HENRY VIII (iv) 1529-33--THE BREACH WITH ROME
[Sidenote: 1529 No revolt as yet]
It will have been observed that when Wolsey found that the divorce was
inevitable, his energies were concentrated on the single purpose of
securing it under papal authority. For this he had two reasons--one, that
without that authority the King's act would appear in all its
arbitrariness, causing grave scandal: the other that if that authority were
refused, he foresaw the cleavage between England and Rome which did
eventually take place. Apart however from the divorce, there had not been
up to the time of Wolsey's fall any hint of an opinion in high places that
such a cleavage was _per se_ desirable or desired--although both
Wolsey himself and Gardiner had given Clement fair warning that Henry was
likely to reconsider the papal claims altogether unless the Pope complied
with his wishes. The revocation of the cause to Rome immediately brought
the execution of this threat into the sphere of practical politics.
In the second place there had been no tendency to encourage or allow
deviations from recognised orthodox doctrine. The new criticism had been so
far admitted as to produce a rigid section and a liberal section among the
orthodox, such leading prelates as Wolsey himself, Warham, Fox, Fisher, and
Tunstal, all favouring the new learning in various degrees, and being
supported therein by such learned laymen as Sir Thomas More. Their
toleration however had not extended to anything censurable as heresy, and
their attitude had been somewhat stiffened by the course of the Lutheran
revolt on the Continent. The increased licence within the Empire, following
the edict of Spires in 1528, led to an increased activity in the
suppression of heretics and heretical publications in England, first under
Wolsey and then under his successor in the Chancellorship.
[Sidenote: Growth of anti-clericalism]
In a third direction however, though not much had been done in the way of
measures, an _anti-clerical_ party had been growing up: a party which
sought to diminish clerical jurisdiction, clerical privileges, and clerical
emoluments. Among the ecclesiastics themselves there were not a few who
desired to improve clerical administration from within, but without
diminution of ecclesiastical authority; the anti-clericals were laymen who
wished the reforms to be forced on the Church from outside, reducing
ecclesiastical authority in the process. These two policies were in direct
opposition, seeing that antagonism to Wolsey--emphatically a reformer of
the prior class--was the leading motive with the nobility who headed the
second class; while the Commons in general desired primarily to be freed
from the exactions by which the clergy benefited, and from which they did
not believe the clergy would of their own initiative cut themselves
off. Wolsey had begun the internal amendment, by his visitation and
suppression of the smallest monasteries and the appropriation of
ecclesiastical property to educational purposes, and by some substitution
of the superior organisation of the legatine court for that of the
Ordinaries; but the latter step had been cancelled by his fall and by the
ominous appeal to the statute of Praemunire against legatine
jurisdiction. On the other hand, the anti-clerical action had been
practically confined so far to the modifications as to Benefit of Clergy;
unless we include the publication of pamphlets and rhymes attacking the
ecclesiastical body in general, or Wolsey in particular as the incarnation
of their shortcomings.
Some years were still to elapse before any material changes from orthodox
theological doctrine were to be entertained. But in 1529, the suspension of
the Trial was forthwith followed by the adoption of a policy--as yet only
provisional--setting aside the Pope's authority; and the assembly of
Parliament in November was marked by an immediate attack on ecclesiastical
abuses.
[Sidenote: Thomas Cranmer]
In the last six months of this year the King discovered two instruments
consummately adapted for executing his will. It appears that the idea of
obtaining the opinions of the Doctors at the English Universities had
already been mooted, and that one of those selected [Footnote: Strype,
_Memorials of Cranmer_. Hook, _Life of Cranmer_.] at Cambridge
was Thomas Cranmer, a learned and amiable divine with marked leanings
towards the New Learning; who in his early graduate days had fallen under
the influence of the teaching at Cambridge of Erasmus; in scholarship
subtle and erudite, in affairs guileless and easily swayed; timorous by
nature, but capable of outbreaks of audacity as timid persons often are: a
gentle and lovable man, but lacking in that robust self-confidence needed
by one who would take a resolutely independent line; a man intended to be a
student and forced by an unkind fate to assume the role of a man of action.
Such a character, brought under the direct influence of a powerful will and
a magnetic personality, is readily led to see everything as it is desired
that he should see it, and at the worst to differ from the master-mind only
with submission.
[Sidenote: Appeal to the universities]
When Campeggio suspended the sittings of the Commission the, King withdrew
to Waltham Cross. Steven Gardiner and Foxe the King's almoner, who were in
his suite, met Cranmer who had left Cambridge on account of an outbreak of
the sweating sickness. They had, as was natural, a conversation on "the
King's affair"; when Cranmer propounded the theory that if the Universities
of Europe--that is, the qualified divines--gave it as their opinion that
the union with Katharine had been contrary to the Divine Law, the King
might follow the dictates of his conscience and pronounce the marriage null
without recognising Papal jurisdiction. This was clearly quite a different
thing from producing the judgment of the Doctors merely as an expert
opinion which must carry weight with the Judge at Rome. It was practically
an assertion that the Pope's judgment was not of higher authority than the
King's; an answer to a question as to jurisdiction; a suggestion of
replying to the Pope's revocation of the case by a counter-revocation. Foxe
reported the conversation to Henry, who caught at the new method of giving
a constitutional colour to an arbitrary proceeding. Cranmer was summoned to
court, attached to the Boleyn household, set down to write a thesis on the
point of conscience, and sent off early in 1530 in the train of the Earl of
Wiltshire (to which dignity Sir Thomas Boleyn--had been raised) on an
embassy to the Emperor at Bologna. Moreover his plan for consulting the
Universities was actively taken in hand.
[Sidenote: The new Parliament]
In the meantime, in November, Henry's most famous Parliament had opened
session. The last, called six years before under Wolsey's regime to obtain
supplies, had shown a qualified submissiveness. The new one, whether packed
or not, displayed prompt signs of activity. Known to fame as the "Seven
Years'" or "Reformation" Parliament, it consistently displayed three
characteristics: it was anti-papal and anti-clerical; it endorsed the Royal
will; but it refused dictation where its pocket was concerned. Its first
session lasted only a few weeks, but was marked by an attack on clerical
abuses, and by the sudden prominence achieved by Thomas Cromwell.
[Sidenote: Thomas Cromwell]
Concerning Cromwell's early years, much is reported and little is known.
The common rumour declared that he was the son of a blacksmith--as it
declared Wolsey to be the son of a butcher. He is said to have tried
various trades, among others those of man-at-arms in the mercenary troop of
an Italian nobleman, wool-merchant and usurer at Antwerp, usurer and petty
attorney in England. On all these points the evidence is scanty and
inconclusive. About 1520, he found his way into Wolsey's entourage, and was
a member of the 1523 parliament. Wolsey found him an apt man of business,
and entrusted him with a good deal of the financial management of his
educational schemes; in the course of which it is at least probable that he
applied the twin practices of bribery and blackmail, which not without
reason were attributed at a later date to his servants. Yet, however
unscrupulous he may have been in his dealings with others, to the master
whose service he had followed he was always loyal. Wolsey made him his
secretary; and when the Cardinal fell, the secretary's position seemed
exceedingly precarious. Whether from an admirable fidelity or through
amazingly astute hypocrisy, he boldly and openly took up the cudgels in
parliament on behalf of the stricken minister, apparently challenging
imminent ruin for himself. Action so courageous won him applause and
good-will instead of present hostility. More than that, it immediately
marked him in the eyes of the King--an exceedingly shrewd judge of men--as
an invaluable prospective servant for himself. A combination of audacity
and fidelity with shrewdness, resourcefulness, and unscrupulosity, was
precisely what he wanted and precisely what he had found. The Cardinal's
secretary became the King's secretary, and forthwith identified himself
with the policy of establishing the Royal autocracy in a stronger form than
it had ever before assumed in England. Whether or no Thomas Cromwell learnt
his political principles as an adventurer in Italy, he became himself the
living embodiment of those doctrines of state-craft which were systematised
by Macchiavelli in his treatise "The Prince".
[Sidenote: Pope, Clergy and King]
In the reconstruction of the relations between Church and State which
covers more than nine-tenths of the Reformation under Henry VIII. there
were three parties concerned; the Pope, the Sovereign, and the Clerical
Organisation in England. From time immemorial, Popes and Kings had striven
periodically with each other in asserting antagonistic control over the
ecclesiastical body; and the ecclesiastical body had made common cause, now
with the Pope and now with the King, in resisting encroachments by the
rival authority. If the clergy submitted to one or the other, it was always
with a reservation that submission to physical force could not impair the
inherent rights of the successors of the Apostles. Similarly, if the Pope
gave way to the King or the King to the Pope, their respective successors
regarded the claims surrendered as rights not cancelled but in abeyance.
The prevailing conditions at any given time were always looked upon as a
_modus vivendi_ liable to readjustment when any of the three parties
felt impelled to claim a larger freedom of action or a larger power of
control. In the past however the Spiritual Powers had drawn effectively
upon their armoury of excommunications and interdicts in the conflict; it
was now to be seen whether these ancient weapons had become obsolete. If
they could be defied with comparative impunity, there could be but one end
to a struggle between the Spiritual and the Temporal forces.
[Sidenote: Double campaign opens]
By the appeal to the Universities, Henry gave warning of a possible
anti-papal campaign: in which he could look for a considerable degree of
clerical support up to a certain point, more particularly because the
clergy generally were ready to be released from the financial exactions of
the Holy See, as well as from its practical exercise of patronage.
Parliament opened an anti-clerical campaign, but its measures at first were
confined to dealing with almost indefensible and obvious abuses. Bishop
Fisher recognised the familiar thin end of the wedge, and charged the
Commons with desiring "the goods, not the good" of the Church; but the
opposition was slender. In the six weeks of the first session, there were
passed, the Probate and Mortuaries Acts, abolishing, reducing, or
regulating fees, and the Pluralities Act, forbidding the clergy in general
to hold more than one benefice, and requiring Residence--a very
inconvenient arrangement for papal nominees. The general value of the Act
however was impaired by a schedule of exemptions. Fisher's protest had its
counterpart in the protest of Convocation, not against the avowed objects
of this legislation but against Parliament as its source: the position
being that Convocation was itself preparing legislation with the same ends
in view, and was the proper body to do so.
[Sidenote: 1530 Answers of the Universities]
During 1530, Parliament remained inactive. The Earl of Wiltshire's embassy
to Bologna, of which the object was to induce Charles to withdraw his
opposition to the divorce, naturally proved abortive. The consultation of
the Universities however went on apace. The theory propounded for their
acceptance was that Katharine had been in actual fact the wife of Henry's
brother; that this being so her marriage with Henry was contrary to the Law
of God; and that by consequence the second contract was actually not only
voidable but void, the dispensation being under those circumstances a dead
letter. On the other side it was maintained that whatever validity there
might be in this argument, it fell to the ground if--as was asserted on the
Queen's behalf--her first marriage had been ceremonial only. The answers of
the Universities were inconclusive, some declaring the marriage valid,
others declaring it void, and others, including Oxford and Cambridge,
declaring that it was against the Law of God without pronouncing the
dispensation of Julius _ipso facto_ invalid. Moreover, had the
opinions given been decisive in themselves, the method by which they were
obtained would have destroyed their moral value. Francis, finding that
England's friendship was in the balance, dictated a favourable reply to the
French Universities. Those in England knew they were not free agents.
Clement professed to give those in Italy a free hand, but in that country
Charles was the dominant power. In Germany the Lutherans were hostile to
Henry personally on account of his own anti-Lutheran pronouncements.
Nowhere was a judgment on the simple merits of the case procurable.
[Sidenote: Preoccupation of the Clergy]
In the meantime, the clergy in England had been mainly occupied with a
campaign against heresy, and with the suppression of dangerous literature;
[Footnote: According to Mr. Froude, Henry only assented with reluctance to
the suppression of Tindal's Testament on condition of the preparation of an
authorised version being agreed to. But even Hall, whom he cites, only says
that both proposals were adopted after long debate.--Froude, i., p. 298
(Ed. 1862).] but willingly or not found themselves committed to approving
the preparation of an authorised translation of the Scriptures--the one
movement under Henry which tended definitely, in effect though not of set
purpose, to a revision of Doctrine.
[Sidenote 1: Menace of Praemunire]
[Sidenote 2: 1531 "Only Supreme Head"]
[Sidenote 3: Proceedings in Parliament]
In December of 1530, however, the Church was to receive a rough reminder
that the Defender of the Faith was a stickler for the rigidity of the
statutes. He had already struck at Wolsey because, urged thereto by
himself, the Cardinal had obtained and exercised legatine powers contrary
to the Statutes of Praemunire. Such was the King's reverence for the Law
that after it had been transgressed with his sanction for ten years he felt
it his duty to penalise the transgressor. After another twelve-month, he
felt it his further duty to penalise all who had submitted to the illegal
authority. The clergy were informed that they lay one and all under the
royal displeasure for breach of praemunire (of which they had in fact been
technically guilty), and could only hope for pardon by purchasing it for
something over £100,000--practically equivalent to about a couple of
millions now. Convocation, alive to the futility of resistance, apologised
for its iniquity and admitted the justice of the punishment. Thereupon, in
the preamble to the bill by which they were to mulct themselves, the King
required the insertion of a clause which designated him "Protector and Only
Supreme Head of the Church and Clergy in England". This roused general
resistance. Convocation proposed conferences, and sought some compromise
which they could reconcile with their consciences. The King would have no
compromise, demanding instant submission. At last Warham hit upon the
expedient of one of those saving phrases which might mean everything or
nothing, and yet could not be objected to on the face of it; inserting the
words "so far as the laws of Christ permit": the precise degree to which
the said laws did permit being susceptible of unlimited argument, as the
royal claims or the clerical conscience might respectively demand. Even so
had Becket in the past shielded himself with the words "Saving the rights
of my Order". For the time being, this diplomatic evasion or pitiful
subterfuge, as the advocates and contemners of the clergy respectively call
it, saved the situation. At the time, it must be remarked, Henry did not
intend the title to be read as repudiating the Papal Supremacy, which had
not hitherto been formally called question. On the face of it, it looks
like a touch of Cromwell's; in a thing designed to force the hand of the
Clergy in the future if the Papal Supremacy should be directly challenged.
The clause was accepted (for the Province of Canterbury) on March 22nd; six
weeks later it was also accepted by the Convocation of York, with a protest
from Tunstal, now bishop of Durham, who had been distinguished by his
diplomatic services under Wolsey's régime. During the corresponding session
(January-March 1531) no anti-clerical measures were introduced in
Parliament; which registered the Royal pardon and received the formal
announcement of the decision of the Universities. The "stern and lofty
moral principles" [Footnote: Froude, i., 307, 310 (Ed. 1862). The
historian's enthusiasm may seem to require some qualification. The
retrospective creation of crimes is a dangerous practice: and the penalty
applied might even be considered savage.] of the nation were however
vindicated, in consequence of the wholesale poisoning of the bishop of
Rochester's household, attributed to an attempt to make away with Fisher
himself. By a special enactment, the essentially un-English practice of
poisoning was retrospectively classified as high treason, and the criminal
sentenced to death by boiling.
[Sidenote: 1532 Parliament]
In the beginning of 1532 the campaign was renewed with vigour; whether from
the laudable desire of reforming abuses, or with the object of terrorising
the Church into complete subservience. Incidentally it is to be observed
that so far as the activity of the Commons was directed against the payment
of extortionate fees, the Church had a part only, not the whole, of their
opposition. They logically and manfully resisted a "Bill of Wards"
legalising claims of the Lords in sundry cases of the marriage of wards.
This has been jibed at [Footnote: Moore (Aubrey), _Hist. of the
Reformation_, 103.] as showing that they cared for cash and not for
principle. As a matter of fact it appears to prove the first, but to have
no bearing on the second. It also proves that when they did care, they
could be obstinate, for the Bill was dropped: which illustrates the tact
with which the King could yield on a point unimportant to him personally.
In especial however this session was signalised by three Acts, dealing with
Mortmain, Benefit of Clergy, and Annates: and by the "Supplication against
the Ordinaries" which took partial effect in the "Submission of the
Clergy".
[Sidenote: Supplication against the Ordinaries]
The Supplication [Footnote: Mr. Froude, i., 211 (Ed. 1862), dates this
1529, but without apparent reason. _Cf._ Dixon, i., 77, note.] was in
effect a statement of grievances, directed against the powers of
Convocation in the way of ecclesiastical legislation, and the conduct of
the ecclesiastical Courts and their fees. Under this second head it was
simply the expression of a popular outcry, which had already begun to take
effect in the legislation of 1529; an outcry so far justified that the
clergy themselves met it, in part, by declaring that they were giving
independent attention to the abuses complained of. As an indictment its
weakness lay in the inadequate support by specific instances of the general
charges of miscarriage of justice. Under the first head it has the
appearance of being inspired by Cromwell, of whose policy a main feature
was the concentration of all effective legislative power in the King.
[Sidenote: Resistance of Clergy]
The Supplication was presented, and laid before Convocation for an answer.
The answer was given on the lines that, as concerned the grievances in
general, so far as they were real they were in process of removal, and that
as concerned miscarriage of justice it was impossible to answer effectively
unless the charges were made specific. As to ecclesiastical legislation it
was replied that this was a function of the Clergy, and that their canons
were in accord with Scripture and therefore not antagonistic to the Civil
Law; to which was added an appeal to the King as the Protector of the
Faith. They were informed that this answer was "too slender"; so sent a
second in which appeal was made to Henry's own book against Luther, and an
offer was added that they would publish no ordinances without the royal
assent excepting on matters of faith. In both answers Gardiner, now bishop
of Winchester, is reputed to have been the guiding spirit--thereby showing
that Henry could not count upon his assistance in reducing his Order to
subservience.
[Sidenote: "Submission of the Clergy"]
This attitude however was by no means sufficient for Henry and Cromwell.
It is in fact clear that they had made up their minds to put an end to an
anomalous condition of affairs. Hypothetically, the Church and the State
had been making laws independently of each other side by side. The two
sets of laws might involve incompatibles; the King's lieges might be
harassed by the canons of the Church, and loyal churchmen might be
embarrassed by the laws of the realm. The time had come when one ultimate
authority must be recognised. There was no manner of doubt which of the two
that ultimate authority was to be. Yet for the attainment of this end, the
Clergy must be required to surrender what they had always accounted a right
inviolable, sacred, vested in them by divine commission. The Clergy had to
surrender or take the risk of martyrdom: and they elected to surrender--in
effect to recognise that they were beaten _de facto_ if not _de
jure_. They struggled hard for a compromise which would salve their
collective conscience. Finally (May) they agreed to enact no new canons
without the Kind's authority, and to submit to a commission such of the
existing canons as were contravened. The wording of this "Submission of the
Clergy," as it is called, does not leave it absolutely clear whether the
entire canon law or only a portion was to be subjected to the revision of
the commission--which was to consist of thirty-two members, half laymen and
half clergy--but the balance of opinion is in favour of the partial
theory. The defeat was a crushing blow to the aged Warham who never
recovered from it and died three months later; and it caused the immediate
resignation of the Chancellorship by Sir Thomas More--a _rara avis_
among statesmen of the day, with whom conscience actually had the last
word, not the King's will.
[Sidenote 1: Mortmain and Benefit of Clergy]
[Sidenote 2: Annates Act]
The other Acts referred to above were passed before the Submission of the
Clergy was completed. The Mortmain and Benefit of Clergy Acts were
respectively in limitation of bequests to the Church and of privileges of
clerical criminals. They were merely normal steps in the reform of
abuses. The Annates Act however demands closer attention. Every bishop on
appointment to his see paid the first year's income to Rome--whether on an
original appointment, or on translation from one see to another. Obviously
this was a tremendous tax on the bishops and a source of large income to
Rome. There had been frequent complaints, and suggestions that the Pope
should reduce his claim. Very recently, Gardiner had been obliged to borrow
heavily to meet the exaction on becoming bishop of Winchester. The Bill
provided that five per cent. only should be paid, by way of compensation
for expenses of papal Bulls, the ground taken up being that the papal claim
was contrary to the ruling of the General Council of Basle, and that the
payment, being an alienation of the property of the See, was contrary to
the bishops consecration oath. The Bill was passed, the bishops--according
to letters of the foreign ambassadors in London--dissenting; a course
perfectly natural on their part as a protest, not in favour of the payment,
but against the authority of the temporal power to intervene. Yet it is
frequently stated as a matter of common knowledge that the clergy
themselves were the prime movers, and that the Bill was brought in on their
petition. This belief would seem to rest exclusively on the
misinterpretation of a document attributed by a later historian [Footnote:
Strype, _Eccl. Memorials_ I., ii., 158. Froude, i., 361 ff.
(Ed. 1862). But _cf._. Gairdner, _English Church_, p. 116. The
present writer fell into the usual error in a previous volume on
_Cranmer_; and has to thank Mr. Tomlinson for correcting him.] to
Convocation, but almost certainly of parliamentary origin.
The Act however was not put in immediate execution: but the English agents
in Italy were instructed to hold it _in terrorem_ over Clement's head.
[Sidenote: The European Powers and the Divorce]
The subsequent methods of procedure were largely the outcome of the
diplomatic situation on the Continent. In the first place, the idea of
calling an Oecumenical Council had been much in the air. Each of the three
great monarchs was desirous of calling one, on his own terms; so were the
Lutherans. But for each the terms must be such as should ensure practical
subservience to his own dictation: while to the Pope the proposal, so long
as it was hypothetical, was a thing he could produce as either a sop or a
threat, as circumstances might commend. In the next place, for the time
Charles dominated the Pope; but while he was making terms with the
Lutherans, under pressure of the advance of the Turks on the east, whereby
his loyalty to the papacy was made doubtful, he was also on the other hand,
Katharine's unyielding champion. Thus any positive declaration on the
divorce from Clement was tolerably certain to finally alienate either
Charles or Henry. Now the rivalry of Charles was the great obstacle to
Francis: whose object had come to be to utilise England so as to obtain for
himself the concessions he wanted from the Emperor; extorting them as the
result of joint pressure on the part of France and England or as the price
of a separation between France and England. The thing he most feared was a
compromise between Henry and Charles. Thus his policy was, by associating
himself with Henry, to detach the Pope also from Charles, by the menace of
a joint Anglo-French schism from the Roman obedience. Therefore in the
summer and autumn of 1532 Francis was ostentatiously friendly to Henry and
the cause of the Divorce. Conferences to which Henry was invited to bring
Anne Boleyn as his Queen-elect were arranged, and took place at Calais and
Boulogne. Henry thereafter made up his mind to a decisive step and on their
return to England in November or perhaps in the following January he
married Anne privately. Francis however had successfully avoided committing
himself unequivocally to an uncompromising English alliance.
[Sidenote: 1533 The crisis arrives]
In December, the Pope and the Emperor both being at Bologna, Clement
professed to the English agents a more amenable spirit, suggesting that the
divorce should be held over for a General Council, or that Henry should
agree to have the trial held outside his own realms; propositions, however,
to neither of which the King could be lured to assent. But the year 1533
had hardly opened when Charles was enabled to publish a Papal warning of
excommunication against Henry unless he restored Katharine to her full
rights as his wife (Feb.); while he detached France from England by the
promise of concessions restoring her position in Italy.
Clement might now defer a pronouncement in favour of Katharine; there was
no practical room for hoping that he might still pronounce against her.
Henry stood alone; if the Pope were finally driven to choose between
defying the King or the Emperor there could be no doubt which of the two he
would rather have for an enemy. It only remained for Henry to put it beyond
question that the declaration must be made, and that his own enmity would
take an energetic form. His reply to the Pope was decisive. Early in April,
parliament passed the great Act in Restraint of Appeals, which was
virtually the announcement of the repudiation of the Roman allegiance;
before the end of May, the new Archbishop of Canterbury in his court
pronounced the marriage with Katharine void _ab initio_, and the
recent marriage with her rival valid.
[Sidenote: Restraint of Appeals]
In form, the Act in Restraint of Appeals was not a fresh piece of
legislation but a declaration of the existing law; a flat assertion that
any appeal to the jurisdiction of Rome from the English courts brought the
appellant under the penalties of praemunire, the "spiritualty" of the
country being competent to deal with spiritual cases, and the sovereign
recognising no jurisdiction superior to his own. It did not raise the
question of authority in matters of doctrine; nor was it a formal
declaration of schism from Rome. Its meaning however was clear. The
constitutional theory of independence, put forward on many occasions as the
warrant for legislation, was henceforth to be acted upon in its most ample
interpretation: though, as with the Annates Bill, the final confirmation
was suspended to leave Clement a last chance of surrender. Taken on its
merits the Act laid down principles entirely acceptable to all parties who
claim or claimed independence of Rome: yet it was quite obviously issued
with the direct purpose of setting aside the Pope's authority in a
particular case already referred to him.
[Sidenote 1: Cranmer Archbishop]
[Sidenote 2: The decisive breach]
It is in fact doubtful whether Henry could have procured a judgment from
Warham; but Warham was dead, and the successor appointed was Thomas
Cranmer, who already before he had been dragged into public life had
committed himself to the sufficiency of the judgment of the English
courts. Since taking part in Wiltshire's embassy in 1531 he had been for
the most part in Germany on diplomatic affairs, associating with
Protestants and imbibing their views. The most pronounced and definite of
his doctrines was that of the supremacy of the crown; and on his
installation as Archbishop in March, he had qualified [Footnote: Moore
(Aubrey), _Hist. of Reformation_, 109, finds a proof in this of
"servility and dishonesty," which terms appear to be in his view
equivalents of Erastianism.] his oath of allegiance to Rome accordingly.
Other ecclesiastics, from Becket to Gardiner, had been appointed to
bishoprics under the impression that they were going to support the secular
arm against the claims of their Order, and had falsified
expectation. Cranmer maintained as Archbishop the theories of clerical
subordination which he had adopted as a University Doctor. Convocation was
called on to express an opinion on the marriage; and whether from
conviction or despair, it supported the King by a majority. The Archbishop
obtained the royal licence to convene a court. Katharine, refusing to
appear, was declared contumacious; and the Court pronounced her marriage
void while confirming Anne's. The Pope rejoined by pronouncing the judgment
void. Henry retorted by confirming the Acts in Restraint of Annates and
Appeals; and himself appealed against the Pope to a General Council. Until,
in March of the next year, Clement himself definitely pronounced judgment
in favour of Katharine, there remained a shadow of a chance of a
reconciliation tantamount to the submission of the Holy See; but the chance
was not accepted. Practically the judgment of Cranmer's court marked the
definite schism from Rome.