jurisdiction was chiefly usurped, as well as tyrannical.
I will here observe that this part of our ancient constitutional history is likely
to be elucidated by a friend of my own, who has already given evidence to
the world of his singular competence for such an undertaking, and who
unites, with all the learning and diligence of Spelman, Prynne, and Madox,
an acuteness and vivacity of intellect which none of those writers
possessed.
Commonwealth of England, book 3, c. 4. We find Sir Robert Sheffield in
1517 "put into the Tower again for the complaint he made to the king of my
lord cardinal." Lodge's Illustrations, i. p. 27. See also Hall, p. 585, for
Wolsey's strictness in punishing the "lords, knights, and men of all sorts,
for riots, bearing, and maintenance.
Plowden's Commentaries, 393. In the year-book itself, 8 H. 7, pl. ult. the
word star-chamber is not used. It is held in this case, that the chancellor,
treasurer, and privy-seal were the only judges, and the rest but assistants.
Coke, 4 Inst. 62, denies this to be law; but on no better grounds than that
the practice of the star-chamber, that is, of a different tribunal, was not
such.
Hist. of Henry VII. in Bacon's works, ii. p. 290.
The result of what has been said in the last pages may be summed up in a
few propositions. 1. The court erected by the statute of 3 Henry VII. was
not the court of star-chamber. 2. This court by the statute subsisted in full
force till beyond the middle of Henry VIII.'s reign, but not long afterwards
went into disuse. 3. The court of star-chamber was the old concilium
ordinarium, against whose jurisdiction many statutes had been enacted
from the time of Edward III. 4. No part of the jurisdiction exercised by the
star-chamber could be maintained on the authority of the statute of Henry
VII.
Burnet, ii. 324.
Burnet. Reeves's History of the Law, iv. p. 308. The contemporary
authority is Keilwey's Reports. Collier disbelieves the murder of Hun on the
authority of Sir Thomas More; but he was surely a prejudiced apologist of
the clergy, and this historian is hardly less so. An entry on the journals, 7
H. 8, drawn of course by some ecclesiastic, particularly complains of
Standish as the author of periculosissimæ seditiones inter clericam et
secularem potestatem.
Burnet is confident that the answer to Luther was not written by Henry (vol.
iii. 171), and others have been of the same opinion. The king, however, in
his answer to Luther's apologetical letter, where this was insinuated,
declares it to be his own. From Henry's general character and proneness
to theological disputation, it may be inferred that he had at least a
considerable share in the work, though probably with the assistance of
some who had more command of the Latin language. Burnet mentions in
another place, that he had seen a copy of the Necessary Erudition of a
Christian Man, full of interlineations by the king.
Epist. Lutheri ad Henricum regem missa, etc. Lond. 1526. The letter bears
date at Wittenberg, September 1, 1525. It had no relation, therefore, to
Henry's quarrel with the Pope, though probably Luther imagined that the
king was becoming more favourably disposed. After saying that he had
written against the king "stultus ac præceps," which was true, he adds,
"invitantibus iis qui majestati tuæ parum favebant," which was surely a
pretence; since who, at Wittenberg, in 1521, could have any motive to wish
that Henry should be so scurrilously treated? He then bursts out into the
most absurd attack on Wolsey; "illud monstrum et publicum odium Dei et
hominum, Cardinalis Eboracensis, pestis illa regni tui." This was a singular
style to adopt in writing to a king, whom he affected to propitiate; Wolsey
being nearer than any man to Henry's heart. Thence, relapsing into his
tone of abasement, he says, "ita ut vehementer nunc pudefactus, metuam
oculos coram majestate tuâ levare, qui passus sim levitate istâ me moveri
in talem tantumque regem per malignos istos operarios; præsertim cum
sim fœx et vermis, quem solo contemptu oportuit victum aut neglectum
esse," etc. Among the many strange things which Luther said and wrote, I
know not one more extravagant than this letter, which almost justifies the
supposition that there was a vein of insanity in his very remarkable
character.
Collier, vol. ii. Appendix, No. 2. In the Hardwicke Papers, i. 13, we have an
account of the ceremonial of the first marriage of Henry with Catherine in
1503. It is remarkable that a person was appointed to object publicly in
Latin to the marriage, as unlawful, for reasons he should there exhibit;
"whereunto Mr. Doctor Barnes shall reply, and declare solemnly, also in
Latin, the said marriage to be good and effectual in the law of Christ's
church, by virtue of a dispensation, which he shall have then to be openly
read." There seems to be something in this of the tortuous policy of Henry
VII.; but it shows that the marriage had given offence to scrupulous minds.
See Burnet, Lingard, Turner, and the letters lately printed in State Papers,
temp. Henry VIII. pp. 194, 196.
Burnet wishes to disprove the bribery of these foreign doctors. But there
are strong presumptions that some opinions were got by money (Collier, ii.
58); and the greatest difficulty was found, where corruption perhaps had
least influence, in the Sorbonne. Burnet himself proves that some of the
cardinals were bribed by the king's ambassador, both in 1528 and 1532.
Vol. i. Append. pp. 30, 110. See, too, Strype, i. Append. No. 40.
The same writer will not allow that Henry menaced the university of Oxford
in case of non-compliance; yet there are three letters of his to them, a
tenth part of which, considering the nature of the writer, was enough to
terrify his readers. Vol. iii. Append. p. 25. These probably Burnet did not
know when he published his first volume.
The king's marriage is related by the earlier historians to have taken place
November 14, 1532. Burnet however is convinced by a letter of Cranmer,
who, he says, could not be mistaken, though he was not apprised of the
fact till some time afterwards, that it was not solemnised till about the 25th
of January (vol. iii. p. 70). This letter has since been published in the
Archæologia, vol. xviii., and in Ellis's Letters, ii. 34. Elizabeth was born
September 7, 1533; for though Burnet, on the authority, he says, of
Cranmer, places her birth on September 14, the former date is decisively
confirmed by letters in Harl. MSS. 283, 22, and 787, 1 (both set down
incorrectly in the catalogue). If a late historian therefore had contented
himself with commenting on these dates and the clandestine nature of the
marriage, he would not have gone beyond the limits of that character of an
advocate for one party which he has chosen to assume. It may not be
unlikely, though by no means evident, that Anne's prudence, though, as
Fuller says of her, "she was cunning in her chastity," was surprised at the
end of this long courtship. I think a prurient curiosity about such obsolete
scandal very unworthy of history. But when this author asserts Henry to
have cohabited with her for three years, and repeatedly calls her his
mistress, when he attributes Henry's patience with the pope's chicanery to
"the infecundity of Anne," and all this on no other authority than a letter of
the French ambassador, which amounts hardly to evidence of a transient
rumour, we cannot but complain of a great deficiency in historical candour.
The principal authority on the story of Henry's divorce from Catherine is
Burnet, in the first and third volumes of his History of the Reformation; the
latter correcting the former from additional documents. Strype, in his
Ecclesiastical Memorials, adds some particulars not contained in Burnet,
especially as to the negotiations with the pope in 1528; and a very little
may be gleaned from Collier, Carte, and other writers. There are few parts
of history, on the whole, that have been better elucidated. One exception
perhaps may yet be made. The beautiful and affecting story of Catherine's
behaviour before the legates at Dunstable is told by Cavendish and Hall,
from whom later historians have copied it. Burnet, however, in his third
volume, p. 46, disputes its truth, and on what should seem conclusive
authority, that of the original register, whence it appears that the queen
never came into court but once, June 18, 1529, to read a paper protesting
against the jurisdiction, and that the king never entered it. Carte
accordingly treated the story as a fabrication. Hume of course did not
choose to omit so interesting a circumstance; but Dr. Lingard has pointed
out a letter of the king, which Burnet himself had printed, vol. i. Append.
78, mentioning the queen's presence as well as his own, on June 21, and
greatly corroborating the popular account. To say the truth, there is no
small difficulty in choosing between two authorities so considerable, if they
cannot be reconciled, which seems impossible: but, upon the whole, the
preference is due to Henry's letter, dated June 23, as he could not be
mistaken, and had no motive to misstate.
This is not altogether immaterial; for Catherine's appeal to Henry, de
integritate corporis usque ad secundas nuptias servatâ, without reply on
his part, is an important circumstance as to that part of the question. It is
however certain, that, whether on this occasion or not, she did constantly
declare this; and the evidence adduced to prove the contrary is very
defective, especially as opposed to the assertion of so virtuous a woman.
Dr. Lingard says that all the favourable answers which the king obtained
from foreign universities went upon the supposition that the former
marriage had been consummated, and were of no avail unless that could
be proved. See a letter of Wolsey to the king, July 1, 1527, printed in State
Papers, temp. Henry VIII. p. 194; whence it appears that the queen had
been consistent in her denial.
Stat. 21, Hen. 8, cc. 5, 6; Strype, i. 73; Burnet, 83. It cost a thousand
marks to prove Sir William Compton's will in 1528. These exactions had
been much augmented by Wolsey, who interfered, as legate, with the
prerogative court.
It is hard to say what were More's original sentiments about the divorce. In
a letter to Cromwell (Strype, i. 183, and App. No. 48; Burnet, App. p. 280)
he speaks of himself as always doubtful. But, if his disposition had not
been rather favourable to the king, would he have been offered, or have
accepted, the great seal? We do not indeed find his name in the letter of
remonstrance to the pope, signed by the nobility and chief commoners in
1530, which Wolsey, though then in disgrace, very willingly subscribed. But
in March, 1531, he went down to the House of Commons, attended by
several lords, to declare the king's scruples about his marriage, and to lay
before them the opinions of universities. In this he perhaps thought himself
acting ministerially. But there can be no doubt that he always considered
the divorce as a matter wholly of the pope's competence, and which no
other party could take out of his hands, though he had gone along
cheerfully, as Burnet says, with the prosecution against the clergy, and
wished to cut off the illegal jurisdiction of the Roman see. The king did not
look upon him as hostile; for even so late as 1532, Dr. Bennet, the envoy
at Rome, proposed to the pope that the cause should be tried by four
commissioners, of whom the king should name one, either Sir Thomas
More or Stokesly, Bishop of London. Burnet, i. 126.
Dr. Lingard has pointed out, as Burnet had done less distinctly, that the bill
abrogating the papal supremacy was brought into the Commons in the
beginning of March, and received the royal assent on the 30th; whereas
the determination of the conclave at Rome against the divorce was on the
23rd; so that the latter could not have been the cause of this final rupture.
Clement VII. might have been outwitted in his turn by the king, if, after
pronouncing a decree in favour of the divorce, he had found it too late to
regain his jurisdiction in England. On the other hand, so flexible were the
parliaments of this reign, that, if Henry had made terms with the pope, the
supremacy might have revived again as easily as it had been extinguished.
Burnet, iii. 44; and App. 24.
Conf. Burnet, i. 94, and App. No. 35; Strype, i. 230; Sleidan, Hist. de la
Réformation (par Courayer), l. 10. The notions of these divines, as here
stated, are not very consistent or intelligible. The Swiss reformers were in
favour of the divorce, though they advised that the Princess Mary should
not be declared illegitimate. Luther seems to have inclined towards
compromising the difference by the marriage of a secondary wife. Lingard,
p. 172. Melancthon, this writer says, was of the same opinion. Burnet
indeed denies this; but it is rendered not improbable by the well-
authenticated fact that these divines, together with Bucer, signed a
permission to the landgrave of Hesse to take a wife or concubine, on
account of the drunkenness and disagreeable person of his landgravine.
Bossuet, Hist. des Var. des Egl. Protest. vol. i., where the instrument is
published. Clement VII., however, recommended the king to marry
immediately, and then prosecute his suit for a divorce, which it would be
easier for him to obtain in such circumstances. This was as early as
January, 1528 (Burnet, i., App. p. 27). But at a much later period,
September 1530, he expressly suggested the expedient of allowing the
king to retain two wives. Though the letter of Cassali, the king's
ambassador at Rome, containing this proposition, was not found by
Burnet, it is quoted at length by an author of unquestionable veracity, Lord
Herbert. Henry had himself, at one time, favoured this scheme, according
to Burnet, who does not, however, produce any authority for the
instructions to that effect said to have been given to Brian and Vannes,
despatched to Rome at the end of 1528. But at the time when the pope
made this proposal, the king had become exasperated against Catherine,
and little inclined to treat either her or the holy see with any respect.
Strype, i. 151 et alibi.
Strype, passim. Tunstal, Gardiner, and Bonner wrote in favour of the royal
supremacy; all of them, no doubt, insincerely. The first of these has
escaped severe censure by the mildness of his general character, but was
full as much a temporiser as Cranmer. But the history of this period has
been written with such undisguised partiality by Burnet and Strype on the
one hand, and lately by Dr. Lingard on the other, that it is almost amusing
to find the most opposite conclusions and general results from nearly the
same premises. Collier, though with many prejudices of his own, is, all
things considered, the fairest of our ecclesiastical writers as to this reign.
Burnet, 188. For the methods by which the regulars acquired wealth, fair
and unfair, I may be allowed to refer to the View of the Middle Ages, ch. 7,
or rather to the sources from which the sketch there given was derived.
Harmer's Specimens of Errors in Burnet.
Strype, i. Append. 19.
Burnet; Strype. Wolsey alleged as the ground for this suppression, the
great wickedness that prevailed therein. Strype says the number is twenty;
but Collier, ii. 19, reckons them at forty.
Collier, though not implicitly to be trusted, tells some hard truths, and
charges Cromwell with receiving bribes from several abbeys, in order to
spare them. P. 159. This is repeated by Lingard, on the authority of some
Cottonian manuscripts. Even Burnet speaks of the violent proceedings of a
Doctor Loudon towards the monasteries. This man was of infamous
character, and became afterwards a conspirator against Cranmer, and a
persecutor of protestants.
Burnet, 190; Strype, i. ch. 35, see especially p. 257; Ellis's Letters, ii. 71.
We should be on our guard against the Romanising high-church men, such
as Collier, and the whole class of antiquaries, Wood, Hearne, Drake,
Browne, Willis, etc., etc., who are, with hardly an exception, partial to the
monastic orders, and sometimes scarce keep on the mask of
protestantism. No one fact can be better supported by current opinion, and
that general testimony which carries conviction, than the relaxed and
vicious state of those foundations for many ages before their fall.
Ecclesiastical writers had not then learned, as they have since, the trick of
suppressing what might excite odium against their church, but speak out
boldly and bitterly. Thus we find in Wilkins, iii. 630, a bull of Innocent VIII.
for the reform of monasteries in England, charging many of them with
dissoluteness of life. And this is followed by a severe monition from
Archbishop Morton to the abbot of St. Alban's, imputing all kinds of
scandalous vices to him and his monks. Those who reject at once the
reports of Henry's visitors will do well to consider this. See also
Fosbrooke's British Monachism, passim.
The preamble of 27 H. 8, c. 28, which gives the smaller monasteries to the
king, after reciting that "manifest sin, vicious, carnal, and abominable living,
is daily used and committed commonly in such little and small abbeys,
priories, and other religious houses of monks, canons, and nuns, where
the congregation of such religious persons is under the number of twelve
persons," bestows praise on many of the greater foundations, and certainly
does not intimate that their fate was so near at hand. Nor is any
misconduct alleged or insinuated against the greater monasteries in the
act 31 H. 8, c. 13, that abolishes them; which is rather more remarkable,
as in some instances the religious had been induced to confess their evil
lives and ill deserts. Burnet, 236.
Id. ibid. and Append. p. 151; Collier, 167. The pensions to the superiors of
the dissolved greater monasteries, says a writer not likely to spare Henry's
government, appear to have varied from £266 to £6 per annum. The priors
of cells received generally £13. A few, whose services had merited the
distinction, obtained £20. To the other monks were allotted pensions of six,
four, or two pounds, with a small sum to each at his departure, to provide
for his immediate wants. The pensions to nuns averaged about £4.
Lingard, vi. 341. He admits that these were ten times their present value in
money; and surely they were not unreasonably small. Compare them with
those, generally and justly thought munificent, which this country bestows
on her veterans of Chelsea and Greenwich. The monks had no right to
expect more than the means of that hard fare to which they ought by their
rules to have been confined in the convents. The whole revenues were not
to be shared among them as private property. It cannot of course be
denied that the compulsory change of life was to many a severe and an
unmerited hardship; but no great revolution, and the Reformation as little
as any, could be achieved without much private suffering.
The abbots sat till the end of the first session of Henry's sixth parliament,
the act extinguishing them not having passed till the last day. In the next
session they do not appear, the writ of summons not being supposed to
give them personal seats. There are indeed so many parallel instances
among spiritual lords, and the principle is so obvious, that it would not be
worth noticing, but for a strange doubt said to be thrown out by some legal
authorities, near the beginning of George III.'s reign, in the case of Pearce,
Bishop of Rochester, whether, after resigning his see, he would not retain
his seat as a lord of parliament; in consequence of which his resignation
was not accepted.
Burnet, i. Append. 96.
P. 268. Dr. Lingard, on the authority of Nasmith's edition of Tanner's Notitia
Monastica, puts the annual revenue of all the monastic houses at
£142,914. This would only be one-twentieth part of the rental of the
kingdom, if Hume were right in estimating that at three millions. But this is
certainly by much too high. The author of Harmer's Observations on
Burnet, as I have mentioned above, says the monks will be found not to
have possessed above one-fifth of the kingdom, and in value, by reason of
their long leases, not one-tenth. But on this supposition, the crown's gain
was enormous.
According to a valuation in Speed's Catalogue of Religious Houses, apud
Collier, Append. p. 34, sixteen mitred abbots had revenues above £1000