History of the Reformation of the Sixteenth Century Boleyn, desirous of seeing his daughter queen of England, feared perhaps that he had taken a wrong course. “It is well,” said the cardinal, recollecting that the message came from Henry VIII, “I am ready to do everything to please his majesty.” He rose, went to Bath Place to fetch Campeggio, and together they waited on the queen.
The two legates found Catherine quietly at work with her maids of honour.
Wolsey addressed the queen in Latin; “Nay, my lord,” she said, “speak to me in English; I wish all the world could hear you.”— “We desire, madam, to communicate to you alone our counsel and opinion.”—“My lord,” said the queen, “you are come to speak of things beyond my capacity;” and then, with noble simplicity, showing a skein of red silk hanging about her neck, she continued: “These are my occupations, and all that I am capable of. I am a poor woman, without friends in this foreign country, and lacking wit to answer persons of wisdom as ye be; and yet, my lords, to please you, let us go to my withdrawing room.”
At these words the queen rose, and Wolsey gave her his hand. Catherine earnestly maintained her rights as a woman and a queen. “We who were in the outer chamber,” says Cavendish, “from time to time could hear the queen speaking very loud, but could not understand what she said.” Catherine, instead of justifying herself, boldly accused her judge. “I know, Sir Cardinal,” she said with noble candour, “I know who has given the king the advice he is following: it is you. I have not ministered to your pride—I have blamed your conduct—I have complained of your tyranny, and my nephew the emperor has not made you pope Hence all my misfortunes. To revenge yourself you have kindled a war in Europe, and have stirred up against me this most wicked matter. God will be my judge and yours!” Wolsey would have replied, but Catherine haughtily refused to hear him, and while treating Campeggio with great civility, declared that she would not acknowledge either of them as her judge.
The cardinals withdrew, Wolsey full of vexation, and Campeggio beaming with joy, for the business was getting more complicated. Every hope of accommodation was lost: nothing remained now but to proceed judicially.
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History of the Reformation of the Sixteenth Century CHAPTER 9
The Trial resumed—Catherine summoned—Twelve Articles—The Witnesses’
Evidence—Arthur and Catherine really married—Campeggio opposes the Argument of Divine Right—Other Arguments—The Legates required to deliver Judgment—
Their Tergiversations—Change in Men’s Minds—Final Session—General Expectation—Adjournment
during
Harvest—Campeggio
excuses
this
Impertinence—The King’s Indignation—Suffolk’s Violence—Wolsey’s Reply—He is ruined—General Accusations—The Cardinal turns to an Episcopal Life The trial was resumed. The bishop of Bath and Wells waited upon the queen at Greenwich, and peremptorily summoned her to appear in the parliament-chamber.
On the day appointed Catherine limited herself to sending an appeal to the pope. She was declared contumacious, and the legates proceeded with the cause.
Twelve articles were prepared, which were to serve for the examination of the witnesses, and the summary of which was, that the marriage of Henry with Catherine, being forbidden both by the law of God and of the church, was null and void. The hearing of the witnesses began, and Dr. Taylor, archdeacon of Buckingham, conducted the examination. Their evidence, which would now be taken only with closed doors, may be found in Lord Herbert of Cherbury’s History of Henry VIII. The duke of Norfolk, high-treasurer of England, the duke of Suffolk, Maurice St. John, gentleman-carver to Prince Arthur, the viscount Fitzwalter and Anthony Willoughby, his cup-bearers, testified to their being present on the morrow of the wedding at the breakfast of the prince, then in sound health, and reported the conversation that took place. The old duchess of Norfolk, the earl of Shrewbury, and the marquis of Dorset, confirmed these declarations, which proved that Arthur and Catherine were really married. It was also called to mind that, at the time of Arthur’s death, Henry was not permitted to take the title of prince of Wales, because Catherine hoped to give an heir to the crown of England.
“If Arthur and Catherine were really married,” said the king’s counsellors after these extraordinary depositions, “the marriage of this princess with Henry, Arthur’s brother, was forbidden by the divine law, by an express command of God contained in Leviticus, and no dispensation could permit what God had forbidden.” Campeggio would never concede this argument, which limited the right of the popes; it was necessary therefore to abandon the divine right (which was in reality to lose the cause), and to seek in the bull of Julius II and in his famous brief, for flaws that would invalidate them both; and this the king’s counsel did, although they did not conceal the weakness of their position. “The motive alleged in the dispensation,” they said, 322
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“is the necessity of preserving a cordial relation between Spain and England; now, there was nothing that threatened their harmony. Moreover, it is said in this document that the pope grants it at the prayer of Henry, prince of Wales. Now as this prince was only thirteen years old, he was not of age to make such a request. As for the brief, it is found neither in England nor in Rome; we cannot therefore admit its authenticity.” It was not difficult for Catherine’s friends to invalidate these objections.
“Besides,” they added, “a union that has lasted twenty years sufficiently establishes its own lawfulness. And will you declare the Princess Mary illegitimate, to the great injury of this realm?”
The king’s advocates then changed their course. Was not the Roman legate provided with a decretal pronouncing the divorce, in case it should be proved that Arthur’s marriage had been really consummated? Now, this fact had been proved by the depositions. “This is the moment for delivering judgment,” said Henry and his counsellors to Campeggio. “Publish the pope’s decretal.” But the pope feared the sword of Charles V, then hanging over his head; and accordingly, whenever the king advanced one step, the Romish prelate took several in an opposite direction. “I will deliver judgment in five days,” said he; and when the five days were expired, he bound himself to deliver it in six. “Restore peace to my troubled conscience,” exclaimed Henry. The legate replied in courtly phrase; he had gained a few days’ delay, and that was all he desired.
Such conduct on the part of the Roman legate produced an unfavourable effect in England, and a change took place in the public mind. The first movement had been for Catherine; the second was for Henry. Clement’s endless delays and Campeggio’s stratagems exasperated the nation. The king’s argument was simple and popular:
“The pope cannot dispense with the laws of God;” while the queen, by appealing to the authority of the Roman pontiff, displeased both high and low. “No precedent,”
said the lawyers, “can justify the king’s marriage with his brother’s widow.”
There were, however, some evangelical Christians who thought Henry was
“troubled” more by his passions than by his conscience; and they asked how it happened that a prince, who represented himself to be so disturbed by the possible transgression of a law of doubtful interpretation, could desire, after twenty years, to violate the indisputable law which forbade the divorce? On the 21st of July, the day fixed ad concludendum, the cause was adjourned until the Friday following, and no one doubted that the matter would then be terminated.
All prepared for this important day. The king ordered the dukes of Norfolk and Suffolk to be present at the sitting of the court; and being himself impatient to hear 323
History of the Reformation of the Sixteenth Century the so much coveted judgment, he stole into a gallery of the parliament chamber facing the judges.
The legates of the holy see having taken their seats, the attorney general signified to them, “that everything necessary for the information of their conscience having been judicially laid before them, that day had been fixed for the conclusion of the trial.” There was a pause; everyone feeling the importance of this judgment, waited for it with impatience. “Either the papacy pronounces my divorce from Catherine,” the king had said, “or I shall divorce myself from the papacy.” That was the way Henry put the question. All eyes, and particularly the king’s were turned on the judges; Campeggio could not retreat; he must now say yes or no. For Sometime he was silent. He knew for certain that the queen’s appeal had been admitted by Clement VII, and that the latter had concluded an alliance with the emperor. It was no longer in his power to grant the king’s request. Clearly foreseeing that a no would perhaps forfeit the power of Rome in England, while a yes might put an end to the plans of religious emancipation which alarmed him so much, he could not make up his mind to say either yes or no.
At last the nuncio rose slowly from his chair, and all the assembly listened with emotion to the oracular decision which for so many years the powerful king of England had sought from the Roman pontiff. “The general vacation of the harvest and vintage,” he said, “being observed every year by the court of Rome, dating from tomorrow the 24th of July, the beginning of the dog-days, we adjourn, to some future period, the conclusion of these pleadings.”
The auditors were thunderstruck. “What! because the malaria renders the air of Rome dangerous at the end of July, and compels the Romans to close their courts, must a trial be broken off on the banks of the Thames, when its conclusion is looked for so impatiently?” The people hoped for a judicial sentence, and they were answered with a jest; it was thus Rome made sport of Christendom. Campeggio, to disarm Henry’s wrath, gave utterance to some noble sentiments; but his whole line of conduct raises legitimate doubts as to his sincerity. “The queen,” he said, “denies the competency of the court; I must therefore make my report to the pope, who is the source of life and honour, and wait his sovereign orders. I have not come so far to please any man, be he king or subject. I am an old man, feeble and sickly, and fear none but the Supreme Judge, before whom I must soon appear. I therefore adjourn this court until the 1st of October.”
It was evident that this adjournment was only a formality intended to signify the definitive rejection of Henry’s demand. The same custom prevails in the British 324
History of the Reformation of the Sixteenth Century legislature. The king, who from his place of concealment had heard Campeggio’s speech, could scarcely control his indignation. He wanted a regular judgment; he clung to forms; he desired that his cause should pass successfully through all the windings of ecclesiastical procedure, and yet here it is wrecked upon the vacations of the Romish court. Henry was silent, however, either from prudence, or because surprise deprived him of the power of speech, and he hastily left the gallery.
Norfolk, Suffolk, and the other courtiers, did not follow him. The king and his ministers, the peers and the people, and even the clergy, were almost unanimous, and yet the pope pronounced his veto. He humbled the Defender of the Faith to flatter the author of the sack of Rome. This was too much. The impetuous Suffolk started from his seat, struck his hand violently on the table in front of him, cast a threatening look upon the judges, and exclaimed: “By the mass, the old saying is confirmed today, that no cardinal has ever brought good to England.”—“Sir, of all men in this realm,”
replied Wolsey, “you have the least cause to disparage cardinals, for if I, poor cardinal, had not been, you would not have a head on your shoulders.” It would seem that Wolsey pacified Henry, at the time of the duke’s marriage with the Princess Mary. “I cannot pronounce sentence,” continued Wolsey, “without knowing the good pleasure of his holiness.” The two dukes and the other noblemen left the hall in anger, and hastened to the palace. The legates, remaining with their officers, looked at each other for a few moments. At last Campeggio, who alone had remained calm during this scene of violence, arose, and the audience dispersed.
Henry did not allow himself to be crushed by this blow. Rome, by her strange proceedings, aroused in him that suspicious and despotic spirit, of which he gave such tragic proofs in after-years. The papacy was making sport of him. Clement and Wolsey tossed his divorce from one to the other like a ball which, now at Rome and now in London, seemed fated to remain perpetually in the air. The king thought he had been long enough the plaything of his holiness and of the crafty cardinal; his patience was exhausted, and he resolved to show his adversaries that Henry VIII was more than a match for these bishops. We shall find him seizing this favourable opportunity, and giving an unexpected solution to the matter.
Wolsey sorrowfully hung his head; by taking part with the nuncio and the pope, he had signed the warrant of his own destruction. So long as Henry had a single ray of hope, he thought proper still to dissemble with Clement VII; but he might vent all his anger on Wolsey. From the period of the Roman Vacations the cardinal was ruined in his master’s mind. Wolsey’s enemies seeing his favour decline, hastened to attack him. Suffolk and Norfolk in particular, impatient to get rid of an insolent priest who had so long chafed their pride, told Henry that Wolsey had been continually playing 325
History of the Reformation of the Sixteenth Century false; they went over all his negotiations month by month and day by day, and drew the most overwhelming conclusions from them.
Sir William Kingston and Lord Manners laid before the king one of the cardinal’s letters which Sir Francis Bryan had obtained from the papal archives. In it the cardinal desired Clement to spin out the divorce question, and finally to oppose it, seeing (he added) that if Henry was separated from Catherine, a friend to the reformers would become queen of England. This letter clearly expressed Wolsey’s inmost thoughts: Rome at any price and perish England and Henry rather than the popedom! We can imagine the king’s anger.
Anne Boleyn’s friends were not working alone. There was not a person at court whom Wolsey’s haughtiness and tyranny had not offended; no one in the king’s council in whom his continual intrigues had not raised serious suspicions. He had (they said) betrayed in France the cause of England; kept up in time of peace and war secret intelligence with Madam, mother of Francis I; received great presents from her; oppressed the nation, and trodden under foot the laws of the kingdom. The people called him Frenchman and traitor, and all England seemed to vie in throwing burning brands at the superb edifice which the pride of this prelate had so laboriously erected.
Wolsey was too clearsighted not to discern the signs of his approaching fall. “Both the rising and the setting sun (for thus an historian calls Anne Boleyn and Catherine of Aragon) frowned upon him,” and the sky, growing darker around him, gave token of the storm that was to overwhelm him. If the cause failed, Wolsey incurred the vengeance of the king; if it succeeded, he would be delivered up to the vengeance of the Boleyns, without speaking of Catherine’s, the emperor’s, and the pope’s. Happy Campeggio! thought the cardinal, he has nothing to fear. If Henry’s favour is withdrawn from him, Charles and Clement will make him compensation. But Wolsey lost everything when he lost the king’s good graces. Detested by his fellow-citizens, despised and hated by all Europe, he saw to whatever side he turned nothing but the just reward of his avarice and falseness. He strove in vain, as on other occasions, to lean on the ambassador of France; Du Bellay was solicited on the other side. “I am exposed here to such a heavy and continual fire that I am half dead,” exclaimed the bishop of Bayonne; and the cardinal met with an unusual reserve in his former confidant.
Yet the crisis approached. Like a skillful but affrighted pilot, Wolsey cast his eyes around him to discover a port in which he could take refuge. He could find none but his see of York. He therefore began once more to complain of the fatigues of power, of the weariness of the diplomatic career, and to extol the sweetness of an episcopal 326
History of the Reformation of the Sixteenth Century life. On a sudden he felt a great interest about the flock of whom he had never thought before. Those around him shook their heads, well knowing that such a retreat would be to Wolsey the bitterest of disgraces. One single idea supported him; if he fell, it would be because he had clung more to the pope than to the king: he would be the martyr of his faith.—What a faith, what a martyr!
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History of the Reformation of the Sixteenth Century CHAPTER 10
Anne Boleyn at Hever—She reads the Obedience of a Christian Man—Is recalled to Court—Miss Gainsford and George Zouch—Tyndale’s Book converts Zouch—Zouch in the Chapel-Royal—The Book seized—Anne applies to Henry—The King reads the Book—Pretended Influence of the Book on Henry—The Court at Woodstock—The Park and its Goblins—Henry’s Esteem for Anne
While these things were taking place, Anne was living at Hever Castle in retirement and sadness. Scruples from time to time still alarmed her conscience. It is true, the king represented to her unceasingly that his salvation and the safety of his people demanded the dissolution of a union condemned by the divine law, and that what he solicited several popes had granted. Had not Alexander VI annulled, after ten years, the marriage of Ladislaus and Beatrice of Naples? Had not Louis XII, the father of his people, been divorced from Joan of France? Nothing was more common, he said, than to see the divorce of a prince authorised by a pope; the security of the state must be provided for before everything else. Carried away by these arguments and dazzled by the splendour of a throne, Anne Boleyn consented to usurp at Henry’s side the rank belonging to another. Yet, if she was imprudent and ambitious, she was feeling and generous, and the misfortunes of a queen whom she respected soon made her reject with terror the idea of taking her place. The fertile pastures of Kent and the gothic halls of Hever Castle were by turns the witnesses of the mental conflicts this young lady experienced. The fear she entertained of seeing the queen again, and the idea that the two cardinals, her enemies, were plotting her ruin, made her adopt the resolution of not returning to court, and she shut herself up in her solitary chamber.
Anne had neither the deep piety of a Bilney, nor the somewhat vague and mystic spirituality observable in Margaret of Valois; it was not feeling which prevailed in her religion, it was knowledge, and a horror of superstition and pharisaism. Her mind required light and activity, and at that time she sought in reading the consolations so necessary to her position. One day she opened one of the books prohibited in England, which a friend of the Reformation had given her: The Obedience of a Christian Man. Its author was William Tyndale, that invisible man whom Wolsey’s agents were hunting for in Brabant and Germany, and this was a recommendation to Anne. “If thou believe the promises,” she read, “then God’s truth justifieth thee; that is, forgiveth thy sins and sealeth thee with his Holy Spirit. If thou have true faith, so seest thou the exceeding and infinite love and mercy which God hath shown thee freely in Christ: then must thou needs love again: and love cannot but compel thee to work. If when tyrants oppose thee thou have power to confess, then art thou 328
History of the Reformation of the Sixteenth Century sure that thou art safe. If thou be fallen from the way of truth, come thereto again and thou art safe. Yea, Christ shall save thee, and the angels of heaven shall rejoice at thy coming.” These words did not change Anne’s heart, but she marked with her nail, as was her custom, other passages which struck her more, and which she desired to point out to the king if, as she hoped, she was ever to meet him again. She believed that the truth was there, and took a lively interest in those whom Wolsey, Henry, and the pope were at that time persecuting.
Anne was soon dragged from these pious lessons, and launched into the midst of a world full of dangers. Henry, convinced that he had nothing to expect henceforward from Campeggio, neglected those proprieties which he had hitherto observed, and immediately after the adjournment ordered Anne Boleyn to return to court; he restored her to the place she had formerly occupied, and even surrounded her with increased splendour. Everyone saw that Anne, in the king’s mind, was queen of England; and a powerful party was formed around her which proposed to accomplish the definitive ruin of the cardinal.
After her return to court, Anne read much less frequently The Obedience of a Christian Man and the Testament of Jesus Christ. Henry’s homage, her friends’
intrigues, and the whirl of festivities, bade fair to stifle the thoughts which solitude had aroused in her heart. One day having left Tyndale’s book in a window, Miss Gainsford, a fair young gentlewoman attached to her person, took it up and read it.
A gentleman of handsome mien, cheerful temper, and extreme mildness, named George Zouch, also belonging to Anne’s household, and betrothed to Miss Gainsford, profiting by the liberty his position gave him, indulged sometimes in “love tricks.” On one occasion when George desired to have a little talk with her, he was annoyed to find her absorbed by a book of whose contents he knew nothing; and taking advantage of a moment when the young lady had turned away her head, he laughingly snatched it from her. Miss Gainsford ran after Zouch to recover her book; but just at that moment she heard her mistress calling her, and she left George, threatening him with her finger.
As she did not return immediately, George withdrew to his room, and opened the volume; it was the Obedience of a Christian Man. He glanced over a few lines, then a few pages, and at last read the book through more than once. He seemed to hear the voice of God. “I feel the Spirit of God,” he said, “speaking in my heart as he has spoken in the heart of him who wrote the book.” The words which had only made a temporary impression on the preoccupied mind of Anne Boleyn, penetrated to the heart of her equerry and converted him. Miss Gainsford, fearing that Anne would ask for her book, entreated George to restore it to her; but he positively refused, and even the young 329
History of the Reformation of the Sixteenth Century lady’s tears failed to make him give up a volume in which he had found the life of his soul. Becoming more serious, he no longer jested as before; and when Miss Gainsford peremptorily demanded the book, he was, says the chronicler, “ready to weep himself.”
Zouch, finding in this volume an edification which empty forms and ceremonies could not give, used to carry it with him to the king’s chapel. Dr. Sampson, the dean, generally officiated; and while the choir chanted the service, George would be absorbed in his book, where he read: “If when thou seest the celebration of the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper, thou believest in this promise of Christ: This is my body that is broken for you, and if thou have this promise fast in thine heart, thou art saved and justified thereby; thou eatest his body and drinkest his blood. If not, so helpeth it thee not, though thou hearest a thousand masses in a day: no more than it should help thee in a dead thirst to behold a bush at a tavern door, if thou knewest not thereby that there was wine within to be sold.” The young man dwelt upon these words: by faith he ate the body and drank the blood of the Son of God. This was what was passing in the palaces of Henry VIII; there were saints in the household of Caesar.
Wosley, desirous of removing from the court everything that might favour the Reformation, had recommended extreme vigilance to Dr. Sampson, so as to prevent the circulation of the innovating books. Accordingly, one day when George was in the chapel absorbed in his book, the dean, who, even while officiating, had not lost sight of the young man, called him to him after the service, and rudely taking the book from his hands, demanded: “What is your name, and in whose service are you?” Zouch having replied, the dean withdrew with a very angry look, and carried his prey to the cardinal.
When Miss Gainsford heard of this mishap, her grief was extreme; she trembled at the thought that the Obedience of a Christian Man was in Wolsey’s hands. Not long after this, Anne having asked for her book, the young lady fell on her knees, confessed all, and begged to be forgiven. Anne uttered not a word of reproach; her quick mind saw immediately the advantage she might derive from this affair. “Well,”
said she, “it shall be the dearest book to them that ever the dean or cardinal took away.”
“The noble lady,” as the chronicler styles her, immediately demanded an interview of the king, and on reaching his presence she fell at his feet, and begged his assistance. “What is the matter, Anne?” said the astonished monarch. She told him what had happened, and Henry promised that the book should not remain in Wolsey’s hands.
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History of the Reformation of the Sixteenth Century Anne had scarcely quitted the royal apartments when the cardinal arrived with the famous volume, with the intention of complaining to Henry of certain passages which he knew could not fail to irritate him, and to take advantage of it even to attack Anne, if the king should be offended. Henry’s icy reception closed his mouth; the king confined himself to taking the book, and bowing out the cardinal. This was precisely what Anne had hoped for. She begged the king to read the book, which he promised to do.
And Henry accordingly shut himself up in his closet, and read the Obedience of a Christian Man. There were few works better calculated to enlighten him, and none, after the Bible, that has had more influence upon the Reformation in England.
Tyndale treated of obedience, “the essential principle,” as he terms it, “of every political or religious community.” He declaimed against the unlawful power of the popes, who usurped the lawful authority of Christ and of his Word. He professed political doctrines too favourable doubtless to absolute power, but calculated to show that the reformers were not, as had been asserted, instigators of rebellion. Henry read as follows:—
“The king is in the room of God in this world. He that resisteth the king, resisteth God; he that judgeth the king, judgeth God. He is the minister of God to defend thee from a thousand inconveniences; though he be the greatest tyrant in the world, yet is he unto thee a great benefit of God; for it is better to pay the tenth than to lose all, and to suffer wrong of one man than of every man.”
These are indeed strange doctrines for rebels to hold, thought the king; and he continued:—“Let kings, if they had lever be Christians indeed than so to be called, give themselves altogether to the wealth of their realms after the ensample of Jesus Christ; remembering that the people are God’s, and not theirs; yea, are Christ’s inheritance, bought with his blood. The most despised person in his realm (if he is a Christian) is equal with him in the kingdom of God and of Christ. Let the king put off all pride, and become a brother to the poorest of his subjects.”
It is probable that these words were less satisfactory to the king. He kept on reading:—
“Emperors and kings are nothing now-a-days, but even hangmen unto the pope and bishops, to kill whomsoever they condemn, as Pilate was unto the scribes and pharisees and high bishops to hang Christ.”
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History of the Reformation of the Sixteenth Century This seemed to Henry rather strong language. “The pope hath received no other authority of Christ than to preach God’s word. Now, this word should rule only, and not bishops’ decrees or the pope’s pleasure. In praesentia majoris cessat potestas minoris, in the presence of the greater the less hath no power. The pope, against all the doctrine of Christ, which saith, My kingdom is not of this world, hath usurped the right of the emperor. Kings must make account of their doings only to God. No person may be exempt from this ordinance of God; neither can the profession of monks and friars, or anything that the popes or bishops can lay for themselves, except them from the sword of the emperor or king, if they break the laws. For it is written, (Romans 13.) Let every soul submit himself unto the authority of the higher powers.”
“What excellent reading!” exclaimed Henry, when he had finished; “this is truly a book for all kings to read, and for me particularly.” Captivated by Tyndale’s work, the king began to converse with Anne about the church and the pope; and she who had seen Margaret of Valois unassumingly endeavour to instruct Francis I strove in like manner to enlighten Henry VIII. She did not possess the influence over him she desired; this unhappy prince was, to the very end of his life, opposed to the evangelical reformation; protestants and catholics have been equally mistaken when they have regarded him as being favourable to it. “In a short time,” says the annalist quoted by Strype at the end of his narrative, “the king, by the help of this virtuous lady, had his eyes opened to the truth. He learned to seek after that truth, to advance God’s religion and glory, to detest the pope’s doctrine, his lies, his pomp, and pride, and to deliver his subjects from the Egyptian darkness and Babylonian bonds that the pope had brought him and his subjects under. Despising the rebellions of his subjects and the rage of so many mighty potentates abroad, he set forward a religious reformation, which, beginning with the triple-crowned head, came down to all the members of the hierarchy.” History has rarely delivered a more erroneous judgment.
Henry’s eyes were never opened to the truth, and it was not he who made the Reformation. It was accomplished first of all by Scripture, and then by the ministry of simple and faithful men baptised of the Holy Ghost. Yet Tyndale’s book and the conduct of the legates had given rise in the king’s mind to new thoughts which he sought time to mature. He desired also to conceal his anger from Wolsey and Campeggio, and dissipate his spleen, says the historian Collyer; he therefore gave orders to remove the court to the palace of Woodstock. The magnificent park attached to this royal residence, in which was the celebrated bower constructed (it is said) by Henry II to conceal the fair Rosamond, offered all the charms of the promenade, the chase, and solitude.
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History of the Reformation of the Sixteenth Century Hence he could easily repair to Langley, Grafton, and other country seats. It was not long before the entertainments, horseraces, and other rural sports began. The world with its pleasures and its grandeur, were at the bottom the idols of Anne Boleyn’s heart; but yet she felt a certain attraction for the new doctrine, which was confounded in her mind with the great cause of all knowledge, perhaps even with her own. More enlightened than the generality of women, she was distinguished by the superiority of her understanding not only over her own sex, but even over many of the gentlemen of the court. While Catherine, a member of the third order of St.
Francis, indulged in trifling practices, the more intelligent, if not more pious Anne, cared but little for amulets which the friars had blessed, for apparitions, or visions of angels. Woodstock furnished her with an opportunity of curing Henry VIII of the superstitious ideas natural to him. There was a place in the forest said to be haunted by evil spirits; not a priest or a courtier dared approach it. A tradition ran that if a king ventured to cross the boundary, he would fall dead. Anne resolved to take Henry there. Accordingly, one morning she led the way in the direction of the place where these mysterious powers manifested their presence (as it was said) by strange apparitions; they entered the wood; they arrived at the so much dreaded spot; all hesitated; but Anne’s calmness reassured her companions; they advanced; they found nothing but trees and turf, and, laughing at their former terrors, they explored every corner of this mysterious resort of the evil spirits. Anne returned to the palace, congratulating herself on the triumph Henry had gained over his imaginary fears.
This prince, who could as yet bear with superiority in others, was struck with Anne Boleyn’s.
Never too gay nor yet too melancholy,
A heavenly mind is hers, like angels holy.
None purer ever soared above the sky,
O mighty marvel, thus may every eye
See of what monster strange the humble serf am I; Monster indeed, for in her frame divine
A woman’s form, man’s heart, and angel’s head combine.
These verses of Clement Marot, written in honour of Margaret of Valois, faithfully express what Henry then felt for Anne, who had been with Marot in the household of that princess. Henry’s love may perhaps have deceived him as to Anne’s excellencies.
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History of the Reformation of the Sixteenth Century CHAPTER 11
Embarrassment of the Pope—The Triumphs of Charles decide him—He traverses the Cause to Rome—Wolsey’s Dejection—Henry’s Wrath—His Fears—
Wolsey obtains Comfort—Arrival of the two Legates at Grafton—Wolsey’s Reception by Henry—Wolsey and Norfolk at Dinner—Henry with Anne—Conference between the King and the Cardinal—Wolsey’s Joy and Grief—The Supper at Euston—
Campeggio’s farewell Audience—Wolsey’s Disgrace—Campeggio at Dover—He is accused by the Courtiers—Leaves England—Wolsey foresees his own Fall and that of the Papacy
While the court was thus taking its pleasure at Woodstock; Wolsey remained in London a prey to the acutest anguish. “This avocation to Rome,” wrote he to Gregory Da Casale, “will not only completely alienate the king and his realm from the apostolic see, but will ruin me utterly.” This message had hardly reached the pope, before the imperial ambassadors handed to him the queen’s protest, and added in a very significant tone: “If your holiness does not call this cause before you, the emperor, who is determined to bring it to an end, will have recourse to other arguments.” The same perplexity always agitated Clement: Which of the two must be sacrificed, Henry or Charles? Anthony de Leyva, who commanded the imperial forces, having routed the French army, the pope no longer doubted that Charles was the elect of Heaven.
It was not Europe alone which acknowledged this prince’s authority; a new world had just laid its power and its gold at his feet. The formidable priest-king of the Aztecs had been unable to withstand Cortez; could the priest-king of Rome withstand Charles V?
Cortez had returned from Mexico, bringing with him Mexican chiefs in all their barbarous splendour, with thousands of pesos, with gold and silver and emeralds of extraordinary size, with magnificent tissues and birds of brilliant plumage. He had accompanied Charles, who was then going to Italy, to the place of embarkation, and had sent to Clement VII costly gifts of the precious metals, valuable jewels, and a troop of Mexican dancers, buffoons, and jugglers, who charmed the pope and the cardinal above all things.
Clement, even while refusing Henry’s prayer, had not as yet granted the emperor’s. He thought he could now resist no longer the star of a monarch victorious over two worlds, and hastened to enter into negotiations with him. Sudden terrors still assailed him from time to time: My refusal (he said to himself) may perhaps cause me to lose England. But Charles, holding him in his powerful grasp, compelled him to submit. Henry’s antecedents were rather encouraging to the pontiff. How could 334
History of the Reformation of the Sixteenth Century he imagine that a prince, who alone of all the monarchs of Europe had once contended against the great reformer, would now separate from the popedom? On the 6th of July, Clement declared to the English envoys that he avoked to Rome the cause between Henry VIII and Catherine of Aragon. In other words, this was refusing the divorce.
“There are twenty-three points in this case,” said the courtiers, “and the debate on the first has lasted a year; before the end of the trial, the king will be not only past marrying but past living.”
When he learned that the fatal blow had been struck, Bennet, in a tone of sadness, exclaimed: “Alas! most holy father, by this act the Church in England will be utterly destroyed; the king declared it to me with tears in his eyes.”—“Why is it my fortune to live in such evil days?” replied the pope, who, in his turn, began to weep; “but I am encircled by the emperor’s forces, and if I were to please the king, I should draw a fearful ruin upon myself and upon the church God will be my judge.”
On the 15th of July, Da Casale sent the fatal news to the English minister. The king was cited before the pope, and in case of refusal condemned in a fine of 10,000
ducats. On the 18th of July, peace was proclaimed at Rome between the pontiff and the emperor, and on the next day (these dates are important) Clement, wishing still to make one more attempt to ward off the blow with which the papacy was threatened, wrote to Cardinal Wolsey: “My dear son, how can I describe to you my affliction? Show in this matter the prudence which so distinguishes you, and preserve the king in those kindly feelings which he has ever manifested towards me.” A useless attempt!
Far from saving the papacy, Wolsey was to be wrecked along with it.
Wolsey was thunderstruck. At the very time he was assuring Henry of the attachment of Clement and Francis, both were deserting him. The “politic handling”
failed, which the cardinal had thought so skillful, and which had been so tortuous.
Henry now had none but enemies on he continent of Europe, and the Reformation was daily spreading over his kingdom. Wolsey’s anguish cannot be described. His power, his pomp, his palaces were all threatened; who could tell whether he would even preserve his liberty and his life.—A just reward for so much duplicity.
But the king’s wrath was to be greater than even the minister’s alarm. His terrified servants wondered how they should announce the pontiff’s decision.
Gardiner, who, after his return from Rome, had been named secretary of state, went down to Langley on the 3rd of August to communicate it to him. What news for the proud Tudor! The decision on the divorce was forbidden in England; the cause avoked to Rome, there to be buried and unjustly lost; Francis I treating with the emperor; Charles and Clement on the point of exchanging at Bologna the most striking signs 335
History of the Reformation of the Sixteenth Century of their unchangeable alliance; the services rendered by the king to the popedom repaid with the blackest ingratitude; his hope of giving an heir to the crown disgracefully frustrated; and last, but not least, Henry VIII, the proudest monarch of Christendom, summoned to Rome to appear before an ecclesiastical tribunal it was too much for Henry. His wrath, a moment restrained, burst forth like a clap of thunder, and all trembled around him. “Do they presume,” he exclaimed, “to try my cause elsewhere than in my own dominions? I, the king of England, summoned before an Italian tribunal! Yes, I will go to Rome, but it shall be with such a mighty army that the pope, and his priests, and all Italy shall be struck with terror.—I forbid the commission to consider its functions at an end.” Henry would have desired to tear off Campeggio’s purple robes, and throw this prince of the Roman church into prison, in order to frighten Clement; but the very magnitude of the insult compelled him to restrain himself. He feared above all things to appear humbled in the eyes of England, and he hoped, by showing moderation, to hide the affront he had received.
“Let everything be done,” he told Gardiner, “to conceal from my subjects these letters of citation, which are so hurtful to my glory. Write to Wolsey that I have the greatest confidence in his dexterity, and that he ought, by good handling, to win over Campeggio and the queen’s counsellors; and, above all, prevail upon them at any price not to serve these citatory letters on me.” But Henry had hardly given his instructions when the insult of which he had been the object recurred to his imagination; the thought of Clement haunted him night and day, and he swore to exact a striking vengeance from the pontiff. Rome desires to have no more to do with England.
England in her turn will cast off Rome. Henry will sacrifice Wolsey, Clement, and the church; nothing shall stop his fury. The crafty pontiff has concealed his game, the king shall beat him openly; and from age to age the popedom shall shed tears over the imprudent folly of a Medici.
Thus after insupportable delays, which had fatigued the nation, a thunderbolt fell upon England. Court, clergy, and people, from whom it was impossible to conceal these great events, were deeply stirred, and the whole kingdom was in commotion.
Wolsey, still hoping to ward off the ruin impending over both himself and the papacy, immediately put in play all that dexterity which Henry had spoken of; he so far prevailed that the letters citatorial were not served on the king, but only the brief addressed to Wolsey by Clement VII. The cardinal, all radiant with this trivial success, and desirous of profiting by it to raise his credit, resolved to accompany Campeggio, who was going down to Grafton to take leave of the king. When the coming of the two legates was heard of at court, the agitation was very great. The dukes of Norfolk and Suffolk regarded this proceeding as the last effort of their enemy, and entreated Henry not to receive him.
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“The king will receive him,” said some. “The king will not receive him,” answered others. At length, one Sunday morning, it was announced that the prelates were at the gates of the mansion. Wolsey looked round with an anxious eye for the great officers who were accustomed to introduce him. They appeared, and desired Campeggio to follow them. When the legate had been taken to his apartments, Wolsey waited his turn; but great was his consternation on being informed that there was no chamber appointed for him in the palace. Sir Henry Norris, groom of the stole, offered Wolsey the use of his own room, and the cardinal followed him, almost sinking beneath the humiliation he had undergone. He made ready to appear before the king, and summoning up his courage, proceeded to the presence-chamber.
The lords of the council were standing in a row according to their rank; Wolsey, taking off his hat, passed along, saluting each of them with affected civility. A great number of courtiers arrived, impatient to see how Henry would receive his old favourite; and most of them were already exulting in the striking disgrace of which they hoped to be witnesses. At last the king was announced.
Henry stood under the cloth of state; and Wolsey advanced and knelt before him.
Deep silence prevailed throughout the chamber. To the surprise of all, Henry stooped down and raised him up with both hands Then, with a pleasing smile, he took Wolsey to the window, desired him to put on his hat, and talked familiarly with him. “Then,”
says Cavendish, the cardinal’s gentleman usher, “it would have made you smile to behold the countenances of those who had laid wagers that the king would not speak with him.” But this was the last ray of evening which then lighted up the darkening fortunes of Wosley: the star of his favour was about to set for ever. The silence continued, for everyone desired to catch a few words of the conversation. The king seemed to be accusing Wolsey, and Wolsey to be justifying himself. On a sudden Henry pulled a letter out of his bosom, and showing it to the cardinal, said in a loud voice: “How can that be? is not this your hand?” It was no doubt the letter which Bryan had intercepted. Wolsey replied in an under-tone, and seemed to have appeased his master. The dinner hour having arrived, the king left the room, telling Wolsey that he would not fail to see him again; the courtiers were eager to make their profoundest reverences to the cardinal, but he haughtily traversed the chamber, and the dukes hastened to carry to Anne
Boleyn the news of this astonishing reception. Wolsey, Campeggio, and the lords of the council sat down to dinner. The cardinal, well aware that the terrible letter would be his utter ruin, and that Henry’s good graces had no other object than to prepare his fall, began to hint at his retirement. “Truly,” said he with a devout air, 337
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“the king would do well to send his bishops and chaplains home to their cures and benefices.” The company looked at one another with astonishment. “Yea, marry,” said the duke of Norfolk somewhat rudely, “and so it were meet for you to do also.”—“I should be very well contented therewith,” answered Wolsey, “if it were the king’s pleasure to license me with leave to go to my cure at Winchester.”—“Nay, to your benefice at York, where your greatest honour and charge is,” replied Norfolk, who was not willing that Wolsey should be living so near Henry.—“Even as it shall please the king,” added Wolsey, and changed the subject of conversation.
Henry had caused himself to be announced to Anne Boleyn, who (says Cavendish)
“kept state at Grafton more like a queen than a simple maid.” Possessing extreme sensibility, and an ardent imagination, Anne, who felt the slightest insult with all the sensibility of her woman’s heart, was very dissatisfied with the king after the report of the dukes. Accordingly, heedless of the presence of the attendants, she said to him: “Sir, is it not a marvellous thing to see into what great danger the cardinal hath brought you with all your subjects?”—“How so, sweetheart?” asked Henry. Anne continued: “Are you ignorant of the hatred his exactions have drawn upon you? There is not a man in your whole realm of England worth one hundred pounds, but he hath made you his debtor.” Anne here alluded to the loan the king had raised among his subjects. “Well, well,” said Henry, who was not pleased with these remarks, “I know that matter better than you.”—“If my lord of Norfolk, my lord of Suffolk, my uncle, or my father had done much less than the cardinal hath done,” continued Anne, “they would have lost their heads ere this.”—“Then I perceive,” said Henry, “you are none of his friends.”—“No, sir, I have no cause, nor any that love you,” she replied. The dinner was ended; the king, without appearing at all touched, proceeded to the presence-chamber, where Wolsey expected him.
After a long conversation, carried on in a low tone, the king took Wolsey by the hand and led him into his private chamber. The courtiers awaited impatiently the termination of an interview which might decide the fate of England; they walked up and down the gallery, often passing before the door of the closet, in the hope of catching from Wolsey’s looks, when he opened it, the result of this secret conference; but one quarter of an hour followed another, these became hours, and still the cardinal did not appear. Henry having resolved that this conversation should be the last, was no doubt collecting from his minister all the information necessary to him.
But the courtiers imagined he was returning into his master’s favour; Norfolk, Suffolk, Wiltshire, and the other enemies of the prime minister, began to grow alarmed, and hastened off to Anne Boleyn, who was their last hope.
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History of the Reformation of the Sixteenth Century It was night when the king and Wolsey quitted the royal closet; the former appeared gracious, the latter satisfied; it was always Henry’s custom to smile on those he intended to sacrifice. “I shall see you in the morning,” he said to the cardinal with a friendly air. Wolsey made a low bow, and, turning round to the courtiers, saw the king’s smile reflected on their faces. Wiltshire, Tuke, and even Suffolk, were full of civility. “Well,” thought he, “the motion of such weathercocks as these shows me from what quarter the wind of favour is blowing.”
But a moment after the wind began to change. Men with torches waited for the cardinal at the gates of the palace to conduct him to the place where he would have to pass the night. Thus he was not to sleep beneath the same roof with Henry. He was to lie at Euston, one of Empson’s houses, about three miles off. Wolsey, repressing his vexation, mounted his horse, the footmen preceded him with their links, and after an hour’s riding along very bad roads he reached the lodging assigned him.
He had sat down to supper, to which some of his most intimate friends had been invited, when suddenly Gardiner was announced. Gardiner owed everything to the cardinal, and yet he had not appeared before him since his return from Rome. He comes no doubt to play the hypocrite and the spy, thought Wolsey. But as soon as the secretary entered, Wolsey rose, made him a graceful compliment, and prayed him to take a seat. “Master Secretary,” he asked, “where have you been since your return from Rome?”—“I have been following the court from place to place.”—“You have been hunting then? Have you any dogs?” asked the prime minister, who knew very well what Gardiner had been doing in the king’s closet. “A few,” replied Gardiner. Wolsey thought that even the secretary was a bloodhound on his track. And yet after supper he took Gardiner aside, and conversed with him until midnight. He thought it prudent to neglect nothing that might clear up his position; and Wolsey sounded Gardiner, just as he himself had been sounded by Henry not long before.
The same night at Grafton the king gave Campeggio a farewell audience, and treated him very kindly, “by giving him presents and other matters,” says Du Bellay.
Henry then returned to Anne Boleyn. The dukes had pointed out to her the importance of the present moment; she therefore asked and obtained of Henry, without any great difficulty, his promise never to speak to his minister again. The insults of the papacy had exasperated the king of England, and as he could not punish Clement, he took his revenge on the cardinal.
The next morning, Wolsey, impatient to have the interview which Henry had promised, rode back early to Grafton. But as he came near, he met a numerous train of servants and sumpter-horses; and presently afterwards Henry, with Anne Boleyn 339
History of the Reformation of the Sixteenth Century and many lords and ladies of the court, came riding up. “What does all this mean?”
thought the cardinal in dismay. “My lord,” said the king, as he drew near, “I cannot stay with you now. You will return to London with cardinal Campeggio.” Then striking the spurs into his horse, Henry galloped off with a friendly salutation. After him came Anne Boleyn, who rode past Wolsey with head erect, and casting on him a proud look. The court proceeded to Hartwell Park, where Anne had determined to keep the king all day. Wolsey was confounded. There was no room for doubt; his disgrace was certain. His head swam, he remained immovable for an instant, and then recovered himself; but the blow he had received had not been unobserved by the courtiers, and the cardinal’s fall became the general topic of conversation.
After dinner, the legates departed, and on the second day reached Moor Park, a mansion built by Archbishop Neville, one of Wolsey’s predecessors, who for high treason had been first imprisoned at Calais, and afterwards at Ham. These recollections were by no means agreeable to Wolsey. The next morning the two cardinals separated; Campeggio proceeded to Dover, and Wolsey to London.
Campeggio was impatient to get out of England, and great was his annoyance, on reaching Dover, to find that the wind was contrary. But a still greater vexation was in reserve. He had hardly lain down to rest himself, before his door was opened, and a band of sergeants entered the room. The cardinal, who knew what scenes of this kind meant in Italy, thought he was a dead man, and fell trembling at his chaplain’s feet begging for absolution. Meantime the officers opened his luggage, broke into his chests, scattered his property about the floor, and even shook out his clothes.
Henry’s tranquillity had not been of long duration. “Campeggio is the bearer of letters from Wolsey to Rome,” whispered some of the courtiers; “who knows but they contain treasonable matter?” “There is, too, among his papers the famous decretal pronouncing the divorce,” said one; “if we had but that document it would finish the business.” Another affirmed that Campeggio “had large treasure with him of my lord’s (Wolsey’s) to be conveyed in great tons to Rome,” whither it was surmised the cardinal of York would escape to enjoy the fruits of his treason. “It is certain,” added a third, “that Campeggio, assisted by Wolsey, has been able to procure your majesty’s correspondence with Anne Boleyn, and is carrying it away with him.” Henry, therefore, sent a messenger after the nuncio, with orders that his baggage should be thoroughly searched.
Nothing was found, neither letters, nor bull, nor treasures. The bull had been destroyed; the treasures Wolsey had never thought of intrusting to his colleague; and 340
History of the Reformation of the Sixteenth Century the letters of Anne and Henry, Campeggio had sent on before by his son Rodolph, and the pope was stretching out his hands to receive them, proud, like his successors, of the robbery committed by two of his legates.
Campeggio being reassured, and seeing that he was neither to be killed nor robbed, made a great noise at this act of violence, and at the insulting remarks which had given rise to it. “I will not leave England,” he caused Henry to be informed, “until I have received satisfaction.” “My lord forgets that he is legate no longer,” replied the king, “since the pope has withdrawn his powers; he forgets, besides, that, as bishop of Salisbury, he is my subject; as for the remarks against him and the cardinal of York, it is a liberty the people of England are accustomed to take, and which I cannot put down.” Campeggio, anxious to reach France, was satisfied with these reasons, and soon forgot all his sorrows at the sumptuous table of Cardinal Duprat.
Wolsey was not so fortunate. He had seen Campeggio go away, and remained like a wrecked seaman thrown on a desert isle, who has seen depart the only friends capable of giving him any help. His necromancy had forewarned him that this would be a fatal year.
The angel of the maid of Kent had said: “Go to the cardinal and announce his fall, because he has not done what you had commanded him to do.” Other voices besides hers made themselves heard: the hatred of the nation, the contempt of Europe, and, above all, Henry’s anger, told him that his hour was come. It was true the pope said that he would do all in his power to save him; but Clement’s good offices would only accelerate his ruin. Du Bellay, whom the people believed to be the cardinal’s accomplice, bore witness to the change that had taken place in men’s minds. While passing on foot through the streets of the capital, followed by two valets, “his ears were so filled with coarse jests as he went along,” he said, “that he knew not which way to turn.” “The cardinal is utterly undone,” he wrote, “and I see not how he can escape.” The idea occurred to Wolsey, from time to time, to pronounce the divorce himself; but it was too late. He was even told that his life was in danger. Fortune, blind and bald, her foot on the wheel, fled rapidly from him, nor was it in his power to stop her. And this was not all: after him (he thought) there was no one who could uphold the church of the pontiffs in England. The ship of Rome was sailing on a stormy sea among rocks and shoals; Wolsey at the helm looked in vain for a port of refuge; the vessel leaked on every side; it was rapidly sinking, and the cardinal uttered a cry of distress. Alas! he had desired to save Rome, but Rome would not have it so.
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History of the Reformation of the Sixteenth Century CHAPTER 12
A Meeting at Waltham—Youth of Thomas Cranmer—His early Education—
Studies Scripture for three Years—His Functions as Examiner—the Supper at Waltham—New View of the Divorce—Fox communicates it to Henry—Cranmer’s Vexation—Conference with the King—Cranmer at the Boleyns As Wolsey’s star was disappearing in the West in the midst of stormy clouds, another was rising in the East, to point out the way to save Britain. Men, like stars, appear on the horizon at the command of God.
On his return from Woodstock to Greenwich, Henry stopped full of anxiety at Waltham in Essex. His attendants were lodged in the houses of the neighbourhood.
Fox, the almoner, and Secretary Gardiner, were quartered on a gentleman named Cressy, at Waltham Abbey. When supper was announced, Gardiner and Fox were surprised to see an old friend enter the room. It was Thomas Cranmer, a Cambridge doctor. “What! is it you?” they said, “and how came you here?” “Our host’s wife is my relation,” replied Cranmer, “and as the epidemic is raging at Cambridge, I brought home my friend’s sons, who are under my care.” As this new personage is destined to play an important part in the history of the Reformation, it may be worth our while to interrupt our narrative, and give a particular account of him.
Cranmer was descended from an ancient family, which came into England, as is generally believed, with the Conqueror. He was born at Aslacton in Nottinghamshire on the 2nd July 1489, six years after Luther. His early education had been very much neglected; his tutor, an ignorant and severe priest, had taught him little else than patiently to endure severe chastisement—a knowledge destined to be very useful to him in after-life. His father was an honest country gentleman, who cared for little besides hunting, racing, and military sports. At this school, the son learned to ride, to handle the bow and the sword, to fish, and to hawk; and he never entirely neglected these exercises, which he thought essential to his health. Thomas Cranmer was fond of walking, of the charms of nature, and of solitary meditations; and a hill, near his father’s mansion, used often to be shown where he was wont to sit, gazing on the fertile country at his feet, fixing his eyes on the distant spires, listening with melancholy pleasure to the chime of the bells, and indulging in sweet contemplations.
About 1504, he was sent to Cambridge, where “barbarism still prevailed,” says an historian. His plain, noble, and modest air conciliated the affections of many, and, in 1510, he was elected fellow of Jesus College. Possessing a tender heart, he became attached, at the age of twenty-three, to a young person of good birth, (says Foxe,) or 342
History of the Reformation of the Sixteenth Century of inferior rank, as other writers assert. Cranmer was unwilling to imitate the disorderly lives of his fellow-students, and although marriage would necessarily close the career of honours, he married the young lady, resigned his fellowship (in conformity with the regulations), and took a modest lodging at the Dolphin. He then began to study earnestly the most remarkable writings of the times, polishing, it has been said, his old asperity on the productions of Erasmus, of Lefevre of Etaples, and other great authors; every day his crude understanding received new brilliancy. He then began to teach in Buckingham (afterwards Magdalene) College, and thus provided for his wants.
His lessons excited the admiration of enlightened men, and the anger of obscure ones, who disdainfully called him (because of the inn at which he lodged) the hostler.
“This name became him well,” said Fuller, “for in his lessons he roughly rubbed the backs of the friars, and famously curried the hides of the lazy priests.” His wife dying a year after his marriage, Cranmer was re-elected fellow of his old college, and the first writing of Luther’s having appeared, he said: “I must know on which side the truth lies. There is only one infallible source, the Scriptures; in them I will seek for God’s truth.” And for three years he constantly studied the holy books, without commentary, without human theology, and hence he gained the name of the Scripturist. At last his eyes were opened; he saw the mysterious bond which united all biblical revelations, and understood the completeness of God’s design. Then without forsaking the Scriptures, he studied all kinds of authors. He was a slow reader, but a close observer; he never opened a book without having a pen in his hand.
He did not take up with any particular party or age; but possessing a free and philosophic mind, he weighed all opinions in the balance of his judgment, taking the Bible for his standard.
Honours soon came upon him; he was made successively doctor of divinity, professor, university preacher, and examiner. He used to say to the candidates for the ministry: “Christ sendeth his hearers to the Scriptures, and not to the church.”—
“But,” replied the monks, “they are so difficult.”—“Explain the obscure passages by those which are clear,” rejoined the professor, “Scripture by Scripture.
Seek, pray, and he who has the key of David will open them to you.” The monks, affrighted at this task, withdrew bursting with anger; and erelong Cranmer’s name was a name of dread in every convent. Some, however, submitted to the labour, and one of them, Doctor Barrett, blessed God that the examiner had turned him back;
“for,” said he, “I found the knowledge of God in the holy book he compelled me to study.” Cranmer toiled at the same work as Latimer, Stafford, and Bilney.
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History of the Reformation of the Sixteenth Century Fox and Gardiner having renewed acquaintance with their old friend at Waltham Abbey, they sat down to table, and both the almoner and the secretary asked the doctor what he thought of the divorce. It was the usual topic of conversation, and not long before, Cranmer had been named member of a commission appointed to give their opinion on this affair. “You are not in the right path,” said Cranmer to his friends; “you should not cling to the decisions of the church. There is a surer and a shorter way which alone can give peace to the king’s conscience.”—“What is that?”
they both asked.—“The true question is this,” replied Cranmer: “What says the word of God? If God has declared a marriage of this nature bad, the pope cannot make it good. Discontinue these interminable Roman negotiations. When God has spoken, man must obey.”—“But how shall we know what God has said?”—“Consult the universities; they will discern it more surely than Rome.”
This was a new view. The idea of consulting the universities had been acted upon before; but then their own opinions only had been demanded; now, the question was simply to know what God says in his word. “The word of God is above the church,”
was the principle laid down by Cranmer, and in that principle consisted the whole of the Reformation. The conversation at the supper-table of Waltham was destined to be one of those secret springs which an invisible Hand sets in motion for the accomplishment of his great designs. The Cambridge doctor, suddenly transported from his study to the foot of the throne, was on the point of becoming one of the principal instruments of Divine wisdom.
The day after this conversation, Fox and Gardiner arrived at Greenwich, and the king summoned them into his presence the same evening. “Well, gentlemen,” he said to them, “our holidays are over; what shall we do now? If we still have recourse to Rome, God knows when we shall see the end of this matter.”—“It will not be necessary to take so long a journey,” said Fox; “we know a shorter and surer way.”—“What is it?” asked the king eagerly.— “Doctor Cranmer, whom we met yesterday at Waltham, thinks that the Bible should be the sole judge in your cause.” Gardiner, vexed at his colleague’s frankness, desired to claim all the honour of this luminous idea for himself; but Henry did not listen to him. “Where is Doctor Cranmer?” said he, much affected.
“Send, and fetch him immediately. Mother of God! (this was his customary oath) this man has the right sow by the ear. If this had only been suggested to me two years ago, what expense and trouble I should have been spared!”
Cranmer had gone into Nottinghamshire; a messenger followed and brought him back. “Why have you entangled me in this affair?” he said to Fox and Gardiner. “Pray make my excuses to the king.” Gardiner, who wished for nothing better, promised to do all he could; but it was of no use. “I will have no excuses,” said Henry. The wily 344
History of the Reformation of the Sixteenth Century courtier was obliged to make up his mind to introduce the ingenuous and upright man, to whom that station, which he himself had so coveted, was one day to belong.
Cranmer and Gardiner went down to Greenwich, both alike dissatisfied.
Cranmer was then forty years of age, with pleasing features, and mild and winning eyes, in which the candour of his soul seemed to be reflected. Sensible to the pains as well as to the pleasures of the heart, he was destined to be more exposed than other men to anxieties and falls; a peaceful life in some remote parsonage would have been more to his taste than the court of Henry VIII. Blessed with a generous mind, unhappily he did not possess the firmness necessary in a public man; a little stone sufficed to make him stumble. His excellent understanding showed him the better way; but his great timidity made him fear the more dangerous. He was rather too fond of relying upon the power of men, and made them unhappy concessions with too great facility. If the king had questioned him, he would never have dared advise so bold a course as that he had pointed out; the advice had slipped from him at table during the intimacy of familiar conversation. Yet he was sincere, and after doing everything to escape from the consequences of his frankness, he was ready to maintain the opinion he had given.
Henry, perceiving Cranmer’s timidity, graciously approached him. “What is your name?” said the king, endeavouring to put him at his ease. “Did you not meet my secretary and my almoner at Waltham?” And then he added: “Did you not speak to them of my great affair?”—repeating the words ascribed to Cranmer. The latter could not retreat: “Sir, it is true, I did say so.”—“I see,” replied the king with animation,
“that you have found the breach through which we must storm the fortress. Now, sir doctor, I beg you, and as you are my subject I command you, to lay aside every other occupation, and to bring my cause to a conclusion in conformity with the ideas you have put forth. All that I desire to know is, whether my marriage is contrary to the laws of God or not. Employ all your skill in investigating the subject, and thus bring comfort to my conscience as well as to the queen’s.”
Cranmer was confounded; he recoiled from the idea of deciding an affair on which depended, it might be, the destinies of the nation, and sighed after the lonely fields of Aslacton. But grasped by the vigorous hand of Henry, he was compelled to advance.
“Sir,” said he, “pray intrust this matter to doctors more learned than I am.”—“I am very willing,” answered the king, “but I desire that you will also give me your opinion in writing.” And then summoning the earl of Wiltshire to his presence, he said to him:
“My lord, you will receive Doctor Cranmer into your house at Durham Place, and let him have all necessary quiet to compose a report for which I have asked him.” After this precise command, which admitted of no refusal, Henry withdrew.
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History of the Reformation of the Sixteenth Century In this manner was Cranmer introduced by the king to Anne Boleyn’s father, and not, as some Romanist authors have asserted, by Sir Thomas Boleyn to the king.
Wiltshire conducted Cranmer to Durham House (now the Adelphi in the Strand), and the pious doctor, on whom Henry had imposed these quarters, soon contracted a close friendship with Anne and her father, and took advantage of it to teach them the value of the divine word, as the pearl of great price. Henry, while profiting by the address of a Wolsey and a Gardiner, paid little regard to the men; but he respected Cranmer, even when opposed to him in opinion, and until his death placed the learned doctor above all his courtiers and all his clerks. The pious man often succeeds better, even with the great ones of this world, than the ambitious and the intriguing.
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History of the Reformation of the Sixteenth Century CHAPTER 13
Wolsey in the Court of Chancery—Accused by the Dukes—Refuses to give up the Great Seal—His Despair—He gives up the Seal—Order to depart—His Inventory—
Alarm—The Scene of Departure—Favourable Message from the King—Wolsey’s Joy—His Fool—Arrival at Esher
While Cranmer was rising notwithstanding his humility, Wolsey was falling in despite of his stratagems. The cardinal still governed the kingdom, gave instructions to ambassadors, negotiated with princes, and filled his sumptuous palaces with his haughtiness. The king could not make up his mind to turn him off; the force of habit, the need he had of him, the recollection of the services Henry had received from him, pleaded in his favour. Wolsey without the seals appeared almost as inconceivable as the king without his crown. Yet the fall of one of the most powerful favourites recorded in history was inevitably approaching, and we must now describe it.
On the 9th of October, after the Michaelmas vacation, Wolsey, desirous of showing a bold face, went and opened the high court of chancery with his accustomed pomp; but he noticed, with uneasiness, that none of the king’s servants walked before him, as they had been accustomed to do. He presided on the bench with an inexpressible depression of spirits, and the various members of the court sat before him with an absent air; there was something gloomy and solemn in this sitting, as if all were taking part in a funeral; it was destined indeed to be the last act of the cardinal’s power. Some days before (Foxe says on the 1st of October) the dukes of Norfolk and Suffolk, with other lords of the privy-council, had gone down to Windsor, and denounced to the king Wolsey’s unconstitutional relations with the pope, his usurpations, “his robberies, and the discords sown by his means between Christian princes.” Such motives would not have sufficed; but Henry had stronger. Wolsey had not kept any of his promises in the matter of the divorce; it would even appear that he had advised the pope to excommunicate the king, and thus raise his people against him. This enormity was not at that time known by the prince; it is even probable that it did not take place until later. But Henry knew enough, and he gave his attorney-general, Sir Christopher Hales, orders to prosecute Wolsey.
While the heart-broken cardinal was displaying his authority for the last time in the court of chancery, the attorney-general was accusing him in the king’s bench for having obtained papal bulls conferring on him a jurisdiction which encroached on the royal power; and calling for the application of the penalties of praemunire. The two dukes received orders to demand the seals from Wolsey; and the latter, informed of 347
History of the Reformation of the Sixteenth Century what had taken place, did not quit his palace on the 10th, expecting every moment the arrival of the messengers of the king’s anger; but no one appeared.
The next day the two dukes arrived: “It is the king’s good pleasure,” said they to the cardinal, who remained seated in his arm-chair, “that you give up the broad seal to us and retire to Esher” (a country-seat near Hampton Court). Wolsey, whose presence of mind never failed him, demanded to see the commission under which they were acting. “We have our orders from his majesty’s mouth,” said they.—“That may be sufficient for you,” replied the cardinal, “but not for me. The great seal of England was delivered to me by the hands of my sovereign; I may not deliver it at the simple word of any lord, unless you can show me your commission.” Suffolk broke out into a passion, but Wolsey remained calm, and the two dukes returned to Windsor. This was the cardinal’s last triumph.
The rumour of his disgrace created an immense sensation at court, in the city, and among the foreign ambassadors. Du Bellay hastened to York Place (Whitehall) to contemplate this great ruin and console his unhappy friend. He found Wolsey, with dejected countenance and lustreless eyes, “shrunk to half his wonted size,” wrote the ambassador to Montmorency, “the greatest example of fortune which was ever beheld.” Wolsey desired “to set forth his case” to him; but his thoughts were confused, his language broken, “for heart and tongue both failed him entirely;” he burst into tears. The ambassador regarded him with compassion: “Alas!” thought he, “his enemies cannot but feel pity for him.” At last the unhappy cardinal recovered his speech, but only to give way to despair. “I desire no more authority,” he exclaimed,
“nor the pope’s legation, nor the broad seal of England I am ready to give up everything, even to my shirt I can live in a hermitage, provided the king does not hold me in disgrace.” The ambassador “did all he could to comfort him,” when Wolsey, catching at the plank thrown out to him, exclaimed: “Would that the king of France and madame might pray the king to moderate his anger against me. But, above all,”
he added in alarm, “take care the king never knows that I have solicited this of you.”
Du Bellay wrote indeed to France, that the king and madame alone could “withdraw their affectionate servant from the gates of hell;” and Wolsey being informed of these despatches, his hopes recovered a little. But this bright gleam did not last long.
On Sunday the 17th of October, Norfolk and Suffolk reappeared at Whitehall, accompanied by Fitzwilliam, Taylor, and Gardiner, Wolsey’s former dependant. It was six in the evening; they found the cardinal in an upper chamber, near the great gallery, and presented the king’s orders to him. Having read them, he said: “I am happy to obey his majesty’s commands;” then, having ordered the great seal to be brought him, he took it out of the white leather case in which he kept it, and handed 348
History of the Reformation of the Sixteenth Century it to the dukes, who placed it in a box, covered with crimson velvet, and ornamented with the arms of England, ordered Gardiner to seal it up with red wax, and gave it to Taylor to convey to the king.
Wolsey was thunderstruck; he was to drink the bitter cup even to the dregs: he was ordered to leave his palace forthwith, taking with him neither clothes, linen, nor plate; the dukes had feared that he would convey away his treasures. Wolsey comprehended the greatness of his misery; he found strength however to say: “Since it is the king’s good pleasure to take my house and all it contains, I am content to retire to Esher.” The dukes left him.
Wolsey remained alone. This astonishing man, who had risen from a butcher’s shop to the summit of earthly greatness—who, for a word that displeased him, sent his master’s most faithful servants (Pace for instance) to the Tower, and who had governed England as if he had been its monarch, and even more, for he had governed without a parliament—was driven out, and thrown, as it were, upon a dunghill. A sudden hope flashed like lightning through his mind; perhaps the magnificence of the spoils would appease Henry. Was not Esau pacified by Jacob’s present? Wolsey summoned his officers: “Set tables in the great gallery,” he said to them, “and place on them all I have intrusted to your care, in order to render me an account.”
These orders were executed immediately. The tables were covered with an immense quantity of rich stuffs, silks and velvets of all colours, costly furs, rich copes and other ecclesiastical vestures; the walls were hung with cloth of gold and silver, and webs of a valuable stuff named baudy-kin, from the looms of Damascus, and with tapestry, representing scriptural subjects or stories from the old romances of chivalry.
The gilt chamber and the council chamber, adjoining the gallery, were both filled with plate, in which the gold and silver were set with pearls and precious stones: these articles of luxury were so abundant that basketfuls of costly plate, which had fallen out of fashion, were stowed away under the tables. On every table was an exact list of the treasures with which it was loaded, for the most perfect order and regularity prevailed in the cardinal’s household. Wolsey cast a glance of hope upon this wealth, and ordered his officers to deliver the whole to his majesty.
He then prepared to leave his magnificent palace. That moment, of itself so sad, was made sadder still by an act of affectionate indiscretion. “Ah, my lord,” said his treasurer, Sir William Gascoigne, moved even to tears, “your grace will be sent to the Tower.” This was too much for Wolsey: to go and join his victims! He grew angry, and exclaimed: “Is this the best comfort you can give your master in adversity? I would have you and all such blasphemous reporters know that it is untrue.”
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History of the Reformation of the Sixteenth Century It was necessary to depart; he put round his neck a chain of gold, from which hung a pretended relic of the true cross; this was all he took. “Would to God,” he exclaimed, as he placed it on, “that I had never had any other.” This he said, alluding to the legate’s cross which used to be carried before him with so much pomp. He descended the back stairs, followed by his servants, some silent and dejected, others weeping bitterly, and proceeded to the river’s brink, where a barge awaited him. But, alas! it was not alone. The Thames was covered with innumerable boats full of men and women. The inhabitants of London, expecting to see the cardinal led to the Tower, desired to be present at his humiliation, and prepared to accompany him. Cries of joy hailing his fall were heard from every side; nor were the cruellest sarcasms wanting.
“The butcher’s dog will bite no more,” said some; “look, how he hangs his head.” In truth, the unhappy man, distressed by a sight so new to him, lowered those eyes which were once so proud, but now were filled with bitter tears. This man, who had made all England tremble, was then like a withered leaf carried along the stream. All his servants were moved; even his fool, William Patch, sobbed like the rest. “O, wavering and newfangled multitude,” exclaimed Cavendish, his gentleman usher.
The hopes of the citizens were disappointed; the barge, instead of descending the river, proceeded upwards in the direction of Hampton Court; gradually the shouts died away, and the flotilla dispersed.
The silence of the river permitted Wolsey to indulge in less bitter thoughts; but it seemed as if invisible furies were pursuing him, now that the people had left him.
He left his barge at Putney, and mounting his mule, though with difficulty, proceeded slowly with downcast looks. Shortly after, upon lifting his eyes, he saw a horseman riding rapidly down the hill towards them. “Whom do you think it can be?” he asked of his attendants. “My lord,” replied one of them, “I think it is Sir Henry Norris.” A flash of joy passed through Wolsey’s heart. Was it not Norris, who, of all the king’s officers, had shown him the most respect during his visit to Grafton? Norris came up with them, saluted him respectfully, and said: “The king bids me declare that he still entertains the same kindly feelings towards you, and sends you this ring as a token of his confidence.” Wolsey received it with a trembling hand: it was that which the king was in the habit of sending on important occasions. The cardinal immediately alighted from his mule, and kneeling down in the road, raised his hands to heaven with an indescribable expression of happiness. The fallen man would have pulled off his velvet under-cap, but unable to undo the strings, he broke them, and threw it on the ground. He remained on his knees bareheaded, praying fervently amidst profound silence. God’s forgiveness had never caused Wolsey so much pleasure as Henry’s.
350
History of the Reformation of the Sixteenth Century Having finished his prayer, the cardinal put on his cap, and remounted his mule.
“Gentle Norris,” said he to the king’s messenger, “if I were lord of a kingdom, the half of it would scarcely be enough to reward you for your happy tidings; but I have nothing left except the clothes on my back.” Then taking off his gold chain: “Take this,”
he said, “it contains a piece of the true cross. In my happier days I would not have parted with it for a thousand pounds.” The cardinal and Norris separated: but Wolsey soon stopped, and the whole troop halted on the heath. The thought troubled him greatly that he had nothing to send to the king; he called Norris back, and, looking round him, saw, mounted on a sorry horse, poor William Patch, who had lost all his gaiety since his master’s misfortune. “Present this poor jester to the king from me,”
said Wolsey to Norris; “his buffooneries are a pleasure fit for a prince; he is worth a thousand pounds.” Patch, offended at being treated thus, burst into a violent passion; his eyes flashed fire, he foamed at the mouth, he kicked and fought, an bit all who approached him; but the inexorable Wolsey, who looked upon him merely as a toy, ordered six of his tallest yeomen to lay hold of him. They carried off the unfortunate creature, who long continued to utter his piercing cries. At the very moment when his master had had pity on him, Wolsey, like the servant in the parable, had no pity on his poor companion in misfortune.
At last they reached Esher. What a residence compared with Whitehall! It was little more than four bare walls. The most urgent necessaries were procured from the neighbouring houses, but Wolsey could not adapt himself to this cruel contrast.
Besides, he knew Henry VIII; he knew that he might send Norris one day with a gold ring, and the executioner the next with a rope. Gloomy and dejected, he remained seated in his lonely apartments. On a sudden he would rise from his seat, walk hurriedly up and down, speak aloud to himself, and then, falling back in his chair, he would weep like a child. This man, who formerly had shaken kingdoms, had been overthrown in the twinkling of an eye, and was now atoning for his perfidies in humiliation and terror,—a striking example of God’s judgment.
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History of the Reformation of the Sixteenth Century CHAPTER 14
Thomas More elected Chancellor—A lay Government one of the great Facts of the Reformation—Wolsey accused of Subordinating England to the Pope—He implores the King’s Clemency—His Condemnation—Cromwell at Esher—His character—He sets out for London—Sir Christopher Hales recommends him to the King—Cromwell’s Interview with Henry in the Park—A new Theory—Cromwell elected Member of Parliament—Opened by Sir Thomas More—Attack on ecclesiastical Abuses—Reforms pronounced by the Convocation—Three Bills—
Rochester attacks them—Resistance of the House of Commons—Struggles—Henry sanctions the three Bills—Alarm of the Clergy and Disturbances During all this time everybody was in commotion at court. Norfolk and Suffolk, at the head of the council, had informed the Star Chamber of the cardinal’s disgrace.
Henry knew not how to supply his place. Some suggested the archbishop of Canterbury; the king would not hear of him. “Wolsey,” says a French writer, “had disgusted the king and all England with those subjects of two masters who, almost always, sold one to the other. They preferred a lay minister.” “I verily believe the priests will never more obtain it,” wrote Du Bellay. The name of Sir Thomas More was pronounced. He was a layman, and that quality, which a few years before would, perhaps, have excluded him, was now a recommendation. A breath of Protestantism wafted to the summit of honours one of its greatest enemies. Henry thought that More, placed between the pope and his sovereign, would decide in favour of the interests of the throne, and of the independence of England. His choice was made.
More knew that the cardinal had been thrown aside because he was not a sufficiently docile instrument in the matter of the divorce. The work required of him was contrary to his convictions; but the honour conferred on him was almost unprecedented; very seldom indeed had the seals been intrusted to a mere knight. He followed the path of ambition and not of duty; he showed, however, in afterdays that his ambition was of no common sort. It is even probable that, foreseeing the dangers which threatened to destroy the papal power in England, More wished to make an effort to save it. Norfolk installed the new chancellor in the Star Chamber. “His majesty,” said the duke, “has not cast his eyes upon the nobility of the blood, but on the worth of the person. He desires to show by this choice that there are among the laity and gentlemen of England, men worthy to fill the highest offices in the kingdom, to which, until this hour, bishops and noblemen alone think they have a right.” The Reformation, which restored religion to the general body of the church, took away at the same time political power from the clergy. The priests had deprived the people of Christian activity, and the governments of power; the gospel restored to both what 352
History of the Reformation of the Sixteenth Century the priests had usurped. This result could not but be favourable to the interests of religion; the less cause kings and their subjects have to fear the intrusion of clerical power into the affairs of the world, the more will they yield themselves to the vivifying influence of faith.
More lost no time; never had lord-chancellor displayed such activity. He rapidly cleared off the cases which were in arrear, and having been installed on the 26th of October he called on Wolsey’s cause on the 28th or 29th. “The crown of England,” said the attorney general, “has never acknowledged any superior but God. Now, the said Thomas Wolsey, legate a latere, has obtained from the pope certain bulls, by virtue of which he has exercised since the 28th of August 1523 an authority derogatory to his majesty’s power, and to the rights of his courts of justice. The crown of England cannot be put under the pope; and we therefore accuse the said legate of having incurred the penalties of praemunire.”
There can be no doubt that Henry had other reasons for Wolsey’s disgrace than those pointed out by the attorney-general; but England had convictions of a higher nature than her sovereign’s. Wolsey was regarded as the pope’s accomplice, and this was the cause of the great severity of the public officer and of the people. The cardinal is generally excused by alleging that both king and parliament had ratified the unconstitutional authority with which Rome had invested him; but had not the powers conferred on him by the pope produced unjustifiable results in a constitutional monarchy? Wolsey, as papal legate, had governed England without a parliament; and, as if the nation had gone back to the reign of John, he had substituted de facto, if not in theory, the monstrous system of the famous bull Unam Sanctam for the institution of Magna Charta. The king, and even the lords and commons, had connived in vain at these illegalities; the rights of the constitution of England remained not the less inviolable, and the best of the people had protested against their infringement. And hence it was that Wolsey, conscious of his crime, “put himself wholly to the mercy and grace of the king,” and his counsel declared his ignorance of the statutes he was said to have infringed. We cannot here allege, as some have done, the prostration of Wolsey’s moral powers; he could, even after his fall, reply with energy to Henry VIII.
When, for instance, the king sent to demand for the crown his palace of Whitehall, which belonged to the see of York, the cardinal answered: “Show his majesty from me that I must desire him to call to his most gracious remembrance that there is both a heaven and a hell;” and when other charges besides those of complicity with the papal aggression were brought against him, he defended himself courageously, as will be afterwards seen. If, therefore, the cardinal did not attempt to justify himself for infringing the rights of the crown, it was because his conscience bade him be silent.
353
History of the Reformation of the Sixteenth Century He had committed one of the gravest faults of which a statesman can be guilty. Those who have sought to excuse him have not sufficiently borne in mind that, since the Great Charter, opposition to Romish aggression has always characterised the constitution and government of England. Wolsey perfectly recollected this; and this explanation is more honourable to him than that which ascribes his silence to weakness or to cunning.
The cardinal was pronounced guilty, and the court passed judgment, that by the statute of praemunire his property was forfeited, and that he might be taken before the king in council. England, by sacrificing a churchman who had placed himself above kings, gave a memorable example of her inflexible opposition to the encroachments of the papacy. Wolsey was confounded, and his troubled imagination conjured up nothing but perils on every side.
While More was lending himself to the condemnation of his predecessor, whose friend he had been, another layman of still humbler origin was preparing to defend the cardinal, and by that very act to become the appointed instrument to throw down the convents in England, and to shatter the secular bonds which united this country to the Roman pontiff.
On the 1st of November, two days after Wolsey’s condemnation, one of his officers, with a prayer-book in his hand, was leaning against the window in the great hall, apparently absorbed in his devotions. “Good-morrow,” said Cavendish as he passed him, on his way to the cardinal for his usual morning duties. The person thus addressed raised his head, and the gentleman-usher, seeing that his eyes were filled with tears, asked him: “Master Cromwell, is my lord in any danger?”—“I think not,”
replied Cromwell, “but it is hard to lose in a moment the labour of a life.” In his master’s fall Cromwell foreboded his own. Cavendish endeavoured to console him.
“God willing, this is my resolution,” replied Wolsey’s ambitious solicitor; “I intend this afternoon, as soon as my lord has dined, to ride to London, and so go to court, where I will either make or mar before I come back again.” At this moment Cavendish was summoned, and he entered the cardinal’s chamber.
Cromwell, devoured by ambition, had clung to Wolsey’s robe in order to attain power; but Wolsey had fallen, and the solicitor, dragged along with him, strove to reach by other means the object of his desires. Cromwell was one of those earnest and vigorous men whom God prepares for critical times. Blessed with a solid judgment and intrepid firmness, he possessed a quality rare in every age, and particularly under Henry VIII,—fidelity in misfortune. The ability by which he was distinguished, was not at all times without reproach: success seems to have been his first thought.
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History of the Reformation of the Sixteenth Century After dinner Cromwell followed Wolsey into his private room: “My lord, permit me to go to London, I will endeavour to save you.” A gleam passed over the cardinal’s saddened features.—“Leave the room,” he said to his attendants. He then had a long private conversation with Cromwell, at the end of which the latter mounted his horse and set out for the capital, riding to the assault of power with the same activity as he had marched to the attack of Rome. He did not hide from himself that it would be difficult to procure access to the king; for certain ecclesiastics, jealous of Wolsey, had spoken against his solicitor at the time of the secularisation of he convents, and Henry could not endure him. But Cromwell knew that fortune favours the bold, and, carried away by his ambitious dreams, he galloped on, saying to himself: “One foot in the stirrup, and my fortune is made!”
Sir Christopher Hales, a zealous Roman Catholic, entertained a sincere friendship for him; and to this friend Cromwell applied. Hales proceeded immediately to the palace (2nd November) where he found a numerous company talking about the cardinal’s ruin. “There was one of his officers,” said Hales, “who would serve your majesty well.”—“Who is he?” asked Henry.—“Cromwell.”—“Do not speak to me of that man, I hate him,” replied the king angrily; and upon that all the courtiers chimed in with his majesty’s opinion. This opening was not very encouraging; but Lord Russell, earl of Bedford, advancing to the midst of the group around the king, said boldly: “Permit me, Sir, to defend a man to whom I am indebted for my life. When you sent me privately into Italy, your majesty’s enemies, having discovered me at Bologna, would have put me to death, had not Thomas Cromwell saved me. Sir, since you have now to do with the pope, there is no man (I think) in all England who will be fitter for your purpose.”—“Indeed!” said the king; and after a little reflection, he said to Hales:
“Very well then, let your client meet me in Whitehall gardens.” The courtiers and the priests withdrew in great discomfiture.
The interview took place the same day at the appointed spot. “Sir,” said Cromwell to his majesty, “the pope refuses your divorce. But why do you ask his consent? Every Englishman is master in his own house, and why should not you be so in England?
Ought a foreign prelate to share your power with you? It is true, the bishops make oath to your majesty, but they make another to the pope immediately after, which absolves them from the former. Sir, you are but half a king, and we are but half your subjects. This kingdom is a two-headed monster. Will you bear with such an anomaly any longer? What! are you not living in an age when Frederick the Wise and other German princes have thrown off the yoke of Rome? Do likewise; become once more a king; govern your kingdom in concert with your lords and commons. Henceforward let Englishmen alone have any thing to say in England; let not your subjects’ money 355
History of the Reformation of the Sixteenth Century be cast any more into the yawning gulf of the Tiber; instead of imposing new taxes on the nation, convert to the general good those treasures which have hitherto only served to fatten proud priests and lazy friars. Now is the moment for action. Rely upon your parliament; proclaim yourself the head of the church in England. Then shall you see an increase of glory to your name, and of prosperity to your people.”
Never before had such language been addressed to a king of England. It was not only on account of the divorce that it was necessary to break with Rome; it was, in Cromwell’s view, on account of the independence, glory, and prosperity of the monarchy. These considerations appeared more important to Henry then those which had hitherto been laid before him; none of the kings of England had been so well placed as he was to understand them. When a Tudor had succeeded to the Saxon, Norman, and Plantagenet kings, a man of the free race of the Celts had taken on the throne of England the place of princes submissive to the Roman pontiffs. The ancient British church, independent of the papacy, was about to rise again with this new dynasty, and the Celtic race, after eleven centuries of humiliation, to recover its ancient heritage.
Undoubtedly, Henry had no recollections of this kind; but he worked in conformity with the peculiar character of his race, without being aware of the instinct which compelled him to act. He felt that a sovereign who submits to the pope, becomes, like King John, his vassal; and now, after having been the second in his realm, he desired to be the first. The king reflected on what Cromwell had said; astonished and surprised, he sought to understand the new position which his bold adviser had made for him. “Your proposal pleases me much,” he said; “but can you prove what you assert?” “Certainly,” replied this able politician; “I have with me a copy of the oath the bishops make to the Roman pontiff.” With these words he drew a paper from his pocket, and placed the oath before the king’s eyes. Henry, jealous of his authority even to despotism, was filled with indignation, and felt the necessity of bringing down that foreign authority which dared dispute the power with him, even in his own kingdom. He drew off his ring and gave it to Cromwell, declaring that he took him into his service, and soon after made him a member of his privy council. England, we may say, was now virtually emancipated from the papacy.
Cromwell had laid the first foundations of his greatness. He had remarked the path his master had followed, and which had led to his ruin,—complicity with the pope; and he hoped to succeed by following the contrary course, namely, by opposing the papacy. He had the king’s support, but he wanted more. Possessing a clear and easy style of eloquence, he saw what influence a seat in the great council of the nation would give him. It was somewhat late, for the session began on the next day (3rd 356
History of the Reformation of the Sixteenth Century November), but to Cromwell nothing was impossible. The son of his friend, Sir Thomas Rush, had been returned to parliament; but the young member resigned his seat, and Cromwell was elected in his place.
Parliament had not met for seven years, the kingdom having been governed by a prince of the Roman church. The reformation of the church, whose regenerating influence began to be felt already, was about to restore to the nation those ancient liberties of which a cardinal had robbed it; and Henry being on the point of taking very important resolutions, felt the necessity of drawing nearer to his people.
Everything betokened that a good feeling would prevail between the parliament and the crown, and that “the priests would have a terrible fright.”
While Henry was preparing to attack the Roman church in the papal supremacy, the commons were getting ready to war against the numerous abuses with which it had covered England. “Some even thought,” says Tyndale, “that this assembly would reform the church, and that the golden age would come again.” But it was not from acts of parliament that the Reformation was destined to proceed, but solely from the word of God. And yet the commons, without touching upon doctrine, were going to do their duty manfully in things within their province, and the parliament of 1529 may be regarded (Lord Herbert of Cherbury observes) as the first Protestant parliament of England. “The bishops require excessive fines for the probates of wills,” said Tyndale’s old friend, Sir Henry Guilford. “As testamentary executor to Sir William Compton I had to pay a thousand marks sterling.”—“The spiritual men,” said another member, “would rather see the poor orphans die of hunger than give them the lean cow, the only thing their father left them.” “Priests,” said another, “have farms, tanneries, and warehouses, all over the country. In short, the clerks take everything from their flocks, and not only give them nothing, but even deny them the word of God.”
The clergy were in utter consternation. The power of the nation seemed to awaken in this parliament for the sole purpose of attacking the power of the priest.
It was important to ward off these blows. The convocation of the province of Canterbury, assembling at Westminster on the 5th of November, thought it their duty, in self-defence, to reform the most crying abuses. It was therefore decreed, on the 12th of November, that the priests should no longer keep shops or taverns, play at dice or other forbidden games, pass the night in suspected places, be present at disreputable shows, go about with sporting dogs, or with hawks, falcons, or other birds of prey, on their first; or, finally, hold suspicious intercourse with women.
Penalties were denounced against these various disorders; they were doubled in case 357
History of the Reformation of the Sixteenth Century of adultery; and still further increased in the case of more abominable impurities.
Such were the laws rendered necessary by the manners of the clergy.
These measures did not satisfy the commons. Three bills were introduced having reference to the fees on the probate of wills, mortuaries, pluralities, non-residence, and the exercise of secular professions. “The destruction of the church is aimed at,”
exclaimed Bishop Fisher, when these bills were carried to the lords, “and if the church falls, the glory of the kingdom will perish. Lutheranism is making great progress amongst us, and the savage cry that has already echoed in Bohemia, Down with the church, is now uttered by the commons. How does that come about? Solely from want of faith.—My lords, save your country! save the church!” Sir Thomas Audley, the speaker, with a deputation of thirty members, immediately went to Whitehall. “Sir,”
they said to the king, “we are accused of being without faith, and of being almost as bad as the Turks. We demand an apology for such offensive language.” Fisher pretended that he only meant to speak of the Bohemians; and the commons, by no means satisfied, zealously went on with their reforms.
These the king was resolved to concede; but he determined to take advantage of them to present a bill making over to him all the money borrowed of his subjects.
John Petit, one of the members for the city, boldly opposed this demand. “I do not know other persons’ affairs,” he said, “and I cannot give what does not belong to me.
But as regards myself personally, I give without reserve all that I have lent the king.”
The royal bill passed, and the satisfied Henry gave his consent to the bills of the commons. Every dispensation coming from Rome, which might be contrary to the statutes, was strictly forbidden. The bishops exclaimed that the commons were becoming schismatical; disturbances were excited by certain priests; but the clerical agitators were punished, and the people, when they heard of it, were delighted beyond measure.
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History of the Reformation of the Sixteenth Century CHAPTER 15
The
last
Hour—More’s Fanaticism—Debates in Convocation—Royal Proclamation—The
Bishop
of
Norwich—Sentences
condemned—Latimer’s
Opposition—The New Testament Burnt—The Persecution begins—Hitton—
Bayfield—Tonstall and Packington—Bayfield arrested—The Rector Patmore—
Lollards’ Tower—Tyndale and Patmore—A Musician—Freese the Painter—Placards and Martyrdom of Bennet—Thomas More and John Petit—Bilney The moment when Henry aimed his first blows at Rome was also that in which he began to shed the blood of the disciples of the gospel. Although ready to throw off the authority of the pope, he would not recognise the authority of Christ: obedience to the Scriptures is, however, the very soul of the Reformation.
The king’s contest with Rome had filled the friends of Scripture with hope. The artisans and tradesmen, particularly those who lived near the sea, were almost wholly won over to the gospel. “The king is one of us,” they used to boast; “he wishes his subjects to read the New Testament. Our faith, which is the true one, will circulate through the kingdom, and by Michaelmas next those who believe as we do will be more numerous than those of a contrary opinion. We are ready, if needs be, to die in the struggle.” This was indeed to be the fate of many.
Language such as this aroused the clergy: “The last hour has come,” said Stokesley, who had been raised to the see of London after Tonstall’s translation to Durham; “if we would not have Luther’s heresy pervade the whole of England, we must hasten to throw it in the sea.” Henry was fully disposed to do so; but as he was not on very good terms with the clergy, a man was wanted to serve as mediator between him and the bishops. He was soon found.
Sir Thomas More’s noble understanding was then passing from ascetic practices to fanaticism, and the humanist turning into an inquisitor. In his opinion, the burning of heretics was just and necessary. He has even been reproached with binding evangelical Christians to a tree in his garden, which he called “the tree of truth,” and of having flogged them with his own hand. More has declared that he never gave “stripe nor stroke, nor so much as a fillip on the forehead,” to any of his religious adversaries; and we willingly credit his denial. All must be pleased to think that if the author of the Utopia was a severe judge, the hand which held one of the most famous pens of the sixteenth century never discharged the duties of an executioner.
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History of the Reformation of the Sixteenth Century The bishops led the attack. “We must clear the Lord’s field of the thorns which choke it,” said the archbishop of Canterbury to Convocation on the 29th of November 1529; immediately after which the bishop of Bath read to his colleagues the list of books that he desired to have condemned. There were a number of works by Tyndale, Luther, Melancthon, Zwingle, Oecolampadius, Pomeranus, Brentius, Bucer, Jonas, Francis Lambert, Fryth, and Fish. The Bible in particular was set down. “It is impossible to translate the Scripture into English,” said one of the prelates.—“It is not lawful for the laity to read it in their mother tongue,” said another.—“If you tolerate the Bible,” added a third, “you will make us all heretics.”—“By circulating the Scriptures,” exclaimed several, “you will raise up the nation against the king.” Sir T. More laid the bishops’ petition before the king, and Sometime after, Henry gave orders by proclamation that “no one should preach, or write any book, or keep any school without his bishop’s license;—that no one should keep any heretical book in his house;—that the bishops should detain the offenders in prison at their discretion, and then proceed to the execution of the guilty;—and, finally, that the chancellor, the justices of the peace, and other magistrates, should aid and assist the bishops.” Such was the cruel proclamation of Henry VIII, “the father of the English Reformation.
The clergy were not yet satisfied. The blind and octogenarian bishop of Norwich, being more ardent than the youngest of his priests, recommenced his complaints. “My diocese is accumbered with such as read the Bible,” said he to the archbishop of Canterbury, “and there is not a clerk from Cambridge but savoureth of the frying-pan. If this continues any time, they will undo us all. We must have greater authority to punish them than we have.”
Consequently, on the 24th of May 1530, More, Warham, Tonstall, and Gardiner having been admitted into St. Edward’s chamber at Westminster, to make a report to the king concerning heresy, they proposed forbidding, in the most positive manner, the New Testament and certain other books in which the following doctrines were taught: “That Christ has shed his blood for our iniquities, as a sacrifice to the Father.—Faith only doth justify us.—Faith without good works is no little or weak faith, it is no faith.—Labouring in good works to come to heaven, thou dost shame Christ’s blood.”
While nearly everyone in the audience-chamber supported the prayer of the petition, there were three or four doctors who kept silence. At last one of them, it was Latimer, opposed the proposition. Bilney’s friend was more decided than ever to listen to no other voice than God’s. “Christ’s sheep hear no man’s voice but Christ’s,” he answered Dr. Redman, who had called upon him to submit to the church: “trouble me no more from the talking with the Lord my God.” The church, in Latimer’s opinion, 360
History of the Reformation of the Sixteenth Century presumed to set up its own voice in the place of Christ’s, and the Reformation did the contrary; this was his abridgment of the controversy. Being called upon to preach during Christmas tide, he had censured his hearers because they celebrated that festival by playing at cards, like mere worldlings, and then proceeded to lay before their eyes Christ’s cards, that is to say, his laws. Being placed on the Cambridge commission to examine into the question of the king’s marriage, he had conciliated the esteem of Henry’s deputy, Doctor Butts, the court physician who had presented him to his master, by whose orders he preached at Windsor.
Henry felt disposed at first to yield something to Latimer. “Many of my subjects,”
said he to the prelates assembled in St. Edward’s hall, “think that it is my duty to cause the Scriptures to be translated and given to the people.” The discussion immediately began between the two parties; and Latimer concluded by asking “that the Bible should be permitted to circulate freely in English.”—“But the most part overcame the better,” he tells us.”
Henry declared that the teaching of the priests was sufficient for the people, and was content to add, “that he would give the Bible to his subjects when they renounced the arrogant pretension of interpreting it according to their own fancies.”—“Shun these books,” cried the priests from the pulpit, “detest them, keep them not in your hands, deliver them up to your superiors.” Or if you do not, your prince, who has received from God the sword of justice, will use it to punish you.” Rome had every reason to be satisfied with Henry VIII. Tonstall, who still kept under lock and key the Testaments purchased at Antwerp through Packington’s assistance, had them carried to St. Paul’s churchyard, where they were publicly burnt. The spectators retired shaking the head, and saying: “The teaching of the priests and of Scriptures must be in contradiction to each other, since the priests destroy them.” Latimer did more: “You have promised us the word of God,” he wrote courageously to the king;
“perform your promise now rather than tomorrow! The day is at hand when you shall give an account of your office, and of the blood that hath been shed with your sword.”
Latimer well knew that by such language he hazarded his life; but that he was ready to sacrifice, as he tells us himself.
Persecution soon came. Just as the sun appeared to be rising on the Reformation, the storm burst forth. “There was not a stone the bishops left unremoved,” says the chronicler, “any corner unsearched, for the diligent execution of the king’s proclamation; whereupon ensued a grievous persecution and slaughter of the faithful.”
Thomas Hitton, a poor and pious minister of Kent, used to go frequently to Antwerp to purchase New Testaments. As he was returning from one of these 361
History of the Reformation of the Sixteenth Century expeditions, in 1529, the bishop of Rochester caused him to be arrested at Gravesend, and put to the cruellest tortures, to make him deny his faith. But the martyr repeated with holy enthusiasm: “Salvation cometh by faith and not by works, and Christ giveth it to whomsoever he willeth.” On the 20th of February 1530, he was tied to the stake and there burnt to death.
Scarcely were Hitton’s sufferings ended for bringing the Scriptures into England, when a vessel laden with New Testaments arrived at Colchester. The indefatigable Bayfield, who accompanied these books, sold them in London, went back to the continent, and returned to England in November; but this time the Scriptures fell into the hands of Sir Thomas More. Bayfield, undismayed, again visited the Low Countries, and soon reappeared, bringing with him the New Testament and the works of almost all the Reformers. “How cometh it that there are so many New Testaments from abroad?” asked Tonstall of Packington; “you promised me that you would buy them all.”—“They have printed more since,” replied the wily merchant;
“and it will never be better so long as they have letters and stamps My lord, you had better buy the stamps too, and so you shall be sure.”
Instead of the stamps, the priests sought after Bayfield. The bishop of London could not endure this godly man. Having one day asked Bainham (who afterwards suffered martyrdom) whether he knew a single individual who, since the days of the apostles, had lived according to the true faith in Jesus Christ, the latter answered:
“Yes, I know Bayfield.” Being tracked from place to place, he fled from the house of his pious hostess, and hid himself at his binder’s, where he was discovered, and thrown into the Lollard’s tower.
As he entered the prison Bayfield noticed a priest named Patmore, pale, weakened by suffering, and ready to sink under the ill treatment of his jailors.
Patmore, won over by Bayfield’s piety, soon opened his heart to him. When rector of Haddam, he had found the truth in Wickliffe’s writings. “They have burnt his bones,”
he said, “but from his ashes shall burst forth a well-spring of life.” Delighting in good works, he used to fill his granaries with wheat, and when the markets were high, he would send his corn to them in such abundance as to bring down the prices. “It is contrary to the law of God to burn heretics,” he said; and growing bolder, he added:
“I care no more for the pope’s curse than for a bundle of hay.”
His curate, Simon Smith, unwilling to imitate the disorderly lives of the priests, and finding Joan Bennore, the rector’s servant, to be a discreet and pious person, desired to marry her. “God,” said Patmore, “has declared marriage lawful for all men; and accordingly it is permitted to the priests in foreign parts.” The rector alluded to 362
History of the Reformation of the Sixteenth Century Wittenberg, where he had visited Luther. After his marriage Smith and his wife quitted England for a season, and Patmore accompanied them as far as London.
The news of this marriage of a priest—a fact without precedent in England—
made Stokesley throw Patmore into the Lollards’ tower, and although he was ill, neither fire, light, nor any other comfort was granted him. The bishop and his vicar-general visited him alone in his prison, and endeavoured by their threats to make him deny his faith.
It was during these circumstances that Bayfield was thrust into the tower. By his Christian words he revived Patmore’s languishing faith, and the latter complained to the king that the bishop of London prevented his feeding the flock which God had committed to his charge. Stokesley, comprehending whence Patmore derived his new courage, removed Bayfield from the Lollards’ tower, and shut him up in the coal-house, where he was fastened upright to the wall by the neck, middle, and legs. The unfortunate gospeller of Bury passed his time in continual darkness, never lying down, never seated, but nailed as it were to the wall, and never hearing the sound of human voice. We shall see him hereafter issuing from this horrible prison to die on the scaffold.
Patmore was not the only one in his family who suffered persecution; he had in London a brother named Thomas, a friend of John Tyndale, the younger brother of the celebrated reformer. Thomas had said that the truth of Scripture was at last reappearing in the world, after being hidden for many ages; and John Tyndale had sent five marks to his brother William, and received letters from him. Moreover, the two friends (who were both tradesmen) had distributed a great number of Testaments and other works. But their faith was not deeply rooted, and it was more out of sympathy for their brothers that they had believed; accordingly, Stokesley, so completely entangled them, that they confessed their “crime.” More, delighted at the opportunity which offered to cover the name of Tyndale with shame, was not satisfied with condemning the two friends to pay a fine of £100 each; he invented a new disgrace. He sewed on their dress some sheets of the New Testament which they had circulated, placed the two penitents on horseback with their faces towards the tail, and thus paraded them through the streets of London, exposed to the jeers and laughter of the populace. In this, More succeeded better than in his refutation of the reformer’s writings.
From that time the persecution became more violent. Husbandmen, artists, tradespeople, and even noblemen, felt the cruel fangs of the clergy and of Sir Thomas 363
History of the Reformation of the Sixteenth Century More. They sent to jail a pious musician who used to wander from town to town, singing to his harp a hymn in commendation of Martin Luther and of the Reformation.
A painter, named Edward Freese, a young man of ready wit, having been engaged to paint some hangings in a house, wrote on the borders certain sentences of the Scripture. For this he was seized and taken to the bishop of London’s palace at Fulham, and there imprisoned, where his chief nourishment was bread made out of sawdust. His poor wife, who was pregnant, went down to Fulham to see her husband; but the bishop’s porter had orders to admit no one, and the brute gave her so violent a kick, as to kill her unborn infant, and cause the mother’s death not long after. The unhappy Freese was removed to the Lollards’ tower, where he was put into chains, his hands only being left free. With these he took a piece of coal, and wrote some pious sentences on the wall; upon this he was manacled, but his wrists were so severely pinched, that the flesh grew up higher than the irons. His intellect became disturbed; his hair in wild disorder soon covered his face, through which his eyes glared fierce and haggard. The want of proper food, bad treatment, his wife’s death, and his lengthened imprisonment, entirely undermined his reason; when brought to St.
Paul’s, he was kept three days without meat; and when he appeared before the consistory, the poor prisoner, silent and scarce able to stand, looked around and gazed upon the spectators “like a wild man.” The examination was begun, but to every question put to him, Freese made the same answer: “My Lord is a good man.” They could get nothing from him but this affecting reply. Alas! the light shone no more upon his understanding, but the love of Jesus was still in his heart. He was sent back to Bearsy Abbey, where he did not remain long; but he never entirely recovered his reason. Henry VIII and his priests inflicted punishments still more cruel even than the stake.
Terror began to spread far and wide. The most active evangelists had been compelled to flee to a foreign land; some of the most godly were in prison; and among those in high station there were many, and perhaps Latimer was one, who seemed willing to shelter themselves under an exaggerated moderation. But just as the persecution in London had succeeded in silencing the most timid, other voices more courageous were raised in the provinces. The city of Exeter was at that time in great agitation; placards had been discovered on the gates of the cathedral containing some of the principles “of the new doctrine.” While the mayor and his officers were seeking after the author of these “blasphemies,” the bishop and all his doctors, “as hot as coals,” says the chronicler, were preaching in the most fiery style. On the following Sunday, during the sermon, two men who had been the busiest of all the city in searching for the author of the bills were struck by the appearance of a person seated near them. “Surely this fellow is the heretic,” they said. But their neighbours’s 364
History of the Reformation of the Sixteenth Century devotion, for he did not take his eyes off his book, quite put them out; they did not perceive that he was reading the New Testament in Latin.
This man, Thomas Bennet, was indeed the offender. Being converted at Cambridge by the preaching of Bilney, whose friend he was, he had gone to Torrington for fear of the persecution, and thence to Exeter, and after marrying to avoid unchastity (as he says), he became schoolmaster. Quiet, humble, courteous to everybody, and somewhat timid, Bennet had lived six years in that city without his faith being discovered. At last his conscience being awakened, he resolved to fasten by night to the cathedral gates certain evangelical placards. “Everybody will read the writing,” he thought, and “nobody will know the writer.” He did as he had proposed.
Not long after the Sunday on which he had been so nearly discovered, the priests prepared a great pageant, and made ready to pronounce against the unknown heretic the great curse “with book, bell, and candle.” The cathedral was crowded, and Bennet himself was among the spectators. In the middle stood a great cross on which lighted tapers were placed, and around it were gathered all the Franciscans and Dominicans of Exeter. One of the priests having delivered a sermon on the words: There is an accursed thing in the midst of thee, O Israel, the bishop drew near the cross and pronounced the curse against the offender. He took one of the tapers and said: “Let the soul of the unknown heretic, if he be dead already, be quenched this night in the pains of hell-fire, as this candle is now quenched and put out;” and with that he put out the candle.
Then taking off a second, he continued: “and let us pray to God, if he be yet alive, that his eyes by put out, and that all the senses of his body may fail him, as now the light of this candle is gone;” extinguishing the second candle. After this, one of the priests went up to the cross and struck it, when the noise it made in falling re-echoing along the roof so frightened the spectators that they uttered a shriek of terror, and held up their hands to heaven, as if to pray that the divine curse might not fall on them. Bennet, a witness of this comedy, could not forbear smiling. “What are you laughing at?” asked his neighbours; “here is the heretic, here is the heretic, hold him fast.” This created great confusion among the crowd, some shouting, some clapping their hands, others running to and fro; but, owing to the tumult, Bennet succeeded in making his escape.
The excommunication did but increase his desire to attack the Romish superstitions; and accordingly, before five o’clock the next morning (it was in the month of October 1530), his servant-boy fastened up again by his orders on the cathedral gates some placards similar to those which had been torn down. It chanced 365
History of the Reformation of the Sixteenth Century that a citizen going to early mass saw the boy, and running up to him, caught hold of him and pulled down the papers; and then dragging the boy with one hand, and with the placards in the other, he went to the mayor of the city. Bennet’s servant was recognised; his master was immediately arrested, and put in the stocks, “with as much favour as a dog would find,” says Foxe.
Exeter seemed determined to make itself the champion of sacerdotalism in England. For a whole week, not only the bishop, but all the priests and friars of the city, visited Bennet night and day. But they tried in vain to prove to him that the Roman church was the true one. “God has given me grace to be of a better church,”
he said.—“Do you not know that ours is built upon St. Peter?”—“The church that is built upon a man,” he replied, “is the devil’s church and not God’s.” His cell was continually thronged with visitors; and, in default of arguments, the most ignorant of the friars called the prisoner a heretic, and spat upon him. At length they brought to him a learned doctor of theology, who, they supposed, would infallibly convert him.
“Our ways are God’s ways,” said the doctor gravely. But he soon discovered that theologians can do nothing against the word of the Lord. “He only is my way,” replied Bennet, “who saith, I am the way, the truth, and the live. In his way will I walk;—his truth will I embrace;—his everlasting life will I seek.”
He was condemned to be burnt; and More having transmitted the order de comburendo with the utmost speed, the priests placed Bennet in the hands of the sheriff on the 15th of January 1531, by whom he was conducted to the Liverydole, a field without the city, where the stake was prepared. When Bennet arrived at the place of execution, he briefly exhorted the people, but with such unction, that the sheriff’s clerk, as he heard him, exclaimed: “Truly this is a servant of God.” Two persons, however, seemed unmoved: they were Thomas Carew, and John Barnehouse, both holding the station of gentlemen. Going up to the martyr, they exclaimed in a threatening voice: “Say, Precor sanctam Mariam et omnes sanctos Dei.”—“I know no other advocate but Jesus Christ,” replied Bennet. Barnehouse was so enraged at these words, that he took a furzebush upon a pike, and setting it on fire, thrust into the martyr’s face, exclaiming: “Accursed heretic, pray to our Lady, or I will make you do it.”—“Alas!” replied Bennet patiently, “trouble me not;” and then holding up his hands, he prayed: “Father, forgive them!” The executioners immediately set fire to the wood, and the most fanatical of the spectators, both men and women, seized with an indescribable fury, tore up stakes and bushes, and whatever they could lay their hands on, and flung them all into the flames to increase their violence. Bennet, lifting up his eyes to heaven, exclaimed:
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“Lord, receive my spirit.” Thus died, in the sixteenth century, the disciples of the Reformation sacrificed by Henry VIII. The priests, thanks to the king’s sword, began to count on victory; yet schoolmasters, musicians, tradesmen, and even ecclesiastics, were not enough for them. They wanted nobler victims, and these were to be looked for in London. More himself, accompanied by the lieutenant of the Tower, searched many of the suspected houses. Few citizens were more esteemed in London than John Petit, the same who, in the house of commons, had so nobly resisted the king’s demand about the loan. Petit was learned in history and in Latin literature: he spoke with eloquence, and for twenty years had worthily represented the city.
Whenever any important affair was debated in parliament, the king feeling uneasy, was in the habit of inquiring, which side he took? This political independence, very rare in Henry’s parliaments, gave umbrage to the prince and his ministers. Petit, the friend of Bilney, Fryth, and Tyndale, had been one of the first in England to taste the sweetness of God’s word, and had immediately manifested that beautiful characteristic by which the gospel faith makes itself known, namely, charity. He abounded in almsgiving, supported a great number of poor preachers of the gospel in his own country and beyond the seas; and whenever he noted down these generous aids in his books, he wrote merely the words: “Lent unto Christ.” He moreover forbade his testamentary executors to call in these debts.
Petit was tranquilly enjoying the sweets of domestic life in his modest home in the society of his wife and two daughters, Blanche and Audrey, when he received an unexpected visit. One day, as he was praying in his closet, a loud knock was heard at the street door. His wife ran to open it, but seeing Lord-chancellor More, she returned hurriedly to her husband, and told him that the lord chancellor wanted him. More, who followed her, entered the closet, and with inquisitive eye ran over the shelves of the library, but could find nothing suspicious. Presently he made as if he would retire, and Petit accompanied him. The chancellor stopped at the door and said to him: “You assert that you have none of these new books?”—“You have seen my library,” replied Petit.—“I am informed, however,” replied More, “that you not only read them, but pay for the printing.” And then he added in a severe tone: “Follow the lieutenant.” In spite of the tears of his wife and daughters this independent member of parliament was conducted to the Tower, and shut up in a damp dungeon, where he had nothing but straw to lie upon. His wife went thither each day in vain, asking with tears permission to see him, or at least to send him a bed; the jailers refused her everything; and it was only when Petit fell dangerously ill that the latter favour was granted him.
This took place in 1530, sentence was passed in 1531; we shall see Petit again in his prison. He left it, indeed, but only to sink under the cruel treatment he had there experienced.
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History of the Reformation of the Sixteenth Century Thus were the witnesses to the truth struck down by the priests, by Sir Thomas More, and by Henry VIII. A new victim was to be the cause of many tears. A meek and humble man, one dear to all the friends of the gospel, and whom we may regard as the spiritual father of the Reformation in England, was on the point of mounting the burning pile raised by his persecutors. Sometime prior to Petit’s appearance before his judges, which took place in 1531, an unusual noise was heard in the cell above him; it was Thomas Bilney, whom they were conducting to the Tower. We left him at the end of 1528 after his fall. Bilney had returned to Cambridge tormented by remorse; his friends in vain crowded round him by night and by day; they could not console him, and even the Scriptures seemed to utter no voice but that of condemnation.
Fear made him tremble constantly, and he could scarcely eat or drink. At length a heavenly and unexpected light dawned in the heart of the fallen disciple; a witness whom he had vexed—the Holy Spirit—spoke once more in his heart. Bilney fell at the foot of the cross, shedding floods of tears, and there he found peace. But the more God comforted him, the greater seemed his crime. One only thought possessed him, that of giving his life for the truth. He had shrunk from before the burning pile; its flames must now consume him. Neither the weakness of his body, which his long anguish had much increased, nor the cruelty of his enemies, nor his natural timidity, nothing could stop him he strove for the martyr’s crown.
At ten o’clock one night, when every person in Trinity Hall was retiring to rest, Bilney called his friends round him, reminded them of his fall, and added: “You shall see me no more Do not stay me: my decision is formed, and I shall carry it out. My face is set to go to Jerusalem.” Bilney repeated the words used by the Evangelist, when he describes Jesus going up to the city where he was put to death. Having shaken hands with his brethren, this venerable man, the foremost of the evangelists of England in order of time, left Cambridge under cover of the night, and proceeded to Norfolk, to confirm in the faith those who had believed, and to invite the ignorant multitude to the Saviour. We shall not follow him in this last and solemn ministry; these facts and others of the same kind belong to a later date. Before the year 1531
closed in, Bilney, Bainham, Bayfield, Tewkesbury, and many others, struck by Henry’s sword, sealed by their blood the testimony rendered by them to the perfect grace of Christ.
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History of the Reformation of the Sixteenth Century CHAPTER 16
Wolsey’s Terror—Impeachment by the Peers—Cromwell saves him—The Cardinal’s Illness—Ambition returns to him—His Practices in Yorkshire—He is arrested by Northumberland—His Departure—Arrival of the Constable of the Tower—Wolsey at Leicester Abbey—Persecuting language—He dies—Three Movements: Supremacy, Scripture, and Faith
While many pious Christians were languishing in the prisons of England, the great antagonist of the Reformation was disappearing from the stage of this world.
We must return to Wolsey, who was still detained at Esher. The cardinal, fallen from the summit of honours, was seized with those panic terrors usually felt after their disgrace by those who have made a whole nation tremble, and he fancied he saw an assassin lay hid behind every door. “This very night,” he wrote to Cromwell on one occasion, “I was as one that should have died. If I might, I would not fail to come on foot to you, rather than this my speaking with you shall be put over and delayed. If the displeasure of my lady Anne be somewhat assuaged, as I pray God the same may be, then I pray you exert all possible means of attaining her favour.”
In consequence of this, Cromwell hastened down to Esher two or three days after taking his seat in Parliament, and Wolsey, all trembling, recounted his fears to him.
“Norfolk, Suffolk, and Lady Anne perhaps, desire my death. Did not Thomas A Becket, an archbishop like me, stain the altar with his blood?” Cromwell reassured him, and, moved by the old man’s fears, asked and obtained of Henry an order of protection.
Wolsey’s enemies most certainly desired his death; but it was from the justice of the three estates, and not by the assassin’s dagger, that they sought it. The house of peers authorised Sir Thomas More, the dukes of Norfolk and Suffolk, and fourteen other lords, to impeach the cardinal-legate of high treason. They forgot nothing: that haughty formula, Ego et rex meus, I and my king, which Wolsey had often employed; his infringement of the laws of the kingdom; his monopolizing the church revenues; the crying injustice of which he had been guilty,—as for instance, in the case of Sir John Stanley, who was sent to prison until he gave up a lease to the son of a woman who had borne the cardinal two children; many families ruined to satisfy his avarice; treaties concluded with foreign powers without the king’s order; his exactions, which had impoverished England; and the foul diseases and infectious breath with which he had polluted his majesty’s presence. These were some of the forty-four grievances presented by the peers to the king, and which Henry sent down to the lower house for their consideration.
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History of the Reformation of the Sixteenth Century It was at first thought that nobody in the commons would undertake Wolsey’s defence, and it was generally expected that he would be given up to the vengeance of the law (as the bill of impeachment prayed), or in other words, to the axe of the executioner. But one man stood up, and prepared, though alone, to defend the cardinal: this was Cromwell. The members asked of each other, who the unknown man was; he soon made himself known. His knowledge of facts, his familiarity with the laws, the force of his eloquence, and the moderation of his language, surprised the house. Wolsey’s adversaries had hardly aimed a blow, before the defender had already parried it. If any charge was brought forward to which he could not reply, he proposed an adjournment until the next day, departed for Esher at the end of the sitting, conferred with Wolsey, returned during the night, and next morning reappeared in the commons with fresh arms. Cromwell carried the house with him; the impeachment failed, and Wolsey’s defender took his station among the statesmen of England. This victory, one of the greatest triumphs of parliamentary eloquence at that period, satisfied both the ambition and the gratitude of Cromwell. He was now firmly fixed in the king’s favour, esteemed by the commons, and admired by the people: circumstances which furnished him with the means of bringing to a favourable conclusion the emancipation of the church of England.
The ministry, composed of Wolsey’s enemies, was annoyed at the decision of the lower house, and appointed a commission to examine into the matter. When the cardinal was informed of this he fell into new terrors. He lost all appetite and desire of sleep, and a fever attacked him at Christmas. “The cardinal will be dead in four days,” said his physician to Henry, “if he receives no comfort shortly from you and lady Anne.”—“I would not lose him for twenty thousand pounds,” exclaimed the king.
He desired to preserve Wolsey in case this old minister’s consummate ability should become necessary, which was by no means unlikely. Henry gave the doctor his portrait in a ring, and Anne, at the king’s desire, added the tablet of gold that hung at her girdle. The delighted cardinal placed the presents on his bed, and as he gazed on them he felt his strength return. He was removed from his miserable dwelling at Esher to the royal palace at Richmond, and before long he was able to go into the park, where every night he read his breviary.
Ambition and hope returned with life. If the king desired to destroy the papal power in England, could not the proud cardinal preserve it? Might not Thomas Wolsey do under Henry VIII what Thomas A Becket had done under Henry II. His see of York, the ignorance of the priests, the superstition of the people, the discontent of the great,—all would be of service to him; and indeed, six years later, 40,000 men were under arms in a moment in Yorkshire to defend the cause of Rome. Wolsey, strong in England by the support of the nation (such at least was his opinion), aided without 370
History of the Reformation of the Sixteenth Century by the pope and the continental powers, might give the law to Henry, and crush the Reformation.
The king having permitted him to go to York, Wolsey prayed for an increase to his archiepiscopal revenues, which amounted, however, to four thousand pounds sterling. Henry granted him a thousand marks, and the cardinal, shortly before Easter 1530, departed with a train of 160 persons. He thought it was the beginning of his triumph.
Wolsey took up his abode at Cawood Castle, Yorkshire, one of his archiepiscopal residences, and strove to win the affections of the people. This prelate, once “the haughtiest of men,” says George Cavendish, the man who knew him and served him best, became quite a pattern of affability. He kept an open table, distributed bounteous alms at his gate, said mass in the village churches, went and dined with the neighbouring gentry, gave splendid entertainments, and wrote to several princes imploring their help. We are assured that he even requested the pope to excommunicate Henry VIII. All being thus prepared, he thought he might make his solemn entry into York, preparatory to his enthronisation, which was fixed for Monday the 5th of November.
Every movement of his was known at court; every action was canvassed, and its importance exaggerated. “We thought we had brought him down,” some said, “and here he is rising up again.” Henry himself was alarmed. “The cardinal, by his detestable intrigues,” he said, “is conspiring against my crown, and plotting both at home and abroad;” the king even added, where and how. Wolsey’s destruction was resolved upon.
The morning after All Saints day (Friday, 2nd November) the earl of Northumberland, attended by a numerous escort, arrived at Cawood, where the cardinal was still residing. He was the same Percy whose affection for Anne Boleyn had been thwarted by Wolsey; and there may have been design in Henry’s choice. The cardinal eagerly moved forward to meet this unexpected guest, and impatient to know the object of his mission, took him into his bed-chamber, under the pretence of changing his travelling dress. They both remained Sometime standing at a window without uttering a word; the earl looked confused and agitated, while Wolsey endeavoured to repress his emotion. But at last, with a strong effort, Northumberland laid his hand upon the arm of his former master, and with a low voice said: “My lord, I arrest you for high treason.” The cardinal remained speechless, as if stunned. He was kept a prisoner in his room.
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History of the Reformation of the Sixteenth Century It is doubtful whether Wolsey was guilty of the crime with which he was charged.
We may believe that he entertained the idea of some day bringing about the triumph of the popedom in England, even should it cause Henry’s ruin; but perhaps this was all. But, an idea is not a conspiracy, although it may rapidly expand into one.
More than three thousand persons (attracted not by hatred, like the Londoners, when Wolsey departed from Whitehall but by enthusiasm), collected the next day before the castle to salute the cardinal. “God save your grace,” they shouted on every side, and a numerous crowd escorted him at night; some carried torches in their hands, and all made the air re-echo with their cries. The unhappy prelate was conducted to Sheffield Park, the residence of the earl of Shrewsbury. Some days after his arrival, the faithful Cavendish ran to him, exclaiming: “Good news, my lord! Sir William Kingston and twenty-four of the guard are come to escort you to his majesty.”— “Kingston!” exclaimed the cardinal, turning pale, “Kingston!” and then slapping his hand on his thigh, he heaved a deep sigh. This news had crushed his mind. One day a fortune-teller, whom he consulted, had told him: You shall have your end at Kingston; and from that time the cardinal had carefully avoided the town of Kingston-on-Thames. But now he thought he understood the prophecy Kingston, constable of the Tower, was about to cause his death. They left Sheffield Park; but fright had given Wolsey his death-blow. Several times he was near falling from his mule, and on the third day, when they reached Leicester abbey, he said as he entered:
“Father abbot, I am come hither to leave my bones among you;” and immediately took to his bed. This was on Saturday the 26th of November.
On Monday morning, tormented by gloomy forebodings, Wolsey asked what was the time of day. “Past eight o’clock,” replied Cavendish.—“That cannot be,” said the cardinal, “eight o’clock No! for by eight o’clock you shall lose your master.” At six on Tuesday, Kingston having come to inquire about his health, Wolsey said to him: “I shall not live long.”—“Be of good cheer,” rejoined the governor of the Tower.—“Alas, Master Kingston,” exclaimed the cardinal, “if I had served God as diligently as I have served the king, he would not have given me over in my grey hairs!” and then he added with downcast head: “This is my just reward.” What a judgment upon his own life!
On the very threshold of eternity (for he had but a few minutes more to live) the cardinal summoned up all his hatred against the Reformation, and made a last effort.
The persecution was too slow to please him: “Master Kingston,” he said, “attend to my last request: tell the king that I conjure him in God’s name to destroy this new pernicious sect of Lutherans.” And then, with astonishing presence of mind in this his last hour, Wolsey described the misfortunes which the Hussites had, in his 372
History of the Reformation of the Sixteenth Century opinion, brought upon Bohemia; and then, coming to England, he recalled the times of Wickliffe and Sir John Oldcastle. He grew animated; his dying eyes yet shot forth fiery glances. He trembled lest Henry VIII, unfaithful to the pope, should hold out his hand to the Reformers. “Master Kingston,” said he, in conclusion, “the king should know that if he tolerates heresy, God will take away his power, and we shall then have mischief upon mischief barrenness, scarcity, and disorder, to the utter destruction of this realm.”
Wolsey was exhausted by the effort. After a momentary silence, he resumed with a dying voice: “Master Kingston, farewell! My time draweth on fast. Forget not what I have said and charged you withal; for when I am dead ye shall peradventure understand my words better.” It was with difficulty he uttered these words; his tongue began to falter, his eyes became fixed, his sight failed him; he breathed his last. At the same minute the clock struck eight, and the attendants standing round his bed looked at each other in affright. It was the 29th of November 1530.
Thus died the man once so much feared. Power had been his idol; to obtain it in the state, he had sacrificed the liberties of England; and to win it or to preserve it in the church, he had fought against the Reformation. If he encouraged the nobility in the luxuries and pleasures of life, it was only to render them more supple and more servile; if he supported learning, it was only that he might have a clergy fitted to keep the laity in their leading-strings. Ambitious, intriguing, and impure of life, he had been as zealous for the sacerdotal prerogative as the austere Becket; and by a singular contrast, a shirt of hair was found on the body of this voluptuous man.
The aim of his life had been to raise the papal power higher than it had ever been before, at the very moment when the Reformation was attempting to bring it down; and to take his seat on the pontifical throne with more than the authority of a Hildebrand. Wolsey, as pope, would have been the man of his age; and in the political world he would have done for the Roman primacy what the celebrated Loyola did for it soon after by his fanaticism. Obliged to renounce this idea, worthy only of the middle ages, he had desired at least to save the popedom in his own country; but here again he had failed. The pilot who had stood in England at the helm of the Romish church was thrown overboard, and the ship, left to itself, was about to founder. And yet, even in death, he did not lose his courage. The last throbs of his heart had called for victims; the last words from his failing lips, the last message to his master, his last testament had been Persecution. This testament was to be only too faithfully executed.
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History of the Reformation of the Sixteenth Century The epoch of the fall and death of Cardinal Wolsey, which is the point at which we halt, was not only important, because it ended the life of a man who had presided over the destinies of England, and had endeavoured to grasp the sceptre of the world; but it is of especial consequence, because then three movements were accomplished, from which the great transformation of the sixteenth century was to proceed. Each of these movements has its characteristic result.
The first is represented by Cromwell. The supremacy of the pope in England was about to be wrested from him, as it was in all the reformed churches. But a step further was taken in England. That supremacy was transferred to the person of the king. Wolsey had exercised as vicar-general a power till then unknown. Unable to become pope at the Vatican, he had made himself a pope at Whitehall. Henry had permitted his minister to raise this hierarchical throne by the side of his own. But he had soon discovered that there ought not to be two thrones in England, or at least not two kings. He had dethroned Wolsey; and resolutely seating himself in his place, he was about to assume at Whitehall that tiara which the ambitious prelate had prepared for himself. Some persons, when they saw this, exclaimed, that if the papal supremacy were abolished, that of the word of God ought alone to be substituted. And, indeed, the true Reformation is not to be found in this first movement.
The second, which was essential to the renewal of the church, was represented by Cranmer, and consisted particularly in re-establishing the authority of holy Scripture. Wolsey did not fall alone, nor did Cranmer rise alone: each of these two men carried with him the systems he represented. The fabric of Roman traditions fell with the first; the foundations of the holy Scriptures were laid by the second; and yet, while we render all justice to the sincerity of the Cambridge doctor, we must not be blind to his weaknesses, his subserviency, and even a certain degree of negligence, which, by allowing parasitical plants to shoot up here and there, permitted them to spread over the living rock of God’s word. Not in this movement, then, was found the Reformation with all its energy and all its purity.
The third movement was represented by the martyrs. When the church takes a new life, it is fertilised by the blood of its confessors; and being continually exposed to corruption, it has constant need to be purified by suffering. Not in the palaces of Henry VIII, nor even in the councils where the question of throwing off the papal supremacy was discussed, must we look for the true children of the Reformation; we must go to the Tower of London, to the Lollards’ towers of St. Paul’s and of Lambeth, to the other prisons of England, to the bishops’ cellars, to the fetters, the stocks, the rack, and the stake. The godly men who invoked the sole intercession of Christ Jesus, the only head of his people, who wandered up and down, deprived of everything, 374
History of the Reformation of the Sixteenth Century gagged, scoffed at, scourged, and tortured, and who, in the midst of all their tribulations, preserved their Christian patience, and turned, like their Master, the eyes of their faith towards Jerusalem:—these were the disciples of the Reformation in England. The purest church is the church under the cross.
The father of this church in England was not Henry VIII. When the king cast into prison or gave to the flames men like Hitton, Bennet, Patmore, Petit, Bayfield, Bilney, and so many others, he was not “the father of the Reformation of England,”
as some have so falsely asserted; he was its executioner. The church of England was foredoomed to be, in its renovation, a church of martyrs; and the true father of this church is our Father which is in heaven.
END OF VOLUME 5
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