REX ET IMPERATOR.
Notwithstanding the absence of "Empire" and "Emperor" from the various
titles which Henry VIII. possessed or assumed, he has more than one
claim to be reputed the father of modern imperialism. It is not till a
year after his death that we have any documentary evidence of an
intention on the part of the English Government to unite England and
Scotland into one Empire, and to proclaim their sovereign the Emperor
of Great Britain.[1011] But a marriage between Edward VI. and Mary,
Queen of Scots, by which it was sought to effect that union, had been
the main object of Henry's efforts during the closing years of his
reign, and the imperial idea was a dominant note in Henry's mind. No
king was more fond of protesting that he wore an imperial crown and
ruled an imperial realm. When, in 1536, Convocation declared England
to be "an imperial See of itself," it only clothed in decent and
formal language Henry's own boast that he was not merely King, but
Pope and Emperor, in his own domains. The rest of Western Europe was
under the temporal sway of Caesar, as it was under the spiritual sway
of the Pope; but neither to one nor to the other did Henry owe any
allegiance.[1012]
[Footnote 1011: Odet de Selve, _Corresp. Pol._, p.
268.]
[Footnote 1012: This was part of the revived
influence of the Roman Civil Law in England which
Professor Maitland has sketched in his _English
Law and the Renaissance_, 1901. But the influence
of these ideas extended into every sphere, and not
least of all into the ecclesiastical. Englishmen,
said Chapuys, were fond of tracing the King's
imperial authority back to a grant from the Emperor
Constantine--giving it thus an antiquity as great
and an origin as authoritative as that claimed for
the Pope by the false _Donation of Constantine_
(_L. and P._, v., 45; vii., 232). This is the
meaning of Henry's assertion that the Pope's
authority in England was "usurped," not that it was
usurped at the expense of the English national
Church, but at the expense of his prerogative. So,
too, we find instructive complaints from a
different sort of reformers that the reformation as
effected by Henry VIII. was merely a _translatio
imperii_ (_ibid._, XIV., ii., 141). Henry VIII.'s
encouragement of the civil law was the natural
counterpart of the prohibition of its study by Pope
Honorius in 1219 and Innocent IV. in 1254 (Pollock
and Maitland, i., 102, 103).]
For the word "imperial" itself he had shown a marked (p. 363)
predilection from his earliest days. _Henry Imperial_ was the name of
the ship in which his admiral hoisted his flag in 1513, and "Imperial"
was the name given to one of his favourite games. But, as his reign
wore on, the word was translated into action, and received a more
definite meaning. To mark his claim to supreme dignity, he assumed the
style of "His Majesty" instead of that of "His Grace," which he had
hitherto shared with mere dukes and archbishops; and possibly "His
Majesty" banished "His Grace" from Henry's mind no less than it did
from his title. The story of his life is one of consistent, and more
or less orderly, evolution. For many years he had been kept in
leading-strings by Wolsey's and other clerical influences. The first
step in his self-assertion was to emancipate himself from this
control, and to vindicate his authority within the precincts of his
Court. His next was to establish his personal supremacy over Church
and State in England; this was the work of the Reformation Parliament
between 1529 and 1536. The final stage in the evolution was to (p. 364)
make his rule more effective in the outlying parts of England, on
the borders of Scotland, in Wales and its Marches, and then to extend
it over the rest of the British Isles.
The initial steps in the process of expanding the sphere of royal
authority had already been taken. The condition of Wales exercised the
mind of King and Parliament, even in the throes of the struggle with
Rome.[1013] The "manifold robberies, murders, thefts, trespasses,
riots, routs, embraceries, maintenances, oppressions, ruptures of the
peace, and many other malefacts, which be there daily practised,
perpetrated, committed and done," obviously demanded prompt and swift
redress, unless the redundant eloquence of parliamentary statutes
protested too much; and, in 1534, several acts were passed restraining
local jurisdictions, and extending the authority of the President and
Council of the Marches.[1014] Chapuys declared that the effect of
these acts was to rob the Welsh of their freedom, and he thought that
the probable discontent might be turned to account by stirring an
insurrection in favour of Catherine of Aragon and of the Catholic
faith.[1015] If, however, there was discontent, it did not make (p. 365)
itself effectively felt, and, in 1536, Henry proceeded to complete the
union of England and Wales. First, he adapted to Wales the institution
of justices of the peace, which had proved the most efficient
instrument for the maintenance of his authority in England. A more
important statute followed. Recalling the facts that "the rights,
usages, laws and customs" in Wales "be far discrepant from the laws
and customs of this realm," that its people "do daily use a speech
nothing like, nor consonant to, the natural mother-tongue used within
this realm," and that "some rude and ignorant people have made
distinction and diversity between the King's subjects of this realm"
and those of Wales, "His Highness, of a singular zeal, love and
favour" which he bore to the Welsh, minded to reduce them "to the
perfect order, notice and knowledge of his laws of this realm, and
utterly to extirp, all and singular, the sinister usages and customs
differing from the same". The Principality was divided into shires,
and the shires into hundreds; justice in every court, from the highest
to the lowest, was to be administered in English, and in no other
tongue; and no one who spoke Welsh was to "have or enjoy any manner of
Office or Fees" whatsoever. On the other hand, a royal commission was
appointed to inquire into Welsh laws, and such as the King thought
necessary might still be observed; while the Welsh shires and boroughs
were to send members to the English Parliament. This statute was, to
all effects and purposes, the first Act of Union in English history.
Six years later a further act reorganised and developed the
jurisdiction of the Council of Wales and the Marches. Its functions
were to be similar to those of the Privy Council in London, of (p. 366)
which the Council of Wales, like that of the already established
Council of the North, was an offshoot. Its object was to maintain
peace with a firm hand in a specially disorderly district; and the
powers, with which it was furnished, often conflicted with the common
law of England,[1016] and rendered the Council's jurisdiction, like
that of other Tudor courts, a grievance to Stuart Parliaments.
[Footnote 1013: Cromwell has a note in 1533, "for
the establishing of a Council in the Marches of
Wales" (_L. and P._, vi., 386), and there had been
numerous complaints in Parliament about their
condition (_ibid._, vii., 781). Henry was a great
Unionist, though Separatist as regards his wives
and the Pope.]
[Footnote 1014: See an admirable study by Miss
C.A.J. Skeel, _The Council in the Marches of
Wales_, 1904. Cromwell's great constitutional idea
was government by council rather than by
Parliament; in 1534 he had a scheme for including
in the King's Ordinary Council (not of course the
Privy Council) "the most assured and substantial
gentlemen in every shire" (_L. and P._, vii., 420;
_cf._ his draft bill for a new court of
conservators of the commonwealth and the more rigid
execution of statutes, vii., 1611).]
[Footnote 1015: _L. and P._, vii., 1554.]
[Footnote 1016: _Cf._ Maitland, _English Law and
the Renaissance_, p. 70; Lee to Cromwell: "if we
should do nothing but as the common law will, these
things so far out of order will never be redressed"
(_D.N.B._, xxxii., 375; the letter is dated 18th
July, 1538, by the _D.N.B._ and Maitland, but
there is no letter of that date from Roland Lee in
_L. and P._; probably the sentence occurs in Lee's
letter of 18th July, 1534, or that of 18th July,
1535 (_L. and P._, vii., 988, viii., 1058), though
the phrase is not given in _L. and P._).]
But Ireland demanded even more than Wales the application of Henry's
doctrines of union and empire; for if Wales was thought by Chapuys to
be receptive soil for the seeds of rebellion, sedition across St.
George's Channel was ripe unto the harvest. Irish affairs, among other
domestic problems, had been sacrificed to Wolsey's passion for playing
a part in Europe, and on the eve of his fall English rule in Ireland
was reported to be weaker than it had been since the Conquest. The
outbreak of war with Charles V., in 1528, was followed by the first
appearance of Spanish emissaries at the courts of Irish chiefs, and
from Spanish intrigue in Ireland Tudor monarchs were never again to be
free. In the autumn of 1534 the whole of Ireland outside the pale
blazed up in revolt. Sir William Skeffington succeeded in crushing the
rebellion; but Skeffington died in the following year, and his
successor, Lord Leonard Grey, failed to overcome the difficulties
caused by Irish disaffection and by jealousies in his council. His
sister was wife of Fitzgerald, the Earl of Kildare, and the (p. 367)
revolt of the Geraldines brought Grey himself under suspicion. He was
accused by his council of treason; he returned to England in 1540,
declaring the country at peace. But, before he had audience with
Henry, a fresh insurrection broke out, and Grey was sent to the Tower;
thence, having pleaded guilty to charges of treason, he trod the usual
path to the block.
Henry now adopted fresh methods; he determined to treat Ireland in
much the same way as Wales. A commission, appointed in 1537, had made
a thorough survey of the land, and supplied him with the outlines of
his policy. As in Wales, the English system of land tenure, of justice
and the English language were to supersede indigenous growths; the
King's supremacy in temporal and ecclesiastical affairs was to be
enforced, and the whole of the land was to be gradually won by a
judicious admixture of force and conciliation.[1017] The new deputy,
Sir Anthony St. Leger, was an able man, who had presided over the
commission of 1537. He landed at Dublin in 1541, and his work was
thoroughly done. Henry, no longer so lavish with his money as in
Wolsey's days, did not stint for this purpose.[1018] The Irish
Parliament passed an act that Henry should be henceforth styled King,
instead of Lord, of Ireland; and many of the chiefs were induced to
relinquish their tribal independence in return for glittering
coronets. By 1542 Ireland had not merely peace within her own borders,
but was able to send two thousand kernes to assist the English on the
borders of Scotland; and English rule in Ireland was more widely and
more firmly established than it had ever been before.
[Footnote 1017: See R. Dunlop in _Owens College
Studies_, 1901, and the _Calendar of Carew MSS._
and _Calendar of Irish State Papers_, vol. i.]
[Footnote 1018: _L. and P._, xvi., 43, 77.]
Besides Ireland and Wales, there were other spheres in which Henry (p. 368)
sought to consolidate and extend the Tudor methods of government. The
erection, in 1542, of the Courts of Wards and Liveries, of First-fruits
and Tenths, and the development of the jurisdiction of the Star
Chamber and of the Court of Requests,[1019] were all designed to
further two objects dear to Henry's heart, the efficiency of his
administration and the exaltation of his prerogative. It was
thoroughly in keeping with his policy that the parliamentary system
expanded concurrently with the sphere of the King's activity. Berwick
had first been represented in the Parliament of 1529,[1020] and a
step, which would have led to momentous consequences, had the idea, on
which it was based, been carried out, was taken in 1536, when two
members were summoned from Calais. There was now only one district
under English rule which was not represented in Parliament, and that
was the county of Durham, known as _the_ bishopric, which still
remained detached from the national system. It was left for Oliver
Cromwell to complete England's parliamentary representation by
summoning members to sit for that palatine county.[1021] This was not
the only respect in which the Commonwealth followed in the footsteps
of Henry VIII., for the Parliament of 1542, in which members from
Wales and from Calais are first recorded as sitting,[1022] passed an
"Act for the Navy," which provided that goods could only be (p. 369)
imported in English ships. It was, however, in his dealings with
Scotland that Henry's schemes for the expansion of England became most
marked; but, before he could develop his plans in that direction, he
had to ward off a recrudescence of the danger from a coalition of
Catholic Europe.
[Footnote 1019: _L. and P._, xvi., 28; _cf._
Leadam, _Court of Requests_, Selden Soc., Introd.]
[Footnote 1020: _Official Return of Members of
Parliament_, i., 369.]
[Footnote 1021: See G.T. Lapsley, _The County
Palatine of Durham_, in _Harvard Historical
Series_.]
[Footnote 1022: There are no records in the
_Official Return_ for 1536 and 1539, but Calais had
been granted Parliamentary representation by an Act
of the previous Parliament (27 Hen. VIII., Private
Acts, No. 9; _cf. L. and P._, x., 1086).]
* * * * *
In spite of Henry's efforts to fan the flames of strife[1023] between
the Emperor and the King of France, the war, which had prevented
either monarch from countenancing the mission of Cardinal Pole or from
profiting by the Pilgrimage of Grace, was gradually dying down in the
autumn of 1537; and, in order to check the growing and dangerous
intimacy between the two rivals, Henry was secretly hinting to both
that the death of his Queen had left him free to contract a marriage
which might bind him for ever to one or the other.[1024] To Francis he
sent a request for the hand of Mary of Guise, who had already been
promised to James V. of Scotland. He refused to believe that the Scots
negotiations had proceeded so far that they could not be set aside for
so great a king as himself, and he succeeded in convincing the lady's
relatives that the position of a Queen of England provided greater
attractions than any James could hold out.[1025] Francis, however,
took matters into his own hands, and compelled the Guises to fulfil
their compact with the Scottish King. Nothing daunted, Henry asked for
a list of other French ladies eligible for the matrimonial prize. (p. 370)
He even suggested that the handsomest of them might be sent, in the
train of Margaret of Navarre, to Calais, where he could inspect them
in person.[1026] "I trust to no one," he told Castillon, the French
ambassador, "but myself. The thing touches me too near. I wish to see
them and know them some time before deciding."[1027] This idea of
"trotting out the young ladies like hackneys"[1028] was not much
relished at the French Court; and Castillon, to shame Henry out of the
indelicacy of his proposal, made an ironical suggestion for testing
the ladies' charms, the grossness of which brought the only recorded
blush to Henry's cheeks.[1029] No more was said of the beauty-show;
and Henry declared that he did not intend to marry in France or in
Spain at all, unless his marriage brought him a closer alliance with
Francis or Charles than the rivals had formed with each other.
[Footnote 1023: Vols. xii. and xiii. of the _L. and
P._ are full of these attempts.]
[Footnote 1024: For the negotiations with France
from 1537 onwards see Kaulek, _Corresp. de MM.
Castillon et Marillac_, Paris, 1885.]
[Footnote 1025: _L. and P._, XIII., i., 165, 273.]
[Footnote 1026: Is this another trace of
"Byzantinism"? It was a regular custom at the
Byzantine and other Oriental Courts to have a
"concourse of beauty" for the Emperor's benefit
when he wished to choose a wife (_Histoire
Generale_, i., 381 n., v., 728); and the story of
Theophilus and Theodora is familiar (Finlay, ii.,
146-47).]
[Footnote 1027: _L. and P._, XIII., ii., 77;
Kaulek, p. 80.]
[Footnote 1028: _Ibid._, XII., ii., 1125; XIII.,
ii., p. xxxi.]
[Footnote 1029: _Ibid._, XIII., ii., 77.]
While these negotiations for obtaining the hand of a French princess
were in progress, Henry set on foot a similar quest in the Netherlands.
Before the end of 1537 he had instructed Hutton, his agent, to report
on the ladies of the Regent Mary's Court;[1030] and Hutton replied
that Christina of Milan was said to be "a goodly personage and of
excellent beauty". She was daughter of the deposed King of Denmark and
of his wife, Isabella, sister of Charles V.; at the age of thirteen
she had been married to the Duke of Milan, but she was now a (p. 371)
virgin widow of sixteen, "very tall and competent of beauty, of favour
excellent and very gentle in countenance".[1031] On 10th March, 1538,
Holbein arrived at Brussels for the purpose of painting the lady's
portrait, which he finished in a three hours' sitting.[1032]
Christina's fascinations do not seem to have made much impression on
Henry; indeed, his taste in feminine beauty cannot be commended. There
is no good authority for the alleged reply of the young duchess
herself, that, if she had two heads, she would willingly place one of
them at His Majesty's disposal.[1033] Henry had, as yet, beheaded only
one of his wives, and even if the precedent had been more firmly
established, Christina was too wary and too polite to refer to it in
such uncourtly terms. She knew that the disposal of her hand did not
rest with herself, and though the Emperor sent powers for the
conclusion of the match, neither he nor Henry had any desire to see it
concluded. The cementing of his friendship with Francis freed Charles
from the need of Henry's goodwill, and impelled the English King to
seek elsewhere for means to counter-balance the hostile alliance.
[Footnote 1030: _Ibid._, XII., ii., 1172.]
[Footnote 1031: _L. and P._, XII., ii., Pref. p.
xxviii., No. 1187.]
[Footnote 1032: _Ibid._, XIII., i., 380, 507. The
magnificent portrait of Christina belonging to the
Duke of Norfolk, and now on loan at the National
Gallery, must have been painted by Holbein
afterwards.]
[Footnote 1033: It may have crystallised from some
such rumour as is reported in _L. and P._, XIV.,
ii., 141. "Marry," says George Constantyne, "she
sayeth that the King's Majesty was in so little
space rid of the Queens that she dare not trust his
Council, though she durst trust his Majesty; for
her council suspecteth that her great-aunt was
poisoned, that the second was innocently put to
death, and the third lost for lack of keeping in
her childbed." Constantyne added that he was not
sure whether this was Christina's answer or Anne of
Cleves'.]
The Emperor and the French King had not been deluded by English (p. 372)
intrigues, nor prevented from coming together by Henry's desire to
keep them apart. Charles, Francis, and Paul III. met at Nice in June,
1538, and there the Pope negotiated a ten years' truce. Henceforth
they were to consider their interests identical, and their ambassadors
in England compared notes in order to defeat more effectively Henry's
skilful diplomacy.[1034] The moment seemed ripe for the execution of
the long-cherished project for a descent upon England. Its King had
just added to his long list of offences against the Church by despoiling
the shrine of St. Thomas at Canterbury and burning the bones of the
saint. The saint was even said to have been put on his trial in
mockery, declared contumacious, and condemned as a traitor.[1035] If
the canonised bones of martyrs could be treated thus, who would, for
the future, pay respect to the Church or tribute at its shrines? At
Rome a party, of which Pole was the most zealous, proclaimed that the
real Turk was Henry, and that all Christian princes should unite to
sweep him from the face of God's earth, which his presence had too
long defiled. Considering the effect of Christian leagues against the
Ottoman, the English Turk was probably not dismayed. But Paul III. and
Pole were determined to do their worst. The Pope resolved to publish
the bull of deprivation, which had been drawn up in August, 1535,
though its execution had hitherto been suspended owing to papal (p. 373)
hopes of Henry's amendment and to the request of various princes. Now
the bull was to be published in France, in Flanders, in Scotland and
in Ireland. Beton was made a cardinal and sent home to exhort James V.
to invade his uncle's kingdom,[1036] while Pole again set out on his
travels to promote the conquest of his native land.[1037]
[Footnote 1034: _L. and P._, XIII., ii., 232, 277,
914, 915.]
[Footnote 1035: The burning of the bones is stated
as a fact in the Papal Bull of December, 1538 (_L.
and P._, XIII., ii., 1087; see Pref., p. xvi., n.);
but the documents printed in Wilkins's _Concilia_,
iii., 835, giving an account of an alleged trial of
the body of St. Thomas are forgeries (_L. and P._,
XIII., ii., pp. xli., xlii., 49). A precedent might
have been found in Pope Stephen VI.'s treatment of
his predecessor, Formosus (_Hist. Generale_, i.,
536).]
[Footnote 1036: _L. and P._, XIII., ii., 1108-9,
1114-16, 1130, 1135-36.]
[Footnote 1037: _Ibid._, XIII., ii., 950, 1110.]
It was on Pole's unfortunate relatives that the effects of the threatened
bull were to fall. Besides the Cardinal's treason, there was another
motive for proscribing his family. He and his brothers were grandchildren
of George, Duke of Clarence; years before, Chapuys had urged Charles
V. to put forward Pole as a candidate for the throne; and Henry was as
convinced as his father had been that the real way to render his
Government secure was to put away all the possible alternatives. Now
that he was threatened with deprivation by papal sentence, the need
became more urgent than ever. But, while the proscription of the Poles
was undoubtedly dictated by political reasons, their conduct enabled
Henry to effect it by legal means. There was no doubt of the
Cardinal's treason; his brother, Sir Geoffrey, had often taken counsel
with Charles's ambassador, and discussed plans for the invasion of
England;[1038] and even their mother, the aged Countess of Salisbury,
although she had denounced the Cardinal as a traitor and had lamented
the fact that she had given him birth, had brought herself within the
toils by receiving papal bulls and corresponding with traitors.[1039]
The least guilty of the family appears to have been the Countess's
eldest son, Lord Montague;[1040] but he, too, was involved in (p. 374)
the common ruin. Plots were hatched for kidnapping the Cardinal and
bringing him home to stand his trial for treason. Sir Geoffrey was
arrested in August, 1538, was induced, or forced, to turn King's
evidence, and as a reward was granted his miserable, conscience-struck
life.[1041] The Countess was spared for a while, but Montague mounted
the scaffold in December.
[Footnote 1038: _Ibid._, vii., 1368; viii., 750.]
[Footnote 1039: _Ibid._, XIII., ii., 835, 838,
855.]
[Footnote 1040: He had, however, been sending
information to Chapuys as early as 1534 (_L. and
P._, vii., 957), when Charles V. was urged to make
use of him and of Reginald Pole (_ibid._, vii.,
1040; _cf. ibid._, XIII., ii., 702, 830, 954).]
[Footnote 1041: _Ibid._, XIII., pt. ii., _passim_.
He attempted to commit suicide (_ibid._, 703).]
With Montague perished his cousin, the Marquis of Exeter, whose
descent from Edward IV. was as fatal to him as their descent from
Clarence was to the Poles. The Marquis was the White Rose, the next
heir to the throne if the line of the Tudors failed. His father, the
Earl of Devonshire, had been attainted in the reign of Henry VII.; but
Henry VIII. had reversed the attainder, had treated the young Earl
with kindness, had made him Knight of the Garter and Marquis of
Exeter, and had sought in various ways to win his support. But his
dynastic position and dislike of Henry's policy drove the Marquis into
the ranks of the discontented. He had been put in the Tower, in 1531,
on suspicion of treason; after his release he listened to the
hysterics of Elizabeth Barton, intrigued with Chapuys, and corresponded
with Reginald Pole;[1042] and in Cornwall, in 1538, men conspired to
make him King.[1043] Less evidence than this would have (p. 375)
convinced a jury of peers in Tudor times of the expediency of Exeter's
death; and, on the 9th of December, his head paid the price of his
royal descent.
[Footnote 1042: _Ibid._, v., 416; vi., 1419, 1464.]
[Footnote 1043: _Ibid._, XIII., ii., 802, 961.]
These executions do not seem to have produced the faintest symptoms of
disgust in the popular mind. The threat of invasion evoked a national
enthusiasm for defence. In August, 1538, Henry went down to inspect
the fortifications he had been for years erecting at Dover; masonry
from the demolished monasteries was employed in dotting the coast with
castles, such as Calshot and Hurst, which were built with materials
from the neighbouring abbey of Beaulieu. Commissioners were sent to
repair the defences at Calais and Guisnes, on the Scottish Borders,
along the coasts from Berwick to the mouth of the Thames, and from the
Thames to Lizard Point.[1044] Beacons were repaired, ordnance was
supplied wherever it was needed, lists of ships and of mariners were
drawn up in every port, and musters were taken throughout the kingdom.
Everywhere the people pressed forward to help; in the Isle of Wight
they were lining the shores with palisades, and taking every
precaution to render a landing of the enemy a perilous enterprise.[1045]
In Essex they anticipated the coming of the commissioners by digging
dykes and throwing up ramparts; at Harwich the Lord Chancellor saw
"women and children working with shovels at the trenches and bulwarks".
Whatever we may think of the roughness and rigour of Henry's rule, his
methods were not resented by the mass of his people. He had not lost
his hold on the nation; whenever he appealed to his subjects in a time
of national danger, he met with an eager response; and, had the (p. 376)
schemers abroad, who idly dreamt of his expulsion from the throne,
succeeded in composing their mutual quarrels and launching their bolt
against England, there is no reason to suppose that its fate would
have differed from that of the Spanish Armada.
[Footnote 1044: _L. and P._, XIV., i., 478, 533,
630, 671, 762, 899.]
[Footnote 1045: _Ibid._, XIV., i., 540, 564, 573,
615, 655, 682, 711, 712.]
In spite of the fears of invasion which prevailed in the spring of
1539, Pole's second mission had no more success than the first;[1046]
and the hostile fleet, for the sight of which the Warden of the Cinque
Ports was straining his eyes from Dover Castle, never came from the
mouths of the Scheldt and the Rhine; or rather, the supposed Armada
proved to be a harmless convoy of traders.[1047] The Pope himself, on
second thoughts, withheld his promised bull. He distrusted its
reception at the hands of his secular allies, and dreaded the contempt
and ridicule which would follow an open failure.[1048] Moreover, at
the height of his fervour against Henry, he could not refrain from
attempts to extend his temporal power, and his seizure of Urbino
alienated Francis and afforded Henry some prospect of creating an
anti-papal party in Italy.[1049] Francis would gladly join in a
prohibition of English commerce, if Charles would only begin; but
without Charles he could do nothing, and, even when his amity with the
Emperor was closest, he was compelled, at Henry's demand, to punish
the French priests who inveighed against English enormities.[1050] To
Charles, however, English trade was worth more than to Francis, (p. 377)
and the Emperor's subjects would tolerate no interruption of their
lucrative intercourse with England. With the consummate skill which he
almost invariably displayed in political matters, Henry had, in 1539,
when the danger seemed greatest, provided the Flemings with an
additional motive for peace. He issued a proclamation that, for seven
years, their goods should pay no more duty than those of the English
themselves;[1051] and the thrifty Dutch were little inclined to stop,
by a war, the fresh stream of gold. The Emperor, too, had more urgent
matters in hand. Henry might be more of a Turk than the Sultan
himself, and the Pope might regard the sack of St. Thomas's shrine
with more horror than the Turkish defeat of a Christian fleet; but
Henry was not harrying the Emperor's coasts, nor threatening to
deprive the Emperor's brother of his Hungarian kingdom; and Turkish
victories on land and on sea gave the imperial family much more
concern than all Henry's onslaughts on the saints and their relics.
And, besides the Ottoman peril, Charles had reason to fear the
political effects of the union between England and the Protestant
princes of Germany, for which the religious development in England was
paving the way, and which an attack on Henry would at once have
cemented.
[Footnote 1046: _L. and P._, XIV., i., Introd., pp.
xi.-xiii.]
[Footnote 1047: _Ibid._, XIV., i., 714, 728, 741,
767.]
[Footnote 1048: _Cf. ibid._, XIV., i., 1011, 1013;
ii., 99.]
[Footnote 1049: _Ibid._, XIV., i., 27, 37, 92, 98,
104, 114, 144, 188, 235, 884; ii., 357.]
[Footnote 1050: _L. and P._, XIV., i., 37, 92,
371.]
[Footnote 1051: _L. and P._, XIV., i., 373.]
* * * * *
The powers conferred upon Henry as Supreme Head of the Church were not
long suffered to remain in abeyance. Whatever the theory may have
been, in practice Henry's supremacy over the Church was very different
from that which Kings of England had hitherto wielded; and from the
moment he entered upon his new ecclesiastical kingdom, he set (p. 378)
himself not merely to reform practical abuses, such as the excessive
wealth of the clergy, but to define the standard of orthodox faith,
and to force his subjects to embrace the royal theology. The Catholic
faith was to hold good only so far as the Supreme Head willed; the
"King's doctrine" became the rule to which "_our_ Church of England,"
as Henry styled it, was henceforth to conform; and "unity and concord
in opinion" were to be established by royal decree.
The first royal definition of the faith was embodied in ten articles
submitted to Convocation in 1536. The King was, he said, constrained
by diversity of opinions "to put his own pen to the book and conceive
certain articles... thinking that no person, having authority from
him, would presume to say a word against their meaning, or be remiss
in setting them forth".[1052] His people, he maintained, whether peer
or prelate, had no right to resist his temporal or spiritual commands,
whatever they might be. Episcopal authority had indeed sunk low. When
Convocation was opened, in 1536, a layman, Dr. William Petre,
appeared, and demanded the place of honour above all bishops and
archbishops in their assembly. Pre-eminence belonged, he said, to the
King as Supreme Head of the Church; the King had appointed Cromwell
his Vicar-general; and Cromwell had named him, Petre, his
proctor.[1053] The claim was allowed, and the submissive clergy found
little fault with the royal articles of faith, though they mentioned
only three sacraments, baptism, penance and the sacrament of the
altar, denounced the abuse of images, warned men against excessive (p. 379)
devotion to the saints, and against believing that "ceremonies have
power to remit sin," or that masses can deliver souls from purgatory.
Finally, Convocation transferred from the Pope to the Christian
princes the right to summon a General Council.[1054]
[Footnote 1052: _L. and P._, xi., 1110; _cf.
ibid._, 59, 123, 377, 954.]
[Footnote 1053: Wilkins, _Concilia_, iii., 803.]
[Footnote 1054: Fuller, _Church History_, ed. 1845,
iii., 145-59; Burnet, _Reformation_, ed. Pocock,
iv., 272-90; Strype, _Cranmer_, i., 58-62.]
With the _Institution of a Christian Man_, issued in the following
year, and commonly called _The Bishops' Book_, Henry had little to do.
The bishops debated the doctrinal questions from February to July,
1537, but the King wrote, in August, that he had had no time to
examine their conclusions.[1055] He trusted, however, to their wisdom,
and agreed that the book should be published and read to the people on
Sundays and holy-days for three years to come. In the same year he
permitted a change, which inevitably gave fresh impulse to the
reforming movement in England and destroyed every prospect of that
"union and concord in opinions," on which he set so much store. Miles
Coverdale was licensed to print an edition of his Bible in England,
with a dedication to Queen Jane Seymour; and, in 1538, a second
English version was prepared by John Rogers, under Cranmer's
authority, and published as Matthew's Bible.[1056] This was the Bible
"of the largest volume" which Cromwell, as Henry's Vicegerent, ordered
to be set up in all churches. Every incumbent was to encourage his
parishioners to read it; he was to recite the Paternoster, the Creed
and the Ten Commandments in English, that his flock might learn (p. 380)
them by degrees; he was to require some acquaintance with the
rudiments of the faith, as a necessary condition from all before they
could receive the Sacrament of the Altar; he was to preach at least
once a quarter; and to institute a register of births, marriages and
deaths.[1057]
[Footnote 1055: _L. and P._, XII., ii., 618;
Cranmer, _Works_, ii., 469; _cf._ Jenkyns,
_Cranmer_, ii., 21; and Cranmer, _Works_, ii., 83,
359, 360.]
[Footnote 1056: See the present writer's _Cranmer_,
pp. 110-13; Dixon, _Church History_, ii., 77-79.]
[Footnote 1057: See these _injunctions_ in Burnet,
iv., 341-46; Wilkins, _Concilia,_ iii., 815.]
Meanwhile, a vigorous assault was made on the strongholds of
superstition; pilgrimages were suppressed, and many wonder-working
images were pulled down and destroyed. The famous Rood of Boxley, a
figure whose contortions had once imposed on the people, was taken to
the market-place at Maidstone,[1058] and the ingenious mechanism,
whereby the eyes and lips miraculously opened and shut, was exhibited
to the vulgar gaze.[1059] Probably these little devices had already
sunk in popular esteem, for the Blood of St. Januarius could not be
treated at Naples to-day in the same cavalier fashion as the Blood of
Hailes was in England in 1538,[1060] without a riot. But the exposure
was a useful method of exciting popular indignation against the monks,
and it filled reformers with a holy joy. "Dagon," wrote one to
Bullinger, "is everywhere falling in England. Bel of Babylon has been
broken to pieces."[1061] The destruction of the images was a preliminary
skirmish in the final campaign against the monks. The Act of 1536 (p. 381)
had only granted to the King religious houses which possessed an
endowment of less than two hundred pounds a year; the dissolution of
the greater monasteries was now gradually effected by a process of
more or less voluntary surrender. In some cases the monks may have
been willing enough to go; they were loaded with debt, and harassed by
rules imposed by Cromwell, which would have been difficult to keep in
the palmiest days of monastic enthusiasm; and they may well have
thought that freedom from monastic restraint, coupled with a pension,
was a welcome relief, especially when resistance involved the anger of
the prince and liability to the penalties of elastic treasons and of a
_praemunire_ which no one could understand. So, one after another, the
great abbeys yielded to the persuasions and threats of the royal
commissioners. The dissolution of the Mendicant Orders and of the
Knights of St. John dispersed the last remnants of the papal army as
an organised force in England, though warfare of a kind continued for
many years.
[Footnote 1058: _L. and P._, XIII., i., 231, 348.]
[Footnote 1059: Father Bridgett in his _Blunders
and Forgeries_ repudiates the idea that these
"innocent toys" had been put to any superstitious
uses.]
[Footnote 1060: _L. and P._, XIII., i., 347, 564,
580; ii., 186, 409, 488, 709, 710, 856.]
[Footnote 1061: John Hoker of Maidstone to
Bullinger in Burnet (ed. Pocock, vi., 194, 195).]
These proceedings created as much satisfaction among the Lutherans of
Germany as they did disgust at Rome, and an alliance between Henry and
the Protestant princes seemed to be dictated by a community of religious,
as well as of political, interests. The friendship between Francis and
Charles threatened both English and German liberties, and it behoved
the two countries to combine against their common foe. Henry's manifesto
against the authority of the Pope to summon a General Council had been
received with rapture in Germany; at least three German editions were
printed, and the Elector of Saxony and the Landgrave of Hesse urged on
him the adoption of a common policy.[1062] English envoys were (p. 382)
sent to Germany with this purpose in the spring of 1538, and German
divines journeyed to England to lay the foundation of a theological
union.[1063] They remained five months, but failed to effect an
agreement.[1064] To the three points on which they desired further
reform in England, the Communion in both kinds, the abolition of
private masses and of the enforced celibacy of the clergy, Henry
himself wrote a long reply,[1065] maintaining in each case the
Catholic faith. But the conference showed that Henry was for the time
anxious to be conciliatory in religious matters, while from a political
point of view the need for an alliance grew more urgent than ever. All
Henry's efforts to break the amity between Francis and Charles had
failed; his proposals of marriage to imperial and French princesses
had come to nothing; and, in the spring of 1539, it was rumoured that
the Emperor would further demonstrate the indissolubility of his
intimacy with the French King by passing through France from Spain to
Germany, instead of going, as he had always hitherto done, by sea, or
through Italy and Austria. Cromwell seized the opportunity and
persuaded Henry to strengthen his union with the Protestant princes by
seeking a wife from a German house.
[Footnote 1062: Gairdner, _Church History_, p. 195;
_L. and P._, XII., i., 1310; ii. 1088-89.]
[Footnote 1063: _L. and P._, XIII., i., 352, 353,
367, 645, 648-50, 1102, 1166, 1295, 1305, 1437.]
[Footnote 1064: _Ibid._, XIII., ii., 741; Cranmer,
_Works_, ii., 397; Burnet, i., 408; Strype, _Eccl.
Mem._, i., App. Nos. 94-102.]
[Footnote 1065: Burnet, iv., 373.]
This policy once adopted, the task of selecting a bride was easy. As
early as 1530[1066] the old Duke of Cleves had suggested some (p. 383)
marriage alliance between his own and the royal family of England. He
was closely allied to the Elector of Saxony, who had married Sibylla,
the Duke of Cleves' daughter; and the young Duke, who was soon to
succeed his father, had also claims to the Duchy of Guelders. Guelders
was a thorn in the side of the Emperor; it stood to the Netherlands in
much the same relation as Scotland stood to England, and when there
was war between Charles and Francis Guelders had always been one of
the most useful pawns in the French King's hands. Hence an alliance
between the German princes, the King of Denmark, who had joined their
political and religious union, Guelders and England would have
seriously threatened the Emperor's hold on his Dutch dominions.[1067]
This was the step which Henry was induced to take, when he realised
that Charles's friendship with France remained unbroken, and that the
Emperor had made up his mind to visit Paris. Hints of a marriage
between Henry and Anne of Cleves[1068] were thrown out early in 1539;
the only difficulty, which subsequently proved very convenient, was
that the lady had been promised to the son of the Duke of (p. 384)
Lorraine. The objection was waived on the ground that Anne herself had
not given her consent; in view of the advantages of the match and of
the Duke's financial straits, Henry agreed to forgo a dowry; and, on
the 6th of October, the treaty of marriage was signed.[1069]
[Footnote 1066: _L. and P._, iv., 6364.]
[Footnote 1067: See the present writer in
_Cambridge Modern History_, ii., 236, 237. The Duke
of Cleves was not a Lutheran or a Protestant, as is
generally assumed. He had established a curious
Erasmian compromise between Protestantism and Roman
Catholicism, which bears some resemblance to the
ecclesiastical policy pursued by Henry VIII., and
by the Elector Joachim II. of Brandenburg; and the
marriage of Anne with Henry did not imply so great
a change in ecclesiastical policy as has usually
been supposed. The objections to it were really
more political than religious; the Schmalkaldic
League was a feeble reed to lean upon, although its
feebleness was not exposed until 1546-47.]
[Footnote 1068: _L. and P._, XIV., i., 103; _cf._
Bouterwek, _Anna von Cleve_; Merriman, _Cromwell_,
chap. xiii.; and articles on the members of the
Cleves family in the _Allgemeine Deutsche
Biographie_.]
[Footnote 1069: _L. and P._, XIV., ii., 285, 286.]
Anne of Cleves had already been described to Henry by his ambassador,
Dr. Wotton, and Holbein had been sent to paint her portrait (now in
the Louvre), which Wotton pronounced "a very lively image".[1070] She
had an oval face, long nose, chestnut eyes, a light complexion, and
very pale lips. She was thirty-four years old, and in France was
reported to be ugly; but Cromwell told the King that "every one
praised her beauty, both of face and body, and one said she excelled
the Duchess of Milan as the golden sun did the silver moon".[1071]
Wotton's account of her accomplishments was pitched in a minor key.
Her gentleness was universally commended, but she spent her time
chiefly in needlework. She knew no language but her own; she could
neither sing nor play upon any instrument, accomplishments which were
then considered by Germans to be unbecoming in a lady.[1072] On the
12th of December, 1539, she arrived at Calais; but boisterous weather
and bad tides delayed her there till the 27th. She landed at Deal (p. 385)
and rode to Canterbury. On the 30th she proceeded to Sittingbourne,
and thence, on the 31st, to Rochester, where the King met her in
disguise.[1073] If he was disappointed with her appearance, he
concealed the fact from the public eye. Nothing marred her public
reception at Greenwich on the 3rd, or was suffered to hinder the
wedding, which was solemnised three days later.[1074] Henry "lovingly
embraced and kissed" his bride in public, and allowed no hint to reach
the ears of any one but his most intimate counsellors of the fact that
he had been led willingly or unwillingly into the most humiliating
situation of his reign.
[Footnote 1070: _Ibid._, XIV., ii., 33. Holbein did
not paint a flattering portrait any more than
Wotton told a flattering tale; if Henry was
deceived in the matter it was by Cromwell's
unfortunate assurances. As a matter of fact Anne
was at least as good looking as Jane Seymour, and
Henry's taste in the matter of feminine beauty was
not of a very high order. Bishop Stubbs even
suggests that their appearance was "if not a
justification, at least a colourable reason for
understanding the readiness with which he put them
away" (_Lectures_, 1887, p. 284).]
[Footnote 1071: _L. and P._, XIV., i., 552.]
[Footnote 1072: _Ibid._, XIV., ii., 33.]
[Footnote 1073: _L. and P._, XIV., ii., 664, 674,
677, 726, 732, 753, 754, 769.]
[Footnote 1074: Hall, _Chronicle_, p. 836.]
Such was, in reality, the result of his failure to act on the
principle laid down by himself to the French ambassador two years
before. He had then declared that the choice of a wife was too
delicate a matter to be left to a deputy, and that he must see and
know a lady some time before he made up his mind to marry her. Anne of
Cleves had been selected by Cromwell, and the lady, whose beauty was,
according to Cromwell, in every one's mouth, seemed to Henry no better
than "a Flanders mare".[1075] The day after the interview at Rochester
he told Cromwell that Anne was "nothing so well as she was spoken of,"
and that, "if he had known before as much as he knew then, she should
not have come within his realm". He demanded of his Vicegerent what
remedy he had to suggest, and Cromwell had none. Next day Cranmer,
Norfolk, Suffolk, Southampton and Tunstall were called in with (p. 386)
no better result. "Is there none other remedy," repeated Henry, "but
that I must needs, against my will, put my neck in the yoke?"[1076]
Apparently there was none. The Emperor was being feted in Paris; to
repudiate the marriage would throw the Duke of Cleves into the arms of
the allied sovereigns, alienate the German princes, and leave Henry
without a friend among the powers of Christendom. So he made up his
mind to put his neck in the yoke and to marry "the Flanders mare".
[Footnote 1075: Burnet, i., 434. The phrase appears
to have no extant contemporary authority, but
Burnet is not, as a rule, imaginative, and many
records have been destroyed since he wrote.]
[Footnote 1076: Cromwell to Henry VIII., in
Merriman, ii., 268-72.]
* * * * *
Henry, however, was never patient of matrimonial or other yokes, and
it was quite certain that, as soon as he could do so without serious
risk, he would repudiate his unattractive wife, and probably other
things besides. For Anne's defects were only the last straw added to
the burden which Henry bore. He had not only been forced by
circumstances into marriage with a wife who was repugnant to him, but
into a religious and secular policy which he and the mass of his
subjects disliked. The alliance with the Protestant princes might be a
useful weapon if things came to the worst, and if there were a joint
attack on England by Francis and Charles; but, on its merits, it was
not to be compared to a good understanding with the Emperor; and Henry
would have no hesitation in throwing over the German princes when once
he saw his way to a renewal of friendship with Charles. He would
welcome, even more, a relief from the necessity of paying attention to
German divines. He had never wavered in his adhesion to the cardinal
points of the Catholic faith. He had no enmity to Catholicism, provided
it did not stand in his way. The spiritual jurisdiction of Rome (p. 387)
had been abolished in England because it imposed limits on Henry's own
authority. Some of the powers of the English clergy had been destroyed,
partly for a similar reason, and partly as a concession to the laity.
But the purely spiritual claims of the Church remained unimpaired; the
clergy were still a caste, separate from other men, and divinely
endowed with the power of performing a daily miracle in the conversion
of the bread and wine into the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ. Even
when the Protestant alliance seemed most indispensable, Henry
endeavoured to convince Lutherans of the truth of the Catholic
doctrine of the mass, and could not refrain from persecuting heretics
with a zeal that shook the confidence of his reforming allies. His
honour, he thought, was involved in his success in proving that he,
with his royal supremacy, could defend the faith more effectively than
the Pope, with all his pretended powers; and he took a personal
interest in the conversion and burning of heretics. Several instances
are recorded of his arguing a whole day with Sacramentaries,[1077]
exercises which exhibited to advantage at once the royal authority and
the royal learning in spiritual matters. His beliefs were not due to
caprice or to ignorance; probably no bishop in his realm was more
deeply read in heterodox theology.[1078] He was constantly on the (p. 388)
look-out for books by Luther and other heresiarchs, and he kept quite
a respectable theological library at hand for private use. The
tenacity with which he clung to orthodox creeds and Catholic forms was
not only strengthened by study but rooted in the depths of his
character. To devout but fundamentally irreligious men, like Henry
VIII. and Louis XIV., rites and ceremonies are a great consolation;
and Henry seldom neglected to creep to the Cross on Good Friday, to
serve the priest at mass, to receive holy bread and holy water every
Sunday, and daily to use "all other laudable ceremonies".[1079]
[Footnote 1077: _E.g._, _L. and P._, v., 285;
XIII., ii., 849, Introd., p. xxviii. Sir John
Wallop admired the "charitable dexterity" with
which Henry treated them (_ibid._, xv., 429).]
[Footnote 1078: When a book was presented to him
which he had not the patience to read he handed it
over to one of his lords-in-waiting to read; he
then took it back and gave it to be examined to
some one of an entirely different way of thinking,
and made the two discuss its merits, and upon that
discussion formed his own opinion (Cranmer to
Wolfgang Capito, _Works_, ii., 341; the King, says
Cranmer, "is a most acute and vigilant observer").
Henry was also, according to modern standards,
extraordinarily patient of theological discourses;
when Cranmer obtained for Latimer an appointment to
preach at Court, he advised him not to preach more
than an hour or an hour and a half lest the King
and Queen should grow weary! (_L. and P._, vii.,
29).]
[Footnote 1079: _L. and P._, XIV., i., 967, an
interesting letter which also records how the King
rowed up and down the Thames in his barge for an
hour after evensong on Holy Thursday "with his
drums and fifes playing".]
With such feelings at heart, a union with Protestants could never for
Henry be more than a _mariage de convenance_; and in this, as in other
things, he carried with him the bulk of popular sympathy. In 1539 it
was said that no man in London durst speak against Catholic usages,
and, in Lent of that year, a man was hanged, apparently at the
instance of the Recorder of London, for eating flesh on a Friday.[1080]
The attack on the Church had been limited to its privileges and to its
property; its doctrine had scarcely been touched. The upper classes
among the laity had been gorged with monastic spoils; they were
disposed to rest and be thankful. The middle classes had been (p. 389)
satisfied to some extent by the restriction of clerical fees, and by
the prohibition of the clergy from competing with laymen in profitable
trades, such as brewing, tanning, and speculating in land and houses.
There was also the general reaction which always follows a period of
change. How far that reaction had gone, Henry first learnt from the
Parliament which met on the 28th of April, 1539.
[Footnote 1080: _Ibid._, i., 967. This had been
made a capital offence as early as the days of
Charlemagne (Gibbon, ed. 1890, iii., 450 n.).]
The elections were characterised by more court interference than is
traceable at any other period during the reign, though even on this
occasion the evidence is fragmentary and affects comparatively few
constituencies.[1081] It was, moreover, Cromwell and not the King who
sought to pack the House of Commons in favour of his own particular
policy; and the attempt produced discontent in various constituencies
and a riot in one at least.[1082] The Earl of Southampton was (p. 390)
required to use his influence on behalf of Cromwell's nominees at
Farnham, although that borough was within the Bishop of Winchester's
preserves.[1083] So, too, Cromwell's henchman, Wriothesley, was
returned for the county of Southampton in spite of Gardiner's
opposition. Never, till the days of the Stuarts, was there a more
striking instance of the futility of these tactics; for the House of
Commons, which Cromwell took so much pains to secure, passed, without
a dissentient, the Bill of Attainder against him; and before it was
dissolved, the bishop, against whose influence Cromwell had especially
exerted himself, had taken Cromwell's place in the royal favour. There
was, indeed, no possibility of stemming the tide which was flowing
against the Vicegerent and in favour of the King; and Cromwell was
forced to swim with the stream in the vain hope of saving himself from
disaster.
[Footnote 1081: In 1536 Henry had sent round a
circular to the sheriffs; but its main object was
to show that another Parliament was indispensable,
to persuade the people that "their charge and time,
which will be very little and short, would be well
spent," and to secure "that persons are elected who
will serve, and for their worship and qualities be
most meet for this purpose" (_L. and P._, x., 815).
The sheriffs in fact were simply to see that the
burden was placed on those able and willing to bear
it. The best illustration of the methods adopted
and of the amount of liberty of election exercised
by the constituents may be found in Southampton's
letter to Cromwell (_ibid._, XIV., i., 520). At
Guildford he told the burgesses they must return
two members, which would be a great charge to the
town, "but that if they followed my advice it would
cost little or nothing, for I would provide able
men to supply the room". They said that one Daniel
Modge wanted one of the seats, but Southampton
might arrange for the other. About the Sussex
election he was doubtful, but various friends had
promised to do their parts. Farnham, he said,
returned burgesses (though it does not appear in
the _Official Return_), but that was the bishop's
town, "and my Lord Chamberlain is his steward
there; so I forbear to meddle".]
[Footnote 1082: _L. and P._, XIV., i., 662, 800,
808. By a singular fatality the returns for this
Parliament have been lost, so there is no means of
ascertaining how many of these nominees were
actually elected.]
[Footnote 1083: _Ibid._, XIV., i., 573, and
"although he fears my lord of Winchester has
already moved men after his own desires". He also
spoke with Lord St. John about knights of the shire
for Hampshire, and St. John "promised to do his
best". Finally he enclosed a "schedule of the best
men of the country picked out _by them_, that
Cromwell may pick whom he would have chosen".]
The principal measure passed in this Parliament was the Act of Six
Articles, and it was designed to secure that unity and concord in
opinions which had not been effected by the King's injunctions. The
Act affirmed the doctrine of Transubstantiation, declared that the
administration of the Sacrament in both kinds was not necessary, that
priests might not marry, that vows of chastity were perpetual, that
private masses were meet and necessary, and auricular confession (p. 391)
was expedient and necessary. Burning was the penalty for once denying
the first article, and a felon's death for twice denying any of the
others. This was practically the first Act of Uniformity, the earliest
definition by Parliament of the faith of the Church. It showed that
the mass of the laity were still orthodox to the core, that they could
persecute as ruthlessly as the Church itself, and that their only
desire was to do the persecution themselves. The bill was carried
through Parliament by means of a coalition of King and laity[1084]
against Cromwell and a minority of reforming bishops, who are said
only to have relinquished their opposition at Henry's personal
intervention;[1085] and the royal wishes were communicated, when the
King was not present in person, through Norfolk and not through the
royal Vicegerent.
[Footnote 1084: "We of the temporality," writes a
peer, "have been all of one mind" (_L. and P._,
XIV., i., 1040; Burnet, vi., 233; _Narratives of
the Reformation_, p. 248).]
[Footnote 1085: See the present writer's _Cranmer_,
p. 129 n. Cranmer afterwards asserted (_Works_,
ii., 168) that the Act would never have passed
unless the King had come personally into the
Parliament house, but that is highly improbable.]
It was clear that Cromwell was trembling to his fall. The enmity shown
in Parliament to his doctrinal tendencies was not the result of royal
dictation; for even this Parliament, which gave royal proclamations
the force of law, could be independent when it chose. The draft of the
Act of Proclamations, as originally submitted to the House of Commons,
provoked a hot debate, was thrown out, and another was substituted
more in accord with the sense of the House.[1086] Parliament could
have rejected the second as easily as it did the first, had it (p. 392)
wished. Willingly and wittingly it placed this weapon in the royal
hands,[1087] and the chief motive for its action was that overwhelming
desire for "union and concord in opinion" which lay at the root of the
Six Articles. Only one class of offences against royal proclamations
could be punished with death, and those were offences "against any
proclamation to be made by the King's Highness, his heirs or successors,
for or concerning any kind of heresies against Christian doctrine".
The King might define the faith by proclamations, and the standard of
orthodoxy thus set up was to be enforced by the heaviest legal
penalties. England, thought Parliament, could only be kept united
against her foreign foes by a rigid uniformity of opinion; and that
uniformity could only be enforced by the royal authority based on lay
support, for the Church was now deeply divided in doctrine against
itself.
[Footnote 1086: Husee (_L. and P._, XIV., i., 1158)
says the House had been fifteen days over this
bill; _cf. Lords' Journals_, 1539.]
[Footnote 1087: Parliament is sometimes represented
as having almost committed constitutional suicide
by this Act; but _cf._ Dicey, _Law and Custom of
the Constitution_, p. 357, "Powers, however
extraordinary, which are conferred or sanctioned by
statute, are never really unlimited, for they are
confined by the words of the Act itself, and what
is more by the interpretation put upon the statute
by the judges". There was a world of difference
between this and the prerogative independent of
Parliament claimed by the Stuarts. Parliament was
the foundation, not the rival, of Henry's
authority.]
Such was the temper of England at the end of 1539. Cromwell and his
policy, the union with the German princes and the marriage with Anne
of Cleves were merely makeshifts. They stood on no surer foundation
than the passing political need of some counterpoise to the alliance
of Francis and Charles. So long as that need remained, the marriage
would hold good, and Henry would strive to dissemble; but not a moment
longer. The revolution came with startling rapidity; in April, (p. 393)
1540, Marillac, the French ambassador, reported that Cromwell was
tottering.[1088] The reason was not far to seek. No sooner had the
Emperor passed out of France, than he began to excuse himself from
fulfilling his engagements to Francis. He was resolute never to yield
Milan, for which Francis never ceased to yearn. Charles would have
found Francis a useful ally for the conquest of England, but his own
possessions were now threatened in more than one quarter, and especially
by the English and German alliance. Henry skilfully widened the breach
between the two friends, and, while professing the utmost regard for
Francis, gave Charles to understand that he vastly preferred the
Emperor's alliance to that of the Protestant princes. Before April he
had convinced himself that Charles was more bent on reducing Germany
and the Netherlands to order than on any attempt against England, and
that the abandonment of the Lutheran princes would not lead to their
combination with the Emperor and Francis. Accordingly he returned a
very cold answer when the Duke of Cleves's ambassadors came, in May,
to demand his assistance in securing for the Duke the Duchy of
Guelders.[1089]
[Footnote 1088: _L. and P._, xv., 486.]
[Footnote 1089: _Ibid._, xv., 735.]
Cromwell's fall was not, however, effected without some violent
oscillations, strikingly like the quick changes which preceded the
ruin of Robespierre during the Reign of Terror in France. The Vicegerent
had filled the Court and the Government with his own nominees; at
least half a dozen bishops, with Cranmer at their head, inclined to
his theological and political views; Lord Chancellor Audley and the
Earl of Southamton were of the same persuasion; and a small but (p. 394)
zealous band of reformers did their best, by ballads and sermons, to
prove that the people were thirsting for further religious change. The
Council, said Marillac, was divided, each party seeking to destroy the
other. Henry let the factions fight till he thought the time was come
for him to intervene. In February, 1540, there was a theological encounter
between Gardiner and Barnes, the principal agent in Henry's dealings
with the Lutherans, and Barnes was forced to recant;[1090] in April
Gardiner and one or two conservatives, who had long been excluded from
the Council, were believed to have been readmitted;[1091] and it was
reported that Tunstall would succeed Cromwell as the King's
Vicegerent.[1092] But a few days later two of Cromwell's satellites,
Wriothesley and Sadleir, were made Secretaries of State; Cromwell
himself was created Earl of Essex; and, in May, the Bishop of
Chichester and two other opponents of reform were sent to the
Tower.[1093] At last Henry struck. On the 10th of June Cromwell was
arrested; he had, wrote the Council, "not only been counterworking the
King's aims for the settlement of religion, but had said that, if the
King and the realm varied from his opinions, he would withstand them,
and that he hoped in another year or two to bring things to that frame
that the King could not resist it".[1094] His cries for mercy evoked
no response in that hardened age.[1095] Parliament condemned him
unheard, and, on the 28th of July, he was beheaded.
[Footnote 1090: _L. and P._, xv., 306, 312, 334.]
[Footnote 1091: _Ibid._, xv., 486, 804.]
[Footnote 1092: _Ibid._, XIV., ii., 141.]
[Footnote 1093: _Ibid._, xv., 737.]
[Footnote 1094: Burnet, iv., 415-23; _L. and P._,
xv., 765-67.]
[Footnote 1095: Merriman, _Cromwell_, ii., 268,
273.]
Henry had in reality come to the conclusion that it was safe to (p. 395)
dispense with Anne of Cleves and her relatives; and with his will
there was easily found a way. His case, as stated by himself, was, as
usual, a most ingenious mixture of fact and fiction, reason and
sophistry. His "intention" had been defective, and therefore his
administration of the sacrament of marriage had been invalid. He was
not a free agent because fear of being left defenceless against
Francis and Charles had driven him under the yoke. His marriage had
only been a conditional form. Anne had never received a release from
her contract with the son of the Duke of Lorraine; Henry had only gone
through the ceremony on the assumption that that release would be
forthcoming; and actuated by this conscientious scruple, he had
refrained from consummating the match. To give verisimilitude to this
last statement, he added the further detail that he found his bride
personally repugnant. He therefore sought from "our" Church a
declaration of nullity. Anne was prudently ready to submit to its
decision; and, through Convocation, Henry's Church, which in his view
existed mainly to transact his ecclesiastical business, declared, on
the 7th of July, that the marriage was null and void.[1096] Anne
received a handsome endowment of four thousand pounds a year in lands,
was given two country residences, and lived on amicable terms with
Henry[1097] and his successors till 1558, when she died and was buried
in Westminster Abbey.
[Footnote 1096: For the canonical reasons on which
this decision was based, see the present writer's
_Cranmer_, pp. 140, 141.]
[Footnote 1097: "She is," writes Marillac in
August, "as joyous as ever, and wears new dresses
every day" (xv., 976; _cf._ Wriothesley
_Chronicle_, i., 120).]
Henry's neck was freed from the matrimonial yoke and the German (p. 396)
entanglement. The news was promptly sent to Charles, who remarked that
Henry would always find him his loving brother and most cordial
friend.[1098] At Antwerp it was said that the King had alienated the
Germans, but gained the Emperor and France in their stead.[1099]
Luther declared that "Junker Harry meant to be God and to do as
pleased himself";[1100] and Melancthon, previously so ready to find
excuses, now denounced the English King as a Nero, and expressed a
wish that God would put it into the mind of some bold man to
assassinate him.[1101] Francis sighed when he heard the news,
foreseeing a future alliance against him,[1102] but the Emperor's
secretary believed that God was bringing good out of all these
things.[1103]
[Footnote 1098: _L. and P._, xv., 863.]
[Footnote 1099: _Ibid._, xv., 932.]
[Footnote 1100: _Ibid._, xvi., 106.]
[Footnote 1101: _Ibid._, xvi., Introd., p. ii. n.]
[Footnote 1102: _Ibid._, xv., 870.]
[Footnote 1103: _Ibid._, xv., 951.]