"DOWN WITH THE CHURCH."
The Reformation Parliament met for its first session on the 3rd of
November, 1529, at the Black Friars' Hall in London.[767] No careful
observer was in any doubt as to what its temper would be with regard
to the Church. It was opened by the King in person, and the new Lord
Chancellor, Sir Thomas More, delivered an address in which he
denounced his predecessor, Wolsey, in scathing terms.[768] Parliament
had been summoned, he said, to reform such things as had been used or
permitted in England by inadvertence. On the following day both Houses
adjourned to Westminster on account of the plague, and the Commons
chose, as their Speaker, Sir Thomas Audley, the future Lord Chancellor.
One of their first duties was to consider a bill of attainder against
Wolsey,[769] and the fate of that measure seems to be destructive of
one or the other of two favourite theories respecting Henry VIII.'s
Parliaments. The bill was opposed in the Commons by Cromwell and
thrown out; either it was not a mere expression of the royal will, or
Parliament was something more than the tool of the Court. For it is
hardly credible that Henry first caused the bill to be introduced,
and then ordered its rejection. The next business was Henry's (p. 279)
request for release from the obligation to repay the loan which Wolsey
had raised; that, too, the Commons refused, except on conditions.[770]
But no such opposition greeted the measures for reforming the
clergy.[771] Bills were passed in the Commons putting a limit on the
fees exacted by bishops for probate, and for the performance of other
duties then regarded as spiritual functions. The clergy were
prohibited from holding pluralities, except in certain cases, but the
act was drawn with astonishing moderation; it did not apply to
benefices acquired before 1530, unless they exceeded the number of
four. Penalties against non-residents were enacted, and an attempt was
made to check the addiction of spiritual persons to commercial
pursuits.
[Footnote 767: _L. and P._, iv., 6043-44.]
[Footnote 768: Hall, _Chronicle_, p. 764.]
[Footnote 769: _L. and P._, iv., 6075.]
[Footnote 770: That it passed at all is often
considered proof of parliamentary servility; it is
rather an illustration of the typical Tudor policy
of burdening the wealthy few in order to spare the
general public. If repayment of the loan were
exacted, fresh taxation would be necessary, which
would fall on many more than had lent the King
money. It was very irregular, but the burden was
thus placed on the shoulders of those individuals
who benefited most by Henry's ecclesiastical and
general policy and were rapidly accumulating
wealth. Taxation on the whole was remarkably light
during Tudor times; the tenths, fifteenths and
subsidies had become fixed sums which did not
increase with the national wealth, and indeed
brought in less and less to the royal exchequer
(see _L. and P._, vii., 344, "considerations why
subsidies in diverse shires were not so good in
Henry's seventh year as in his fifth"; _cf._ vii.,
1490, and xix., ii., 689, where Paget says that
benevolences did not "grieve the common people").]
[Footnote 771: _L. and P._, iv., 6083.]
These reforms seem reasonable enough, but the idea of placing a bound
to the spiritual exaction of probate seemed sacrilege to Bishop
Fisher. "My lords," he cried, "you see daily what bills come hither
from the Common House, and all is to the destruction of the (p. 280)
Church. For God's sake, see what a realm the kingdom of Bohemia was;
and when the Church went down, then fell the glory of the kingdom. Now
with the Commons is nothing but 'Down with the Church!' And all this,
meseemeth, is for lack of faith only."[772] The Commons thought a
limitation of fees an insufficient ground for a charge of heresy, and
complained of Fisher to the King through the mouth of their Speaker.
The Bishop explained away the offensive phrase, but the spiritual
peers succeeded in rejecting the Commons' bills. The way out of the
deadlock was suggested by the King; he proposed a conference between
eight members of either House. The Lords' delegates were half
spiritual, half temporal, peers.[773] Henry knew well enough that the
Commons would vote solidly for the measures, and that the temporal
peers would support them. They did so; the bills were passed; and, on
17th December, Parliament was prorogued. We may call it a trick or
skilful parliamentary strategy; the same trick, played by the _Tiers
Etat_ in 1789, ensured the success of the French Revolution, and it
was equally effective in England in 1529.
[Footnote 772: Hall, _Chronicle_, p. 766.]
[Footnote 773: _Cf._ Stubbs, _Lectures_, 1887, p.
317.]
These mutterings of the storm fell on deaf ears at Rome. Clement was
deaf, not because he had not ears to hear, but because the clash of
imperial arms drowned more distant sounds. "If any one," wrote the
Bishop of Auxerre in 1531, "was ever in prison or in the power of his
enemies, the Pope is now."[774] He was as anxious as ever to escape
responsibility. "He has told me," writes the Bishop of Tarbes to
Francis I. on the 27th of March, 1530, "more than three times in (p. 281)
secret that he would be glad if the marriage (with Anne Boleyn) was
already made, either by a dispensation of the English legate or
otherwise, provided it was not by his authority, or in diminution of
his power as to dispensation and limitation of Divine law."[775] Later
in the year he made his suggestion that Henry should have two wives
without prejudice to the legitimacy of the children of either. Henry,
however, would listen to neither suggestion.[776] He would be
satisfied with nothing less than the sanction of the highest authority
recognised in England. When it became imperative that his marriage
with Anne should be legally sanctioned, and evident that no such
sanction would be forthcoming from Rome, he arranged that the highest
ecclesiastical authority recognised by law in England should be that
of the Archbishop of Canterbury.
[Footnote 774: _L. and P._, v., 562.]
[Footnote 775: _L. and P._, iv., 6290.]
[Footnote 776: See above p. 207.]
Meanwhile, the exigencies of the struggle drove Clement into
assertions of papal prerogative which would at any time have provoked
an outburst of national anger. On 7th March, 1530, he promulgated a
bull to be affixed to the church doors at Bruges, Tournay and Dunkirk,
inhibiting Henry, under pain of the greater excommunication, from
proceeding to that second marriage, which he was telling the Bishop of
Tarbes he wished Henry would complete.[777] A fortnight later he
issued a second bull forbidding all ecclesiastical judges, doctors,
advocates and others to speak or write against the validity of Henry's
marriage with Catherine.[778] If he had merely desired to prohibit
discussion of a matter under judicial consideration, he should have
imposed silence also on the advocates of the marriage, and not (p. 282)
left Fisher free to write books against the King and secretly send
them to Spain to be printed.[779] On the 23rd of December following it
was decreed in Consistory at Rome that briefs should be granted
prohibiting the Archbishop of Canterbury from taking cognisance of the
suit, and forbidding Henry to cohabit with any other woman than
Catherine, and "all women in general to contract marriage with the
King of England".[780] On the 5th of January, 1531, the Pope inhibited
laity as well as clergy, universities, parliaments and courts of law
from coming to any decision in the case.[781]
[Footnote 777: _L. and P._, iv., 6256.]
[Footnote 778: _Ibid._, iv., 6279.]
[Footnote 779: _L. and P._, iv., 6199, 6596, 6738;
v., 460.]
[Footnote 780: _Ibid._, iv., 6772.]
[Footnote 781: _Ibid._, v., 27.]
To these fulminations the ancient laws of England provided Henry with
sufficient means of reply. "Let not the Pope suppose," wrote Henry to
Clement, "that either the King or his nobles will allow the fixed laws
of his kingdom to be set aside."[782] A proclamation, based on the
Statutes of Provisors, was issued on 12th September, 1530, forbidding
the purchasing from the Court of Rome or the publishing of any thing
prejudicial to the realm, or to the King's intended purposes;[783] and
Norfolk was sent to remind the papal nuncio of the penalties attaching
to the importation of bulls into England without the King's consent.
But the most notorious expedient of Henry's was the appeal to the
universities of Europe, first suggested by Cranmer.[784] Throughout
1530 English agents were busy abroad obtaining decisions from (p. 283)
the universities on the question of the Pope's power to dispense with
the law against marrying a deceased brother's wife. Their success was
considerable. Paris and Orleans, Bourges and Toulouse, Bologna and
Ferrara, Pavia and Padua, all decided against the Pope.[785] Similar
verdicts, given by Oxford and Cambridge, may be as naturally ascribed
to intimidation by Henry, as may the decisions of Spanish universities
in the Pope's favour to pressure from Charles; but the theory that all
the French and Italian universities were bribed is not very credible.
The cajolery, the threats and the bribes were not all on one side; and
in Italy at least the imperial agents would seem to have enjoyed
greater facilities than Henry's. In some individual cases there was,
no doubt, resort to improper inducements; but, if the majority in the
most famous seats of learning in Europe could be induced by filthy
lucre to vote against their conscience, it implies a greater need for
drastic reformation than the believers in the theory of corruption are
usually disposed to admit. Their decisions were, however, given on
general grounds; the question of the consummation of Catherine's
marriage with Arthur seems to have been carefully excluded. How far
that consideration would have affected the votes of the universities
can only be assumed; but it does not appear to have materially
influenced the view taken by Catherine's advocates. They allowed that
Catherine's oath would not be considered sufficient evidence in a
court of law; they admitted the necessity of proving that urgent
reasons existed for the grant of the dispensation, and the only (p. 284)
urgent reason they put forward was an entirely imaginary imminence of
war between Henry VII. and Ferdinand in 1503. Cardinal Du Bellay, in
1534, asserted that no one would be so bold as to maintain in Consistory
that the dispensation ever was valid;[786] and the papalists were
driven to the extreme contention, which was certainly not then
admitted by Catholic Europe, that, whether the marriage with Arthur
was merely a form or not, whether it was or was not against Divine
law, the Pope could, of his absolute power, dispense.[787]
[Footnote 782: _Ibid._, iv., 6759.]
[Footnote 783: _Ibid._, iv., 6615; v., 45.]
[Footnote 784: See the present writer's _Cranmer_,
pp. 39-41. Cranmer's suggestion was made early in
August, 1529, and on the 23rd Du Bellay writes that
Wolsey and the King "appeared to desire very much
that I should go over to France to get the opinions
of the learned men there about the divorce" (_L.
and P._, iv., 5862). In October Stokesley was sent
to France and Croke to Italy (_ibid._, p. 2684);
Cranmer did not start till 1530.]
[Footnote 785: _L. and P._, iv., 6332, 6448, 6491,
6632, 6636.]
[Footnote 786: _L. and P._, vii., App. 12.]
[Footnote 787: _Ibid._, v., 468.]
Pending the result of Henry's appeal to the universities, little was
done in the matter in England. The lords spiritual and temporal signed
in June, 1530, a letter to the Pope urging him to comply with their
King's request for a divorce.[788] Parliament did not meet until 16th
January, 1531, and even then Chapuys reports that it was employed on
nothing more important than cross-bows and hand-guns, the act against
which was not, however, passed till 1534. The previous session had
shown that, although the Commons might demur to fiscal exactions, they
were willing enough to join Henry in any attack on the Church, and the
question was how to bring the clergy to a similar state of
acquiescence. It was naturally a more difficult task, but Henry's
ingenuity provided a sufficient inducement. His use of the statutes of
_praemunire_ was very characteristic. It was conservative, it was
legal, and it was unjust. Those statutes were no innovation designed
to meet his particular case; they had been for centuries the law of
the land; and there was no denying the fact that the clergy had broken
the law by recognising Wolsey as legate. Henry, of course, had (p. 285)
licensed Wolsey to act as legate, and to punish the clergy for an
offence, at which he had connived, was scarcely consistent with
justice; but no King ever showed so clearly how the soundest
constitutional maxims could be used to defeat the pleas of equity; it
was frequently laid down during his reign that no licence from the
King could be pleaded against penalties imposed by statute, and not a
few parliamentary privileges were first asserted by Henry VIII.[789]
So the clergy were cunningly caught in the meshes of the law. Chapuys
declares that no one could understand the mysteries of _praemunire_;
"its interpretation lies solely in the King's head, who amplifies it
and declares it at his pleasure, making it apply to any case he
pleases". He at least saw how _praemunire_ could be made to serve his
purposes.[790]
[Footnote 788: _Ibid._, iv., 6513.]
[Footnote 789: _Cf. L. and P._, iv., 6199. Chapuys
writes on 6th February, 1530, "I am told the King
did not wish the Cardinal's case to be tried by
Parliament, as, if it had been decided against him,
the King could not have pardoned him".]
[Footnote 790: _Ibid._, iv., 6488, 6699.]
These, at the moment, were two. He wanted to extract from the clergy a
recognition of his supremacy over the Church, and he wanted money. He
was always in need of supplies, but especially now, in case war should
arise from the Pope's refusal to grant his divorce; and Henry made it
a matter of principle that the Church should pay for wars due to the
Pope.[791] The penalty for _praemunire_ was forfeiture of goods and
imprisonment, and the King probably thought he was unduly lenient in
granting a pardon for a hundred thousand pounds, when he might (p. 286)
have taken the whole of the clergy's goods and put them in gaol as
well. The clergy objected strongly; in the old days of the Church's
influence they would all have preferred to go to prison, and a
unanimous refusal of the King's demands would even now have baulked
his purpose. But the spirit was gone out of them. Chapuys instigated
the papal nuncio to go down to Convocation and stiffen the backs of
the clergy.[792] They were horrified at his appearance, and besought
him to depart in haste, fearing lest this fresh constitutional breach
should be visited on their heads. Warham frightened them with the
terrors of royal displeasure; and the clerics had to content their
conscience with an Irish bull and a subterfuge. "Silence gives
consent," said the Archbishop when putting the question; "Then are we
all silent," cried the clergy. To their recognition of Henry as
Supreme Head of the Church, they added the salvo "so far as the law of
Christ allows". It was an empty phrase, thought Chapuys, for no one
would venture to dispute with the King the point where his supremacy
ended and that of Christ began;[793] there was in fact "a new Papacy
made here".[794] The clergy repented of the concession as soon as it
was granted; they were "more conscious every day," wrote Chapuys, (p. 287)
"of the great error they committed in acknowledging the King as
sovereign of the Church"; and they made a vain, and not very creditable,
effort to get rejected by spiritual votes in the House of Lords the
measures to which they had given their assent in Convocation.[795] The
Church had surrendered with scarcely a show of fight; henceforth Henry
might feel sure that, whatever opposition he might encounter in other
quarters, the Church in England would offer no real resistance.
[Footnote 791: _Cf. ibid._, vi., 1381 [3], "that if
the Pope attempts war, the King shall have a moiety
of the temporal lands of the Church for his
defence".]
[Footnote 792: _L. and P._, v., 62. Dr. Stubbs
(_Lectures_, 1887, p. 318) represents the nuncio as
being pressed into the King's service, and the
clergy as resisting him as the Commons had done
Wolsey in 1523. But this independence is imaginary;
"it was agreed," writes Chapuys, "between the
nuncio and me that he should go to the said
ecclesiastics in their congregation and recommend
them to support the immunity of the Church.... They
were all utterly astonished and scandalised, and
without allowing him to open his mouth they begged
him to leave them in peace, for they had not the
King's leave to speak with him."]
[Footnote 793: _L. and P._, v., 105.]
[Footnote 794: _Ibid._, v., 112.]
[Footnote 795: _L. and P._, v., 124.]
In Parliament, notwithstanding Chapuys' remark on the triviality of
its business, more than a score of acts were passed, some limiting
such abuses as the right of sanctuary, some dealing in the familiar
way with social evils like the increase of beggars and vagabonds. The
act depriving sanctuary-men, who committed felony, of any further
protection from their sanctuary was recommended to Parliament by the
King in person. So was a curious act making poisoning treason.[796]
There had recently been an attempt to poison Fisher, which the King
brought before the House of Lords. However familiar poisoning might be
at Rome, it was a novel method in England, and was considered so
heinous a crime that the ordinary penalties for murder were thought to
be insufficient. Then the King's pardon to the clergy was embodied in
a parliamentary bill. The Commons perceived that they were not
included, took alarm, and refused to pass the bill. Henry at first
assumed a superior tone; he pointed out that the Commons could not
prevent his pardoning the clergy; he could do it as well under the
Great Seal as by statute. The Commons, however, were not satisfied.
"There was great murmuring among them," says Chapuys, "in the (p. 288)
House of Commons, where it was publicly said in the presence of
some of the Privy Council that the King had burdened and oppressed his
kingdom with more imposts and exactions than any three or four of his
predecessors, and that he ought to consider that the strength of the
King lay in the affections of his people. And many instances were
alleged of the inconveniences which had happened to princes through
the ill-treatment of their subjects."[797] Henry was too shrewd to
attempt to punish this very plain speaking. He knew that his faithful
Commons were his one support, and he yielded at once. "On learning
this," continues Chapuys, "the King granted the exemption which was
published in Parliament on Wednesday last without any reservation."
The two acts for the pardon of the spiritualty and temporalty were
passed concurrently. But, whereas the clergy had paid for their pardon
with a heavy fine and the loss of their independence, the laity paid
nothing at all. The last business of the session was the reading of
the sentences in Henry's favour obtained from the universities.[798]
Parliament was then prorogued, and its members were enjoined to relate
to their constituents that which they had seen and heard.
[Footnote 796: _Ibid._, v., 120.]
[Footnote 797: _L. and P._, v., 171. This and other
incidents (see p. 289) form a singular comment on
Brewer's assertion (_ibid._, iv., Introd., p.
dcxlvii.) that "there is scarcely an instance on
record, in this or any succeeding Parliament
throughout the reign, of a parliamentary patriot
protesting against a single act of the Crown,
however unjust and tyrannical it might be".]
[Footnote 798: _L. and P._, v., 171.]
Primed by communion with their neighbours, members of Parliament
assembled once more on 15th January, 1532, for more important (p. 289)
business than they had yet transacted. Every effort was made to secure
a full attendance of Peers and Commons; almost all the lords would be
present, thought Chapuys, except Tunstall, who had not been summoned;
Fisher came without a summons, and apparently no effort was made to
exclude him.[799] The readiness of the Commons to pass measures
against the Church, and their reluctance to consent to taxation, were
even more marked than before. Their critical spirit was shown by their
repeated rejection of the Statutes of Wills and Uses designed by Henry
to protect from evasion his feudal rights, such as reliefs and primer
seisins.[800] This demand, writes Chapuys,[801] "has been the occasion
of strange words against the King and the Council, and in spite of all
the efforts of the King's friends, it was rejected".[802] In the
matter of supplies they were equally outspoken; they would only grant
one-tenth and one-fifteenth, a trifling sum which Henry refused to
accept.[803] It was during this debate on the question of supplies
that two members moved that the King be asked to take back Catherine
as his wife.[804] They would then, they urged, need no fresh armaments
and their words are reported to have been well received by the House.
The Commons were not more enthusiastic about the bill restraining the
payment of annates to the Court at Rome.[805] They did not pay (p. 290)
them; their grievance was against bishops in England, and they saw
no particular reason for relieving those prelates of their financial
burdens. Cromwell wrote to Gardiner that he did not know how the
annates bill would succeed;[806] and the King had apparently to use
all his persuasion to get the bill through the Lords and the Commons.
Only temporal lords voted for it in the Upper House, and, in the
Lower, recourse was had to the rare expedient of a division.[807] In
both Houses the votes were taken in the King's presence. But it is
almost certain that his influence was brought to bear, not so much in
favour of the principle of the bill, as of the extremely ingenious
clause which left the execution of the Act in Henry's discretion, and
provided him with a powerful means of putting pressure on the Pope.
That was Henry's statement of the matter. He told Chapuys, before the
bill was passed, that the attack on annates was being made without his
consent;[808] and after it had been passed he instructed his
representatives at Rome to say that he had taken care to stop the
mouth of Parliament and to have the question of annates referred to
his decision.[809] "The King," writes the French envoy in England at
the end of March, "has been very cunning, for he has caused the nobles
and people to remit all to his will, so that the Pope may know that,
if he does nothing for him, the King has the means of punishing
him."[810] The execution of the clauses providing for the (p. 291)
confirmation and consecration of bishops without recourse to Rome was
also left at Henry's option.
[Footnote 799: _L. and P._, v., 737.]
[Footnote 800: Henry had ordered Cromwell to have a
bill with this object ready for the 1531 session
(_L. and P._, v., 394), and another for the
"augmentation of treasons"; apparently neither then
proved acceptable to Parliament.]
[Footnote 801: _L. and P._, v., 805.]
[Footnote 802: _Ibid._, v., 989.]
[Footnote 803: _Ibid._, v., 1046.]
[Footnote 804: _Ibid._, v., 989. This was in May
during the second part of the session, after the
other business had been finished; redress of
grievances constitutionally preceded supply.]
[Footnote 805: Annates were attacked first, partly
because they were the weakest as well as the most
sensitive part in the papal armour; there was no
law in the _Corpus Juris Canonici_ requiring the
payment of annates (Maitland in _Engl. Hist. Rev._,
xvi., 43).]
[Footnote 806: _L. and P._, v., 723.]
[Footnote 807: _Ibid._, v., 898.]
[Footnote 808: _Ibid._, v., 832.]
[Footnote 809: _Ibid._, v., 886.]
[Footnote 810: _L. and P._, v., 150. This letter is
misplaced in _L. and P._; it should be under 23rd
March, 1532, instead of 1531. The French envoy,
Giles de la Pommeraye, did not arrive in England
till late in 1531, and his letter obviously refers
to the proceedings in Parliament in March, 1532;
_cf._ v., 879.]
But no pressure was needed to induce the Commons to attack abuses, the
weight of which they felt themselves. Early in the session they were
discussing the famous petition against the clergy, and, on 28th
February, Norfolk referred to the "infinite clamours" in Parliament
against the Church.[811] The fact that four corrected drafts of this
petition are extant in the Record Office, is taken as conclusive proof
that it really emanated from the Court.[812] But the drafts do not
appear to be in the known hand of any of the Government clerks. The
corrections in Cromwell's hand doubtless represent the wishes of the
King; but, even were the whole in Cromwell's hand, it would be no bar
to the hypothesis that Cromwell reduced to writing, for the King's
consideration, complaints which he heard from independent members in
his place in Parliament. The fact that nine-tenths of our modern
legislation is drawn up by Government draughtsmen, cannot be accepted
as proof that that legislation represents no popular feeling. On the
face of them, these petitions bear little evidence of Court dictation;
the grievances are not such as were felt by Henry, whose own demands
of the clergy were laid directly before Convocation, without any (p. 292)
pretence that they really came from the Commons. Some are similar
to those presented to the Parliament of 1515; others are directed
against abuses which recent statutes had sought, but failed, to
remedy. Such were the citation of laymen out of their dioceses, the
excessive fees taken in spiritual courts, the delay and trouble in
obtaining probates. Others complained that the clergy in Convocation
made laws inconsistent with the laws of the realm; that the ordinaries
delayed instituting parsons to their benefices; that benefices were
given to minors; that the number of holy-days, especially in
harvest-time, was excessive; and that spiritual men occupied temporal
offices. The chief grievance seems to have been that the ordinaries
cited poor men before the spiritual courts without any accuser being
produced, and then condemned them to abjure or be burnt. Henry,
reported Chapuys, was "in a most gracious manner" promising to support
the Commons against the Church "and to mitigate the rigours of the
inquisition which they have here, and which is said to be more severe
than in Spain".[813]
[Footnote 811: _Ibid._, v., 831.]
[Footnote 812: _Ibid._, v., 1017-23. If the Court
was responsible for all the documents complaining
of the clergy drawn up at this time, it must have
been very active. See others in _L. and P._, v.,
49, App. 28, vi., 122.]
[Footnote 813: _L. and P._, v., 989.]
After debating these points in Parliament, the Commons agreed that
"all the griefs, which the temporal men should be grieved with, should
be put in writing and delivered to the King"; hence the drafts in the
Record Office. The deputation, with the Speaker at its head, presented
the complaints to Henry on 18th March. Its reception is quite
unintelligible on the theory that the grievances existed only in the
King's imagination. Henry was willing, he said, to consider the
Commons' petition. But, if they expected him to comply with their
wishes, they must make some concession to his; and he recommended (p. 293)
them to forgo their opposition to the bills of Uses and Wills, to
which the Lords had already agreed. After Easter he sent the Commons'
petition to Convocation; the clergy appealed to the King for
protection. Henry had thus manoeuvred himself into the position of
mediator, in which he hoped, but in vain, to extract profit for
himself from both sides.[814] From Convocation he demanded submission
to three important claims; the clergy were to consent to a reform of
ecclesiastical law, to abdicate their right of independent legislation,
and to recognise the necessity of the King's approval for existing
canons. These demands were granted. As usual, Henry was able to get
what he wanted from the clergy; but from the Commons he could get no
more than they were willing to give. They again rejected the bills of
Uses and Wills, and would only concede the most paltry supplies. But
they passed with alacrity the bills embodying the submission of the
clergy. These were the Church's concessions to Henry, but it must bend
the knee to the Commons as well, and other measures were passed
reforming some of the points in their petition. Ordinaries were
prohibited from citing men out of their proper dioceses, and benefit
of clergy was denied to clerks under the order of sub-deacon who
committed murder, felony, or petty treason; the latter was a slight
extension of a statute passed in 1512. The bishops, however, led by
Gardiner and aided by More,[815] secured in the House of Lords (p. 294)
the rejection of the concessions made by the Church to the King,
though they passed those made to the Commons. Parliament, which had
sat for the unusual space of four months, was prorogued on the 14th of
May; two days later, More resigned the chancellorship and Gardiner
retired in disfavour to Winchester.
[Footnote 814: Stubbs, _Lectures_, 1887, pp.
320-24; Hall, pp. 784, 785; see also _Lords'
Journals_, 1532.]
[Footnote 815: _L. and P._, v., 1013. More had, as
Henry knew, been all along opposed to the divorce,
but as More gratefully acknowledged, the King only
employed those whose consciences approved of the
divorce on business connected with it (vii., 289).]
* * * * *
Meanwhile the divorce case at Rome made little progress. In the
highest court in Christendom the facilities afforded for the law's
delays were naturally more extended than before inferior tribunals;
and two years had been spent in discussing whether Henry's
"excusator," sent merely to maintain that the King of England could
not be cited to plead before the Papal Court, should be heard or not.
Clement was in suspense between two political forces. In December,
1532, Charles was again to interview the Pope, and imperialists in
Italy predicted that his presence would be as decisive in Catherine's
favour as it had been three years before. But Henry and Francis had,
in October, exhibited to the world the closeness of their friendship
by a personal interview at Boulogne.[816] No pomp or ceremony, like
that of the Field of Cloth of Gold, dazzled men's eyes; but the union
between the two Kings was never more real. Neither Queen was present;
Henry would not take Catherine, and he objected so strongly to Spanish
dress that he could not endure the sight of Francis's Spanish
Queen.[817] Anne Boleyn, recently created Marquis (so she was styled,
to indicate the possession of the peerage in her own right) of (p. 295)
Pembroke,[818] took Catherine's place; and plans for the promotion of
the divorce formed the staple of the royal discussions. Respect for
the power of the two Kings robbed the subsequent interview between
Emperor and Pope of much of its effect; and before Charles and Clement
parted, the Pope had secretly agreed to accord a similar favour to
Francis; he was to meet him at Nice in the following summer. Long
before then the divorce had been brought to a crisis. By the end of
January Henry knew that Anne Boleyn was pregnant. Her issue must at
any cost be made legitimate. That could only be done by Henry's
divorce from Catherine, and by his marriage with Anne Boleyn.[819]
There was little hope of obtaining these favours from Rome. Therefore
it must be done by means of the Archbishop of Canterbury; and to
remove all chance of disputing his sentence, the Court of the
Archbishop of Canterbury must, before his decision was given, be
recognised as the supreme tribunal for English ecclesiastical cases.
[Footnote 816: See P.A. Hamy, _Entrevue de Francois
I. avec Henri VIII., a Boulogne en 1532_. Paris,
1898.]
[Footnote 817: _L. and P._, v., 1187.]
[Footnote 818: _L. and P._, v., 1274.]
[Footnote 819: In 1529 Du Bellay had written _si le
ventre croist, tout sera gaste_ (_L. and P._, iv.,
5679).]
These circumstances, of which not a hint was suffered to transpire in
public, dictated Henry's policy during the early months of 1533. Never
was his skill more clearly displayed; he was, wrote Chapuys in
December, 1532, practising more than ever with his Parliament,[820]
though he received the Spanish ambassador "as courteously as
ever".[821] The difficulties with which he was surrounded might have
tried the nerve of any man, but they only seemed to render Henry's
course more daring and steady. The date of his marriage with Anne
Boleyn is even now a matter of conjecture.[822] Cranmer repudiated (p. 296)
the report that he performed the ceremony.[823] He declares he did not
know of it until a fortnight after the event, and says it took place
about St. Paul's Day (25th January). A more important question was the
individuality of the archbishop who was to pronounce the nullity of
Henry's marriage with Catherine of Aragon. He must obviously be one on
whom the King could rely. Fortunately for Henry, Archbishop Warham had
died in August, 1532. His successor was to be Thomas Cranmer, who had
first suggested to Henry the plan of seeking the opinions of the
universities on the divorce, and was now on an embassy at the
Emperor's Court. No time was to be lost. Henry usually gathered a rich
harvest during the vacancy of great bishoprics, but now Canterbury was
to be filled up without any delay, and the King even lent Cranmer
1,000 marks to meet his expenses.[824] But would the Pope be so
accommodating as to expedite the bulls, suspecting, as he must have
done, the object for which they were wanted?
[Footnote 820: _L. and P._, v., 1633.]
[Footnote 821: _Ibid._, v., 1579.]
[Footnote 822: Cranmer, _Works_, ii., 246. The
antedating of the marriage to 14th November, 1532,
by Hall and Holinshed was doubtless due to a desire
to shield Anne's character; Stow gives the correct
date.]
[Footnote 823: See the present writer's _Cranmer_,
p. 60 _n._]
[Footnote 824: _L. and P._, vi., 131.]
For this contingency also Henry had provided; and he was actually
using the Pope as a means for securing the divorce. An appearance of
friendship with Clement was the weapon he now employed with the
greatest effect. The Pope was discussing with the French ambassadors a
proposal to remit the divorce case to some neutral spot, such as
Cambrai, and delaying that definite sentence in Catherine's favour
which imperialists had hoped that his interview with Charles would (p. 297)
precipitate;[825] the papal nuncio was being feasted in England,
and was having suspiciously amicable conferences with members of
Henry's council. Henry himself was writing to Clement in the most
cordial terms; he had instructed his ambassadors in 1531 to "use all
gentleness towards him,"[826] and Clement was saying that Henry was of
a better nature and more wise than Francis I.[827] Henry was now
willing to suspend his consent to the general council, where the Pope
feared that a scheme would be mooted for restoring the papal States to
the Emperor;[828] and he told the papal nuncio in England that, though
he had studied the question of the Pope's authority and retracted his
defence of the Holy See,[829] yet possibly Clement might give him
occasion to probe the matter further still, and to reconfirm what he
had originally written.[830] Was he not, moreover, withholding his
assent from the Act of Annates, which would deprive the Pope of large
revenues? Backed by this gentle hint, Henry's request not merely for
Cranmer's bulls, but for their expedition without the payment of the
usual 10,000 marks, reached Rome. The cardinals were loth to forgo
their perquisites for the bulls, but the annates of all England were
more precious still, and, on 22nd February, Consistory decided to do
what Henry desired.
[Footnote 825: _L. and P._, vi., 26. The interview
took place at Bologna in December, 1532.]
[Footnote 826: _Ibid._, v., 326.]
[Footnote 827: _Ibid._, v., 555.]
[Footnote 828: _Ibid._, vi., 89, 212.]
[Footnote 829: _E.g._, _ibid._, v., 820, where Henry
tells Tunstall that to follow the Pope is to
forsake Christ, that it was no schism to separate
from Rome, and that "God willing, we shall never
separate from the universal body of Christian men,"
and admits that he was misled in his youth to make
war upon Louis XII. by those who sought only their
own pomp, wealth and glory.]
[Footnote 830: _Ibid._, vi., 296.]
The same deceptive appearance of concord between King and Pope (p. 298)
was employed to lull both Parliament and Convocation. The delays
in the divorce suit disheartened Catherine's adherents. The Pope,
wrote Chapuys, would lose his authority little by little, unless the
case were decided at once;[831] every one, he said, cried out "au
murdre" on Clement for his procrastination on the divorce, and for the
speed with which he granted Cranmer's bulls.[832] There was a general
impression that "he would betray the Emperor," and "many think that
there is a secret agreement between Henry and the Pope".[833] That
idea was sedulously fostered by Henry. Twice he took the Pope's nuncio
down in state to Parliament to advertise the excellent terms upon
which he stood with the Holy See.[834] In the face of such evidence,
what motive was there for prelates and others to reject the demands
which Henry was pressing upon them? The Convocations of Canterbury and
York repeated the submission of 1532, and approved, by overwhelming
majorities, of two propositions: firstly, that, as a matter of law,
the Pope was not competent to dispense with the obstacle to a marriage
between a man and his deceased brother's wife, when the previous
marriage had been consummated; and secondly, that, as a matter of
fact, the marriage between Catherine and Prince Arthur had been so
consummated.[835] In Parliament, the Act forbidding Appeals to
Rome,[836] and providing for the confirmation and consecration of (p. 299)
bishops without recourse to the Papal Court, was discussed. It was,
like the rest of Henry's measures, based on a specious conservative
plea. General councils had, the King said, decreed that suits should
be determined in the place in which they originated;[837] so there was
no need for appeals to go out of England. Such opposition as it
encountered was based on no religious principle. Commercial interests
were the most powerful impulse of the age, and the Commons were afraid
that the Act of Appeals might be followed by a papal interdict. They
did not mind the interdict as depriving them of religious consolations,
but they dreaded lest it might ruin their trade with the Netherlands.[838]
Henry, however, persuaded them that the wool trade was as necessary to
Flemings as it was to Englishmen, and that an interdict would prove no
more than an empty threat. He was careful to make no other demands
upon the Commons. No subsidies were required; no extension of royal
prerogative was sought; and eventually the Act of Appeals was passed
with a facility that seems to have created general surprise.[839]
[Footnote 831: _L. and P._, vi., 142.]
[Footnote 832: _Ibid._, vi., 296.]
[Footnote 833: _Ibid._, vi., 89.]
[Footnote 834: _Ibid._, vi., 142, 160. The nuncio
sat on Henry's right and the French ambassador on
his left, this trinity illustrating the league
existing between Pope, Henry and Francis.]
[Footnote 835: _Ibid._, vi., 276, 311, 317, 491.]
[Footnote 836: The germ of this Act may be found in
a despatch from Henry dated 7th October, 1530; that
the system of appeals had been subject to gross
abuse is obvious from the fact that the Council of
Trent prohibited it (_Cambridge Modern Hist._, ii.,
671).]
[Footnote 837: _L. and P._, vi., 1489.]
[Footnote 838: _Ibid._, vi., 296.]
[Footnote 839: _Ibid._, XII., ii., 952.]
Henry's path was now clear. Cranmer was archbishop and _legatus natus_
with a title which none could dispute. By Act of Parliament his court
was the final resort for all ecclesiastical cases. No appeals from his
decision could be lawfully made. So, on 11th April, before he was yet
consecrated, he besought the King's gracious permission to determine
his "great cause of matrimony, because much bruit exists among the
common people on the subject".[840] No doubt there did; but that (p. 300)
was not the cause for the haste. Henry was pleased to accede to this
request of the "principal minister of our spiritual jurisdiction";
and, on the 10th of May, the Archbishop opened his Court at Dunstable.
Catherine, of course, could recognise no authority in Cranmer to try a
cause that was before the papal curia. She was declared contumacious,
and, on the 23rd, the Archbishop gave his sentence. Following the line
of Convocation, he pronounced that the Pope had no power to license
marriages such as Henry's, and that the King and Catherine had never
been husband and wife.[841] Five days later, after a secret investigation,
he declared that Henry and Anne Boleyn were lawfully married, and on
Whitsunday, the 1st of June, he crowned Anne as Queen in Westminster
Abbey.[842] Three months later, on Sunday, the 7th of September,
between three and four in the afternoon, Queen Anne gave birth to a
daughter at Greenwich.[843] The child was christened on the following
Wednesday by Stokesley, Bishop of London, and Cranmer stood godfather.
Chapuys scarcely considered the matter worth mention. The King's
_amie_ had given birth to a bastard, a detail of little importance to
any one, and least of all to a monarch like Charles V.[844] (p. 301)
Yet the "bastard" was Queen Elizabeth, and the child, thus ushered
into a contemptuous world, lived to humble the pride of Spain, and to
bear to a final triumph the banner which Henry had raised.
[Footnote 840: Cranmer, _Works_, ii., 237.]
[Footnote 841: _Ibid._, ii., 241, 244; _L. and P._,
vi., 332, 469, 470, 525. This sentence did not
bastardise the Princess Mary according to Chapuys,
for "even if the marriage were null, the Princess
was legitimate owing to the lawful ignorance of her
parents. The Archbishop of Canterbury had foreseen
this and had not dared to be so shameless as to
declare her a bastard" (_ibid._, vii., 94).]
[Footnote 842: See _Tudor Tracts_ edited by the
present writer, 1903, pp. 10-28, and _L. and P._,
vi., 561, 563, 584, 601.]
[Footnote 843: _L. and P._, vi., 1089, 1111.]
[Footnote 844: _L. and P._, vi., 1112.]