinger. He appears to have been meditating deeply
on the condition of Scotland and England, and propounded a set of
questions to these divines which show that he was trying to formulate
for himself the principles he afterwards asserted on the rights of
subjects to restrain tyrannical sovereigns.[293] The years 1554-58, with
the exception of a brief visit to Scotland in the end of 1555, were
spent on the Continent, but were important for his future work in
Scotland. They witnessed the troubles in the Frankfurt congregation of
English exiles, where Knox's broad-minded toleration and
straightforward action stands in noble contrast with the narrow-minded
and crooked policy of his opponents. They were the time of his peaceful
and happy ministrations among the refugees at Geneva. They made him
familiar with the leading Protestants of France and of Switzerland, and
taught him the inner political condition of the nations of Europe. They
explain Knox's constant and accurate information in later years, when he
seemed to learn about the doings of continental statesmen as early as
Cecil, with all the resources of the English Foreign Office behind him.
Above all, they made him see that, humanly speaking, the fate of the
whole Reformation movement was bound up with an alliance between a
Protestant England and a Protestant Scotland.
Knox returned to Scotland for a brief visit of about ten months (Sept.
1555-July 1556). He exhorted those who visited him in his lodgings in
Edinburgh, and made preaching tours, dispensing the Lord's Supper
according to the Reformed rite on several occasions. He visited Dun,
Calder House, Barr, Ayr, Ochiltree, and several other places, and was
welcomed in the houses of many of the nobility. He left for Geneva in
July, having found time to marry his first wife, Marjory Bowes,--_uxor
suavissima_, and "a wife whose like is not to be found everywhere,"[294]
Calvin calls her,--and having put some additional force into the growing
Protestantism of his native land. He tells us that most part of the
gentlemen of the Mearns "band thame selfis, to the uttermost of thare
poweris, to manteane the trew preaching of the Evangell of Jesus Christ,
as God should offer unto thame preacheris and opportunitie"--whether by
word of mouth or in writing, is not certain.[295]
In 1557 (Dec. 3rd) the Protestants of Scotland laid the foundations of a
definite organisation. It took a form familiar enough in the civil
history of the country, where the turbulent character of the Scottish
barons and the weakness of the central authority led to constant
confederations to carry out with safety enterprises sometimes legal and
sometimes outside the law. The confederates promised to assist each
other in the work proposed, and to defend each other from the
consequences following. Such agreements were often drafted in legal
fashion by public notaries, and made binding by all forms of legal
security known. The _Lords of the Congregation_, as they came to be
called, followed a prevailing custom when they promised--
"Befoir the Majestie of God and His congregatioun, that we (be His
grace) shall with all diligence continually apply our hole power,
substance, and our verray lyves, to manteane, sett fordward, and
establish the most blessed word of God and His Congregatioun; and
shall laubour at our possibilitie to have faythfull Ministeris
purely and trewlie to minister Christis Evangell and Sacramentes to
His people."[296]
This "Band subscrived by the Lords" was the first (if the promise made
by the gentlemen of the Mearns be excepted) of the many Covenants famous
in the history of the Church of Scotland Reformed.[297] It was an old
Scottish usage now impregnated with a new spiritual meaning, and become
a public promise to God, after Old Testament fashion, to be faithful to
His word and guidance.
This important act had immediate consequences. The confederated Lords
sent letters to Knox, then at Geneva, and to Calvin, urging the return
of the Scottish Reformer to his native land. They also passed two
notable resolutions:
"First, It is thought expedient, devised and ordeaned that in all
parochines of this Realme the Common Prayeris (probably the Second
Prayer-Book of Edward VI.)[298] be redd owklie (weekly) on Sounday,
and other festuall dayis, publictlie in the Paroche Kirkis, with
the Lessonis of the New and Old Testament, conforme to the ordour
of the Book of Common Prayeris: And yf the curattis of the
parochynes be qualified to cause thame to reid the samyn; and yf
thei be nott, or yf thei refuise, that the maist qualified in the
parish use and read the same. Secoundly, it is thought necessare
that doctrin, preacheing and interpretatioun of Scriptures be had
and used privatlie in Qwyet housis, without great conventionis of
the people tharto, whill afterward that God move the Prince to
grant publict preacheing be faithful and trew ministeris."[299]
The Earl of Argyle set the example by maintaining John Douglas, and
making him preach publicly in his mansion.
This conduct evidently alarmed the Queen Mother, who had been made
Regent in 1554 (April 12th), and she attempted to stir the Primate to
exercise his powers for the repression of heresy. The Archbishop wrote
to Argyle urging him to dismiss Douglas, apologising at the same time
for his interference by saying that the Queen wondered that he could
"thole" persons with perverted doctrine within his diocese.
Another step in advance was taken some time in 1558, when it was
resolved to give the _Congregation_, the whole company of those in
Scotland who sincerely accepted the Evangelical Reformation, "the face
of a Church," by the creation and recognition of an authority which
could exercise discipline. A number of elders were chosen "by common
election," to whom the whole of the brethren promised obedience. The
lack of a publicly recognised ministry was supplied by laymen, who gave
themselves to the work of exhortation; and at the head of them was to
be found Erskine of Dun. The first regularly constituted Reformed church
in Scotland was in the town of Dundee.[300]
The organisation gave the Protestant leaders boldness, and, through Sir
James Sandilands, they petitioned the Regent to permit them to worship
publicly according to the Reformed fashion, and to reform the wicked
lives of the clergy. This led to the offer of a compromise, which was at
once rejected, as it would have compelled the Reformed to reverence the
Mass, and to approve of prayers to the saints. The Queen Mother then
permitted public worship, save in Leith and Edinburgh. The Lords of the
Congregation next demanded a suspension of the laws which gave the
clergy power to try and punish heresy, until a General Council, lawfully
assembled, should decide upon points then debated in religion; and that
all suspected of heresy should have a fair trial before "temporal
judges."[301] When the Regent, who gave them "amyable lookis and good
wordes in aboundance," refused to allow their petition to come before
the Estates, and kept it "close in hir pocket," the Reformers resolved
to go to Parliament directly with another petition, in which they
declared that since they had not been able to secure a reformation, they
had resolved to follow their own consciences in matters of religion;
that they would defend themselves and all of their way of thinking if
attacked; that if tumults arose in consequence, the blame was with those
who refused a just reformation; and that in forwarding this petition
they had nothing in view but the reformation of abuses in religion.[302]
Knox had been invited by the Earl of Glencairn, the Lords Erskine and
Lorn, and James Stewart (afterwards the Earl of Moray), to return to
Scotland in 1557.[303] He reached Dieppe in October, and found letters
awaiting him which told him that the times were not ripe. The answer he
sent spurred the Reforming lords to constitute the _Band_ of December
1557. It was while he was at Dieppe, chafing at the news he had
received, that he composed the violent treatise, entitled _The First
Blast of the Trumpet against the Monstrous Regiment of Women_[304]--a
book which did more to hamper his future than anything else. The state
of things was exasperating to a man who longed to be at work in Scotland
or England. "Bloody" Mary in England was hounding on her officials to
burn Knox's co-religionists, and the Reformation, which had made so much
progress under Edward VI., seemed to be entirely overthrown; while Mary
of Guise, the Queen Mother and Regent in Scotland, was inciting the
unwilling Archbishop of St. Andrews to make use of his legatine and
episcopal powers to repress the believers of his native land. But as
chance would have it, Mary Tudor was dead before the pamphlet was widely
known, and the Queen whom of all others he desired to conciliate was
seated on the throne of England, and had made William Cecil, the
staunchest of Protestants, her Secretary of State. She could scarcely
avoid believing that the _Blast_ was meant for her; and, even if not, it
was based on such general principles that it might prove dangerous to
one whose throne was still insecure. It is scarcely to be wondered at
that the Queen never forgave the vehement writer, and that the _Blast_
was a continual obstacle to a complete understanding between the
Scottish Reformer and his English allies.[305] If Knox would never
confess publicly to queens, whether to Elizabeth Tudor or to Mary
Stuart; that he had done wrong, he was ready to say to a friend whom he
loved:
"My rude vehemencie and inconsidered affirmations, which may rather
appear to procead from coler then of zeal and reason, I do not
excuse."[306]
It was the worse for Knox and for Scotland, for the reign of women had
begun. Charles V., Francis I., and Henry VIII. had passed away, and the
destinies of Europe were to be in the hands of Elizabeth, Catherine de'
Medici, Mary Stuart, and Philip of Spain, the most felinely feminine of
the four.
Events marched fast in Scotland after Knox returned in the early summer
of 1559. The Queen Regent and the Lords of the Congregation were facing
each other, determined on a trial of strength. Knox reached Edinburgh on
May 2nd, 1559, and hurried on to Dundee, where the Reformed had gathered
in some force. They had resolved to support their brethren in
maintaining public worship according to the usages of the Reformed
Church, and in repressing "idolatrie" in all towns where a majority of
the inhabitants had declared for the Reformed religion. The Regent threw
down the gauntlet by summoning the preachers to appear before her, and
by inhibiting their preaching. The Lords took it up by resolving that
they would answer the summons and appear along with their preachers. A
letter was addressed to the Regent (May 6th, 1559) by "The professouris
of Christis Evangell in the realme of Scotland." It was an admirable
statement of the principles of the Scottish Reformation, and may be thus
summarised:
"It records the hope, once entertained by the writers, that God
would make her the instrument of setting up and maintaining his
Word and true worship, of defending his congregation, and of
downputting all idolatry, abomination, and superstition in the
realm; it expresses their grief on learning that she was determined
to do the very opposite; it warns her against crossing the bounds
of her own office, and usurping a power in Christ's kingdom which
did not belong to her; it distinguishes clearly between the civil
jurisdiction and the spiritual; it asks her to recall her letters
inhibiting God's messengers; it insists that His message ought to
be received even though the speaker should lack the ordinary
vocation; it claims that the ministers who had been inhibited were
sent by God, and were also called according to Scriptural order;
it points out that her commands must be disobeyed if contrary to
God's, and that the enemies were craftily inducing her to command
unjust things so that the professors, when they disobeyed, might be
condemned for sedition and rebellion; it pled with her to have pity
on those who were seeking the glory of God and her true obedience;
it declared that, by God's help, they would go forward in the way
they had begun, that they would receive and assist His ministers
and Word, and that they would never join themselves again to the
abominations they had forsaken, though all the powers on earth
should command them to do so; it conveyed their humble submission
to her, in all obedience due to her in peace, in war, in body, in
goods and in lands; and it closed with the prayer that the eternal
God would instruct, strengthen, and lead her by His Spirit in the
way that was acceptable to Him."[307]
Then began a series of trials of strength in which the Regent had
generally the better, because she was supplied with disciplined troops
from France, which were more than a match for the feudal levies of the
Lords of the Congregation. The uprising of the people against the Regent
and the Prelates was characterised, as in France and the Low Countries,
with an outbreak of iconoclasm which did no good to the Protestant
cause. In the three countries the "raschall multitude" could not be
restrained by the exhortation of the preachers nor by the commandment of
the magistrates from destroying "the places of idolatrie."[308]
From the beginning, Knox had seen that the Reformers had small hope of
ultimate success unless they were aided from England; and he was
encouraged to expect help because he knew that the salvation of
Protestant England lay in its support of the Lords of the Congregation
in Scotland.
The years from 1559 to 1567 were the most critical in the whole history
of the Reformation. The existence of the Protestantism of all Europe
was involved in the struggle in Scotland; and for the first and perhaps
last time in her history the eyes that had the furthest vision, whether
in Rome, for centuries the citadel of mediævalism, or in Geneva, the
stronghold of Protestantism, were turned towards the little backward
northern kingdom. They watched the birth-throes of a new nation, a
British nation which was coming into being. Two peoples, long hereditary
foes, were coalescing; the Romanists in England recognised the Scottish
Queen as their legitimate sovereign, and the Protestants in Scotland
looked for aid to their brethren in England. The question was: Would the
new nation accept the Reformed religion, or would the reaction triumph?
If Knox and the Congregation gained the upper hand in Scotland, and if
Cecil was able to guide England in the way he meant to lead it (and the
two men were necessary to each other, and knew it), then the Reformation
was safe. If Scotland could be kept for France and the Roman Church, and
its Romanist Queen make good her claim to the English throne, then the
Reformation would be crushed not merely within Great Britain, but in
Germany and the Low Countries also. So thought the politicians, secular
and ecclesiastical, in Rome and Geneva, in Paris, Madrid, and in London.
The European situation had been summed up by Cecil: "The Emperor is
aiming at the sovereignty of Europe, which he cannot obtain without the
suppression of the Reformed religion, and, unless he crushes England, he
cannot crush the Reformation." In this peril a Scotland controlled by
the Guises would have been fatal to the existence of the Reformation.
In 1559 the odds seemed in favour of reaction, if only its supporters
were whole-hearted enough to put aside for the time national rivalries.
The Treaty of Cateau-Cambrésis, concluded scarcely a month before Knox
reached Scotland (April 1559), had secret clauses which bound the Kings
of France and Spain to crush the Protestantism of Europe, in terms which
made the young Prince of Orange, when he learned them, vow silently to
devote his life to protect his fellow-countrymen and drive the "scum of
the Spaniards" out of the Netherlands. Henry II. of France, with his
Edict of Chateaubriand and his _Chambre Ardente_, with the Duke of Guise
and the Cardinal Lorraine to counsel him, and Diane of Poitiers to keep
him up to the mark, was doing his best to exterminate the Protestants of
France. Dr. Christopher Mundt kept reporting to Queen Elizabeth and her
Minister the symptoms of a general combination against the Protestants
of Europe--symptoms ranging from a proposed conquest of Denmark to the
Emperor's forbidding members of his Household to attend Protestant
services.[309] Throckmorton wrote almost passionately from Paris urging
Cecil to support the Scottish Lords of the Congregation; and even Dr.
Mundt in Strassburg saw that the struggle in Scotland was the most
important fact in the European situation.[310]
Yet it was difficult for Cecil to send the aid which Knox and the
Scottish Protestants needed sorely. It meant that the sovereign of one
country aided men of another country who were _de jure_ rebels against
their own sovereign. It seemed a hazardous policy in the case of a Queen
like Elizabeth, who was not yet freed from the danger arising from
rebellious subjects. There was France, with which England had just made
peace. Cecil had difficulties with Elizabeth. She did not like Calvin
himself. She had no sympathy with his theology, which, with its mingled
sob and hosanna, stirred the hearts of oppressed peoples. There was Knox
and his _Blast_, to say nothing of his appealing to the commonalty of
his country. "God keep us from such visitations as Knockes hath
attempted in Scotland; the people to be orderers of things!" wrote Dr.
Parker to Cecil on the 6th of November.[311] Yet Cecil knew--no man
better--that if the Lords of the Congregation failed there was little
hope for a Protestant England, and that Elizabeth's crown and Dr.
Parker's mitre depended on the victory of Knox in Scotland.
He watched the struggle across the border. He had made up his mind as
early as July 8th, 1559, that assistance must be given to the Lords of
the Congregation "with all fair promises first, next with money, and
last with arms."[312] The second stage of his programme was reached in
November; and, two days before the Archbishop of Canterbury was piously
invoking God's help to keep Knox's influences out of England, Cecil had
resolved to send money to Scotland and to entrust its distribution to
Knox. The memorandum runs: Knox to be a counsel with the payments, to
see that they be employed to the common action.[313]
The third stage--assistance with arms--came sooner than might have been
expected. The condition of France became more favourable. Henry II. had
died (July 10th, 1559), and the Guises ruled France through their niece
Mary and her sickly devoted husband. But the Bourbon Princes and many of
the higher nobles did not take kindly to the sudden rise of a family
which had been French for only two generations, and the easiest way to
annoy them was to favour publicly or secretly "those of the religion."
There was unrest in France. "Beat the iron while it is hot,"
Throckmorton wrote from Paris; "their fair flatterings and sweet
language are only to gain time."[314] Cecil struck. He had a sore battle
with his royal mistress, but he won.[315] An arrangement was come to
between England and the Lords of the Congregation acting on behalf "of
the second person of the realm of Scotland" (Treaty of Berwick, May
10th, 1560).[316] An English fleet entered the Firth of Forth; an
English army beleaguered the French troops in Leith Fort; and the end of
it was that France was obliged to let go its hold on Scotland, and never
thoroughly recovered it (Treaty of Edinburgh, July 6th, 1560).[317] The
great majority of the Scottish people saw in the English victory only
their deliverance from French tyranny, and for the first time a
conquering English army left the Scottish soil followed by blessings and
not curses. The Scottish Liturgy, which had contained _Prayers used in
the Churches of Scotland in the time of their persecution by the
Frenchmen_, was enriched by a _Thanksgiving unto God after our
deliverance from the tyranny of the Frenchmen; with prayers made for the
continuance of the peace betwixt the realms of England and Scotland_,
which contained the following petition:
"And seeing that when we by our owne power were altogether unable
to have freed ourselves from the tyranny of strangers, and from the
bondage and thraldome pretended against us, Thou of thyne especial
goodnes didst move the hearts of our neighbours (of whom we
deserved no such favour) to take upon them the common burthen with
us, and for our deliverance not only to spend the lives of many,
but also to hazards the estate and tranquillity of their Realme and
commonwealth: Grant unto us, O Lord, that with such reverence we
may remember thy benefits received that after this in our defaute
we never enter into hostilitie against the Realme and nation of
England."[318]
The Regent had died during the course of the hostilities, and Cecil,
following and improving upon the wise policy of Protector Somerset,
left it entirely to the Scots to settle their own affairs.[319]
Now or never was the opportunity for Knox and the Lords of the
Congregation. They had not been idle during the months since Knox had
arrived in Scotland. They had strengthened the ties uniting them by
three additional _Bands_. At a meeting of the Congregation of the West
with the Congregations of Fife, Perth, Dundee, Angus, Mearns, and
Montrose, held in Perth (May 31st, 1559), they had covenanted to spare
neither
"labouris, goodis, substancis, bodyis, and lives, in manteaning the
libertie of the haill Congregatioun and everie member thairof,
aganis whatsomevir power that shall intend trubill for the caus of
religion."[320]
They had renewed this _Band_ in Edinburgh on July 13th; and at Stirling
(Aug. 1st) they had covenanted,
"that nane of us sall in tymeis cuming pas to the Quenis Grace
Dowriare, to talk or commun with hir for any letter without consent
of the rest and commone consultatioun."[321]
They had the bitter satisfaction of knowing that although the French
troops and officers of the Regent were too strong for them in the field,
the insolence and rapine of these foreigners was rousing all ranks and
classes in Scotland to see that their only deliverance lay in the
English alliance and the triumph of the Reformation. The _Band_ of 1560
(April 27th) included, with "the nobilitie, barronis, and gentilmen
professing Chryst Jesus in Scotland ... dyveris utheris that joyint with
us, for expelling of the French army: amangis quham the Erle of Huntlie
was principall."[322]
The Estates or Parliament met in Edinburgh on July 10th, 1560. Neither
the French nor the English soldiers had left; so they adjourned to
August 1st, and again to the 8th.[323]
Meanwhile Knox and the Congregation were busy. The Reformer excelled
himself in the pulpit of St. Giles', lecturing daily on the Book of the
Prophet Haggai (on the building of the Temple)--"a doctrine proper for
the time."[324] Randolph wrote to Cecil, Aug. 15th:
"Sermons are daylie, and greate audience; though dyvers of the
nobles present ar not resolved in religion, yet do thei repayre to
the prechynges, which gevethe a good hope to maynie that God wyll
bowe their hartes."[325]
The Congregation held a great thanksgiving service in St. Giles'; and
after it arranged for eight fully constituted churches, and appointed
five superintendents in matters of religion.[326] They also prepared a
petition for Parliament asking for a settlement of the religious
question in the way they desired.[327] At the request of the Estates or
Parliament, Knox and five companions prepared _The Confessioun of Faith
professit and belevit be the Protestantis within the Realme of
Scotland_, which was ratified and approved as "hailsome and sound
doctrine, groundit upoun the infallible trewth of Godis Word." It was
afterwards issued by the Estates as the "summe of that doctrin quhilk we
professe, and for the quhilk we haif sustenit infamy and daingear."[328]
Seven days later (Aug. 24th), the Estates decreed that "the Bischope of
Rome have na jurisdictioun nor authoritie in this Realme in tymes
cuming"; they annulled all Acts of previous Parliaments which were
contrary to the Confession of Faith; and they forbade the saying,
hearing, or being present at Mass, under penalty of confiscation of
goods and bodily punishment at the discretion of the magistrates for the
first offence, of banishment for the second, and of death for the
third.[329] These severe penalties, however, were by no means rigidly
enforced. Lesley (Roman Catholic Bishop of Ross) says in his _History_:
"The clemency of the heretic nobles must not be left unmentioned,
since at that time they exiled few Catholic on the score of
religion, imprisoned fewer, and put none to death."[330]
One thing still required to be done--to draft a constitution for the new
Protestant Church. The work was committed to the same ministers who had
compiled the Confession. They had been asked to prepare it as early as
April 29th, and they had it ready for the Lords of the Congregation
within a month. It was not approved by the Estates; but was ordered to
be submitted to the next general meeting, and was meanwhile translated
into Latin, to be sent to Calvin, Viret, and Beza in Geneva.[331] The
delay seemed to some to arise from the unwillingness of many of the
lords to see "their carnal liberty and worldly commoditie
impaired";[332] but another cause was also at work. Cecil evidently
wished that the Church in Scotland should be uniform with the Church in
England, and had instructed Randolph to press this question of
uniformity. It was a favourite idea with statesmen of both
countries--pressed on Scotland by England during the reigns of James I.
and Charles I., and by Scotland on England in the Solemn League and
Covenant. Randolph was wise enough to see that such uniformity was an
impossibility.[333]
_The Confession of the Faith and Doctrine, Believed and Professed by the
Protestants of Scotland_, was translated into Latin, and, under the
title _Confessio Scoticana_, occupies an honoured place in the
collections of the creeds of the Reformed Churches. It remained the
symbol of the Church of Scotland during the first stormy century of its
existence. It was displaced by the Westminster Confession in 1647, only
on the understanding that the later document was "in nothing contrary"
to the former; and continued authoritative long after that date.[334]
Drawn up in haste by a small number of theologians, it is more
sympathetic and human than most creeds, and has commended itself to many
who object to the impersonal logic of the Westminster Confession.[335]
The first sentence of the preface gives the tone to the whole:
"Lang have we thirsted, dear Brethren, to have notified to the
Warld the Sum of that Doctrine quhilk we professe, and for quhilk
we have susteined Infamie and Danger; Bot sik has bene the Rage of
Sathane againis us, and againis Christ Jesus his eternal Veritie
latlie now againe born amangst us, that to this daie na Time has
been graunted unto us to cleir our Consciences as maist gladlie we
wald have done."[336]
The preface also puts more clearly than any similiar document save the
First Confession of Basel the reverence felt by the early Reformers for
the Word of God and the renunciation of any claim to infallibility of
interpretation:
"Protestand that gif onie man will note in this our confessioun
onie Artickle repugnand to Gods halie word, that it wald pleis him
of his gentleness and for christian charities sake to admonish us
of the same in writing; and we upon our honoures and fidelitie, be
Gods grace do promise unto him satisfaction fra the mouth of God,
that is fra his haly scriptures, or else reformation of that quhilk
he sal prove to be amisse."
The Confession itself contains the truths common to the Reformed creeds
of the Reformation. It contains all the Oecumenical doctrines, as they
have been called--that is, the truths taught in the early Oecumenical
Councils, and embodied in the Apostles' and Nicene Creeds; and adds
those doctrines of grace, of pardon, and of enlightenment through Word
and Spirit which were brought into special prominence by the Reformation
revival of religion. The Confession is more remarkable for quaint
suggestiveness of titles than for any special peculiarity of doctrine.
Thus the doctrine of revelation is defined by itself, apart from the
doctrine of Scripture, under the title of "The Revelation of the
Promise." Election is treated according to the view of earlier Calvinism
as a means of grace, and an evidence of the "invincible power" of the
Godhead in salvation. The "notes by which the true Kirk is discerned
from the false" are said to be the true preaching of the Word of God,
the right administration of the sacraments, and ecclesiastical
discipline rightly administered. The authority of Scriptures is said to
come from God, and to depend neither "on man nor angels"; and the Church
knows them to be true, because "the true kirk always heareth and obeyeth
the voice of her own spouse and pastor."
Randolph says in a letter to Cecil (September 7th, 1560) that before the
Confession was publicly read it was revised by Lethington and Lord James
Stewart, who "dyd mytigate the austeritie of maynie wordes and
sentences," and that a certain article which dealt with the "dysobediens
that subjects owe unto their magistrates" was advised to be left
out.[337] Thus amended it was read over, and then re-read article by
article in the Estates, and passed without alteration,[338]--"no man
present gainsaying."[339] When it was read before the Estates:
"Maynie offered to sheede ther blude in defence of the same. The
old Lord of Lynsay, as grave and goodly a man as ever I sawe, said,
'I have lyved maynie yeres, I am the eldest in thys Compagnie of my
sorte; nowe that yt hathe pleased God to lett me see thys daye wher
so maynie nobles and other have allowed so worthie a work, I will
say with Simion, _Nunc dimittis_.'"[340]
A copy was sent to Cecil, and Maitland of Lethington assured him that if
there was anything in the Confession of Faith which the English Minister
misliked, "It may eyther be changed (if the mater so permit) or at least
in some thyng qualifieed"; which shows the anxiety of the Scots to keep
step with their English allies.[341]
The authors of the Confession were asked to draw up a short statement
showing how a Reformed Church could best be governed. The result was the
remarkable document which was afterwards called the _First Book of
Discipline_, or _the Policie and Discipline of the Church_.[342] It
provided for the government of the Church by kirk-sessions, synods, and
general assemblies; and recognised as office-bearers in the Church,
ministers, teachers, elders, deacons, superintendents, and readers. The
authors of this Book of Discipline professed to go directly to Scripture
for the outlines of the system of Church government which they advised
their countrymen to adopt, and their profession was undoubtedly sincere
and likewise just. They were, however, all of them men in sympathy with
Calvin, and had had personal intercourse with the Protestants of France.
Their form of government is clearly inspired by Calvin's ideas as stated
in his _Institution_, and follows closely the Ecclesiastical Ordinances
of the French Church. The offices of superintendent and reader were
added to the usual threefold or fourfold Presbyterian form of
government. The former was due to the unsettled state of the country and
the scarcity of Protestant pastors. The _Superintendents_ took charge of
districts corresponding not very exactly with the Episcopal dioceses,
and were ordered to make annual reports to the General Assembly of the
ecclesiastical and religious state of their provinces, and to preach in
the various churches in their district. The _Readers_ owed their
existence to the small number of Protestant pastors, to the great
importance attached by the early Scottish Reformers to an educated
ministry, and also to the difficulty of procuring funds for the support
of pastors in every parish. They were of two classes--those of a higher
grade, who were permitted to deliver addresses and who were called
_Exhorters_; and those of the lower grade, whose duty it was to read
"distinctly" the Common Prayers and the Scriptures. Both classes were
expected to teach the younger children. _Exhorters_ who studied theology
diligently and satisfied the synod of their learning could rise to be
ministers. The Book of Discipline contains a chapter on the patrimony of
the Church which urges the necessity of preserving monies possessed by
the Church for the maintenance of religion, the support of education,
and the help of the poor. The presence of this chapter prevented the
book being accepted by the Estates in the same way as the Confession of
Faith. The barons, greater and lesser, who sat there had in too many
cases appropriated the "patrimony of the Kirk" to their own private
uses, and were unwilling to sign a document which condemned their
conduct. The Book of Discipline approved by the General Assembly, and
signed by a large number of the nobles and burgesses, never received the
legal sanction accorded to the Confession.
The General Assembly of the Reformed Church of Scotland met for the
first time in 1560; and thereafter, in spite of the struggle in which
the Church was involved, meetings were held generally twice a year,
sometimes oftener, and the Church was organised for active work.
A third book, variously called _The Book of Common Order_,[343] _The
Order of Geneva_, and now frequently _Knox's Liturgy_, was a directory
for the public worship and services of the Church. It was usually bound
up with a metrical version of the Psalms, and is often spoken of as the
_Psalm Book_.
_Calvin's Catechism_ was translated and ordered to be used for the
instruction of the youth in the faith. Later, the _Heidelberg Catechism_
was translated and annotated for the same purpose. They were both
superseded by _Craig's Catechism_, which in its turn gave way to the
_Larger_ and _Shorter Catechisms_ of the Westminster Divines.[344]
The democratic ideas of Presbyterianism, enforced by the practical
necessity of trusting in the people, made the Scotch Reformers pay great
attention to education. All the leaders of the Reformation, whether in
Germany, France, or Holland, had felt the importance of enlightening the
commonalty; but perhaps Scotland and Holland were the two countries
where the attempt was most successful. The education of the people was
no new thing in Scotland; and although in the troublous times before and
during the Reformation high schools had disappeared and the
Universities had decayed, still the craving for learning had not
altogether died out. Knox and his friend George Buchanan had a
magnificent scheme of endowing schools in every parish, high schools or
colleges in all important towns, and of increasing the power and
influence of the Universities. Their scheme, owing to the greed of the
Barons, who had seized the Church property, was little more than a
devout imagination; but it laid hold on the mind of Scotland, and the
lack of endowments was more than compensated by the craving of the
people for education. The three Universities of St. Andrews, Glasgow,
and Aberdeen took new life, and a fourth, the University of Edinburgh,
was founded. Scotch students who had been trained in the continental
schools of learning, and who had embraced the Reformed faith, were
employed to superintend the newly-organised educational system of the
country, and the whole organisation was brought into sympathy with the
everyday life of the people by the preference given to day schools over
boarding schools, and by a system of inspection by the most pious and
learned men in each circle of parishes. Knox also was prepared to order
compulsory attendance at school on the part of two classes of society,
the upper and the lower--the middle class he thought might be trusted to
its own natural desire for learning; and he wished to see the State so
exercise power and patronage as to lay hold on all youths "of parts" and
compel them to proceed to the high schools and Universities, that the
commonwealth might get the greatest good of their service.
The form of Church government given in the _First Book of Discipline_
represented rather an outline requiring to be filled in than a picture
of what actually existed for many a year after 1560. It provided for a
form of Church government by ecclesiastical councils rising from the
Session of the individual congregation up to a National Assembly, and
its first requisite was a fully organised church in every parish ruled
by a minister with his Session or council of Elders and his body of
Deacons. But there was a great lack of men having the necessary amount
of education to be ordained as ministers, and consequently there were
few fully equipped congregations. The first court in existence was the
Kirk-Session; it was in being in every organised congregation. The
second in order of time was the General Assembly. Its first meeting was
in Edinburgh, Dec. 20th, 1560. Forty-two members were present, of whom
only six were ministers. These were the small beginnings from which it
grew. The Synods came into existence later. At first they were yearly
gatherings of the ministry of the Superintendent's district, to which
each congregation within the district was asked to send an Elder and a
Deacon. The Court of the Presbytery came latest into existence; it had
its beginnings in the "weekly exercise."
The work had been rapidly done. Barely a year had elapsed between the
return of Knox to Scotland and the establishment of the Reformed
religion by the Estates. Calvin wrote from Geneva (Nov. 8th, 1559):
"As we wonder at success incredible in so short a time, so also we
give great thanks to God, whose special blessing here shines
forth."
And Knox himself, writing from the midst of the battle, says:[345]
"We doe nothing but goe about Jericho, blowing with trumpets, as
God giveth strength, hoping victorie by his power alone."[346]
But dangers had been imminent; shot at through his window, deadly
ambushes set, and the man's powers taxed almost beyond endurance:
"In twenty-four hours I have not four free to naturall rest and
ease of this wicked carcass ... I have nead of a good and an
assured horse, for great watch is laid for my apprehension, and
large money promissed till any that shall kyll me."[347]
If the victory had been won, it was not secured. The sovereigns Mary and
Francis had refused to ratify the Acts of their Estates; and it was not
until Mary was deposed in 1567 that the Acts of the Estates of 1560 were
legally placed on the Statute Book of Scotland. Francis II. died in 1560
(Dec. 5th), and Mary the young and widowed Queen returned to her native
land (Aug. 19th, 1561). Her coming was looked forward to with dread by
the party of the Reformation.
There was abundant reason for alarm. Mary was the Stuart Queen; she
represented France, the old hereditary ally; she had been trained from
childhood by a consummate politician and deadly enemy of the
Reformation, her uncle the Cardinal of Lorraine, to be his instrument to
win back Scotland and England to the deadliest type of Romanism. She was
a lovely creature, and was, besides, gifted with a power of personal
fascination greater than her physical charms, and such as no other woman
of her time possessed; she had a sweet caressing voice, beautiful hands;
and not least, she had a gift of tears at command. She had been brought
up at a Court where women were taught to use all such charms to win men
for political ends. The _Escadron volant de la Reine_ had not come into
existence when Mary left France, but its recruits were ready, and some
of them had been her companions. She had made it clearly understood that
she meant to overthrow the Reformation in Scotland.[348] Her
unscrupulous character was already known to Knox and the other
Protestant leaders. Nine days before her marriage she had signed deeds
guaranteeing the ancient liberties and independence of Scotland; six
days after her marriage she and her husband had appended their
signatures to the same deeds; but twenty days before her wedding she had
secretly signed away these very liberties, and had made Scotland a mere
appanage of France.[349] They suspected that the party in France whose
figure-head she was, would stick at no crime to carry out their designs,
and had shown what they were ready to do by poisoning four of the Scotch
Commissioners sent to Paris for their young Queen's wedding, because
they refused to allow Francis to be immediately crowned King of
Scotland.[350] They knew how apt a pupil she had already shown herself
in their school, when she led her boy husband and her ladies for a walk
round the Castle of Amboise, to see the bodies of dozens of Protestants
hung from lintels and turrets, and to contemplate "the fair clusters of
grapes which the grey stones had produced."[351]
It was scarcely wonderful that Lord James, Morton, and Lethington, were
it not for obedience' sake, "cared not thoughe theie never saw her
face," and felt that there was no safety for them but in Elizabeth's
protection. As for Knox, we are told: "Mr. Knox is determined to abide
the uttermost, and others will not leave him till God have taken his
life and theirs together."[352] What use might she not make of these
fascinations of hers on the vain, turbulent nobles of Scotland? Is it
too much to say that but for the passionate womanly impulse--so like a
Stuart[353]--which made her fling herself first into the arms of Darnley
and then of Bothwell, and but for Knox, she might have succeeded in
re-establishing Popery in Scotland and in reducing Protestant England?
Cecil himself was not without his fears, and urged the Protestants in
Scotland to stand firm. Randolph's answer shows how much he trusted
Knox's tenacity, however much he might sometimes deprecate his violence:
"Where your honour exhortethe us to stowteness, I assure you the
voyce of one man is hable in one hower to put more lyf in us than
five hundred trompettes contynually blusteringe in our eares."[354]
He was able to write after Mary's arrival:
"She (Mary) was four days without Mass; the next Sunday after
arrival she had it said in her chapel by a French priest. There
were at it besides her uncles and her own Household, the Earle of
Montrose, Lord Graham ... the rest were at Mr. Knox sermon, as
great a number as ever was any day."[355]
Mary's advisers, her uncles, knew how dangerous the state of Scotland
was for their designs, and counselled her to temporise and gradually win
over the leading Reforming nobles to her side. The young Queen entered
on her task with some zest. She insisted on having Mass for her own
household; but she would maintain, she promised, the laws which had made
the Mass illegal in Scotland; and it says a great deal for her powers of
fascination and dissimulation that there was scarcely one of the
Reforming nobles that she did not win over to believe in her sincerity
at one time or another, and that even the sagacious Randolph seemed for
a time to credit that she meant what she said.[356] Knox alone in
Scotland read her character and paid unwilling tribute to her abilities
from his first interview with her.[357]
He saw that she had been thoroughly trained by her uncles, and
especially by the Cardinal of Lorraine, and that it was hopeless to
expect anything like fair dealing from her:
"In verry dead hir hole proceadings do declayr that the Cardinalles
lessons ar so deaplie prented in hir heart, that the substance and
the qualitie ar liek to perische together. 1 wold be glaid to be
deceaved, but I fear I shall not. In communication with her, I
espyed such craft as I have not found in such aige."[358]
Maitland of Lethington thought otherwise. Writing to Cecil (Oct. 25th,
1561) he says:
"You know the vehemency of Mr. Knox spreit, which cannot be
brydled.... I wold wishe he shold deale with her more gently,
_being a young princess unpersuaded_."[359]
It was thought that Mary might be led to adopt the Reformation if she
were only tenderly guided. When Mary's private correspondence is read,
when the secret knowledge which her co-religionists abroad had of her
designs is studied and known, it can be seen how true was Knox's reading
of her character and of her intentions.[360] He stood firm, almost alone
at times among the leading men, but faithfully supported by the commons
of Scotland.[361]
Then began the struggle between the fascinating Queen, Mary Stuart, one
of the fairest flowers of the French Renaissance, and the unbending
preacher, trained in the sternest school of the Reformation movement--a
struggle which was so picturesque, in which the two opponents had each
such strongly marked individuality, and in which the accessories were
so dramatic, that the spectator insensibly becomes absorbed in the
personal side of the conflict, and is tempted to forget that it was part
of a Revolution which was convulsing the whole of middle and western
Europe.
A good deal has been written about the rudeness with which Knox assailed
Mary in public and in private, and his conversations with her are
continually referred to but seldom quoted in full. It is forgotten that
it was Mary who wished to try her gifts of fascination on the preacher,
just as Catherine de' Medici tried to charm de Bèze before Poissy; that
Knox never sought an interview; that he never approached the Court
unless he was summoned by the sovereign to her presence; that he was
deferential as a subject should be; and it was only when he was
compelled by Mary herself to speak on themes for which he was ready to
lay down his life that he displayed a sternness which monarchs seldom
experience in those to whom they give audience. What makes these
interviews stand forth in history is that they exhibit the first clash
of autocratic kingship and the hitherto unknown power of the people. It
was an age in which sovereigns were everywhere gaining despotic power,
when the might of feudal barons was being broken, when the commonalty
was dumb. A young Queen, whose training from childhood had stamped
indelibly on her character that kingship meant the possession of
unlimited autocratic privileges before which everything must give way,
who had seen that none in France had dared dispute the will of her
sickly, dull boy-husband simply because he was King, was suddenly
confronted by something above and beyond her comprehension:
"'What have ye to do,' said sche, 'with my marriage? Or what ar ye
within this Commounwealth?' '_A subject borne within the same_,'
said he, 'Madam. And albeit I neather be Erle, Lord, nor Barroun
within it, yitt hes God maid me (how abject that ever I be in your
eyes) a profitable member within the same.'"[362]
Modern democracy came into being in that answer. It is curious to see
how this conflict between autocratic power and the civil and religious
rights of the people runs through all the interviews between Mary and
Knox, and was, in truth, the question of questions between them.[363]
It is unnecessary to tell the story of the seven years of struggle
between 1560 and 1567. In the end, Mary was imprisoned in Lochleven
Castle, deposed, and her infant son, James VI., was placed on the
throne. Lord James Stewart, Earl of Moray, was made Regent. The Estates
or Parliament again voted the Confession of Faith, and engrossed it in
their Acts. The Regent, acting for the sovereign, signed the Acts. The
Confession thus became part of the law of the land, and the Reformed
Church was legally recognised in Scotland.
BOOK IV.
_THE REFORMATION IN ENGLAND_
CHAPTER I.
THE CHURCH OF HENRY VIII.[364]
The Church and people of England broke away from the mediæval papal
ecclesiastical system in a manner so exceptional, that the rupture had
not very much in common with the contemporary movements in France and
Germany. Henry VIII. destroyed the papal supremacy, spiritual and
temporal, within the land which he governed; he cut the bands which
united the Church of England with the great Western Church ruled over by
the Bishop of Rome; he built up what may be called a kingly papacy on
the ruins of the jurisdiction of the Pope. His starting-point was a
quarrel with the Pope, who refused to divorce him from Catharine of
Aragon.
It would be a mistake, however, to think that Henry's eagerness to be
divorced from Catharine accounts for the English Reformation. No king,
however despotic, could have forced on such a revolution unless there
was much in the life of the people that reconciled them to the change,
and evidence of this is abundantly forthcoming.
There was a good deal of _heresy_, so called, in England long before
Luther's voice had been heard in Germany. Men maintained that the tithes
were exactions of covetous priests, and were not sanctioned by the law
of God; they protested against the hierarchical constitution of the
mediæval Church; they read the Scriptures, and attended services in the
vernacular; and they scoffed at the authority of the Church and attacked
some of its doctrines. Lollardy had never died out in England, and
Lollardy was simply the English form of that passive protest against the
mediæval Church which under various names had maintained itself in
France, Germany, and Bohemia for centuries in spite of persecution.
Foxe's _Acts and Monuments_ show that there was a fairly active
repression of so-called heresy in England before Luther's days, and his
accounts are confirmed by the State Papers of the period. In 1511,
Andreas Ammonius, the Latin secretary of Henry VIII., writing to
Erasmus, says that wood has grown scarce and dear because so much was
needed to burn heretics, "and yet their numbers grow." Yet Dr. James
Gairdner declares that only a solitary pair had suffered during that
year at the stake![365] Early in 1512 the Archbishop of Canterbury
summoned a meeting of convocation for the express purpose of arresting
the spread of heresy;[366] in that same year Erasmus was told by More
that the _Epistolæ Obscurorum Virorum_ were popular everywhere
throughout England;[367] and a commission was given to the Bishop of
Coventry and others to inquire about Lollards in Wales and other
parts;[368] and as late as 1521 the Bishop of London arrested five
hundred Lollards.[369] In 1530, Henry VIII. himself, always curious
about theology and anxious to know about the books which interested his
subjects, sent to Oxford for a copy of the Articles on which Wiclif had
been condemned.[370] Anyone who scoffed at relics or pilgrimages was
thought to be a Wiclifite.[371] In 1531, divinity students were required
to take an oath to renounce the doctrines of Wiclif, Hus, and
Luther;[372] and in 1533, More, writing to Erasmus, calls Tyndale and
his sympathisers Wiclifites.[373] Henry VIII. was engaged as early as
1518 in composing a book against heresy and vindicating the claims of
the Roman See, which in its first inception could scarcely be directed
against Luther, and probably dealt with the views of home heretics.[374]
Some modern historians are inclined to find a strong English revolt
against Rome native to the soil and borrowing little or nothing from
Luther, which they believe to have been the initial force at work in
shaping the English Reformation. Mr. Pollard points out that in many
particulars this Reformation followed the lines laid down by Wiclif. Its
leaders, like Wiclif, denounced the Papal Supremacy on the ground of the
political injury it did to the English people; declaimed against the
sloth, immorality, and wealth of the English ecclesiastics; advocated a
preaching ministry; and looked to the secular power to restrain the
vices and reform the manners of the clergy, and to govern the Church. He
shows that
"most of the English Reformers were acquainted with Wycliffe's
works: Cranmer declares that he set forth the truth of the Gospel;
Hooper recalls how he resisted 'the popish doctrine of the Mass';
Ridley, how he denied transubstantiation; and Bale, how he
denounced the friars.... Bale records with triumph that, in spite
of the efforts to suppress (the writings of Wicliffe), not one had
utterly perished."[375]
And Dr. Rashdall goes the length of saying:
"It is certain that the Reformation had virtually broken out in the
secret Bible-readings of the Cambridge Reformers before either the
trumpet-call of Luther or the exigencies of Henry VIII.'s personal
and political position set men free once more to talk openly
against the Pope and the monks, and to teach a simpler and more
spiritual gospel than the system against which Wycliffe had
striven."[376]
Even if it be admitted that these statements are somewhat strong, they
at least call attention to the fact of the vigorous Lollard leaven which
permeated the English people, and are a very necessary corrective of the
misleading assertions of Dr. James Gairdner on the matter.
Henry VIII. had other popular forces behind him--the rooted dislike to
the clergy which characterised a large mass of the people, the effects
of the teaching of the Christian Humanists of England, and the spread of
Lutheran opinions throughout the land.
The Bishop of London, writing to Wolsey about the proposal to try his
Chancellor, Dr. Horsey, for complicity in the supposed murder of Richard
Hunne, declared that if the Chancellor
"be tried by any twelve men in London, they be so maliciously set
_in favorem hæreticæ pravitatis_ that they will cast and condemn
any clerk though he were as innocent as Abel."[377]
This dislike was not confined to the capital. The Parliaments showed
themselves anti-clerical long before Henry had thrown off his allegiance
to Rome;[378] and Englishmen could find no better term of insult to
throw at the Scots than to call them "Pope's men."[379]
Nor should the work of the Christian Humanists be forgotten. The double
tendency in their longings for a reformation of the abuses of
superstition, of pilgrimages, of relic-worship, etc., may be seen in the
lives of Sir Thomas More and of William Tyndale. When the former saw
that reform meant the breaking up of the mediæval Church, he became more
and more conservative. But More in 1520 (Feb. 28th) could write to Lea
that if the Pope (Leo X.) should withdraw his approval of Erasmus' Greek
New Testament, Luther's attacks on the Holy See were piety itself
compared with such a deed.[380] Tyndale, the favourite pupil of Dean
Colet, on the other hand, went forward and earned the martyr's crown.
These Christian Humanists had expected much from Henry VIII., whom they
looked on as imbued with the New Learning; and in the end perhaps they
were not altogether mistaken. If the _Bishops' Book_ and the _King's
Book_ be studied, it will be seen that in both what is insisted upon is
a reformation of conduct and a study of the Bible--quite in the spirit
of Colet and of Erasmus.
The writings of Luther found early entrance into England, and were read
by King[381] and people. A long list of them, including six copies of
his work _De potestate Papæ_, is to be found in the stock of the Oxford
bookseller, John Dorne[382] (1520). Erasmus, writing to Oecolampadius
(May 15th, 1521), declares that there are many of Luther's books in
England, and hints that but for his exertions they would have been
burnt.[383] That was before Luther's official condemnation. On May 28th,
Silvester, Bishop of Worcester, wrote to Wolsey from Rome announcing
that the Cardinals had agreed to declare Martin a heretic, and that a
Bull was being prepared on the subject.[384] The Bull itself appeared in
Rome on the 15th of June; and thereafter our information about Luther's
writings in England comes from evidence of endeavours to destroy them.
Warham, the Archbishop of Canterbury, wrote to Wolsey (March 8th, 1521)
that he had received letters from Oxford which declared that the
University was infected with Lutheranism, and that the forbidden books
were in circulation there.[385] Indeed, most of the canons appointed to
Wolsey's new foundation of the Cardinal College were suspect. Cambridge
was as bad, if not worse. Members of the University met at the White
Horse Tavern to read and discuss Luther's writings; the inn was called
"Germany," and those who frequented it "the Germans." Pope Leo urged
both the King and Wolsey to prevent the circulation of Lutheran
literature; and they did their best to obey. We read that on May 12th,
1521, Wolsey went in great state to St. Paul's, and after various
ceremonies mounted a scaffold, seated himself "under a cloth of estate,"
and listened to a sermon preached by Bishop Fisher against Lutheran
errors. At his feet on the right side sat the Pope's ambassadors and
the Archbishop of Canterbury, and on the left side the imperial
ambassadors and the Bishop of Durham. While the sermon was being
preached, numbers of Lutheran books were burnt in a huge bonfire kindled
hard by in St. Paul's Churchyard.[386] The representatives of Pope and
Emperor saw it all, and doubtless reported to their respective Courts
that Wolsey was doing his duty by Church and Empire. It may be doubted
whether such theatrical exhibitions hindered the spread of Luther's
books in England or prevented them being read.
All these things indicated a certain preparedness in England for the
Reformation, and all meant that there was a strong national force behind
Henry VIII. when he at last made up his mind to defy Rome.
Nor was a national separation from Rome so formidable an affair as Dr.
Gairdner would have us believe. The Papacy had secularised itself, and
European monarchs were accustomed to treat the Popes as secular princes.
The possibility of England breaking away from papal authority and
erecting itself into a separate patriarchate under the Archbishop of
Canterbury had been thought probable before the divorce was talked
about.[387]
It was Henry himself who clung strenuously to the conception of papal
supremacy, and who advocated it in a manner only done hitherto by
canonists of the Roman Curia. Whatever be the secret reason which he
gave to Sir Thomas More, and which silenced the latter's remonstrances,
it is evident that the validity of Henry's marriage and the legitimacy
of his children by Catharine of Aragon depended on the Pope being in
possession of the very fullest powers of dispensation. Henry had been
married to Catharine under very peculiar circumstances, which might
well suggest doubts about the validity of the marriage ceremony.
The England of Henry VII. was almost as much a satellite of Spain as
Scotland was of France, and to make the alliance still stronger a
marriage was arranged between Arthur, Prince of Wales, and Catharine the
youngest of the three daughters of Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain. The
Spanish Princess landed at Plymouth (October 2nd, 1501), and the wedding
took place in St. Paul's on November 14th. But Prince Arthur died a few
months afterwards (April 2nd, 1502), and Catharine became a widow. The
circumstances of the two nations appeared to require more than ever the
cementing of the alliance by intermarriage, and it was proposed from the
side of Spain that the young widow should marry Henry, her
brother-in-law, now Prince of Wales.[388] Ferdinand brought pressure to
bear on England by insisting that if this were not done Catharine should
be sent back to Spain and the first instalment of her dowry (all that
had been paid) returned. The two Kings then besieged the Pope, Julius
II., to grant a dispensation for the marriage. At first His Holiness was
very unwilling to consent. Such a marriage had been branded as sin by
canonical law, and the Pope himself had great doubts whether it was
competent for him to grant a dispensation in such a case.[389] In the
end he was persuaded to give it. The two young people had their own
scruples of conscience. Ferdinand felt called upon to reason with his
proposed son-in-law.[390] The confessor of his daughter was
changed.[391] The Archbishop of Canterbury, who doubted whether the Pope
could grant dispensation for what was a mortal sin in his eyes, was
silenced.[392] The wedding took place (June 11th, 1509).
The marriage was in one sense singularly unfortunate. The first four
children were either stillborn or died soon after birth; and it was
rumoured in Rome as early as 1514 that Henry might ask to be divorced in
order to save England from a disputed succession. Mary was born in 1516
and survived, but all the children who came afterwards were either
stillborn or died in early infancy. It became evident by 1525 that if
Henry did not divorce his wife he would have no male heir.
There is no doubt that the lack of a male heir troubled Henry greatly.
The English people had not been accustomed to a female sovereign; it was
currently, if erroneously, reported in England that the laws of the land
did not permit a woman to be sovereign, and such well-informed
diplomatists as the Venetian Ambassadors believed the statement;[393]and
the Tudor dynasty was not so firmly settled on the throne that it could
afford to look forward to a disputed succession. The King's first idea
was to ask the Pope to legitimise his illegitimate son the Duke of
Richmond;[394]and Cardinal Campeggio actually suggested that the
Princess Mary should be married to her half-brother.[395] These projects
came to an end with the death of the young Prince.
There seems to be no reason for questioning the sincerity of Henry's
doubts about the legitimacy of his marriage with Catharine, or that he
actually looked upon the repeated destruction of his hopes of a male
heir as a divine punishment for the sin of that contract.[396]Questions
of national policy and impulses of passion quicken marvellously
conscientious convictions, but they do not show that the convictions are
not real. In the perplexities of his position the shortest way out
seemed to be to ask the Pope to declare that he had never been legally
married to Catharine. If he had scruples of conscience about his
marriage with his brother's widow, this would end them; if the fears of
a disputed succession haunted him, he could marry again, and might hope
for a son and a lawful heir whose succession none would dispute.
Cardinal Wolsey adopted his master's plans, and the Pope was to be asked
for a declaration that the marriage with Catharine had been no marriage
at all.
There entered, however, into all this, at what time it is not easy to
determine, an element of sordidness which goes ill with asserted
scruples of conscience and imperious necessities of State. Wolsey was
astonished when he learned that Henry had made up his mind to marry Anne
Boleyn, a lady whose station in life and personal reputation unfitted
her for the position of Queen of England. It was Henry's inordinate, if
not very long-lived, passion for this lady that put him in the wrong,
and enabled the Pope to pose as the guardian of the public morality of
Europe.
It is plain that Henry VIII. fully expected that the Pope would declare
his first marriage invalid; there was many a precedent for such
action--two in Henry's own family;[397] and the delay had nothing to do
with the interests of public morality. The Pope was at the time
practically in the power of Charles V., to whom his aunt, the injured
Catharine, had appealed, and who had promised her his protection. One
has only to study the phases of the protracted proceedings in the
"Divorce" and compare them with the contemporary situation in Italy to
see that all that the Curia cared for was the success of the papal
diplomacy in the Italian peninsula. The interests of morality were so
little in his mind that Clement proposed to Henry more than once that
the King might take a second wife without going through the formality of
having his first marriage declared null and void.[398] This had been
the papal solution of the matter in an earlier instance, and Clement
VII. saw no reasons why what had been allowed to a King of Spain should
be denied to the King of England.[399] He was prepared to tolerate
bigamy, but not to thwart Charles, so long as the Emperor was master
within Italy.[400]
It is needless to follow the intricacies of the Divorce. The protracted
proceedings were an object lesson for English statesmen. They saw a
grave moral question--whether a man could lawfully marry his deceased
brother's widow; a matter vitally affecting the welfare of the English
people--the possibility of a disputed succession; the personal wishes of
a powerful, strong-willed, and choleric sovereign (for all
considerations were present, not only the last)--all subjected to the
shifting needs of a petty Italian prince. So far as England was
concerned, the grave interest in the case ended when Campeggio adjourned
the inquiry (July 23rd, 1529). Henry knew that he could not expect the
Pope to give him what he wanted; and although his agents fought the case
at Rome, he at once began preparing for the separation from papal
jurisdiction.
The English nobles, who had long chafed under the rule of Wolsey, took
advantage of the great Minister's failure in the Divorce negotiations to
press forward his downfall. He was deprived of the Lord Chancellorship,
which was given to Sir Thomas More, and was further indicted before the
King's Bench for infringement of the law of _Præmunire_--an accusation
to which he pleaded guilty.[401]
Meanwhile Henry had taken measures to summon a Parliament; and in the
interval between summons and assembly, it had been suggested to him
that Cranmer was of opinion that the best way to deal with the Divorce
was to take it out of the hands of the Curia and consult the canonists
of the various Universities of Europe. Cranmer was instructed to prepare
the case to be laid before them. This was done so successfully that the
two great English Universities, the French Universities of Paris,
Orleans, Bourges, and Toulouse, decided that the King's marriage with
Catharine was not valid; the Italian Universities of Ferrara, Padua,
Pavia, and Bologna came to the same conclusion in spite of a
proclamation issued by the Pope prohibiting all doctors from maintaining
the invalid nature of the King's marriage.[402]
Parliament met on November 3rd, 1529, and, from the matters brought
before it, received the name of the "Parliament for the enormities of
the clergy."[403] It revealed the force of lay opinion on which Henry
might count in the struggle he was about to begin with the clergy. With
a view of strengthening his hands still further, the King summoned an
assembly of Notables,[404] which met on June 12th, 1530, and addressed
the Pope in a letter in which they prayed him to consent to the King's
desire, pointed out the evils which would follow from delaying the
Divorce, and hinted that they might be compelled to take the matter into
their own hands. This seems to have been the general feeling among the
laity of England; for a foreigner writing to the Republic of Florence
says: "Nothing else is thought of in that island every day, except of
arranging affairs in such a way that they do no longer be in want of the
Pope, neither for filling vacancies in the Church, nor for any other
purpose."[405]
Having made himself sure of the great mass of the laity, Henry next set
himself to force the clergy into submission. He suddenly charged them
all with being guilty of _Præmunire_ because they had accepted the
authority of Papal Legates within the kingdom; and managed to extort a
sum of £100,000, to be paid in five yearly instalments, by way of a fine
from the clergy of the Province of Canterbury.[406] At the same meeting
of Convocation (1531) the clergy were compelled, under threat of the law
of _Præmunire_, to declare that the King was "their singular protector
and only supreme lord, and, _as far as that is permitted by the law of
Christ_, the Supreme Head of the Church and of the clergy." The
ambiguity in the acknowledgment left a loophole for weak consciences;
but the King was satisfied with the phrase, feeling confident that he
could force his own interpretation of the acknowledgment on the Church.
"It is all the same," Charles V.'s ambassador wrote to his master, "as
far as the King is concerned, as if they had made no reservation; for no
one now will be so bold as to contest with his lord the importance of
this reservation."[407]
This acknowledgment was, according to the King, simply a clearer
statement of what was contained in the old statutes of _Præmunire_, and
in all his subsequent ecclesiastical legislation he claimed that he was
only giving effect to the earlier laws of England.
The Parliament of 1532 gave the King important assistance in forcing on
the submission, not only of the clergy of England, but of the Pope, to
his wishes. The Commons presented a petition complaining of various
grievances affecting the laity in the working of the ecclesiastical
courts, which was sent with a set of demands from the King to the
Convocation. The result was the important resolution of Convocation (May
15th, 1532) which is called the _Submission of the Clergy_, where it is
promised not to make any new canons without the King's licence and
ratification, and to submit all previous canons to a committee of
revision, to consist of thirty-two persons, sixteen from Parliament and
sixteen from the clergy, and all to be chosen by the King. This
committee was to expunge all containing anything prejudicial to the
King's prerogative. This Act of Convocation practically declared that
the Church of England could neither make any rules for its own guidance
without the King's permission, nor act according to the common law of
the mediæval Church when that, in the King's opinion, invaded the royal
prerogative.[408] From this Act the Church of England has never been
able to free itself. The other deed of this Parliament which was
destined to be of the greatest use to Henry in his dealings with the
Pope was an Act dealing with the _annates_, _i.e._ one year's income
from all ecclesiastical benefices paid to the Pope on entrance into any
benefice. The Act declared that the _annates_ should be withheld from
the Pope and given to the King, but permitted His Majesty to suspend its
operation so long as it pleased him.[409] It was the suspensory clause
which enabled Henry to coerce the Pope, and he was not slow to take
advantage of it.[410] Writing to Rome (March 21st, 1532), he said: "The
Pope and Cardinals may gain our friendship by truth and justice. Take
care that they do not hope or despair too much from this power which has
been committed to us by the statute. I do not mean to deceive them, but
to tell them the fact that this statute will be to their advantage, if
they show themselves deserving of it; if not, otherwise. Nothing has
been defined at present, which must be to their advantage if they do not
despise my friendship."[411]
Archbishop Warham, who had presided at the Convocation which made the
submission of the clergy, died in August 1532; and Henry resolved that
Cranmer, notwithstanding his unwillingness, should succeed him as
Archbishop of Canterbury. Cranmer conscientiously believed that the
royal supremacy was a good thing, and would cure many of the
ecclesiastical evils which no appeals to the Pope seemed able to reform;
and he was also convinced that the marriage of Henry with Catharine had
been one for which not even the highest ecclesiastical authority could
give a dispensation. He was prepared to carry out the King's wishes in
both respects. He could not be an acceptable Primate to the Roman Curia.
Yet Henry, by threatening the Pope with the loss of the _annates_,
actually compelled him to send Bulls to England, and that with unusual
speed, ratifying the appointment to the Primacy of a man who was known
to believe in the nullity of the King's marriage, and to be ready to
give effect to his opinion; and this at a time when the Parliament of
England had declared that the Primate's court was the supreme
ecclesiastical tribunal for the English Church and people. The deed made
the Curia really responsible for almost all that followed in England.
For Parliament in February 1533, acting on the submission of the clergy,
had passed an Act prohibiting all appeals to Rome from the Archbishop's
court, and ordering that, if any appeals were taken, they must be to the
King's Court of Chancery. This was the celebrated Act of Restraint of
Appeals.[412]
In the beginning of 1533 (Jan. 25th), Henry VIII. was privately married
to Anne Boleyn. He had taken the Pope's advice in this one particular,
to get married without waiting for the Divorce; but soon afterwards
(April 5th) he got from the Convocation of Canterbury a document
declaring that the Pope had no power to grant a dispensation in such a
case as the marriage of Henry with Catharine;[413] and the Act of
Restraint of Appeals had made such a decision practically final so far
as England was concerned.
Cranmer was consecrated Archbishop of Canterbury on March 30th, 1533.
His opinions were known. He had been one of the Cambridge "Germans"; he
had freely consorted with Lutheran divines in Germany; he had begun to
pray in private for the abolition of the Pope's power in England as
early as 1525; and it was not without reason that Chapuys called him a
"Lutheran."[414]
On April 11th, 1533, the new Primate asked the King to permit him to try
the question of the Divorce before his own ecclesiastical court; and
leave was granted him on the following day, as the principal minister
"of our spiritual jurisdiction."[415] The trial was begun, and the
court, acting on the decisions of Convocation two months earlier, which
had declared[416] that no dispensation could be given for a marriage
with the widow of a brother provided the marriage had been consummated,
and[417] that the marriage between Arthur and Catharine had been
consummated, pronounced that the marriage between the King and Catharine
of Aragon was null and void.[418] This was followed by an inquiry about
the marriage between the King and Anne Boleyn, which was pronounced
valid, and preparations were made for the coronation of Queen Anne,
which took place on June 1st, 1533.[419]
This act of defiance to Rome was at once resented by the Pope. The Curia
declared that the marriage between Henry and Catharine was lawful, and a
Bull was issued commanding Henry to restore Catharine and put away Anne
within ten days on pain of excommunication; which sentence the Emperor,
all Christian Princes, and Henry's own subjects were called upon to
execute by force of arms.[420]
The action at Rome was answered from England by the passing of several
strong Acts of Parliament--all in 1534. They completed the separation of
the Church and people of England from the See of Rome.
1. The Act forbidding the payment of _annates_ to the Pope was again
introduced, and this time made absolute; no _annates_ were for the
future to be sent to Rome as the first-fruits of any benefice. In the
same Act new provisions were made for the appointment of Bishops; they
were for the future to be elected by the Deans and Chapters on receiving
a royal letter of leave and nomination.[421]
2. An Act forbidding the payment of Peter's Pence to the Bishop of Rome;
forbidding all application to the Pope for dispensations; and declaring
that all such dispensations were to be sought for in the ecclesiastical
courts within England.[422]
3. The Act of Succession, which was followed by a second within the same
year in which the nullity of the marriage of Henry with Catharine of
Aragon was clearly stated, and Catharine was declared to be the
"Princess of Wales," _i.e._ the widow of Arthur; which affirms the
validity of the King's marriage with Anne Boleyn, and declares that all
the issue of that marriage are legitimate; and which affirms that,
failing male succession, the crown falls to the Princess Elizabeth.[423]
4. The Supremacy Act, which declares that the King is rightfully the
_Supreme Head of the Church of England_, has been recognised as such by
Convocation, and that it is within his powers to make ecclesiastical
visitations and to redress ecclesiastical abuses.[424]
5. The Treasons Act must also be included, inasmuch as one of its
provisions is that it is treason to deny to the King any of his lawful
titles (the Supreme Head of the Church of England being one), and that
treason includes calling the King a heretic or a schismatic.[425]
To complete the list, it is necessary to mention that the two
Convocations of Canterbury and of York solemnly declared that "the Roman
Pontiff had no greater jurisdiction bestowed on him by God in the Holy
Scriptures than any other foreign (_externus_) Bishop"--a declaration
called the _Abjuration of the Papal Supremacy by the Clergy_.[426]
This separation of the Church of England from Rome really meant that
instead of there being a dual control, there was to be a single one
only. The Kings of England had always claimed to have some control over
the Church of their realm; Henry went further, and insisted that he
would share that supervision with no one. But it should be noticed that
what he did claim was, to use the terms of canon law, the _potestas
jurisdictionis_, not the _potestas ordinis_; he never asserted his right
to ordain or to control the sacraments. Nor was there at first any
change in definition of doctrines. The Church of England remained what
it had been in every respect, with the exception that the Bishop of Rome
was no longer recognised as the _Episcopus Universalis_, and that, if
appeals were necessary from the highest ecclesiastical courts in
England, they were not to be taken as formerly to Rome, but were to be
settled in the King's courts within the land of England. The power of
jurisdiction over the affairs of the Church could scarcely be exercised
by the King personally. Appeals could be settled by his judges in the
law courts, but he required a substitute to exercise his power of
visitation. This duty was given to Thomas Cromwell, who was made
Vicar-General,[427] and the office to some small extent may be said to
resemble that of the Papal Legate; he represented the King as the Legate
had represented the Pope.
It was impossible, however, for the Church of England to maintain
exactly the place which it had occupied. There was some stirring of
Reformation life in the land. Cranmer had been early attracted by the
writings of Luther; Thomas Cromwell was not unsympathetic, and,
besides, he had the idea that there would be some advantage gained
politically by an approach to the German Protestants. There was soon
talk about a set of Articles which would express the doctrinal beliefs
of the Church of England. It was, however, no easy matter to draft them.
While Cranmer, Cromwell, and such new Bishops as Latimer, had decided
leanings towards the theology of the Reformation, the older Bishops held
strongly by the mediæval doctrines. The result was that, after prolonged
consultations, little progress was made, and very varying doctrines seem
to have been taught, all of which tended to dispeace. In the end, the
King himself, to use his own words, "was constrained to put his own pen
to the book, and conceive certain articles which were agreed upon by
Convocation as catholic and meet to be set forth by authority."[428]
They were published in 1536 under the title, _Articles devised by the
Kyng's Highnes Majestie to stablysh Christen quietnes_, and were ordered
to be read "plainly" in the churches.[429] They came to be called the
_Ten Articles_, the first doctrinal symbol of the Church of England.
According to the preface, they were meant to secure, by royal authority,
unity and concord in religious beliefs, and to repress and utterly
extinguish all dissent and discord. Foxe the Martyrologist describes
them very accurately as meant for "weaklings newly weaned from their
mother's milk of Rome." Five deal with doctrines and five with
ceremonies. The Bible, the Three Creeds (Apostles', Nicene, and
Athanasian), and the doctrinal decisions of the first four Oecumenical
Councils, are to be regarded as the standards of orthodoxy; baptism is
necessary for salvation--children dying in infancy "shall undoubtedly be
saved thereby, and _else not_"; the Sacrament of Penance is retained
with confession and absolution, which are declared to be expedient and
necessary; the substantial, real, corporeal Presence of Christ's Body
and Blood under the form of Bread and Wine in the Eucharist is taught;
faith as well as charity is necessary to salvation; images are to remain
in the churches; the saints and the Blessed Virgin are to be reverenced
as intercessors; the saints are to be invoked; certain rites and
ceremonies, such as clerical vestments, sprinkling with holy water,
carrying candles on Candlemas Day, and sprinkling ashes on
Ash-Wednesday, are good and laudable; the doctrines of Purgatory and of
prayers for the dead were not denied, but people were warned about them.
It should be noticed that while the three Sacraments of Baptism, the
Eucharist, and Penance are retained, no mention is made of the other
four, and that this is not unlike what Luther taught in the _Babylonian
Captivity of the Church of Christ_; that while the Real Presence is
maintained, nothing is said about Transubstantiation; that while images
are retained in churches, all incensing, kneeling, or offering to images
is forbidden; that while saints and the Virgin may be invoked as
intercessors, it is said that it is a vain superstition to believe that
any saint can be more merciful than Christ Himself; and that the whole
doctrine of Attrition and Indulgences is paralysed by the statement that
amendment of life is a necessary part of Penance.
It is only when these Articles are read along with the _Injunctions_
issued in 1536 and 1538 that it can be fully seen how much they were
meant to wean the people, if gradually, from the gross superstition
which disgraced the popular mediæval religion. If this be done, they
seem an attempt to fulfil the aspirations of Christian Humanists like
Dean Colet and Erasmus.
After warning the clergy to observe all the laws made for the abolition
of the papal supremacy, all those insisting on the supremacy of the King
as the "supreme Head of the Church of England," and to preach against
the Pope's usurped power within the realm of England, the _Injunctions_
proceed to say that the clergy are to expound the _Ten Articles_ to
their people. In doing so they are to explain why superfluous holy days
ought not to be observed; they are to exhort their people against such
superstitions as images, relics, and priestly miracles. They are to
tell them that it is best to keep God's commandments, to fulfil His
works of charity, to provide for their families, and to bestow upon the
poor the money they often lavish on pilgrimages, images, and relics.
They are to see that parents and teachers instruct children from their
earliest years in the Lord's Prayer, the Creed, and the Ten
Commandments. They are to be careful that the sacraments are duly and
reverently administered within their parishes, are to set an example of
moral living, and are to give themselves to the study of the Scriptures.
The second set of _Injunctions_ (1538) goes further. The clergy are told
to provide "one whole Bible _of the largest volume_ in English," which
is to be set somewhere in the church where the parishioners can most
easily read it; and they are to beware of discouraging any man from
perusing it, "for it is the lively word of God that every Christian man
is bound to embrace and follow." They are to preach a sermon at least
every quarter, in which they are to declare the very gospel of Christ,
and to exhort the people to the works of charity, mercy, and faith
especially prescribed in the Scriptures. They are to warn them against
trusting to fancies entirely outside of Scripture, such as "wandering to
pilgrimages, offering of money or candles to images or relics, kissing
or licking the same, and saying over a number of beads or suchlike
superstitions." They are not to permit candles, tapers, or images of wax
to be placed before the images in the churches, in order to avoid "that
most detestable offence of idolatry."[430]
The _Ten Articles_ thus authoritatively expounded are anything but
"essentially Romish with the Pope left out in the cold." They are rather
an attempt to construct a brief creed which a pliant Lutheran and a
pliant Romanist might agree upon--a singularly successful attempt, and
one which does great credit to the theological attainments of the
English King.
It was thought good to have a brief manual of religious instruction to
place in the hands of the lower clergy and of the people, perhaps
because the _Ten Articles_ were not always well received. A committee of
divines, chiefly Bishops,[431] were appointed to "compile certain
rudiments of Christianity and a Catechism."[432] The result was a small
book, divided into four parts--an exposition of the Apostles' Creed, of
the _seven_ Sacraments, of the Ten Commandments, of the Lord's Prayer,
and the Ave Maria. Two other parts were added from the _Ten
Articles_--one on Justification, for which faith is said to be
necessary; and the other on Purgatory, which is stoutly denied. Great
difficulties were experienced in the compilation, owing to the "great
diversity of opinions"[433] which prevailed among the compilers; and the
book was a compromise between those who were stout for the old faith and
those who were keen for the new; but in the end all seemed satisfied
with their work. The chief difference between its teaching and that of
the _Ten Articles_ is that the name sacrament is given to seven and not
three of the chief ceremonies of the mediæval Church; but, on the other
hand, the doctrine of Purgatory is denied. It was expected that the King
would revise the book before its publication,[434] but he "had no time
convenient to overlook the great pains" bestowed upon it.[435] Drafts of
an imprimatur by the King have been found among the State Papers,[436]
but the book was finally issued in 1537 by the "Archbishops and Bishops
of England," and was therefore popularly called the _Bishops' Book_. All
the clergy were ordered "to read aloud from the pulpit every Sunday a
portion of this book" to their people.[437] The Catechism appears to
have been published at the same time, and to have been in large
request.[438]
Henry VIII. afterwards revised the _Bishops' Book_ according to his own
ideas. The revision was published in 1543, and was known as the _King's
Book_.[439]
Perhaps the greatest boon bestowed on the people of England by the _Ten
Articles_ and the _Injunctions_ which enforced them was the permission
to read and hear read a version of the Bible in their own tongue. For
the vernacular Scriptures had been banned in England as they had not
been on the Continent, save perhaps during the Albigensian persecution.
The seventh of the _Constitutions of Thomas Arundel_ ordains "that no
one hereafter translates into the English tongue or into any other, on
his own authority, the text of Holy Scripture either by way of book, or
booklet, or tract." This constitution was directed against Wiclif's
translation, which had been severely proscribed. That version, like so
many others during the Middle Ages, had been made from the Vulgate. But
Luther's example had fired the heart of William Tyndale to give his
countrymen an English version translated directly from the Hebrew and
the Greek originals.
Tyndale was a distinguished scholar, trained first at Oxford and then at
Cambridge. When at the former University he had belonged to that circle
of learned and pious men who had encouraged Erasmus to complete his
critical text of the New Testament. He knew, as did More, that Erasmus
desired that the weakest woman should be able to read the Gospels and
the Epistles of St. Paul; that the husbandman should sing portions of
them to himself as he followed the plough; that the weaver should hum
them to the tune of his shuttle; and that the traveller should beguile
the tedium of the road by repeating their stories; and he did not, like
More, turn his back on the ennobling enthusiasms of his youth.[440]
Tyndale found that he could not attempt his task in England. He went to
Germany and began work in Cologne; but, betrayed to the magistrates of
that centre of German Romanism, he fled to Worms. There he finished the
translation of the New Testament, and printed two editions, one in
octavo and the other in quarto--the latter being enriched with copious
marginal notes. The ecclesiastical authorities in England had early word
of this translation, and by Nov. 3rd, Archbishop Warham was exerting
himself to buy and destroy as many copies as he could get hold of both
in England and abroad; and, thanks to his exertions, Tyndale was
supplied with funds to revise his work and print a corrected edition.
This version was welcomed in England, and passed secretly from hand to
hand. It was severely censured by Sir Thomas More, not because the work
was badly done, but really because it was so scholarly. The faithful
translation of certain words and sentences was to the reactionary More
"a mischievous perversion of those writings intended to advance
heretical opinion";[441] and, strange to say, Dr. James Gairdner seems
to agree with him.[442] Tyndale's version had been publicly condemned in
England at the Council called by the King in 1530 (May), and copies of
his book had been publicly burnt in St. Paul's Churchyard, while he
himself had been tracked like a wild beast by emissaries of the English
Government in the Netherlands.
Cranmer induced Convocation in 1534 to petition for an English version
of the Bible, and next year Cromwell persuaded Miles Coverdale to
undertake his translation in 1535. It was made from the Vulgate with
some assistance from Luther's version, and was much inferior to the
proscribed version of Tyndale; but it had a large private sale in
England, and the King was induced to license it to enable the clergy to
obey the _Injunctions_ of 1536, which had ordered a copy of the English
Bible to be placed in all the churches before August 1537.[443]
The Archbishop, however, had another version in view, which he sent to
Cromwell (Aug. 1537), saying that he liked it better than any other
translation, and hoped it would be licensed to be read freely until the
Bishops could set forth a better, which he believes will not be until
after Doomsday. This version was practically Tyndale's.
Tyndale had entrusted one of his friends, Rogers, with his translation
of the Old Testament, finished as far as the Book of Jonah, and with his
complete version of the New Testament. Rogers had taken Tyndale's New
Testament, his Old Testament as far as the Book of Chronicles, borrowed
the remaining portion of the Old Testament from Coverdale's version, and
printed them with a dedication to the King, signed Thomas Matthew.[444]
This was the edition recommended by Cranmer to Cromwell, which was
licensed. The result was that Tyndale's New Testament (the same version
which had been denounced as pernicious, and which had been publicly
burnt only a few years before) and a large part of his Old Testament
were publicly introduced into the parish churches of England, and became
the foundation of all succeeding translations of the Bible into the
English language.[445] On reconsideration, the translation was found to
be rather too accurate for the Government, and some changes (certainly
not corrections) were made in 1538--39. Thus altered, the translation
was known as the _Great Bible_, and, because Cranmer wrote the preface,
as Cranmer's Bible.[446] This was the version, the Bible "of the
largest volume," which was ordered to be placed in the churches for the
people to read, and portions of which were to be read from the pulpit
every Sunday, according to the _Injunctions_ of 1538.
From 1533 on to the middle of 1539, there was a distinct if slow advance
in England towards a real Reformation; then the progress was arrested,
if the movement did not become decidedly retrograde. It seems more than
probable that if Henry had lived a few years longer, there would have
been another attempt at an advance.
Part of the advance had been a projected political and religious treaty
with the German Protestants. Neither Henry viii. nor John Frederick of
Saxony appears to have been much in earnest about an alliance, and from
the English King's instructions to his envoys it would appear that his
chief desire was to commit the German divines to an approval of the
Divorce.[447] Luther was somewhat scornful, and seems to have penetrated
Henry's design.[448] The German theologians had no doubt but that the
marriage of Henry with Catharine was one which should never have taken
place; but they all held that, once made, it ought not to be
broken.[449] Determined efforts were made to capture the sympathies of
Melanchthon. Bishop Foxe, selected as the theological ambassador, was
instructed to take him presents to the value of £70.[450] His books were
placed on the course of study for Cambridge at Cromwell's order.[451]
Henry exchanged complimentary letters, and graciously accepted the
dedication of Melanchthon's _De Locis Communibus_.[452] An embassy was
despatched, consisting of Foxe, Bishop elect of Hereford; Heath,
Archdeacon of Canterbury; and Dr. Barnes, an English divine, who was a
pronounced Lutheran. They met the Protestant Princes at Schmalkald and
had long discussions. The confederated Princes and Henry found
themselves in agreement on many points: they would stoutly disown the
primacy of the Pope; they would declare that they would not be bound by
the decrees of any Council which the Pope and the Emperor might
assemble; and they would pledge each other to get their Bishops and
preachers to declare them null and void. The German Princes were quite
willing to give Henry the title of "Defender of the Schmalkald League."
But they insisted as the first articles of any alliance that the English
Church and King must accept the theology of the Augsburg Confession and
adopt the ceremonies of the Lutheran Church; and on these rocks of
doctrine and ritual the proposed alliance was shattered.[453] The
Germans had their own private view of the English Reformation under
Henry VIII., which was neither very flattering nor quite accurate.
"So far the King has become Lutheran, that, because the Pope has
refused to sanction his divorce, he has ordered, on penalty of
death, that every one shall believe and preach that not the Pope
but himself is the head of the universal Church. All other
papistry, monasteries, mass, indulgences, and intercessions for the
dead, are pertinaciously adhered to."[454]
The English embassy went from Schmalkald to Wittenberg, where they met a
number of divines, including Luther and Melanchthon, and proceeded to
discuss the question of doctrinal agreement. Melanchthon had gone over
the Augsburg Confession, and produced a series of articles which
presented all that the Wittenberg theologians could concede, and Luther
had revised the draft.[455] Both the Germans were charmed with the
learning and courtesy of Archdeacon Heath. Bishop Foxe "had the manner
of prelates," says Melanchthon, and his learning did not impress the
Germans.[456] The conference came to nothing. Henry did not care to
accept a creed ready made for him, and thought that ecclesiastical
ceremonies might differ in different countries. He was a King "reckoned
somewhat learned, though unworthy," he said, "and having so many learned
men in his realm, he could not accept at any creature's hand the
observing of his and the realm's faith; but he was willing to confer
with learned men sent from them."[457]
Before the conference at Wittenberg had come to an end, Henry believed
that he had no need for a German alliance. The ill-used Queen Catharine,
who, alone of all persons concerned in the Divorce proceedings, comes
out unstained, died on Jan. 7th, 1536. Her will contained the touching
bequest: "To my daughter, the collar of gold which I brought out of
Spain"[458]--out of Spain, when she came a fair young bride to marry
Prince Arthur of England thirty-five years before.
There is no need to believe that Henry exhibited the unseemly
manifestations of joy which his enemies credit him with when the news of
Catharine's death was brought to him, but it did free him from a great
dread. He read men and circumstances shrewdly, and he knew enough of
Charles V. to believe that the Emperor, after his aunt's death, and when
he had no flagrant attack on the family honour of his house to protest
against, would not make himself the Pope's instrument against England.
Henry had always maintained himself and England by balancing France
against the Empire, and could in addition weaken the Empire by
strengthening the German Protestants. But in 1539, France and the
Emperor had become allies, and Henry was feeling himself very insecure.
It is probable that the negotiations which led to Henry's marriage with
Anne of Cleves were due to this new danger. On the other hand, there had
been discontent in England at many of the actions which were supposed
to come from the advance towards Reformation.