ON THE ENGLISH CHURCH UNDER HENRY VIII., EDWARD VI.,
AND MARY
Reformation. State of public opinion as to religion. —No revolution has
ever been more gradually prepared than that which separated almost
one-half of Europe from the communion of the Roman see; nor were
Luther and Zuingle any more than occasional instruments of that
change which, had they never existed, would at no great distance of
time have been effected under the names of some other reformers.
At the beginning of the sixteenth century, the learned doubtfully and
with caution, the ignorant with zeal and eagerness, were tending to
depart from the faith and rites which authority prescribed. But
probably not even Germany was so far advanced on this course as
England. Almost a hundred and fifty years before Luther, nearly the
same doctrines as he taught had been maintained by Wicliffe, whose
disciples, usually called Lollards, lasted as a numerous, though
obscure and proscribed sect, till, aided by the confluence of foreign
streams, they swelled into the protestant church of England. We hear
indeed little of them during some part of the fifteenth century; for they
generally shunned persecution; and it is chiefly through records of
persecution that we learn the existence of heretics. But immediately
before the name of Luther was known, they seem to have become
more numerous, or to have attracted more attention; since several
persons were burned for heresy, and others abjured their errors, in
the first years of Henry VIII.'s reign. Some of these (as usual among
ignorant men engaging in religious speculations) are charged with
very absurd notions; but it is not so material to observe their particular
tenets as the general fact, that an inquisitive and sectarian spirit had
begun to prevail.
Those who took little interest in theological questions, or who retained
an attachment to the faith in which they had been educated, were in
general not less offended than the Lollards themselves with the
inordinate opulence and encroaching temper of the clergy. It had
been for two or three centuries the policy of our lawyers to restrain
these within some bounds. No
59
ecclesiastical privilege had occasioned such dispute, or proved so
mischievous, as the immunity of all tonsured persons from civil
punishment for crimes. It was a material improvement in the law
under Henry VI. that, instead of being instantly claimed by the bishop
on their arrest for any criminal charge, they were compelled to plead
their privilege at their arraignment, or after conviction. Henry VII.
carried this much farther, by enacting that clerks convicted of felony
should be burned in the hand. And in 1513 (4 H. 8), the benefit of
clergy was entirely taken away from murderers and highway robbers.
An exemption was still made for priests, deacons, and subdeacons.
But this was not sufficient to satisfy the church, who had been
accustomed to shield under the mantle of her immunity a vast
number of persons in the lower degrees of orders, or without any
orders at all; and had owed no small part of her influence to those
who derived so important a benefit from her protection. Hence,
besides violent language in preaching against this statute, the
convocation attacked one Doctor Standish, who had denied the
divine right of clerks to their exemption from temporal jurisdiction. The
temporal courts naturally defended Standish; and the parliament
addressed the king to support him against the malice of his
persecutors. Henry, after a full debate between the opposite parties in
his presence, thought his prerogative concerned in taking the same
side; and the clergy sustained a mortifying defeat. About the same
time, a citizen of London named Hun, having been confined on a
charge of heresy in the bishop's prison, was found hanged in his
chamber; and though this was asserted to be his own act, yet the
bishop's chancellor was indicted for the murder on such vehement
presumptions, that he would infallibly have been convicted, had the
attorney-general thought fit to proceed in the trial. This occurring at
the same time with the affair of Standish, furnished each party with an
argument; for the clergy maintained that they should have no chance
of justice in a temporal court; one of the bishops declaring, that the
London juries were so prejudiced against the church, that they would
find Abel guilty of the murder of Cain. Such an admission is of more
consequence than whether Hun died by his own hands, or those of a
clergyman; and the story is chiefly worth remembering, as it illustrates
the popular disposition towards those who had once been the objects
of reverence.[83]
60
Henry VIII.'s controversy with Luther. —Such was the temper of
England when Martin Luther threw down his gauntlet of defiance
against the ancient hierarchy of the catholic church. But, ripe as a
great portion of the people might be to applaud the efforts of this
reformer, they were viewed with no approbation by their sovereign.
Henry had acquired a fair portion of theological learning, and on
reading one of Luther's treatises, was not only shocked at its tenets,
but undertook to confute them in a formal answer.[84] Kings who divest themselves of their robes to mingle among polemical writers, have
not perhaps a claim to much deference from strangers; and Luther,
intoxicated with arrogance, and deeming himself a more prominent
individual among the human species than any monarch, treated
Henry, in replying to his book, with the rudeness that characterised
his temper. A few years afterwards, indeed, he thought proper to
write a letter of apology for the language he had held towards the
king; but this letter, a strange medley of abjectness and impertinence,
excited only contempt in Henry, and was published by him with a
severe commentary.[85] Whatever apprehension 61
therefore for the future might be grounded on the humour of the
nation, no king in Europe appeared so steadfast in his allegiance to
Rome as Henry VIII. at the moment when a storm sprang up that
broke the chain for ever.
His divorce from Catherine. —It is certain that Henry's marriage with
his brother's widow was unsupported by any precedent and that,
although the pope's dispensation might pass for a cure of all defects,
it had been originally considered by many persons in a very different
light from those unions which are merely prohibited by the canons.
He himself, on coming to the age of fourteen, entered a protest
against the marriage which had been celebrated more than two years
before, and declared his intention not to confirm it; an act which must
naturally be ascribed to his father.[86] It is true that in this very instrument we find no mention of the impediment on the score of
affinity; yet it is hard to suggest any other objection, and possibly a
common form had been adopted in drawing up the protest. He did not
cohabit with Catherine during his father's lifetime. Upon his own
accession, he was remarried to her; and it does not appear manifest
at what time his scruples began, nor whether they preceded his
passion for Anne Boleyn.[87] This, however, seems the more probable supposition; yet there can be little doubt, that weariness of
Catherine's person, a woman considerably older than himself and
unlikely to bear more children, had a far greater effect on his
conscience than the study of Thomas Aquinas or any other
theologian. It by no means follows from hence that, according to the
casuistry of the catholic church and the principles of the canon law,
the merits of that famous process were so much against Henry, as
out of dislike to him and pity for his queen we are apt to imagine, and
as the writers of that persuasion have subsequently assumed.
It would be unnecessary to repeat, what is told by so many
62
historians, the vacillating and evasive behaviour of Clement VII., the
assurances he gave the king, and the arts with which he receded
from them, the unfinished trial in England before his delegates,
Campegio and Wolsey, the opinions obtained from foreign
universities in the king's favour, not always without a little bribery,[88]
and those of the same import at home, not given without a little
intimidation, or the tedious continuance of the process after its
adjournment to Rome. More than five years had elapsed from the first
application to the pope, before Henry, though by nature the most
uncontrollable of mankind, though irritated by perpetual chicanery
and breach of promise, though stimulated by impatient love,
presumed to set at nought the jurisdiction to which he had submitted,
by a marriage with Anne. Even this was a furtive step; and it was not
till compelled by the consequences that he avowed her as his wife,
and was finally divorced from Catherine by a sentence of nullity,
which would more decently, no doubt, have preceded his second
marriage.[89] But, determined as his mind had become, it was 63
plainly impossible for Clement to have conciliated him by anything
short of a decision, which he could not utter without the loss of the
emperor's favour and the ruin of his own family's interests in Italy.
And even for less selfish reasons, it was an extremely embarrassing
measure for the pope, in the critical circumstances of that age, to set
aside a dispensation granted by his predecessor; knowing that,
however erroneous allegations of fact contained therein might serve
for an outward pretext, yet the principle on which the divorce was
commonly supported in Europe, went generally to restrain the
dispensing power of the holy see. Hence it may seem very doubtful
whether the treaty which was afterwards partially renewed through
the mediation of Francis I., during his interview with the pope at Nice
about the end of 1533, would have led to a restoration of amity
through the only possible means; when we consider the weight of the
imperial party in the conclave, the discredit that so notorious a
submission would have thrown on the church, and, above all, the
precarious condition of the Medici at Florence in case of a rupture
with Charles V. It was more probably the aim of Clement to delude
Henry once more by his promises; but this was prevented by the
more violent measure into which the cardinals forced him, of a
definitive sentence in favour of Catherine, whom the king was
required under pain of excommunication to take back as his wife.
This sentence of the 23rd of March 1534, proved a declaration of
interminable war; and the king, who, in consequence of the hopes
held out to him by Francis, had already despatched an envoy to
Rome with his submission to what the pope should decide, now
resolved to break off all intercourse for ever, and trust to his own
prerogative and power over his subjects for securing the succession
to the crown in the line which he designed. It was doubtless a regard
to this consideration that put him upon his last overtures for an
amicable settlement with the court of Rome.[90]
64
But long before this final cessation of intercourse with that court,
Henry had entered upon a course of measures which would have
opposed fresh obstacles to a renewal of the connection. He had
found a great part of his subjects in a disposition to go beyond all he
could wish in sustaining his quarrel, not, in this instance, from mere
terror, but because a jealousy of ecclesiastical power, and of the
Roman court, had long been a sort of national sentiment in England.
The pope's avocation of the process to Rome, by which his duplicity
and alienation from the king's side was made evident, and the
disgrace of Wolsey, took place in the summer of 1529. The
parliament which met soon afterwards was continued through several
sessions (an unusual circumstance), till it completed the separation of
this kingdom from the supremacy of Rome. In the progress of
ecclesiastical usurpation, the papal and episcopal powers had lent
mutual support to each other; both consequently were involved in the
same odium, and had become the object of restrictions in a similar
spirit. Warm attacks were made on the clergy by speeches in the
Commons, which Bishop Fisher severely reprehended in the upper
house. This provoked the Commons to send a complaint to the king
by their speaker, demanding reparation; and Fisher explained away
the words that had given offence. An act passed to limit the fees on
probates of wills, a mode of ecclesiastical extortion much complained
of, and upon mortuaries.[91] The next proceeding was 65
of a far more serious nature. It was pretended, that Wolsey's exercise
of authority as papal legate contravened a statute of Richard II., and
that both himself and the whole body of the clergy, by their
submission to him, had incurred the penalties of a præmunire, that is,
the forfeiture of their movable estate, besides imprisonment at
discretion. These old statutes in restraint of the papal jurisdiction had
been so little regarded, and so many legates had acted in England
without objection, that Henry's prosecution of the church on this
occasion was extremely harsh and unfair. The clergy, however, now
felt themselves to be the weaker party. In convocation they implored
the king's clemency, and obtained it by paying a large sum of money.
In their petition he was styled the protector and supreme head of the
church and clergy of England. Many of that body were staggered at
the unexpected introduction of a title that seemed to strike at the
supremacy they had always acknowledged in the Roman see. And in
the end it passed only with a very suspicious qualification, "so far as
is permitted by the law of Christ." Henry had previously given the
pope several intimations that he could proceed in his divorce without
him. For, besides a strong remonstrance by letter from the temporal
peers as well as bishops against the procrastination of sentence in so
just a suit, the opinions of English and foreign universities had been
laid before both houses of parliament and of convocation, and the
divorce approved without difficulty in the former, and by a great
majority in the latter. These proceedings took place in the first months
of 1531, while the king's ambassadors at Rome were still pressing for
a favourable sentence, though with diminished hopes. Next year the
annates, or first fruits of benefices, a constant source of discord
between the nations of Europe, and their spiritual chief, were taken
away by act of parliament, but with a remarkable condition, that if the
pope would either abolish the payment of annates, or reduce them to
a moderate burthen, the king might declare before next session, by
letters patent, whether this act, or any part of it, should be observed.
It was accordingly confirmed by letters patent more than a year after
it received the royal assent.
It is difficult for us to determine whether the pope, by conceding to
Henry the great object of his solicitude, could in this stage have not
only arrested the progress of the schism, but
66
recovered his former ascendency over the English church and
kingdom. But probably he could not have done so in its full extent. Sir
Thomas More, who had rather complied than concurred with the
proceedings for a divorce, though his acceptance of the great seal on
Wolsey's disgrace would have been inconsistent with his character,
had he been altogether opposed in conscience to the king's
measures, now thought it necessary to resign, when the papal
authority was steadily, though gradually, assailed.[92] In the next session an act was passed to take away all appeals to Rome from
ecclesiastical courts; which annihilated at one stroke the jurisdiction
built on long usage and on the authority of the false decretals. This
law rendered the king's second marriage, which had preceded it,
secure from being annulled by the papal court. Henry, however, still
advanced, very cautiously, and on the death of Warham, Archbishop
of Canterbury, not long before this time, applied to Rome for the
usual bulls in behalf of Cranmer, whom he nominated to the vacant
see. These were the last bulls obtained, and probably the last
instance of any exercise of the papal supremacy in this reign. An act
followed in the next session, that bishops elected by their chapter on
a royal recommendation, should be consecrated, and archbishops
receive the pall, without suing for the pope's bulls. All dispensations
and licences hitherto granted by that court were set aside by another
statute, and the power of issuing them in lawful cases transferred to
the Archbishop of Canterbury. The king is in this act recited to be the
supreme head of the church of England, as the clergy had two years
before acknowledged in convocation. But this
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title was not formally declared by parliament to appertain to the
Crown till the ensuing session of parliament.[93]
Separation from the Church of Rome. —By these means was the
church of England altogether emancipated from the superiority of that
of Rome. For as to the pope's merely spiritual primacy and authority
in matters of faith, which are, or at least were, defended by catholics
of the Gallican or Cisalpine school on quite different grounds from his
jurisdiction or his legislatorial power in points of discipline, they seem
to have attracted little peculiar attention at the time, and to have
dropped off as a dead branch, when the axe had lopped the fibres
that gave it nourishment. Like other momentous revolutions, this
divided the judgment and feelings of the nation. In the previous affair
of Catherine's divorce, generous minds were more influenced by the
rigour and indignity of her treatment than by the king's inclinations, or
the venal opinions of foreign doctors in law. Bellay, Bishop of
Bayonne, the French ambassador at London, wrote home in 1528,
that a revolt was apprehended from the general unpopularity of the
divorce.[94] Much difficulty was found in procuring the judgments of Oxford and Cambridge against the marriage; which was effected in
the former case, as is said, by excluding the masters of arts, the
younger and less worldly part of the university, from their right of
suffrage. Even so late as 1532, in the pliant House of Commons, a
member had the boldness to move an address to the king, that he
would take back his wife. And this temper of the people seems to
have been the great inducement with Henry to postpone any
sentence by a domestic jurisdiction, so long as a chance of the
pope's sanction remained.
The aversion entertained by a large part of the community, and
especially of the clerical order, towards the divorce, was not perhaps
so generally founded upon motives of justice and compassion, as on
the obvious tendency which its prosecution latterly manifested to
bring about a separation from Rome.
68
Though the principal Lutherans of Germany were far less favourably
disposed to the king in their opinions on this subject than the catholic
theologians, holding that the prohibition of marrying a brother's widow
in the Levitical law was not binding on Christians, or at least that the
marriage ought not to be annulled after so many years'
continuance;[95] yet in England the interests of Anne Boleyn and of the Reformation were considered as the same. She was herself strongly
suspected of an inclination to the new tenets; and her friend Cranmer
had been the most active person both in promoting the divorce, and
the recognition of the king's supremacy. The latter was, as I imagine,
by no means unacceptable to the nobility and gentry, who saw in it
the only effectual method of cutting off the papal exactions that had
so long impoverished the realm; nor yet to the citizens of London, and
other large towns, who, with the same dislike of the Roman court, had
begun to acquire some taste for the protestant doctrine. But the
common people, especially in remote counties, had been used to an
implicit reverence for the holy see, and had suffered comparatively
little by its impositions. They looked up also to their own teachers as
guides in faith; and the main body of the clergy was certainly very
reluctant to tear themselves, at the pleasure of a disappointed
monarch, in the most dangerous crisis of religion, from the bosom of
catholic unity.[96] They complied indeed with all the 69
measures of government far more than men of rigid conscience could
have endured to do; but many who wanted the courage of More and
Fisher, were not far removed from their way of thinking.[97] This repugnance to so great an alteration showed itself, above all, in the
monastic orders, some of whom by wealth, hospitality, and long-
established dignity, others by activity in preaching and confessing,
enjoyed a very considerable influence over the poorer class. But they
had to deal with a sovereign, whose policy as well as temper dictated
that he had no safety but in advancing; and their disaffection to his
government, while it overwhelmed them in ruin, produced a second
grand innovation in the ecclesiastical polity of England.
Dissolution of monasteries. —The enormous, and in a great measure
ill-gotten, opulence of the regular clergy had long since excited
jealousy in every part of Europe. Though the statutes of mortmain
under Edward I. and Edward III. had put some obstacle to its
increase, yet as these were eluded by licences of alienation, a larger
proportion of landed wealth was constantly accumulating, in hands
which lost nothing that they had grasped.[98] A writer much inclined to partiality towards the monasteries says that they held not one-fifth
part of the kingdom; no insignificant patrimony! He adds, what may
probably be true, that through granting easy leases, they did not
enjoy more than one-tenth in value.[99] These vast possessions were very unequally distributed among four or five hundred monasteries.
Some abbots, as those of Reading, Glastonbury, and Battle, lived in
princely splendour, and were in every sense the spiritual peers and
magnates of the realm. In other foundations, the revenues did little
more than afford a subsistence for the monks, and defray the needful
expenses. As they were in general exempted from episcopal
visitation, and intrusted with the care of their own discipline, such
70
abuses had gradually prevailed and gained strength by connivance,
as we may naturally expect in