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Title: The Reign of Henry the Eighth, Volume 1 (of 3)


Author: James Anthony Froude

Release Date: April 4, 2005  [eBook #15537]

Language: English

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VOLUME 1 (OF 3)***


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FROUDE'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND

Henry VIII · Introduction by
W. Llewelyn Williams M.P. B.C.L.

Volume One

First Published 1909

       *       *       *       *       *

[Illuminated Frontispiece]

CONSIDER HISTORY WITH THE BEGINNINGS OF
IT STRETCHING DIMLY INTO THE REMOTE TIME;
EMERGING DARKLY OVT OF THE MYSTERIOVS
             ETERNITY:
THE TRVE EPIC POEM AND VNIVERSAL DIVINE
       SCRIPTVRE...--CARLYLE

       *       *       *       *       *

[Illuminated Title]

THE REIGN of HENRY the EIGHTH

by

JAMES ANTHONY FROUDE

VOLUME I.

London & Toronto J.M. Dent & Sons Ltd.
New York E.P. Dutton & Co







INTRODUCTION

James Anthony Froude was born at Dartington Rectory, the youngest son of
the Archdeacon of Totnes, on April 23, 1818. His father was a clergyman of
the old school, as much squire as parson. In the concluding chapter to his
_History of England_, Froude wrote that "for a hundred and forty years
after the Revolution of 1688, the Church of England was able to fulfil with
moderate success the wholesome functions of a religious establishment.
Theological doctrinalism passed out of fashion; and the clergy, merged as
they were in the body of the nation, and no longer endeavouring to elevate
themselves into a separate order, were occupied healthily in impressing on
their congregations the meaning of duty and moral responsibility to God."
Of this sane and orthodox, but not over-spiritual, clergy, Archdeacon
Froude was an excellent and altogether wholesome type. He was a stiff Tory;
his hatred of Dissent was so uncompromising that he would not have a copy
of the _Pilgrim's Progress_ in the rectory. A stern, self-contained,
reticent man, he never, in word of deed, confessed his affection for his
youngest son. He was a good horseman, and was passionately fond of open-air
exercises and especially of hunting. His one accomplishment was drawing,
and his sketches in after years earned the praise of Ruskin.

Cast in the same mould, but fashioned by different circumstances, the
archdeacon's eldest son, Richard Hurrell Froude, was a man of greater
intellectual brilliance and even more masterful character. He was one of
the pioneers of the Oxford Movement, and it was only his early death that
deposed him from his place of equality with Newman and Keble and Pusey.
Anthony was a sickly child, and from his earliest years lacked the loving
care of a mother. He was brought up with Spartan severity by his father and
his aunt. The most venial self-indulgence was regarded as criminal. From
the age of three he was inured to hardship by being ducked every morning in
a trough of ice-cold water. Hurrell Froude felt no tenderness for the
ailing lad. Once, in order to rouse a manly spirit in his little brother,
he took him by the heels, plunged him like another Achilles into a stream,
and stirred with his head the mud at the bottom. Froude has been accused,
and not without justice, of not feeling a proper aversion to acts of
cruelty. The horrible Boiling Act of Henry VIII. excites neither disgust
nor hatred in him; and he makes smooth excuses for the illegal tortures of
the rack and the screw which were inflicted on prisoners by Elizabeth and
her ministers. He had himself been reared in a hardy school; he had been
trained to be indifferent to pain. It may well be that his callousness in
speaking of Tudor cruelties is to be traced to the influences that
surrounded his loveless childhood and youth.

Hurrell Froude was the idol of his younger brothers. He was a man of
brilliant parts, and a born leader of men. His hatred of Radicals and
Dissenters transcended even his father's dislike of them. His conception of
the Church differed widely from that in which the archdeacon had been
reared. To him a clergyman was a priest who belonged to a sacerdotal caste,
and who ought not "to merge himself in the body of the nation." To him the
Reformation was an infamous crime, and Henry VIII. was worse than the
Bluebeard of the nursery. His hero was Thomas ą Becket. He wrote a sketch
of his life and career, which he did not live to finish. His friends
ill-advisedly published it after his death. His ideal ecclesiastical
statesman of modern times was Archbishop Laud. Charles I. was a martyr, and
the Revolution of 1688 an inglorious blunder. To the day of his death--in
spite of the harsh discipline which he received at his hands in boyhood, in
spite of wide divergence of opinion in later years in all matters secular
and religious--Froude never ceased to worship at his brother's shrine. Out
of regard for his memory, more than from any passionate personal
conviction, he associated himself while at Oxford with the Anglican
movement. His affectionate admiration for Newman, neither time nor change
served to impair. If Carlyle was his prophet in later years, his influence
happily did not affect his style. That was based on the chaste model of
Newman. He owed his early friendship with Newman to that great man's
association with Hurrell Froude. Many years after, when Freeman had
venomously accused him of "dealing stabs in the dark at a brother's almost
forgotten fame"--poor Froude's offence was that he dared to write an essay
on Thomas ą Becket--he defended himself with rare emotion against the
charge. "I look back upon my brother," he said, "as on the whole the most
remarkable man I have ever met in my life. I have never seen any
person--not one--in whom, as I now think him, the excellences of intellect
and character were combined in fuller measure."

As Froude's powers developed and matured, and as his experience of the
world broadened, he cast away his brother's yoke, and reverted more to his
father's school of thought. As his father was to him the ideal clergyman of
the Church of England, so the Church before 1828 remained to him the model
of what an established religion should be. He was a thorough Erastian, who
believed in the subordination of the Church to the state. He detested
theological doctrinalism of all kinds; he revolted against the idea that
the clergy should form a separate order. The pretensions of Whitgift and
Laud, the High Anglican school of Keble and Pusey, the whole conception of
the Church and the priesthood which underlay the Oxford Movement, were
things obnoxious to him. In a characteristic passage in the chapter on the
Massacre of St. Bartholomew he reveals his hatred and distrust of
dogmatism. "Whenever the doctrinal aspect of Christianity has been
prominent above the practical," he wrote, "whenever the first duty of the
believer has been held to consist in holding particular opinions on the
functions and nature of his Master, and only the second in obeying his
Master's commands, then always, with a uniformity more remarkable than is
obtained in any other historical phenomena, there have followed dissension,
animosity, and in later ages bloodshed. Christianity, as a principle of
life, has been the most powerful check upon the passions of mankind.
Christianity as a speculative system of opinion has converted them into
monsters of cruelty."

Holding such decided views on doctrinalism, it might have been thought that
Froude would have visited all the warring sects of the sixteenth century
with equal judgment. No Church was more doctrinal than that of Geneva; no
Calvinist ever was more dogmatic than John Knox. But the men who fought the
battle of the Reformation in England and Scotland were, in the main, the
Calvinists; and to Froude the Reformation was the beginning of a new and
better era, when the yoke of the priest had been finally cast away.
"Calvinism," he said in one of his addresses at St. Andrews, "was the
spirit which rises in revolt against untruth." John Knox was too heroic a
figure not to rouse the artistic sense in Froude. "There lies one," said
the Regent Morton over his coffin, "who never feared the face of mortal
man." Froude has made this epitaph the text of the noblest eulogy ever
delivered on Knox. "No grander figure can be found, in the entire history
of the Reformation in this island, than that of Knox." He surpassed
Cromwell and Burghley in integrity of purpose and in purity of methods. He
towered above the Regent Murray in intellect, and he worked on a larger
scale than Latimer. "His was the voice that taught the peasant of the
Lothians that he was a free man, the equal in the sight of God with the
proudest peer or prelate that had trampled on his forefathers. He was the
one antagonist whom Mary Stuart could not soften nor Maitland deceive. He
it was who had raised the poor commons of his country into a stern and
rugged people, who might be hard, narrow, superstitious, and fanatical, but
who nevertheless were men whom neither king, noble, nor priest could force
again to submit to tyranny." Yet even here, Froude could not refrain from
quoting the sardonic comment of the English ambassador at Edinburgh: Knox
behaved, said Randolph, "as though he were of God's privy council."

It is certain, at least, that other reformers, who were not greatly
inferior to Knox in capacity, and not at all in piety and honesty, have not
met the same generous treatment at his hands. He sneers at Hooper because
he had scruples about wearing episcopal robes at his consecration as Bishop
of Worcester, though he himself in a famous passage asserts the anomalous
position of bishops in the Church of England. Hooper, as a Calvinist, was
in the right in objecting, and though the point upon which he took his
stand was nominally one of form, there lay behind it a protest against the
Anglican conception of a bishop. He speaks slightingly of Ridley and
Ferrars, though he makes ample amends to them and to Hooper, when he comes
to describe the manner of their death. To the reformers who fled from the
Marian persecution, including men like Jewel and Grindal, he refers with
scornful contempt, though he has no word of criticism to apply to Knox for
retiring to England and to the continent when the flame of persecution was
certainly not more fierce. Latimer is one of his favourites,--a plain,
practical man, not given to abstract speculation or theological subtleties,
but one who was content to do his duty day by day without the fear of man
before his eyes. Latimer, though he was looked upon as a Protestant in the
earliest years of the English Reformation, believed in the Real Presence up
to a short time before his death. But of all English ecclesiastics Thomas
Cranmer was perhaps most to Froude's liking. Cranmer was, like Froude
himself, an artist in words. The English liturgy owes its charm and beauty
to his sense of style, his grace of expression, and his cultured piety.
That he was a great man few will be found in these days to maintain; fewer
still will believe that he deserved the scathing invective of Macaulay. But
no one can read the account given by Froude of his last years without
feeling that the first Protestant Archbishop of Canterbury was neither
saint nor martyr. If ever there was one, he was a timeserver. He pronounced
the divorce of Catherine of Arragon, though he had sworn fealty to the
Pope. He never raised a protest against any of the political murders of
Henry VIII.--with the notable exception of his courageous attempt to save
his friend, Thomas Cromwell. Even in that case, however, he lies under the
suspicion of having interfered through fear that his own fate was involved
in that of the _malleus monachorum_. In the days of Edward VI. he aimed at
the liberty, if not at the life, of Bonner and Gardiner, without semblance
of legal right: He recanted in the reign of Mary when he thought he could
purchase his miserable life. It was only when all hope of pardon was past
that he re-affirmed his belief in the reformed faith. Indeed, he waited
until the day of his execution before withdrawing his recantation, and
confounded his enemies on the way to the stake. To a master of dramatic
narrative the last scene of Cranmer's life came as a relief and an
inspiration. "So perished Cranmer," wrote Froude, in a memorable passage:
"he was brought out, with the eyes of his soul blinded, to make sport for
his enemies, and in his death he brought upon them a wider destruction than
he had effected by his teaching while alive. Pole was appointed the next
day to the See of Canterbury; but in other respects the court had
over-reached themselves by their cruelty. Had they been contented to accept
the recantation, they would have left the archbishop to die broken-hearted,
pointed at by the finger of pitying scorn; and the Reformation would have
been disgraced in its champion. They were tempted, by an evil spirit of
revenge, into an act unsanctioned even by their own bloody laws; and they
gave him an opportunity of writing his name in the roll of martyrs. The
worth of a man must be measured by his life, not by his failure under a
single and peculiar peril. The Apostle, though forewarned, denied his
Master on the first alarm of danger; yet that Master, who knew his nature
in its strength and its infirmity, chose him for the rock on which he would
build his Church."

With this conscious and avowed bias in favour of undogmatic Christianity,
Froude came to write the story of the transition of England from a Catholic
to a Protestant country. He was not without sympathy with the old order of
things. We cannot but feel a thrill as we read his incomparable description
of the change which was effected in men's thoughts and ideas by the
translation of the medięval into the modern world? "For, indeed, a change
was coming upon the world, the meaning and direction of which even still is
hidden from us, a change from era to era. The paths trodden by the
footsteps of ages were broken up; old things were passing away, and the
faith and the life of ten centuries were dissolving like a dream. Chivalry
was dying; the abbey and the castle were soon together to crumble into
ruins; and all the forms, desires, beliefs, convictions, of the old world
were passing away, never to return. A new continent had risen up beyond the
western sea. The floor of heaven, inlaid with stars, had sunk back into an
infinite abyss of immeasurable space; and the firm earth itself, unfixed
from its foundations, was seen to be but a small atom in the awful vastness
of the universe. In the fabric of habit which they had so laboriously built
for themselves, mankind were to remain no longer. And now it is all
gone--like an unsubstantial pageant faded; and between us and the old
English there lies a gulf of mystery which the prose of the historian will
never adequately bridge. They cannot come to us, and our imagination can
but feebly penetrate to them. Only among the aisles of the cathedral, only
as we gaze upon their silent figures sleeping on their tombs, some faint
conceptions float before us of what these men were when they were alive;
and perhaps in the sound of church bells, that peculiar creation of
medięval age, which falls upon the ear like the echo of a vanished world."
Froude was once asked what was the greatest and most essential quality of
an historian. He replied that it was imagination. It was a true and a just
saying, and Froude himself possessed the faculty in abundance.

It was not only with the old order that Froude showed his sympathy. He is
seldom ungenerous in his references to individual Catholics, however
mistaken in his sight their opinions may have been. With Wolsey and Warham,
Fisher and More, even with Gardiner and Bonner he deals fairly and with
some amount of real sympathy. The heroic death of Campian moves him to pity
just as much as the death of Latimer; the strenuous labours of Father
Parsons to overthrow Elizabeth and Protestantism failed to remove him
beyond the pale of Froude's charitable judgment. One English Catholic alone
was reserved for the historian's harsh and sometimes petulant criticism.
For Cardinal Pole Froude felt the angriest contempt. He was descended from
the blood royal, both of England and of Wales. On his father's side he was
descended in direct line from the ancient princes of Powis; on his mother's
from the Plantagenets and the Nevilles. He was the most learned and
illustrious Englishman of his age. He had stood high in King Henry's
favour; he was destined for the greatest offices in the state. He was not
without natural ambition. Yet he forfeited all that he had--the favour of
his prince, the society of his mother whom he loved, and the kindred who
were proud of him, the hope of promotion and of power, his friends, his
home, and his country, for conscience' sake. He remained true to the
ancient faith in which he was reared. With unerring instinct he foresaw
that, once England was severed from the Papacy, it would be impossible for
king or parliament to stem the flood of the Reformation. For twenty years
he remained an exile on the continent. He returned an old and broken man,
to witness the overthrow of his cherished plans. He was repudiated by the
Pope whose authority he had sacrificed everything to maintain, and in his
old age he suffered the humiliation of being accused of heresy in the court
of Rome. He died the same day as Mary died, with the knowledge that all his
life's labours and sacrifices were come to naught, and that the dominion of
the Roman Church in England was gone for ever. Froude saw none of the
pathos or tragedy of Pole's life. To him the cardinal was a renegade, a
traitor to his country, a mercenary of the Pope, a foreign potentate, a
"hysterical dreamer," who vainly imagined that he was "the champion of
heaven, and the destroyer of heresy."

Froude was, above all, an Englishman. His strongest sympathies went out to
the "God's Englishmen" of Elizabeth's reign, who broke the power of Rome
and Spain, and who made England supreme in Europe. In his first chapter he
describes the qualities of Englishmen with a zest and gusto that drew the
comment from Carlyle that "this seems to me exaggerated: what we call John
Bullish." He described them as "a sturdy, high-hearted race, sound in body
and fierce in spirit which, under the stimulus of those great shins of
beef, their common diet, were the wonder of the age." Carlyle's advice when
he read this passage in proof was characteristic:--"Modify a little:
Frederick the Great was brought up on beer-sops; Robert Burns on oatmeal
porridge; and Mahomet and the Caliphs conquered the world on barley meal."
But the passage stood unmodified, in spite of Froude's regard for his
master.

How this fierce and turbulent people fought their way to world-wide empire
was a problem which Froude thought he was able to solve. It was, in the
main, because they broke down the power of the priests, and insisted on the
supremacy of state over Church. Therefore all his filial affection, his
patriotism, and his ecclesiastical prejudices were arrayed on the same
side. If history be an exact science, then Froude can lay no claim to the
title of historian. He was a brilliant advocate, a man of letters endowed
with a matchless style, writing of matters which interested him deeply, and
in the investigation of which he spent twenty years of his life. Froude
himself would have been the first to repudiate the idea that history is
philosophy teaching by examples, or that an historian has necessarily a
greater insight into the problems of the present than any other observant
student of affairs. "Gibbon," he once wrote, "believed that the era of
conquerors was at an end. Had he lived out the full life of man, he would
have seen Europe at the feet of Napoleon. But a few years ago we believed
the world had grown too civilised for war, and the Crystal Palace in Hyde
Park was to be the inauguration of a new era. Battles, bloody as
Napoleon's, are now the familiar tale of every day; and the arts which have
made the greatest progress are the arts of destruction."

It is absurd to attack Froude on the ground that he was biassed. No man has
ever yet written a living history without being biassed. Thucydides
detested the radicalism of Cleon as heartily as Gibbon hated the
Christianity of Rome. It was once the fashion of the Oxford school to decry
Froude as being unworthy of the name of historian. Stubbs, indeed, did pay
public tribute to Froude's "great work," but he stood almost alone of his
school. Freeman for many years pursued and persecuted Froude with a
persistent malevolence which happily has no parallel in the story of
English scholarship. It is not necessary in this place to do more than
refer to that unpleasant episode. Since the publication of the brilliant
vindication of Froude in Mr. Herbert Paul's _Life_, it would be superfluous
to go into the details of that unhappy controversy. The only difference
between Froude and other historians is that Froude's partisanship is always
obvious. He was not more favourable to Henry VIII. than Stubbs was to
Thomas ą Becket. But Froude openly avowed his preferences and his dislikes.
Catholicism was to him "a dying superstition," Protestantism "a living
truth." Freeman went further, and charged Froude with having written a
history which was not "_un livre de bonne joy._" It is only necessary to
recall the circumstances under which the _History_ was written to dispose
of that odious charge. In order to obtain material for his _History_,
Froude spent years of his life in the little Spanish village of Simancas.
"I have worked in all," he said in his Apologia, "through nine hundred
volumes of letters, notes, and other papers, private and official, in five
languages and in different handwritings. I am not rash enough to say that I
have never misread a word, or overlooked a passage of importance. I profess
only to have dealt with my materials honestly to the best of my ability."
Few, indeed, have had to encounter such difficulties as met Froude in his
exploration of the archives at Simancas. "Often at the end of a page," he
wrote many years after, "I have felt as after descending a precipice, and
have wondered how I got down. I had to cut my way through a jungle, for no
one had opened the road for me. I have been turned into rooms piled to the
window-sill with bundles of dust-coloured despatches, and told to make the
best of it. Often have I found the sand glistening on the ink where it had
been sprinkled when a page was turned. There the letter had lain, never
looked at again since it was read and put away." Of these difficulties not
a trace is discoverable in Froude's easy and effortless narrative. When he
was approaching the completion of his _History_, he vowed that his account
of the Armada should be as interesting as a novel. He succeeded not only
with that portion of his task, but with all the stirring story that he set
out to narrate. But the ease of his style only concealed the real pains
which he had taken. Of Freeman's charge Froude has long been honourably
acquitted. The Simancas MSS. have since been published in the Rolls Series,
and Mr. Martin Hume, in his Introduction, has paid his tribute to the care,
accuracy, and good faith of their first transcriber. Long before this
testimony could be given, Scottish historians who disagreed with Froude's
conclusions on many points,--men such as Skelton and Burton--had been
profoundly impressed with the care, skill, and conscientiousness with which
Froude handled the mass of tangled materials relating to the history of
Scotland.

This does not mean that Froude is free from minor inaccuracies, or that he
is innocent of graver faults which flowed from his abundant quality of
imagination. He constantly quotes a sentence inaccurately in his text,
while it is accurately transcribed in a footnote. He is careless in matters
which are important to students of Debrett, as for instance, he
indiscriminately describes Lord Howard as Lord William Howard and Lord
Howard. But Froude was sometimes guilty of something worse than these
trivial "howlers." Lecky exposed, with calm ruthlessness, some of Froude's
exaggerations--to call them by no worse name--in his _Story of the English
in Ireland_. When his _Erasmus_ was translated into Dutch, the countrymen
of Erasmus accused him of constant, if not deliberate, inaccuracy. Lord
Carnarvon once sent Froude to South Africa as an informal special
commissioner. When he returned to this country he wrote an article on the
South African problem in the _Quarterly Review_. Sir Bartle Frere, who knew
South Africa as few men did, said of it that it was an "essay in which for
whole pages a truth expressed in brilliant epigrams alternates with
mistakes or misstatements which would scarcely be pardoned in a special war
correspondent hurriedly writing against time." So dangerous is the quality
of imagination in a writer!

Truth to tell, Froude was a literary man with a fondness for historical
investigation, and an artist's passion for the dramatic in life and story.
He wrote with a purpose--that purpose being to defend the English
Reformation against the attacks of the neo-Catholic-Anglicans, under whose
influence he had himself been for a time in his youth. To him, therefore,
Henry VIII. was "the majestic lord who broke the bonds of Rome." This is
not the occasion, nor is the present writer the man, to analyse that
complex and masterful personality. Froude started to defend the English
Reformation against the vile charge that it was the outcome of kingly lust.
That charge he has finally dispelled. Henry VIII. was not the monster that
Lingard painted. He beheaded two queens, but few will be found to assert
to-day that either Anne Boleyn or Catherine Howard were innocent martyrs.
People must agree to differ to the crack of doom as to the justice of
Catherine's divorce. It is one of those questions which different men will
continue to answer in different ways. But one thing is abundantly clear. If
Henry was actuated merely by passion for Anne Boleyn, he would scarcely
have waited for years before putting Queen Catherine away. Henry divorced
Anne of Cleves, but Anne, who survived the dissolution of her marriage and
remained in England for twenty years, made no complaint of her treatment,
and she has had no champions either among Catholic or Protestant writers.
Her divorce is only remembered as the occasion of the downfall of the
greatest statesman of his age, Thomas Cromwell, Earl of Essex. But in his
eagerness to proclaim the truth, Froude went on to defend a paradox. Once
free from the charge of lust,--and compared with Francis of France or
Charles V., Henry was a continent man--Henry became to Froude the ideal
monarch.

Some one has said that Henry VIII. was the greatest king that ever lived,
because he always got his own way. If that be the test, then Henry was
indeed "every inch a king." He broke with Rome; he deposed the Pope from
his supremacy over England; he dissolved the monasteries; he sent the
noblest and wisest in England to the scaffold; he reduced Wales to law and
order and gave her a constitution; he married and unmarried as he liked; he
disposed of the succession to the throne of England by his will; and his
people never murmured. Only once, when the Pilgrimage of Grace broke out,
was his throne in any danger, and that insurrection he easily suppressed.
He made war with France; he invaded Scotland more than once, and every time
with striking success. He played his vigorous part in European politics,
and at his death he left his realm inviolate. It is an amazing record,
which might well dazzle a writer of Froude's temperament and training. But
there are dark shades in the picture, which Froude was content to make
little of, if not to ignore. He is fond of contrasting Henry's way with
conspirators with that of his daughter Elizabeth. He sneers at her
"tenderness" towards high-born traitors, and never ceases to reproach her
with her one act of repression after the Yorkshire rising. But he had not a
word to say against the tyrannical murders of Henry VIII. Elizabeth truly
boasted that she never punished opinion: Henry sent to the scaffold better
men than himself for holding academical opinions contrary to his own.
Cardinal Fisher may have been--after the publication of Chappuys's letters
it is not possible to deny that he was--technically guilty of treason. But
he was a saint and an old man past eighty, and "the earth on the edge of
the grave was already crumbling under his feet." The king spared neither
age nor worth nor innocence. He had been the familiar friend of More; he
had walked through his gardens at Chelsea leaning on his arm; More had been
his chancellor; he was still the greatest of his subjects; while frankly
admitting that he differed in opinion from the king on the question of the
royal supremacy, he promised that he would not try to influence others.
Henry was inexorable. He not only condemned him to die a traitor's
death,--he added a callous message, which still rouses the indignation of
every generous soul, that he should "not use many words on the scaffold."
Thomas Cromwell had served him as few ministers have served a king; to him
was due--or, at least, he was the capable instrument of--the policy which
has given distinction to Henry's reign; but he was delivered over to his
enemies when the king's caprice had shifted to another quarter. Even Froude
finds it difficult to excuse the execution of More and Cromwell. But,
having once made up his mind to make a hero of Henry, he goes on with it
bravely to the end. He hides nothing, he excuses nothing, he extenuates
nothing. Neither the death of the aged Countess of Salisbury or of the
gallant Earl of Surrey, nor the illegal imprisonment of the aged Norfolk,
the hero of Flodden, shakes his faith in his hero-king. He even relates,
with minute detail, how a few days before the king's death, four poor
persons, one of whom was a tailor, were burnt at the stake for denying the
Real Presence. But his final comment on it all was: "His personal faults
were great, and he shared, besides them, in the errors of his age; but far
deeper blemishes would be but scars upon the features of a sovereign who in
trying times sustained nobly the honour of the English name, and carried
the commonwealth securely through the hardest crisis in its history."

When a young man Froude had been elected Fellow of Exeter College, Oxford.
This entailed his taking holy orders, though he does not seem to have
regularly performed the duties of a clergyman. In 1849 he published his
first book, _The Nemesis of Faith_, now happily forgotten. It raised an
immediate commotion. It was denounced as heretical, and the senior tutor of
Exeter burnt it during a lecture in the College Hall. Froude resigned his
Fellowship, and his connection with the university was severed for
thirty-three years. He was one of the first to take advantage of the
alteration of the law which enabled a clergyman to resign his orders. In
1892 he went back to Oxford as Regius Professor of Modern History. "The
temptation of going back to Oxford in a respectable way," he said, "was too
much for me." He died on October 20, 1894, and on his tombstone he is
simply described, by his own wish, as Professor of Modern History in the
University of Oxford.

The writer is indebted for information with regard to Froude's life to Mr.
Pollard's article in the _Dictionary of National Biography_, and to Mr.
Herbert Paul's admirable _Life of Froude_ (Pitman).

W. LLEWELYN WILLIAMS.

_November_ 16, 1908.

The following is a list of the published works of J.A. Froude:

    Life of St. Neot (Lives of the English Saints, edited by J.H. Newman),
    1844; Shadows of the Clouds (Tales), by Zeta (_pseud._), 1847; A Sermon
    (on 2 Cor. vii. 10) preached at St. Mary's Church on the Death of the
    Rev. George May Coleridge, 1847; Article on Spinoza (_Oxford and
    Cambridge Review_), 1847; The Nemesis of Faith (Tale), 1849; England's
    Forgotten Worthies (_Westminster Review_), 1852; Book of Job
    (_Westminster Review)_, 1853; Poems of Matthew Arnold (_Westminster
    Review_), 1854; Suggestions on the Best Means of Teaching English
    History (Oxford Essays, etc.), 1855; History of England, 12 vols.,
    1856-70; The Influence of the Reformation on the Scottish Character,
    1865; Inaugural Address delivered to the University of St. Andrews,
    March 19, 1869, 1869; Short Studies on Great Subjects, 1867, 2 vols.,
    series 2-4, 1871-83 (articles from _Fraser's Magazine, Westminster
    Review_, etc.); The Cat's Pilgrimage, 1870; Calvinism: Address at St.
    Andrews, 1871; The English in Ireland, 3 vols., 1872-74; Bunyan
    (English Men of Letters), 1878; Cęsar: a Sketch, 1879; Two Lectures on
    South Africa, 1880; Thomas Carlyle (a history of the first forty years
    of his life, etc.), 2 vols., 1882; Luther: a Short Biography, 1883;
    Thomas Carlyle (a history of his life in London, 1834-81), 2 vols.,
    1884; Oceana, 1886; The English in the West Indies, 1888; Liberty and
    Property: an Address [1888]; The Two Chiefs of Dunboy, 1889; Lord
    Beaconsfield (a Biography), 1890; The Divorce of Catherine of Aragon,
    1891; The Spanish Story of the Armada, 1892; Life and Letters of
    Erasmus, 1894; English Seamen in the Sixteenth Century, 1895; Lectures
    on the Council of Trent, 1896; My Relations with Carlyle, 1903.

    EDITED:--Carlyle's Reminiscences, 1881; Mrs. Carlyle's Letters, 1883.





CONTENTS

   CHAPTER

      I. SOCIAL CONDITION OF ENGLAND IN THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY

     II. THE LAST YEARS OF THE ADMINISTRATION OF WOLSEY.

    III. THE PARLIAMENT OF 1529.

     IV. CHURCH AND STATE.

      V. MARRIAGE OF HENRY AND ANNE BOLEYN.

     VI. THE PROTESTANTS.

    VII. THE LAST EFFORTS OF DIPLOMACY.

         NOTES.




HENRY VIII

CHAPTER I

SOCIAL CONDITION OF ENGLAND IN THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY

In periods like the present, when knowledge is every day extending, and the
habits and thoughts of mankind are perpetually changing under the influence
of new discoveries, it is no easy matter to throw ourselves back into a
time in which for centuries the European world grew upon a single type, in
which the forms of the father's thoughts were the forms of the son's, and
the late descendant was occupied in treading into paths the footprints of
his distant ancestors. So absolutely has change become the law of our
present condition, that it is identified with energy and moral health; to
cease to change is to lose place in the great race; and to pass away from
off the earth with the same convictions which we found when we entered it,
is to have missed the best object for which we now seem to exist.

It has been, however, with the race of men as it has been with the planet
which they inhabit. As we look back over history, we see times of change
and progress alternating with other times when life and thought have
settled into permanent forms; when mankind, as if by common consent, have
ceased to seek for increase of knowledge, and, contented with what they
possess, have endeavoured to make use of it for purposes of moral
cultivation. Such was the condition of the Greeks through many ages before
the Persian war; such was that of the Romans till the world revenged itself
upon its conquerors by the introduction among them of the habits of the
conquered; and such again became the condition of Europe when the Northern
nations grafted the religion and the laws of the Western empire on their
own hardy natures, and shaped out that wonderful spiritual and political
organisation which remained unshaken for a thousand years.

The aspirant after sanctity in the fifteenth century of the Christian era
found a model which he could imitate in detail in the saint of the fifth.
The gentleman at the court of Edward IV. or Charles of Burgundy could
imagine no nobler type of heroism than he found in the stories of King
Arthur's knights. The forms of life had become more elaborate--the surface
of it more polished--but the life itself remained essentially the same; it
was the development of the same conception of human excellence; just as the
last orders of Gothic architecture were the development of the first, from
which the idea had worked its way till the force of it was exhausted.

A condition of things differing alike both outwardly and inwardly from that
into which a happier fortune has introduced ourselves, is necessarily
obscure to us. In the alteration of our own character, we have lost the key
which would interpret the characters of our fathers, and the great men even
of our own English history before the Reformation seem to us almost like
the fossil skeletons of another order of beings. Some broad conclusions as
to what they were are at least possible to us, however; and we are able to
determine, with tolerable certainty, the social condition of the people of
this country, such as it was before the movements of the sixteenth century,
and during the process of those movements.

The extent of the population can only be rudely conjectured. A rough census
was taken at the time of the Armada, when it was found to be something
under five millions; but anterior to this I can find no authority on which
I can rely with any sort of confidence. It is my impression, however, from
a number of reasons--each in itself insignificant, but which taken together
leave little doubt upon my mind--that it had attained that number by a
growth so slow as to be scarcely perceptible, and had nearly approached to
it many generations before. Simon Fish, in _The Supplication of
Beggars_,[1] says that the number of households in England in 1531 was
520,000. His calculation is of the most random kind; for he rates the
number of parishes at 52,000, with ten households on an average in each
parish. A mistake so preposterous respecting the number of parishes shows
the great ignorance of educated men upon the subject. The ten households in
each parish may, probably (in some parts of the country), have been a
correct computation; but this tells us little with respect to the aggregate
numbers, for the households were very large--the farmers, and the gentlemen
also, usually having all the persons whom they employed residing under
their own roof. Neither from this, therefore, nor from any other positive
statement which I have seen, can I gather any conclusion that may be
depended upon. But when we remember the exceeding slowness with which the
population multiplied in a time in which we can accurately measure it--that
is to say, from 1588 to the opening of the last century--under
circumstances in every way more favourable to an increase, I think we may
assume that the increase was not so great between 1500 and 1588, and that,
previous to 1500, it did not more than keep pace with the waste from civil
and foreign war. The causes, indeed, were wholly wanting which lead to a
rapid growth of numbers. Numbers now increase with the increase of
employment and with the facilities which are provided by the modern system
of labour for the establishment of independent households. At present, any
able-bodied unskilled labourer earns, as soon as he has arrived at man's
estate, as large an amount of wages as he will earn at any subsequent time;
and having no connection with his employer beyond the receiving the due
amount of weekly money from him, and thinking himself as well able to marry
as he is likely to be, he takes a wife, and is usually the father of a
family before he is thirty. Before the Reformation, not only were early
marriages determinately discouraged, but the opportunity for them did not
exist. A labourer living in a cottage by himself was a rare exception to
the rule; and the work of the field was performed generally, as it now is
in the large farms in America and Australia, by servants who lived in the
families of the squire or the farmer, and who, while in that position,
commonly remained single, and married only when by prudence they had saved
a sufficient sum to enable them to enter some other position.

Checked by circumstances of this kind, population would necessarily remain
almost stationary, and a tendency to an increase was not of itself regarded
by the statesmen of the day as any matter for congratulation or as any
evidence of national prosperity. Not an increase of population, which would
facilitate production and beat down wages by competition, but the increase
of the commonwealth, the sound and healthy maintenance of the population
already existing, were the chief objects which the government proposed to
itself; and although Henry VIII. carefully nursed his manufactures, there
is sufficient proof in the grounds alleged for the measures to which he
resorted, that there was little redundancy of occupation.

In a statute, for instance, for the encouragement of the linen
manufactures, it is said[2] that--"The King's Highness, calling to his most
blessed remembrance the great number of idle people daily increasing
throughout this his Realm, supposeth that one great cause thereof is by the
continued bringing into the same the great number of wares and merchandise
made, and brought out and from, the parts beyond the sea into this his
Realm, ready wrought by manual occupation; amongst the which wares one kind
of merchandise in great quantity, which is linen cloth of divers sorts made
in divers countries beyond the sea, is daily conveyed into this Realm;
which great quantity of linen cloth so brought is consumed and spent within
the same; by reason whereof not only the said strange countries where the
said linen cloth is made, by the policy and industry of making and vending
the same are greatly enriched; and a marvellous great number of their
people, men, women, and children, are set on work and occupation, and kept
from idleness, to the great furtherance and advancement of their
commonwealth; but also contrariwise the inhabitants and subjects of this
Realm, for lack of like policy and industry, are compelled to buy all or
most part of the linen cloth consumed in the same, amounting to inestimable
sums of money. And also the people of this Realm, as well men as women,
which should and might be set on work, by exercise of like policy and craft
of spinning, weaving, and making of cloth, lies now in idleness and
otiosity, to the high displeasure of Almighty God, great diminution of the
King's people, and extreme ruin, decay, and impoverishment of this Realm.
Therefore, for reformation of these things, the King's most Royal Majesty
intending, like a most virtuous Prince, to provide remedy in the premises;
nothing so much coveting as the increase of the Commonwealth of this his
Realm, with also the virtuous exercise of his most loving subjects and
people, and to avoid that most abominable sin of idleness out of the Realm,
hath, by the advice and consent of his Lords and Commons in Parliament
assembled, ordained and enacted that every person occupying land for
tillage, shall for every sixty acres which he hath under the plough, sow
one quarter of an acre in flax or hemp."

This Act was designed immediately to keep the wives and children of the
poor in work in their own houses;[3] but it leaves no doubt that
manufactures in England had not of themselves that tendency to
self-development which would encourage an enlarging population. The woollen
manufactures similarly appear, from the many statutes upon them, to have
been vigorous at a fixed level, but to have shown no tendency to rise
beyond that level. With a fixed market and a fixed demand, production
continued uniform.

A few years subsequent, indeed, to the passing of the Act which I have
quoted, a very curious complaint is entered in the statute book, from the
surface of which we should gather, that so far from increasing,
manufactures had alarmingly declined. The fact mentioned may bear another
meaning, and a meaning far more favourable to the state of the country;
although, if such a phenomenon were to occur at the present time, it could
admit of but one interpretation. In the 18th and 19th of the 32nd of Henry
VIII., all the important towns in England, from the Tweed to the Land's
End, are stated, one by one, to have fallen into serious decay. Usually
when we meet with language of this kind, we suppose it to mean nothing more
than an awakening to the consciousness of evils which had long existed, and
which had escaped notice only because no one was alive to them. In the
present instance, however, the language was too strong and too detailed to
allow of this explanation; and the great body of the English towns
undoubtedly were declining in wealth and in the number of their
inhabitants. "Divers and many beautiful houses of habitation," these
statutes say, "built in tyme past within their walls and liberties, now are
fallen down and decayed, and at this day remain unre-edified, and do lie as
desolate and vacant grounds, many of them nigh adjoining to the
High-streets, replenished with much uncleanness and filth, with pits,
sellers, and vaults lying open and uncovered, to the great perill and
danger of the inhabitants and other the King's subjects passing by the
same; and some houses be very weak and feeble, ready to fall down, and
therefore dangerous to pass by, to the great decay and hinderance of the
said boroughs and towns."[4]

At present, the decay of a town implies the decay of the trade of the town;
and the decay of all towns simultaneously would imply a general collapse of
the trade of the whole country. Walled towns, however, before the
Reformation, existed for other purposes than as the centre points of
industry: they existed for the protection of property and life: and
although it is not unlikely that the agitation of the Reformation itself
did to some degree interrupt the occupation of the people, yet I believe
that the true account of the phenomenon which then so much disturbed the
parliament, is, that one of their purposes was no longer required; the
towns flagged for a time because the country had become secure. The woollen
manufacture in Worcestershire was spreading into the open country,[5] and,
doubtless, in other counties as well; and the "beautiful houses" which had
fallen into decay, were those which, in the old times of insecurity, had
been occupied by wealthy merchants and tradesmen, who were now enabled, by
a strong and settled government, to dispense with the shelter of locked
gates and fortified walls, and remove their residences to more convenient
situations. It was, in fact, the first symptom of the impending social
revolution. Two years before the passing of this Act, the magnificent
Hengrave Hall, in Suffolk, had been completed by Sir Thomas Kitson, "mercer
of London,"[6] and Sir Thomas Kitson was but one of many of the rising
merchants who were now able to root themselves on the land by the side of
the Norman nobility, first to rival, and then slowly to displace them.

This mighty change, however, was long in silent progress before it began to
tell on the institutions of the country. When city burghers bought estates,
the law insisted jealously on their accepting with them all the feudal
obligations. Attempts to use the land as "a commodity" were, as we shall
presently see, angrily repressed; while, again, in the majority of
instances, such persons endeavoured, as they do at present, to cover the
recent origin of their families by adopting the manners of the nobles,
instead of transferring the habits of the towns to the parks and chases of
the English counties. The old English organisation maintained its full
activity; and the duties of property continued to be for another century
more considered than its rights.

Turning, then, to the tenure of land--for if we would understand the
condition of the people, it is to this point that our first attention must
be directed--we find that through the many complicated varieties of it
there was one broad principle which bore equally upon every class, that the
land of England must provide for the defence of England. The feudal system,
though practically modified, was still the organising principle of the
nation, and the owner of land was bound to military service for his country
whenever occasion required. Further, the land was to be so administered,
that the accustomed number of families supported by it should not be
diminished, and that the State should suffer no injury from the
carelessness or selfishness of the owners.[7] Land never was private
property in that personal sense of property in which we speak of a thing as
our own, with which we may do as we please; and in the administration of
estates, as indeed in the administration of all property whatsoever, duty
to the State was at all times supposed to override private interest or
inclination. Even tradesmen, who took advantage of the fluctuations of the
market, were rebuked by parliament for "their greedy and covetous minds,"
"as more regarding their own singular lucre and profit than the commonweal
of the Realm;"[8] and although in an altered world, neither industry nor
enterprise will thrive except under the stimulus of self-interest, we may
admire the confidence which in another age expected every man to prefer the
advantage of the community to his own. All land was held upon a strictly
military principle. It was the representative of authority, and the holder
or the owner took rank in the army of the State according to the nature of
his connection with it. It was first broadly divided among the great
nobility holding immediately under the crown, who, above and beyond the
ownership of their private estates, were the Lords of the Fee throughout
their presidency, and possessed in right of it the services of knights and
gentlemen who held their manors under them, and who followed their standard
in war. Under the lords of manors, again, small freeholds and copyholds
were held of various extent, often forty shilling and twenty shilling
value, tenanted by peasant occupiers, who thus, on their own land, lived as
free Englishmen, maintaining by their own free labour themselves and their
families. There was thus a descending scale of owners, each of whom
possessed his separate right, which the law guarded and none might violate;
yet no one of whom, again, was independent of an authority higher than
himself; and the entire body of the English free possessors of the soil was
interpenetrated by a coherent organisation which converted them into a
perpetually subsisting army of soldiers. The extent of land which was held
by the petty freeholders was very large, and the possession of it was
jealously treasured; the private estates of the nobles and gentlemen were
either cultivated by their own servants, or let out, as at present, to free
tenants; or (in earlier times) were occupied by villains, a class who,
without being bondmen, were expected to furnish further services than those
of the field, services which were limited by the law, and recognised by an
outward ceremony, a solemn oath and promise from the villain to his lord.
Villanage, in the reign of Henry VIII., had practically ceased. The name of
it last appears upon the statute book in the early years of the reign of
Richard II., when the disputes between villains and their liege lords on
their relative rights had furnished matter for cumbrous lawsuits, and by
general consent the relation had merged of itself into a more liberal form.
Thus serfdom had merged or was rapidly merging into free servitude; but it
did not so merge that labouring men, if they pleased, were allowed to live
in idleness. Every man was regimented somewhere; and although the
peasantry, when at full age, were allowed, under restrictions, their own
choice of masters, yet the restrictions both on masters and servants were
so severe as to prevent either from taking advantage of the necessities of
the other, or from terminating through caprice or levity, or for any
insufficient reason, a connection presumed to be permanent.[9]

Through all these arrangements a single aim is visible, that every man in
England should have his definite place and definite duty assigned to him,
and that no human being should be at liberty to lead at his own pleasure an
unaccountable existence. The discipline of an army was transferred to the
details of social life, and it issued in a chivalrous perception of the
meaning of the word duty, and in the old characteristic spirit of English
loyalty.

From the regulations with respect to land, a coarser advantage was also
derived, of a kind which at the present time will be effectively
appreciated. It is a common matter of dispute whether landed estates should
be large or small; whether it is better that the land should be divided
among small proprietors, cultivating their own ground, or that it should
follow its present tendency, and be shared by a limited and constantly
diminishing number of wealthy landlords. The advocates for a peasant
proprietary tell us truly, that a landed monopoly is dangerous; that the
possession of a spot of ground, though it be but a few acres, is the best
security for loyalty, giving the state a pledge for its owner, and creating
in the body of the nation a free, vigorous, and manly spirit. The advocates
for the large estates tell us, that the masses are too ill-educated to be
trusted with independence; that without authority over them, these small
proprietors become wasteful, careless, improvident; that the free spirit
becomes a democratic and dangerous spirit; and finally, that the resources
of the land cannot properly be brought out by men without capital to
cultivate it. Either theory is plausible. The advocates of both can support
their arguments with an appeal to experience; and the verdict of fact has
not as yet been pronounced emphatically.

The problem will be resolved in the future history of this country. It was
also nobly and skilfully resolved in the past. The knights and nobles
retained the authority and power which was attached to the lordships of the
fees. They retained extensive estates in their own hands or in the
occupation of their immediate tenants; but the large proportion of the
lands was granted out by them to smaller owners, and the expenditure of
their own incomes in the wages and maintenance of their vast retinues left
but a small margin for indulgence in luxuries. The necessities of their
position obliged them to regard their property rather as a revenue to be
administered in trust, than as "a fortune" to be expended in indulgence.
Before the Reformation, while the differences of social degree were
enormous, the differences in habits of life were comparatively slight, and
the practice of men in these things was curiously the reverse of our own.
Dress, which now scarcely suffices to distinguish the master from his
servant, was then the symbol of rank, prescribed by statute to the various
orders of society as strictly as the regimental uniform to officers and
privates; diet also was prescribed, and with equal strictness; but the diet
of the nobleman was ordered down to a level which was then within the reach
of the poorest labourer. In 1336, the following law was enacted by the
Parliament of Edward III.:[10] "Whereas, heretofore through the excessive
and over-many sorts of costly meats which the people of this Realm have
used more than elsewhere, many mischiefs have happened to the people of
this Realm--for the great men by these excesses have been sore grieved; and
the lesser people, who only endeavour to imitate the great ones in such
sort of meats, are much impoverished, whereby they are not able to aid
themselves, nor their liege lord, in time of need, as they ought; and many
other evils have happened, as well to their souls as their bodies--our Lord
the King, desiring the common profit as well of the great men as the common
people of his Realm, and considering the evils, grievances, and mischiefs
aforesaid, by the common assent of the prelates, earls, barons, and other
nobles of his said Realm, and of the commons of the same Realm, hath
ordained and established that no man, of what estate or condition soever he
be, shall cause himself to be served, in his house or elsewhere, at dinner,
meal, or supper, or at any other time, with more than two courses, and each
mess of two sorts of victuals at the utmost, be it of flesh or fish, with
the common sorts of pottage, without sauce or any other sorts of victuals.
And if any man choose to have sauce for his mess, he may, provided it be
not made at great cost; and if fish or flesh be to be mixed therein, it
shall be of two sorts only at the utmost, either fish or flesh, and shall
stand instead of a mess, except only on the principal feasts of the year,
on which days every man may be served with three courses at the utmost,
after the manner aforesaid."

Sumptuary laws are among the exploded fallacies which we have outgrown, and
we smile at the unwisdom which could expect to regulate private habits and
manners by statute. Yet some statutes may be of moral authority when they
cannot be actually enforced, and may have been regarded, even at the time
at which they were issued, rather as an authoritative declaration of what
wise and good men considered to be right, than as laws to which obedience
could be compelled. This act, at any rate, witnesses to what was then
thought to be right by "the great persons" of the English realm; and when
great persons will submit themselves of their free will to regulations
which restrict their private indulgence, they are in little danger of
disloyalty from those whom fortune has placed below them.

Such is one aspect of these old arrangements; it is unnecessary to say that
with these, as with all other institutions created and worked by human
beings, the picture admits of being reversed. When by the accident of birth
men are placed in a position of authority, no care in their training will
prevent it from falling often to singularly unfit persons. The command of a
permanent military force was a temptation to ambition, to avarice, or
hatred, to the indulgence of private piques and jealousies, to political
discontent on private and personal grounds. A combination of three or four
of the leading nobles was sufficient, when an incapable prince sate on the
throne, to effect a revolution; and the rival claims of the houses of York
and Lancaster to the crown, took the form of a war unequalled in history
for its fierce and determined malignancy, the whole nation tearing itself
in pieces in a quarrel in which no principle was at stake, and no national
object was to be gained. A more terrible misfortune never befel either this
or any other country, and it was made possible only in virtue of that
loyalty with which the people followed the standard, through good and evil,
of their feudal superiors. It is still a question, however, whether the
good or the evil of the system predominated; and the answer to such
question is the more difficult because we have no criterion by which, in
these matters, degrees of good and evil admit of being measured. Arising
out of the character of the nation, it reflected this character in all its
peculiarities; and there is something truly noble in the coherence of
society upon principles of fidelity. Fidelity of man to man is among the
rarest excellences of humanity, and we can tolerate large evils which arise
out of such a cause. Under the feudal system men were held together by
oaths, free acknowledgments, and reciprocal obligations, entered into by
all ranks, high and low, binding servants to their masters, as well as
nobles to their kings; and in the frequent forms of the language in which
the oaths were sworn we cannot choose but see that we have lost something
in exchanging these ties for the harsher connecting links of mutual
self-interest.

"When a freeman shall do fealty to his lord," the statute says, "he shall
hold his right hand upon the book, and shall say thus:--Hear you, my lord,
that I shall be to you both faithful and true, and shall owe my faith to
you for the land that I hold, and lawfully shall do such customs and
services as my duty is to you, at the times assigned, so help me God and
all his saints."

"The villain," also, "when he shall do fealty to his lord, shall hold his
right hand over the book, and shall say:--Hear you, my lord, that I from
this day forth unto you shall be true and faithful, and shall owe you
fealty for the land which I hold of you in villanage; and that no evil or
damage will I see concerning you, but I will defend and warn you to my
power. So help me God and all his saints."[11]

Again, in the distribution of the produce of land, men dealt fairly and
justly with each other; and in the material condition of the bulk of the
people there is a fair evidence that the system worked efficiently and
well. It worked well for the support of a sturdy high-hearted race, sound
in body and fierce in spirit, and furnished with thews and sinews which,
under the stimulus of those "great shins of beef,"[12] their common diet,
were the wonder of the age. "What comyn folke in all this world," says a
state paper in 1515[13] "may compare with the comyns of England in riches,
freedom, liberty, welfare, and all prosperity? What comyn folke is so
mighty, so strong in the felde, as the comyns of England?" The relative
numbers of the French and English armies which fought at Cressy and
Agincourt may have been exaggerated, but no allowance for exaggeration will
effect the greatness of those exploits; and in stories of authentic actions
under Henry VIII., where the accuracy of the account is undeniable, no
disparity of force made Englishmen shrink from enemies wherever they could
meet them. Again and again a few thousands of them carried dismay into the
heart of France. Four hundred adventurers, vagabond apprentices, from
London,[14] who formed a volunteer corps in the Calais garrison, were for
years the terror of Normandy. In the very frolic of conscious power they
fought and plundered, without pay, without reward, except what they could
win for themselves; and when they fell at last they fell only when
surrounded by six times their number, and were cut to pieces in careless
desperation. Invariably, by friend and enemy alike, the English are
described as the fiercest people in all Europe (the English wild beasts,
Benvenuto Cellini calls them); and this great physical power they owed to
the profuse abundance in which they lived, and to the soldier's training in
which every man of them was bred from childhood. The state of the working
classes can, however, be more certainly determined by a comparison of their
wages with the prices of food. Both were regulated, so far as regulation
was possible, by act of parliament, and we have therefore data of the
clearest kind by which to judge. The majority of agricultural labourers
lived, as I have said, in the houses of their employers; this, however, was
not the case with all, and if we can satisfy ourselves as to the rate at
which those among the poor were able to live who had cottages of their own,
we may be assured that the rest did not live worse at their masters'
tables.

Wheat, the price of which necessarily varied, averaged in the middle of the
fourteenth century tenpence the bushel;[15] barley averaging at the same
time three shillings the quarter. With wheat the fluctuation was excessive;
a table of its possible variations describes it as ranging from
eighteenpence the quarter to twenty shillings; the average, however, being
six and eightpence.[16] When the price was above this sum, the merchants
might import to bring it down;[17] when it was below this price the farmers
were allowed to export to the foreign markets.[18] The same scale, with a
scarcely appreciable tendency to rise, continued to hold until the
disturbance in the value of the currency. In the twelve years from 1551 to
1562, although once before harvest wheat rose to the extraordinary price of
forty-five shillings a quarter, it fell immediately after to five shillings
and four.[19] Six and eightpence continued to be considered in parliament
as the average; [20] and on the whole it seems to have been maintained for
that time with little variation.[21]

Beef and pork were a halfpenny a pound--mutton was three farthings. They
were fixed at these prices by the 3rd of the 24th of Hen. VIII. But the act
was unpopular both with buyers and with sellers. The old practice had been
to sell in the gross, and under that arrangement the rates had been
generally lower. Stow says,[22] "It was this year enacted that butchers
should sell their beef and mutton by weight--beef for a halfpenny the
pound, and mutton for three farthings; which being devised for the great
commodity of the realm (as it was thought), hath proved far otherwise: for
at that time fat oxen were sold for six and twenty shillings and eightpence
the piece; fat wethers for three shillings and fourpence the piece; fat
calves at a like price; and fat lambs for twelvepence. The butchers of
London sold penny pieces of beef for the relief of the poor--every piece
two pound and a half, sometimes three pound for a penny; and thirteen and
sometimes fourteen of these pieces for twelvepence; mutton eightpence the
quarter, and an hundred weight of beef for four shillings and eightpence."
The act was repealed in consequence of the complaints against it,[23] but
the prices never fell again to what they had been, although beef sold in
the gross could still be had for a halfpenny a pound in 1570.[24] Other
articles of food were in the same proportion. The best pig or goose in a
country market could be bought for fourpence; a good capon for threepence
or fourpence; a chicken for a penny; a hen for twopence.[25]

Strong beer, such as we now buy for eighteenpence a gallon, was then a
penny a gallon;[26] and table-beer less than a halfpenny. French and German
wines were eightpence the gallon. Spanish and Portuguese wines a shilling.
This was the highest price at which the best wines might be sold; and if
there was any fault in quality or quantity, the dealers forfeited four
times the amount.[27] Rent, another important consideration, cannot be
fixed so accurately, for parliament did not interfere with it. Here,
however, we are not without very tolerable information. "My father," says
Latimer,[28] "was a yeoman, and had no lands of his own; only he had a
_farm of three or four pounds by the year_ at the uttermost, and hereupon
he tilled so much as kept half-a-dozen men. He had walk for a hundred
sheep, and my mother milked thirty kine. He was able, and did find the king
a harness with himself and his horse. I remember that I buckled on his
harness when he went to Blackheath field. He kept me to school, or else I
had not been able to have preached before the King's Majesty now. He
married my sisters with five pounds, or twenty nobles, each, having brought
them up in godliness and fear of God. He kept hospitality for his poor
neighbours, and some alms he gave to the poor; and all this he did of the
said farm." If "three or four pounds at the uttermost" was the rent of a
farm yielding such results, the rent of labourers' cottages is not likely
to have been considerable.[29]

Some uncertainty is unavoidable in all calculations of the present nature;
yet, after making the utmost allowances for errors, we may conclude from
such a table of prices that a penny, in terms of the labourer's
necessities, must have been nearly equal in the reign of Henry VIII. to the
present shilling. For a penny, at the time of which I write, the labourer
could buy as much bread, beef, beer, and wine--he could do as much towards
finding lodging for himself and his family--as the labourer of the
nineteenth century can for a shilling. I do not see that this admits of
question. Turning, then, to the table of wages, it will be easy to
ascertain his position. By the 3rd of the 6th of Henry VIII. it was enacted
that master carpenters, masons, bricklayers, tylers, plumbers, glaziers,
joiners, and other employers of such skilled workmen, should give to each
of their journeymen, if no meat or drink was allowed, sixpence a day for
the half year, fivepence a day for the other half; or fivepence-halfpenny
for the yearly average. The common labourers were to receive fourpence a
day for half the year, for the remaining half, threepence.[30] In the
harvest months they were allowed to work by the piece, and might earn
considerably more;[31] so that, in fact (and this was the rate at which
their wages were usually estimated), the day labourer, if in full
employment, received on an average fourpence a day for the whole year.
Allowing a deduction of one day in a fortnight for a saint's day or a
holiday, he received, therefore, steadily and regularly, if well conducted,
an equivalent of something near to twenty shillings a week, the wages at
present paid in English colonies: and this is far from being a full account
of his advantages. Except in rare instances, the agricultural labourer held
land in connection with his house, while in most parishes, if not in all,
there were large ranges of common and unenclosed forest land, which
furnished his fuel to him gratis, where pigs might range, and ducks and
geese; where, if he could afford a cow, he was in no danger of being unable
to feed it; and so important was this privilege considered, that when the
commons began to be largely enclosed, parliament insisted that the working
man should not be without some piece of ground on which he could employ his
own and his family's industry.[32] By the 7th of the 31st of Elizabeth, it
was ordered that no cottage should be built for residence without four
acres of land at lowest being attached to it for the sole use of the
occupants of such cottage.

It will, perhaps, be supposed that such comparative prosperity of labour
was the result of the condition of the market in which it was sold, that
the demand for labour was large and the supply limited, and that the state
of England in the sixteenth century was analogous to that of Australia or
Canada at the present time. And so long as we confine our view to the
question of wages alone, it is undoubted that legislation was in favour of
the employer. The Wages Act of Henry VIII. was unpopular with the
labourers, and was held to deprive them of an opportunity of making better
terms for themselves.[33] But we shall fall into extreme error if we
translate into the language of modern political economy the social features
of a state of things which in no way correspond to our own. There was this
essential difference, that labour was not looked upon as a market
commodity; the government (whether wisely or not, I do not presume to
determine) attempting to portion out the rights of the various classes of
society by the rule, not of economy, but of equity. Statesmen did not care
for the accumulation of capital; they desired to see the physical
well-being of all classes of the commonwealth maintained at the highest
degree which the producing power of the country admitted; and population
and production remaining stationary, they were able to do it. This was
their object, and they were supported in it by a powerful and efficient
majority of the nation. On the one side parliament interfered to protect
employers against their labourers; but it was equally determined that
employers should not be allowed to abuse their opportunities; and this
directly appears from the 4th of the 5th of Elizabeth, by which, on the
most trifling appearance of a depreciation in the currency, it was declared
that the labouring man could no longer live on the wages assigned to him by
the act of Henry; and a sliding scale was instituted by which, for the
future, wages should be adjusted to the price of food.[34]

The same conclusion may be gathered also, indirectly, from other acts,
interfering imperiously with the rights of property where a disposition
showed itself to exercise them selfishly. The city merchants, as I have
said, were becoming landowners; and some of them attempted to apply the
rules of trade to the management of landed estates. While wages were ruled
so high, it answered better as a speculation to convert arable land into
pasture; but the law immediately stepped in to prevent a proceeding which
it regarded as petty treason to the commonwealth. Self-protection is the
first law of life; and the country relying for its defence on an
able-bodied population, evenly distributed, ready at any moment to be
called into action, either against foreign invasion or civil disturbance,
it could not permit the owners of land to pursue for their own benefit a
course of action which threatened to weaken its garrisons. It is not often
that we are able to test the wisdom of legislation by specific results so
clearly as in the present instance. The first attempts of the kind which I
have described were made in the Isle of Wight, early in the reign of Henry
VII. Lying so directly exposed to attacks from France, the Isle of Wight
was a place which it was peculiarly important to keep in a state of
defence, and the following act was therefore the consequence:--

"Forasmuch as it is to the surety of the Realm of England that the Isle of
Wight, in the county of Southampton, be well inhabited with English people,
for the defence as well of our antient enemies of the Realm of France as of
other parties; the which Isle is late decayed of people by reason that many
towns and villages have been let down, and the fields dyked and made
pasture for beasts and cattle, and also many dwelling-places, farms, and
farmholds have of late time been used to be taken into one man's hold and
hands, that of old time were wont to be in many several persons' holds and
hands, and many several households kept in them; and thereby much people
multiplied, and the same Isle thereby well inhabited, which now, by the
occasion aforesaid, is desolate and not inhabited, but occupied with beasts
and cattle, so that if hasty remedy be not provided, that Isle cannot long
be kept and defended, but open and ready to the hands of the king's
enemies, which God forbid. For remedy hereof, it is ordained and enacted
that no manner of person, of what estate, degree, or condition soever,
shall take any several farms more than one, whereof the yearly value shall
not exceed the sum of ten marks; and if any several leases afore this time
have been made to any person or persons of divers and sundry farmholds,
whereof the yearly value shall exceed that sum, then the said person or
persons shall choose one farmhold at his pleasure, and the remnant of his
leases shall be utterly void."[35]

An act, tyrannical in form, was singularly justified by its consequences.
The farms were rebuilt, the lands reploughed, the island repeopled; and in
1546, when a French army of sixty thousand men attempted to effect a
landing at St. Helen's, they were defeated and driven off by the militia of
the island and a few levies transported from Hampshire and the adjoining
counties.[36] The money-making spirit, however, lay too deep to be checked
so readily. The trading classes were growing rich under the strong rule of
the Tudors. Increasing numbers of them were buying or renting land; and the
symptoms complained of broke out in the following reign in many parts of
England. They could not choose but break out indeed; for they were the
outward marks of a vital change, which was undermining the feudal
constitution, and would by and bye revolutionise and destroy it. Such
symptoms it was impossible to extinguish; but the government wrestled long
and powerfully to hold down the new spirit; and they fought against it
successfully, till the old order of things had finished its work, and the
time was come for it to depart. By the 1st of the 7th of Henry VIII., the
laws of feudal tenure were put in force against the landed traders.
Wherever lands were converted from tillage to pasture, the lords of the fee
had authority to seize half of all profits until the farm-buildings were
reconstructed. If the immediate lord did not do his duty, the lord next
above him was to do it; and the evil still increasing, the act, twenty
years later, was extended further, and the king had power to seize.[37] Nor
was this all. Sheep-farming had become an integral branch of business; and
falling into the hands of men who understood each other, it had been made a
monopoly, affecting seriously the prices of wool and mutton.[38] Stronger
measures were therefore now taken, and the class to which the offenders
belonged was especially pointed out by parliament.

"Whereas," says the 13th of the 25th of Henry VIII., "divers and sundry
persons of the king's subjects of this Realm, to whom God of his goodness
hath disposed great plenty and abundance of moveable substance, now of
late, within few years, have daily studied, practised, and invented ways
and means how they might accumulate and gather together into few hands, as
well great multitude of farms as great plenty of cattle, and in especial,
sheep, putting such lands as they can get to pasture and not to tillage;
whereby they have not only pulled down churches and towns and enhanced the
old rates of the rents of the possessions of this Realm, or else brought it
to such excessive fines that no poor man is able to meddle with it, but
also have raised and enhanced the prices of all manner of corn, cattle,
wool, pigs, geese, hens, chickens, eggs, and such other commodities, almost
double above the prices which hath been accustomed, by reason whereof a
marvellous multitude of the poor people of this realm be not able to
provide meat, drink, and clothes necessary for themselves, their wives, and
children, but be so discouraged with misery and poverty, that they fall
daily to theft, robbery, and other inconveniences, or pitifully die for
hunger and cold; and it is thought by the king's humble and loving
subjects, that one of the greatest occasions that moveth those greedy and
covetous people so to accumulate and keep in their hands such great
portions and parts of the lands of this Realm from the occupying of the
poor husbandmen, and so to use it in pasture and not in tillage, is the
great profit that cometh of sheep which be now come into a few persons'
hands, in respect of the whole number of the king's subjects; it is hereby
enacted, that no person shall have or keep on lands not their own
inheritance more than 2000 sheep; that no person shall occupy more than two
farms; and that the 19th of the 4th of Henry VII., and those other acts
obliging the lords of the fees to do their duty, shall be re-enacted and
enforced."[39]

By these measures the money-making spirit was for a time driven back, and
the country resumed its natural course. I am not concerned to defend the
economic wisdom of such proceedings; but they prove, I think, conclusively,
that the labouring classes owed their advantages not to the condition of
the labour market, but to the care of the state; and that when the state
relaxed its supervision, or failed to enforce its regulations, the
labourers being left to the market chances, sank instantly in the unequal
struggle with capital.

The government, however, remained strong enough to hold its ground (except
during the discreditable interlude of the reign of Edward VI.) for the
first three quarters of the century; and until that time the working
classes of this country remained in a condition more than prosperous. They
enjoyed an abundance far beyond what in general falls to the lot of that
order in long-settled countries; incomparably beyond what the same class
were enjoying at that very time in Germany or France. The laws secured
them; and that the laws were put in force we have the direct evidence of
successive acts of the legislature justifying the general policy by its
success: and we have also the indirect evidence of the contented loyalty of
the great body of the people at a time when, if they had been discontented,
they held in their own hands the means of asserting what the law
acknowledged to be their right. The government had no power to compel
submission to injustice, as was proved by the fate of an attempt to levy a
"benevolence" by force, in 1525. The people resisted with a determination
against which the crown commissioners were unable to contend, and the
scheme ended with an acknowledgment of fault by Henry, who retired with a
good grace from an impossible position. If the peasantry had been suffering
under any real grievances we should not have failed to have heard of them
when the religious rebellions furnished so fair an opportunity to press
those grievances forward. Complaint was loud enough when complaint was
just, under the Somerset protectorate. [40]

The incomes of the great nobles cannot be determined, for they varied
probably as much as they vary now. Under Henry IV. the average income of an
earl was estimated at £2000 a year.[41] Under Henry VIII. the great Duke of
Buckingham, the wealthiest English peer, had £6000.[42] And the income of
the Archbishop of Canterbury was rated at the same amount.[43] But the
establishments of such men were enormous; their ordinary retinues in time
of peace consisting of many hundred persons; and in war, when the duties of
a nobleman called him to the field, although in theory his followers were
paid by the crown, yet the grants of parliament were on so small a scale
that the theory was seldom converted into fact, and a large share of the
expenses was paid often out of private purses. The Duke of Norfolk, in the
Scotch war of 1523, declared (not complaining of it, but merely as a reason
why he should receive support) that he had spent all his private means upon
the army; and in the sequel of this history we shall find repeated
instances of knights and gentlemen voluntarily ruining themselves in the
service of their country. The people, not universally, but generally, were
animated by a true spirit of sacrifice; by a true conviction that they were
bound to think first of England, and only next of themselves; and unless we
can bring ourselves to understand this, we shall never understand what
England was under the reigns of the Plantagenets and Tudors. The expenses
of the court under Henry VII. were a little over £14,000 a year, out of
which were defrayed the whole cost of the king's establishment, the
expenses of entertaining foreign ambassadors, the wages and maintenance of
the yeomen of the guard, the retinues of servants, and all necessary outlay
not incurred for public business. Under Henry VIII., of whose extravagance
we have heard so much, and whose court was the most magnificent in the
world, these expenses were £19,894 16s. 8d.,[44] a small sum when compared
with the present cost of the royal establishment, even if we adopt the
relative estimate of twelve to one, and suppose it equal to £240,000 a year
of our money. But indeed it was not equal to £240,000; for, although the
proportion held in articles of common consumption, articles of luxury were
very dear indeed.[45]

Passing down from the king and his nobles, to the body of the people, we
find that the income qualifying a country gentleman to be justice of the
peace was £20 a year, [46] and if he did his duty, his office was no
sinecure. We remember Justice Shallow and his clerk Davy, with his novel
theory of magisterial law; and Shallow's broad features have so English a
cast about them, that we may believe there were many such, and that the
duty was not always very excellently done. But the Justice Shallows were
not allowed to repose upon their dignity. The justice of the peace was
required not only to take cognisance of open offences, but to keep
surveillance over all persons within his district, and over himself in his
own turn there was a surveillance no less sharp, and penalties for neglect
prompt and peremptory.[47] Four times a year he was to make proclamation of
his duty, and exhort all persons to complain against him who had occasion.

Twenty pounds a year, and heavy duties to do for it, represented the
condition of the squire of the parish.[48] By the 2nd of the 2nd of Henry
V., "the wages" of a parish priest were limited to £5 6s. 8d., except in
cases where there was special licence from the bishop, when they might be
raised as high as £6. Priests were probably something better off under
Henry VIII., but the statute remained in force, and marks an approach at
least to their ordinary salary.[49] The priest had enough, being unmarried,
to supply him in comfort with the necessaries of life. The squire had
enough to provide moderate abundance for himself and his family. Neither
priest nor squire was able to establish any steep difference in outward
advantages between himself and the commons among whom he lived.

The habits of all classes were open, free, and liberal. There are two
expressions corresponding one to the other, which we frequently meet with
in old writings, and which are used as a kind of index, marking whether the
condition of things was or was not what it ought to be. We read of "merry
England;"--when England was not merry, things were not going well with it.
We hear of "the glory of hospitality," England's pre-eminent boast,-by the
rules of which all tables, from the table of the twenty-shilling freeholder
to the table in the baron's hall and abbey refectory, were open at the
dinner hour to all comers, without stint or reserve, or question asked:[50]
to every man, according to his degree, who chose to ask for it there was
free fee and free lodging; bread, beef, and beer for his dinner; for his
lodging, perhaps, only a mat of rushes in a spare corner of the hall, with
a billet of wood for a pillow,[51] but freely offered and freely taken, the
guest probably faring much as his host fared, neither worse nor better.
There was little fear of an abuse of such licence, for suspicious
characters had no leave to wander at pleasure; and for any man found at
large and unable to give a sufficient account of himself, there were the
ever-ready parish stocks or town gaol. The "glory of hospitality" lasted
far down into Elizabeth's time; and then, as Camden says, "came in great
bravery of building, to the marvellous beautifying of the realm, but to the
decay" of what he valued more.

In such frank style the people lived, hating three things with all their
hearts: idleness, want, and cowardice; and for the rest carrying their
hearts high, and having their hands full. The[52] hour of rising, winter
and summer, was four o'clock, with breakfast at five, after which the
labourers went to work and the gentlemen to business, of which they had no
little. In the country every unknown face was challenged and examined--if
the account given was insufficient, he was brought before the justice; if
the village shopkeeper sold bad wares, if the village cobbler made
"unhonest" shoes, if servants and masters quarrelled, all was to be looked
to by the justice; there was no fear lest time should hang heavy with him.
At twelve he dined; after dinner he went hunting, or to his farm or to what
he pleased.[53] It was a life unrefined, perhaps, but coloured with a
broad, rosy, English health.

Of the education of noblemen and gentlemen we have contradictory accounts,
as might be expected. The universities were well filled, by the sons of
yeomen chiefly. The cost of supporting them at the colleges was little, and
wealthy men took a pride in helping forward any boys of promise.[54] It
seems clear also, as the Reformation drew nearer, while the clergy were
sinking lower and lower, a marked change for the better became perceptible
in a portion at least of the laity. The more old-fashioned of the higher
ranks were slow in moving; for as late as the reign of Edward VI.[55] there
were peers of parliament unable to read; but on the whole, the invention of
printing, and the general ferment which was commencing all over the world,
had produced marked effects in all classes. Henry VIII. himself spoke four
languages, and was well read in theology and history; and the high
accomplishments of More and Sir T. Elliott, of Wyatt and Cromwell, were but
the extreme expression of a temper which was rapidly spreading, and which
gave occasion, among other things to the following reflection in Erasmus.
"Oh, strange vicissitudes of human things," exclaims he. "Heretofore the
heart of learning was among such as professed religion. Now, while they for
the most part give themselves up, _ventri luxui pecunięque_, the love of
learning is gone from them to secular princes, the court and the nobility.
May we not justly be ashamed of ourselves? The feasts of priests and
divines are drowned in wine, are filled with scurrilous jests, sound with
intemperate noise and tumult, flow with spiteful slanders and defamation of
others; while at princes' tables modest disputations are held concerning
things which make for learning and piety."

A letter to Thomas Cromwell from his son's tutor will not be without
interest on this subject; Cromwell was likely to have been unusually
careful in his children's training, and we need not suppose that all boys
were brought up as prudently. Sir Peter Carew, for instance, being a boy at
about the same time, and giving trouble at the High School at Exeter, was
led home to his father's house at Ottery, coupled between two
foxhounds.[56] Yet the education of Gregory Cromwell is probably not far
above what many young men of the middle and higher ranks were beginning to
receive. Henry Dowes was the tutor's name, beyond which fact I know nothing
of him. His letter is as follows:--

"After that it pleased your mastership to give me in charge, not only to
give diligent attendance upon Master Gregory, but also to instruct him with
good letters, honest manners, pastyme of instruments, and such other
qualities as should be for him meet and convenient, pleaseth it you to
understand that for the accomplishment thereof I have endeavoured myself by
all ways possible to excogitate how I might most profit him. In which
behalf, through his diligence, the success is such as I trust shall be to
your good contentation and pleasure, and to his no small profit. But for
cause the summer was spent in the service of the wild gods, [and] it is so
much to be regarded after what fashion youth is brought up, in which time
that that is learned for the most part will not be wholly forgotten in the
older years, I think it my duty to acertain your mastership how he spendeth
his time. And first after he hath heard mass he taketh a lecture of a
dialogue of Erasmus' _Colloquies_, called _Pietas Puerilis_, wherein is
described a very picture of one that should be virtuously brought up; and
for cause it is so necessary for him, I do not only cause him to read it
over, but also to practise the precepts of the same. After this he
exerciseth his hand in writing one or two hours, and readeth upon Fabyan's
_Chronicle_ as long. The residue of the day he doth spend upon the lute and
virginals. When he rideth, as he doth very oft, I tell him by the way some
history of the Romans or the Greeks, which I cause him to rehearse again in
a tale. For his recreation he useth to hawk and hunt and shoot in his long
bow, which frameth and succeedeth so well with him that he seemeth to be
thereunto given by nature."[57]

I have spoken of the organisation of the country population, I have now to
speak of that of the towns, of the trading classes and manufacturing
classes, the regulations respecting which are no less remarkable and no
less illustrative of the national character. If the tendency of trade to
assume at last a form of mere self-interest be irresistible, if political
economy represent the laws to which in the end it is forced to submit
itself, the nation spared no efforts, either of art or policy, to defer to
the last moment the unwelcome conclusion.

The names and shadows linger about London of certain ancient societies, the
members of which may still occasionally be seen in quaint gilt barges
pursuing their own difficult way among the swarming steamers; when on
certain days, the traditions concerning which are fast dying out of memory,
the Fishmongers' Company, the Goldsmiths' Company, the Mercers' Company,
make procession down the river for civic feastings at Greenwich or
Blackwall. The stately tokens of ancient honour still belong to them, and
the remnants of ancient wealth and patronage and power. Their charters may
be read by curious antiquaries, and the bills of fare of their ancient
entertainments. But for what purpose they were called into being, what
there was in these associations of common trades to surround with gilded
insignia, and how they came to be possessed of broad lands and church
preferments, few people now care to think or to inquire. Trade and traders
have no dignity any more in the eyes of any one, except what money lends to
them; and these outward symbols scarcely rouse even a passing feeling of
curiosity. And yet these companies were once something more than names.
They are all which now remain of a vast organisation which once penetrated
the entire trading life of England--an organisation set on foot to realise
that most necessary, if most difficult, condition of commercial excellence
under which man should deal faithfully with his brother, and all wares
offered for sale, of whatever kind, should honestly be what they pretend to
be.[58] I spoke of the military principle which directed the distribution
and the arrangements of land. The analogy will best explain a state of
things in which every occupation was treated as the division of an army;
regiments being quartered in every town, each with its own self-elected
officers, whose duty was to exercise authority over all persons professing
the business to which they belonged; who were to see that no person
undertook to supply articles which he had not been educated to manufacture;
who were to determine the prices at which such articles ought justly to be
sold; above all, who were to take care that the common people really bought
at shops and stalls what they supposed themselves to be buying; that cloth
put up for sale was true cloth, of true texture and full weight: that
leather was sound and well tanned; wine pure, measures honest; flour
unmixed with devil's dust;--who were generally to look to it that in all
contracts between man and man for the supply of man's necessities, what we
call honesty of dealing should be truly and faithfully observed.[59] An
organisation for this purpose did once really exist in England,[60] really
trying to do the work which it was intended to do, as half the pages of our
early statutes witness. In London, as the metropolis, a central council
sate for every branch of trade, and this council was in communication with
the Chancellor and the Crown. It was composed of the highest and most
respectable members of the profession, and its office was to determine
prices, fix wages, arrange the rules of apprenticeship, and discuss all
details connected with the business on which legislation might be required.
Further, this council received the reports of the searchers--high officers
taken from their own body, whose business was to inspect, in company with
the lord mayor or some other city dignitary, the shops of the respective
traders; to receive complaints, and to examine into them. In each
provincial town local councils sate in connection with the municipal
authorities, who fulfilled in these places the same duties; and their
reports being forwarded to the central body, and considered by them,
representations on all necessary matters were then made to the privy
council; and by the privy council, if requisite, were submitted to
parliament. If these representations were judged to require legislative
interference, the statutes which were passed in consequence were returned
through the Chancellor to the mayors of the various towns and cities, by
whom they were proclaimed as law. No person was allowed to open a trade or
to commence a manufacture, either in London or the provinces, unless he had
first served his apprenticeship; unless he could prove to the satisfaction
of the authorities that he was competent in his craft; and unless he
submitted as a matter of course to their supervision. The legislature had
undertaken not to let that indispensable task go wholly unattempted, of
distributing the various functions of society by the rule of capacity; of
compelling every man to do his duty in an honest following of his proper
calling, securing to him that he in his turn should not be injured by his
neighbour's misdoings.

The state further promising for itself that all able-bodied men should be
found in work,[61] and not allowing any man to work at a business for which
he was unfit, insisted as its natural right that children should not be
allowed to grow up in idleness, to be returned at mature age upon its
hands. Every child, so far as possible, was to be trained up in some
business or calling,[62] idleness "being the mother of all sin," and the
essential duty of every man being to provide honestly for himself and his
family. The educative theory, for such it was, was simple but effective: it
was based on the single principle that, next to the knowledge of a man's
duty to God, and as a means towards doing that duty, the first condition of
a worthy life was the ability to maintain it in independence. Varieties of
inapplicable knowledge might be good, but they were not essential; such
knowledge might be left to the leisure of after years, or it might be
dispensed with without vital injury. Ability to labour could not be
dispensed with, and this, therefore, the state felt it to be its own duty
to see provided; so reaching, I cannot but think, the heart of the whole
matter. The children of those who could afford the small entrance fees were
apprenticed to trades, the rest were apprenticed to agriculture; and if
children were found growing up idle, and their fathers or their friends
failed to prove that they were able to secure them an ultimate maintenance,
the mayors in towns and the magistrates in the country had authority to
take possession of such children, and apprentice them as they saw fit, that
when they grew up "they might not be driven" by want or incapacity "to
dishonest courses."[63]

Such is an outline of the organisation of English society under the
Plantagenets and Tudors. A detail of the working of the trade laws would be
beyond my present purpose. It is obvious that such laws could be enforced
only under circumstances when production and population remained (as I said
before) nearly stationary; and it would be madness to attempt to apply them
to the changed condition of the present. It would be well if some competent
person would make these laws the subject of a special treatise. I will run
the risk, however, of wearying the reader with two or three illustrative
statutes, which I have chosen, not as being more significant than many
others, but as specimens merely of the discipline under which, for
centuries, the trade and manufactures of England contrived to move; showing
on one side the good which the system effected, on the other the inevitable
evils under which it finally sank.

The first which I shall quote concerns simply the sale of specific goods
and the means by which tradesmen were prevented from enhancing prices. The
Act is the 6th of the 24th of Henry VIII., and concerns the sale of wines,
the statute prices of which I have already mentioned.

"Because," says this Act, "that divers merchants inhabiting within the city
of London have of late not only presumed to bargain and sell in gross to
divers of the king's subjects great quantities of wines of Gascony,
Guienne, and French wines, some for five pounds per tonne, some for more
and some for less, and so after the rate of excessive prices contrary to
the effect of a good and laudable statute lately made in this present
parliament; that is to say, contrary to and above the prices thereof set by
the Right Honourable Lord Chancellor, Lord Treasurer, Lord President of the
King's most honourable Council, Lord Privy Seal, and the two Chief Justices
of either bench, whereby they be fallen into the penalties limited by the
said statute; as by due proof made by examination taken is well known--but
also having in their hands great abundance of wine, by them acquired and
bought to be sold, obstinately and maliciously, since their said attemptate
and defaults proved, have refused to bargain and sell to many of the king's
subjects any of their said wines remaining and being in their hands;
purposing and intending thereby their own singular and unreasonable lucres
and profits, to have larger and higher prices of their said wines, to be
set according to their insatiable appetites and minds; it is therefore
ordained and enacted, by authority of this present parliament, that every
merchant now having, or which shall hereafter have, wines to be sold, and
refusing to sell or deliver, or not selling and delivering any of the said
wines for ready money therefore to be paid, according to the price or
prices thereof being set, shall forfeit and lose the value of the wine so
required to be bought.... For due execution of which provision, and for the
relief of the king's subjects, it shall be lawful to all and singular
justices of the peace, mayors, bailiffs, and other head officers in shires,
cities, boroughs, towns, etc., at the request of any person to whom the
said merchant or merchants have refused to sell, to enter into the cellars
and other places where such wines shall lie or be, and to sell and deliver
the same wine or wines desired to be bought to the person or persons
requiring to buy the same; taking of the buyer of the wine so sold to the
use and satisfaction of the proprietor aforesaid, according to the prices
determined by the law."

The next which I select is the eleventh of the second and third of Philip
and Mary; and falling in the midst of the smoke of the Smithfield fires,
and the cruelties of that melancholy time, it shines like a fair gleam of
humanity, which will not lose anything of its lustre because the evils
against which it contends have in our times, also, furnished matter for
sorrow and calamity--calamity which we unhappily have been unable even to
attempt to remedy. It is termed "An Act touching Weavers," and runs:

"Forasmuch as the weavers of this realm have, as well at this present
parliament as at divers other times, complained that the rich and wealthy
clothiers do in many ways oppress them--some by setting up and keeping in
their houses divers looms, and keeping and maintaining them by journeymen
and persons unskilful, to the decay of a great number of artificers which
were brought up in the said science of weaving, with their families and
their households--some by engrossing of looms into their hands and
possession, and letting them out at such unreasonable rents, as the poor
artificers are not able to maintain themselves, much less maintain their
wives, families, and children--some also by giving much less wages and hire
for weaving and workmanship than in times past they did, whereby they are
enforced utterly to forsake their art and occupation wherein they have been
brought up; It is, therefore, for remedy of the premises, and for the
avoiding of a great number of inconveniences which may grow if in time it
be not foreseen, ordained and enacted by authority of this present
parliament, that no person using the feat or mystery of cloth-making, and
dwelling out of a city, borough, market-town, or corporate town, shall
keep, or retain, or have in his or their houses or possession, any more
than one woollen loom at a time; nor shall by any means, directly or
indirectly, receive or take any manner of profit, gain, or commodity, by
letting or setting any loom, or any house wherein any loom is or shall be
used or occupied, which shall be together by him set or let, upon pain of
forfeiture for every week that any person shall do the contrary to the
tenor and true meaning hereof, twenty shillings."

A provision then follows, limiting weavers living in towns to two
looms--the plain intention being to prevent the cloth manufacture from
falling into the power of large capitalists employing "hands;" and to
enable as many persons as possible to earn all in their own homes their own
separate independent living. I suppose that the parliament was aware that
by pursuing this policy the cost of production was something increased;
that cloth was thus made dearer than it would have been if trade had been
left to follow its own course. It considered, however, that the loss was
compensated to the nation by retaining its people in the condition not of
"hands," but of men; by rendering them independent of masters, who only
sought to make their own advantage at the expense of labour; and enabling
them to continue to maintain themselves in manly freedom. The weak point of
all such provisions did not lie, I think, in the economic aspect of them,
but in a far deeper difficulty. The details of trade legislation, it is
obvious, could only be determined by persons professionally conversant with
those details; and the indispensable condition of success with such
legislation is, that it be conducted under the highest sense of the
obligations of honesty. No laws are of any service which are above the
working level of public morality; and the deeper they are carried down into
life, the larger become the opportunities of evasion. That the system
succeeded for centuries is evident from the organisation of the companies
remaining so long in its vitality; but the efficiency of this organisation
for the maintenance of fair dealing could exist only so long as the
companies themselves--their wardens and their other officials, who alone,
_quisque in suā arte_, were competent to judge what was right and what was
wrong--could be trusted, at the same time being interested parties, to give
a disinterested judgment. The largeness of the power inevitably committed
to the councils was at once a temptation and an opportunity to abuse those
powers; and slowly through the statute book we find the traces of the
poison as it crept in and in. Already in the 24th of Henry VIII., we meet
with complaints in the leather trade of the fraudulent conduct of the
searchers, whose duty was to affix their seal upon leather ascertained to
be sound, before it was exposed for sale, "which mark or print, for
corruption and lucre, is commonly set and put by such as take upon them the
search and sealing, as well upon leather insufficiently tanned, as upon
leather well tanned, to the great deceit of the buyers thereof." About the
same time, the "craft wardens" of the various fellowships, "out of sinister
mind and purpose," were levying excessive fees on the admission of
apprentices; and when parliament interfered to bring them to order, they
"compassed and practised by cautill and subtle means to delude the good and
wholesome statutes passed for remedy."[64] The old proverb, _Quis custodiat
custodes_, had begun to verify itself, and the symptom was a fatal one.
These evils, for the first half of the century, remained within compass;
but as we pass on we find them increasing steadily. In the 7th and the 8th
of Elizabeth, there are indications of the truck system; and towards her
later years, the multiplying statutes and growing complaints and
difficulties show plainly that the companies had lost their healthy
vitality, and, with other relics of feudalism, were fast taking themselves
away. There were no longer tradesmen to be found in sufficient numbers who
were possessed of the necessary probity; and it is impossible not to
connect such a phenomenon with the deep melancholy which in those years
settled down on Elizabeth herself.

For, indeed, a change was coming upon the world, the meaning and direction
of which even still is hidden from us, a change from era to era. The paths
trodden by the footsteps of ages were broken up; old things were passing
away, and the faith and the life of ten centuries were dissolving like a
dream. Chivalry was dying; the abbey and the castle were soon together to
crumble into ruins; and all the forms, desires, beliefs, convictions of the
old world were passing away, never to return. A new continent had risen up
beyond the western sea. The floor of heaven, inlaid with stars, had sunk
back into an infinite abyss of immeasurable space; and the firm earth
itself, unfixed from its foundations, was seen to be but a small atom in
the awful vastness of the universe. In the fabric of habit in which they
had so laboriously built for themselves, mankind were to remain no longer.

And now it is all gone--like an unsubstantial pageant faded; and between us
and the old English there lies a gulf of mystery which the prose of the
historian will never adequately bridge. They cannot come to us, and our
imagination can but feebly penetrate to them. Only among the aisles of the
cathedral, only as we gaze upon their silent figures sleeping on their
tombs, some faint conceptions float before us of what these men were when
they were alive; and perhaps in the sound of church bells, that peculiar
creation of medięval age, which falls upon the ear like the echo of a
vanished world.

The transition out of this old state is what in this book I have undertaken
to relate. As yet there were uneasy workings below the surface; but the
crust was unbroken, and the nation remained outwardly unchanged as it had
been for centuries. I have still some few features to add to my
description.

Nothing, I think, proves more surely the mutual confidence which held
together the government and the people, than the fact that all classes were
armed. Every man, as I have already said, was a soldier; and every man was
ready equipped at all times with the arms which corresponded to his rank.
By the great statute of Winchester,[65] which was repeated and expanded on
many occasions in the after reigns, it was enacted, "That every man have
harness in his house to keep the peace after the antient assise--that is to
say, every man between fifteen years of age and sixty years shall be
assessed and sworn to armour according to the quantity of his lands and
goods--that is, to wit, for fifteen pounds lands and forty marks goods, a
hauberke, a helmet of iron, a sword, a dagger, and a horse. For ten pounds
of lands and twenty marks goods, a hauberke, a helmet, a sword, and a
dagger. For five pounds lands, a doublet, a helmet of iron, a sword, and a
dagger. For forty shillings lands, a sword, a bow and arrows, and a dagger.
And all others that may shall have bows and arrows. Review of armour shall
be made every year two times, by two constables for every hundred and
franchise thereunto appointed; and the constables shall present, to
justices assigned for that purpose, such defaults as they do find."

As the archery was more developed, and the bow became the peculiar weapon
of the English, regular practice was ordered, and shooting became at once
the drill and the amusement of the people. Every hamlet had its pair of
butts; and on Sundays and holidays[66] all able-bodied men were required to
appear in the field, to employ their leisure hours "as valyant Englishmen
ought to do," "utterly leaving the play at the bowls, quoits, dice, kails,
and other unthrifty games;" magistrates, mayors, and bailiffs being
responsible for their obedience, under penalty, if these officers neglected
their duty, of a fine of twenty shillings for each offence. On the same
days, the tilt-yard at the Hall or Castle was thrown open, and the young
men of rank amused themselves with similar exercises. Fighting, or mock
fighting--and the imitation was not unlike the reality--was at once the
highest enjoyment and the noblest accomplishment of all ranks in the state;
and over that most terrible of human occupations they had flung the
enchanted halo of chivalry, decorating it with all the fairest graces, and
consecrating it with the most heroic aspirations.

The chivalry, with much else, was often perhaps something ideal. In the
wars of the Roses it had turned into mere savage ferocity; and in forty
years of carnage the fighting propensities had glutted themselves. A
reaction followed, and in the early years of Henry VIII. the statutes were
growing obsolete, and the "unlawful games" rising again into favour. The
younger nobles, or some among them, were shrinking from the tilt-yard, and
were backward on occasions even when required for war. Lord Surrey, when
waiting on the Border, expecting the Duke of Albany to invade the northern
counties, in 1523, complained of the growing "slowness" of the young lords
"to be at such journeys,"[67] and of their "inclination to dancing,
carding, and dicing." The people had followed the example, and were falling
out of archery practice, exchanging it for similar amusements. Henry VIII.,
in his earlier days an Englishman after the old type, set himself
resolutely to oppose these downward tendencies, and to brace again the
slackened sinews of the nation. In his own person he was the best rider,
the best lance, and the best archer in England; and while a boy he was
dreaming of fresh Agincourts, and even of fresh crusades. In 1511, when he
had been king only three years, parliament re-enacted the Winchester
statute, with new and remarkable provisions; and twice subsequently in the
course of his reign he returned back upon the subject, insisting upon it
with increasing stringency. The language of the Act of 1511 is not a little
striking. "The King's Highness," so the words run, "calling to his gracious
remembrance that by the feats and exercise of the subjects of his realm in
shooting in long bows, there had continually grown and been within the same
great numbers and multitudes of good archers, which hath not only defended
the realm and the subjects thereof against the cruel malice and dangers of
their enemies in times heretofore past, but also, with little numbers and
puissance in regard of their opposites, have done many notable acts and
discomfitures of war against the infidels and others; and furthermore
reduced divers regions and countries to their due obeysance, to the great
honour, fame, and surety of this realm and subjects, and to the terrible
dread and fear of all strange nations, anything to attempt or do to the
hurt or damage of them: Yet nevertheless that archery and shooting in long
bows is but little used, but daily does minish and decay, and abate more
and more; for that much part of the commonalty and poor people of this
realm, whereby of old time the great number and substance of archers had
grown and multiplied, be not of power nor ability to buy them long bows of
yew to exercise shooting in the same, and to sustain the continual charge
thereof; and also because, by means and occasions of customable usage of
tennis play, bowles, claish and other unlawful games, prohibited by many
good and beneficent statutes, much impoverishment hath ensued: Wherefore,
the King's Highness, of his great wisdom and providence, and also for zeal
to the public weal, surety, and defence of this his realm, and the antient
fame in this behalf to be revived, by the assent of his Lords Spiritual and
Temporal, and his Commons in this present parliament assembled, hath
enacted and established that the statute of Winchester for archers be put
in due execution; and over that, that every man being the king's subject,
not lame, decrepit, or maimed, being within the age of sixty years, except
spiritual men, justices of the one bench and of the other, justices of the
assize, and barons of the exchequer, do use and exercise shooting in long
bows, and also do have a bow and arrows ready continually in his house, to
use himself in shooting. And that every man having a man child or men
children in his house, shall provide for all such, being of the age of
seven years and above, and till they shall come to the age of seventeen
years, a bow and two shafts, to learn them and bring them up in shooting;
and after such young men shall come to the age of seventeen years, every of
them shall provide and have a bow and four arrows continually for himself,
at his proper costs and charges, or else of the gift and provision of his
friends, and shall use the same as afore is rehearsed." Other provisions
are added, designed to suppress the games complained of, and to place the
bows more within the reach of the poor, by cheapening the prices of them.

The same statute[68] (and if this be a proof that it had imperfectly
succeeded, it is a proof also of Henry's confidence in the general
attachment of his subjects) was re-enacted thirty years later, at the
crisis of the Reformation, when the northern counties were fermenting in a
half-suppressed rebellion, and the catholics at home and abroad were
intriguing to bring about a revolution. In this subsequent edition of
it[69] some particulars are added which demand notice. In the directions to
the villages for the maintaining each "a pair of buttes," it is ordered
that no person above the age of twenty-four shall shoot with the light
flight arrow at a distance under two hundred and twenty yards. Up to two
hundred and twenty yards, therefore, the heavy war arrow was used, and this
is to be taken as the effective range for fighting purposes of the old
archery.[70] No measures could have been invented more effective than this
vigorous arming to repress the self-seeking tendencies in the mercantile
classes which I have mentioned as beginning to show themselves. Capital
supported by force may make its own terms with labour; but capital lying
between a king on one side resolved to prevent oppression, and a people on
the other side in full condition to resist, felt even prudence dictate
moderation, and reserved itself for a more convenient season.

Looking, therefore, at the state of England as a whole, I cannot doubt that
under Henry the body of the people were prosperous, well-fed, loyal, and
contented. In all points of material comfort they were as well off as they
had ever been before; better off than they have ever been in later times.

Their amusements, as prescribed by statute, consisted in training
themselves as soldiers. In the prohibitions of the statutes we see also
what their amusements were inclined to be. But besides "the bowles and the
claish," field sports, fishing, shooting, hunting, were the delight of
every one, and although the forest laws were terrible, they served only to
enhance the excitement by danger. Then, as now, no English peasant could be
convinced that there was any moral crime in appropriating the wild game. It
was an offence against statute law, but no offence against natural law; and
it was rather a trial of skill between the noble who sought to monopolise a
right which seemed to be common to all, and those who would succeed, if
they could, in securing their own share of it. The Robin Hood ballads
reflect the popular feeling and breathe the warm genial spirit of the old
greenwood adventurers. If deer-stealing was a sin, it was more than
compensated by the risk of the penalty to which those who failed submitted,
when no other choice was left. They did not always submit, as the old
northern poem shows of _Adam Bell, Clym of the Clough, and William of
Cloudislee_, with its most immoral moral; yet I suppose there was never
pedant who could resist the spell of those ringing lines, or refuse with
all his heart to wish the rogues success, and confusion to the honest men.

But the English peasantry had pleasures of less ambiguous propriety, and
less likely to mislead our sympathies. The chroniclers have given us many
accounts of the masques and plays which were acted in the court, or in the
castles of the noblemen. Such pageants were but the most splendid
expression of a taste which was national and universal. As in ancient
Greece, generations before the rise of the great dramas of Athens,
itinerant companies wandered from village to village, carrying their stage
furniture in their little carts, and acted in their booths and tents the
grand stories of the mythology; so in England the mystery players haunted
the wakes and fairs, and in barns or taverns, taprooms, or in the farmhouse
kitchen, played at saints and angels, and transacted on their petty stage
the drama of the Christian faith. To us, who can measure the effect of such
scenes only by the impression which they would now produce upon ourselves,
these exhibitions can seem but unspeakably profane; they were not profane
when tendered in simplicity, and received as they were given. They were no
more profane than those quaint monastic illuminations which formed the germ
of Italian art; and as out of the illuminations arose those paintings which
remain unapproached and unapproachable in their excellence, so out of the
mystery plays arose the English drama, represented in its final
completeness by the creations of a poet who, it now begins to be supposed,
stands alone among mankind. We allow ourselves to think of Shakspeare or of
Raphael or of Phidias, as having accomplished their work by the power of
their own individual genius; but greatness like theirs is never more than
the highest degree of an excellence which prevails widely round it, and
forms the environment in which it grows. No single mind in single contact
with the facts of nature could have created out of itself a Pallas, a
Madonna, or a Lear; such vast conceptions are the growth of ages, the
creations of a nation's spirit; and artist and poet, filled full with the
power of that spirit, have but given them form, and nothing more than form.
Nor would the form itself have been attainable by any isolated talent. No
genius can dispense with experience; the aberrations of power, unguided or
ill-guided, are ever in proportion to its intensity, and life is not long
enough to recover from inevitable mistakes. Noble conceptions already
existing, and a noble school of execution which will launch mind and hand
at once upon their true courses, are indispensable to transcendent
excellence; and Shakspeare's plays were as much the offspring of the long
generations who had pioneered his road for him, as the discoveries of
Newton were the offspring of those of Copernicus.

No great general ever arose out of a nation of cowards; no great statesman
or philosopher out of a nation of fools; no great artist out of a nation of
materialists; no great dramatist except when the drama was the passion of
the people. Acting was the especial amusement of the English, from the
palace to the village green. It was the result and expression of their
power over themselves, and power over circumstances. They were troubled
with no subjective speculations; no social problems vexed them with which
they were unable to deal; and in the exuberance of vigour and spirits they
were able, in the strict and literal sense of the word, to play with the
materials of life. The mystery plays came first; next the popular legends;
and then the great figures of English history came out upon the stage, or
stories from Greek and Roman writers; or sometimes it was an extemporised
allegory. Shakspeare himself has left us many pictures of the village
drama. Doubtless he had seen many a Bottom in the old Warwickshire hamlets;
many a Sir Nathaniel playing "Alissander," and finding himself "a little
o'erparted." He had been with Snug the joiner, Quince the carpenter, and
Flute the bellows-mender, when a boy we will not question, and acted with
them, and written their parts for them; had gone up with them in the
winter's evenings to the Lucy's Hall before the sad trouble with the
deer-stealing; and afterwards, when he came to London and found his way
into great society, he had not failed to see Polonius burlesquing Cęsar on
the stage, as in his proper person Polonius burlesqued Sir William Cecil.
The strolling players in _Hamlet_ might be met at every country wake or
festival; it was the direction in which the especial genius of the people
delighted to revel. As I desire in this chapter not only to relate what
were the habits of the people, but to illustrate them also, within such
compass as I can allow myself, I shall transcribe out of Hall[71] a
description of a play which was acted by the boys of St. Paul's School, in
1527, at Greenwich, adding some particulars, not mentioned by Hall, from
another source.[72] It is a good instance of the fantastic splendour with
which exhibitions of this kind were got up, and it possesses also a
melancholy interest of another kind, as showing how little the wisest among
us can foresee our own actions, or assure ourselves that the convictions of
to-day will alike be the convictions of to-morrow. The occasion was the
despatch of a French embassy to England, when Europe was outraged by the
Duke of Bourbon's capture of Rome, when the children of Francis I. were
prisoners in Spain, and Henry, with the full energy of his fiery nature,
was flinging himself into a quarrel with Charles V. as the champion of the
Holy See.

At the conclusion of a magnificent supper "the king led the ambassadors
into the great chamber of disguisings; and in the end of the same chamber
was a fountain, and on one side was a hawthorne tree, all of silk, with
white flowers, and on the other side was a mulberry tree full of fair
berries, all of silk. On the top of the hawthorne were the arms of England,
compassed with the collar of the order[73] of St. Michael, and in the top
of the mulberry tree stood the arms of France within a garter. The fountain
was all of white marble, graven and chased; the bases of the same were
balls of gold, supported by ramping beasts wound in leaves of gold. In the
first work were gargoylles of gold, fiercely faced with spouts running. The
second receit of this fountain was environed with winged serpents, all of
gold, which griped it; and on the summit of the same was a fair lady, out
of whose breasts ran abundantly water of marvellous delicious savour. About
this fountain were benches of rosemary, fretted in braydes laid on gold,
all the sides set with roses, on branches as they were growing about this
fountain. On the benches sate eight fair ladies in strange attire, and so
richly apparelled in cloth of gold, embroidered and cut over silver, that I
cannot express the cunning workmanship thereof. Then when the king and
queen were set, there was played before them, by children, in the Latin
tongue, a manner of tragedy, the effect whereof was that the pope was in
captivity and the church brought under foot. Whereupon St. Peter appeared
and put the cardinal (Wolsey) in authority to bring the pope to his
liberty, and to set up the church again. And so the cardinal made
intercession with the kings of England and France that they took part
together, and by their means the pope was delivered. Then in came the
French king's children, and complained to the cardinal how the emperour
kept them as hostages, and would not come to reasonable point with their
father, whereupon they desired the cardinal to help for their deliverance;
which wrought so with the king his master and the French king that he
brought the emperour to a peace, and caused the two young princes to be
delivered." So far Hall relates the scene, but there was more in the play
than he remembered or cared to notice, and I am able to complete this
curious picture of a pageant once really and truly a living spectacle in
the old palace at Greenwich, by an inventory of the dresses worn by the
boys and a list of the _dramatis personę_.

The school-boys of St. Paul's were taken down the river with the master in
six boats, at the cost of a shilling a boat--the cost of the dresses and
the other expenses amounting in all to sixty-one shillings.

The characters were--

An orator in apparel of cloth of gold.

Religio, Ecclesia, Veritas, like three widows, in garments of silk, and
suits of lawn and Cyprus.

Heresy and False Interpretation, like sisters of Bohemia, apparelled in
silk of divers colours.

The heretic Luther, like a party friar, in russet damask and black taffety.

Luther's wife, like a frow of Spiers in Almayn, in red silk.

Peter, Paul, and James, in habits of white sarsnet, and three red mantles,
and lace of silver and damask, and pelisses of scarlet.

A Cardinal in his apparel.

Two Sergeants in rich apparel.

The Dolphin and his brother in coats of velvet embroidered with gold, and
capes of satin bound with velvet.

A Messenger in tinsel satin.

Six men in gowns of grey sarsnet.

Six women in gowns of crimson velvet.

War, in rich cloth of gold and feathers, armed.

Three Almeyns, in apparel all cut and holed in silk.

Lady Peace in lady's apparel white and rich.

Lady Quietness and Dame Tranquillity richly beseen in lady's apparel.

It is a strange world. This was in November, 1527. In November, 1530, but
three brief years after, Wolsey lay dying in misery, a disgraced man, at
Leicester Abbey; "the Pope's Holiness" was fast becoming in English eyes
plain Bishop of Rome, held guilty towards this realm of unnumbered
enormities, and all England was sweeping with immeasurable velocity towards
the heretic Luther. So history repeats the lesson to us, not to boast
ourselves of the morrow, for we know not what a day may bring forth.

Before I conclude this survey, it remains for me to say something of the
position of the poor, and of the measures which were taken for the solution
of that most difficult of all problems, the distinguishing the truly
deserving from the worthless and the vagabond. The subject is one to which
in the progress of this work I shall have more than one occasion to return;
but inasmuch as a sentimental opinion prevails that an increase of poverty
and the consequent enactment of poor-laws was the result of the suppression
of the religious houses, and that adequate relief had been previously
furnished by these establishments, it is necessary to say a few words for
the removal of an impression which is as near as possible the reverse of
the truth. I do not doubt that for many centuries these houses fulfilled
honestly the intentions with which they were established; but as early as
the reign of Richard II. it was found necessary to provide some other means
for the support of the aged and impotent; the monasteries not only having
then begun to neglect their duty; but by the appropriation of benefices
having actually deprived the parishes of their local and independent means
of charity.[74] Licences to beg were at that time granted to deserving
persons; and it is noticeable that this measure was in a few years followed
by the petition to Henry IV. for the secularisation of ecclesiastical
property.[75] Thus early in our history had the regular clergy forgotten
the nature of their mission, and the object for which the administration of
the nation's charities had been committed to them. Thus early, while their
houses were the nurseries of dishonest mendicancy,[76] they had surrendered
to lay compassion, those who ought to have been their especial care. I
shall unhappily have occasion hereafter to illustrate these matters in
detail. I mention them in this place only in order to dissipate at once a
foolish dream. At the opening of the sixteenth century, before the
suppression of the monasteries had suggested itself in a practical form,
pauperism was a state question of great difficulty, and as such I have at
present to consider it.

For the able-bodied vagrant, it is well known that the old English laws had
no mercy. When wages are low, and population has outgrown the work which
can be provided for it, idleness may be involuntary and innocent; at a time
when all industrious men could maintain themselves in comfort and
prosperity, "when a fair day's wages for a fair day's work" was really and
truly the law of the land, it was presumed that if strong capable men
preferred to wander about the country, and live upon the labour of others,
mendicancy was not the only crime of which they were likely to be guilty;
while idleness itself was justly looked upon as a high offence, and
misdemeanour. The penalty of God's laws against idleness, as expressed in
the system of nature, was starvation; and it was held intolerable that any
man should be allowed to escape a divine judgment by begging under false
pretences, and robbing others of their honest earnings.

In a country also the boast of which was its open-handed hospitality, it
was necessary to take care that hospitality was not brought to discredit by
abuse; and when every door was freely opened to a request for a meal or a
night's lodging, there was an imperative duty to keep a strict eye on
whatever persons were on the move. We shall therefore be prepared to find
"sturdy and valiant beggars" treated with summary justice as criminals of a
high order; the right of a government so to treat them being proportioned
to the facilities with which the honestly disposed can maintain themselves.

It might have been expected, on the other hand, that when wages were so
high, and work so constant, labourers would have been left to themselves to
make provision against sickness and old age. To modern ways of thinking on
these subjects, there would have seemed no hardship in so leaving them; and
their sufferings, if they had suffered, would have appeared but as a
deserved retribution. This, however, was not the temper of earlier times.
Charity has ever been the especial virtue of Catholic States, and the aged
and the impotent were always held to be the legitimate objects of it. Men
who had worked hard while they were able to work were treated like decayed
soldiers, as the discharged pensionaries of society; they were held
entitled to wear out their age (under restrictions) at the expense of
others; and so readily did society acquiesce in this aspect of its
obligations, that on the failure of the monasteries to do their duty, it
was still sufficient to leave such persons to voluntary liberality, and
legislation had to interfere only to direct such liberality into its
legitimate channels. In the 23rd of Edw. III. cap. 7, a prohibition was
issued against giving alms to "valiant beggars," and this proving
inadequate, and charity being still given indiscriminately, in the twelfth
year of Richard II. the system of licences was introduced, and a pair of
stocks was erected by order in every town or village, to "justify" persons
begging unpermitted. The monasteries growing more and more careless, the
number of paupers continued to multiply, and this method received
successive expansions, till at length, when the Reformation was concluded,
it terminated, after many changes of form, in the famous Act of Elizabeth.
We can thus trace our poor law in the whole course of its growth, and into
two stages through which it passed I must enter with some minuteness. The
12th of the 22nd of Henry VIII., and the 25th of the 27th, are so
remarkable in their tone, and so rich in their detail, as to furnish a
complete exposition of English thought at that time upon the subject; while
the second of these two acts, and probably the first also, has a further
interest for us, as being the composition of Henry himself, and the most
finished which he has left to us.[77]

"Whereas," says the former of these two Acts, "in all places throughout
this realm of England, vagabonds and beggars have of long time increased,
and daily do increase in great and excessive numbers, by the occasion of
idleness, mother and root of all vices; whereby hath insurged and sprung,
and daily insurgeth and springeth, continual thefts, murders, and other
heinous offences and great enormities, to the high displeasure of God, the
inquietation and damage of the king's people, and to the marvellous
disturbance of the common weal of this realm; and whereas, strait statutes
and ordinances have been before this time devised and made, as well by the
king our sovereign lord, as also by divers his most noble progenitors,
kings of England, for the most necessary and due reformation of the
premises; yet that notwithstanding, the said number of vagabonds and
beggars be not seen in any part to be diminished, but rather daily
augmented and increased into great routs or companies, as evidently and
manifestly it doth and may appear: Be it therefore enacted by the king our
sovereign lord, and by the Lords Spiritual and Temporal, and the Commons,
in this present parliament assembled, that the justices of the peace of all
and singular the shires of England within the limits of their commission,
and all other justices of the peace, mayors, sheriffs, bailiffs, and other
officers of every city, borough, or franchise, shall from time to time, as
often as need shall require, make diligent search and inquiry of all aged,
poor, and impotent persons, which live, or of necessity be compelled to
live by alms of the charity of the people; and such search made, the said
officers, every of them within the limits of their authorities, shall have
power, at their discretions, to enable to beg within such limits as they
shall appoint, such of the said impotent persons as they shall think
convenient; and to give in commandment to every such impotent beggar (by
them enabled) that none of them shall beg without the limits so appointed
to them. And further, they shall deliver to every such person so enabled a
letter containing the name of that person, witnessing that he is authorised
to beg, and the limits within which he is appointed to beg, the same letter
to be sealed with the seal of the hundred, rape, wapentake, city, or
borough, and subscribed with the name of one of the said justices or
officers aforesaid. And if any such impotent person do beg in any other
place than within such limits, then the justices of the peace, and all
other the king's officers and ministers, shall by their discretions punish
all such persons by imprisonment in the stocks, by the space of two days
and two nights, giving them only bread and water."

Further, "If any such impotent person be found begging without a licence,
at the discretion of the justices of the peace, he shall be stripped naked
from the middle upwards, and whipped within the town in which he be found,
or within some other town, as it shall seem good. Or if it be not
convenient so to punish him, he shall be set in the stocks by the space of
three days and three nights."

Such were the restrictions under which impotency was allowed support.
Though not in itself treated as an offence, and though its right to
maintenance by society was not denied, it was not indulged, as we may see,
with unnecessary encouragement. The Act then proceeds to deal with the
genuine vagrant.

"And be it further enacted, that if any person or persons, being whole and
mighty in body and able to labour, be taken in begging in any part of this
realm; and if any man or woman, being whole and mighty in body, having no
land, nor master, nor using any lawful merchandry, craft, or mystery
whereby he might get his living, be vagrant, and can give none account how
he doth lawfully get his living, then it shall, be lawful to the constables
and all other king's officers, ministers, and subjects of every town,
parish, and hamlet, to arrest the said vagabonds and idle persons, and
bring them to any justice of the peace of the same shire or liberty, or
else to the high constable of the hundred; and the justice of the peace,
high constable, or other officer, shall cause such idle person so to him
brought, to be had to the next market town or other place, and there to be
tied to the end of a cart, naked, and be beaten with whips throughout the
same town till his body be bloody by reason of such whipping; and after
such punishment of whipping had, the person so punished shall be enjoined
upon his oath to return forthwith without delay, in the next and straight
way, to the place where he was born, or where he last dwelled before the
same punishment, by the space of three years; and then put himself to
labour like a true man ought to do; and after that done, every such person
so punished and ordered shall have a letter, sealed with the seal of the
hundred, rape, or wapentake, witnessing that he hath been punished
according to this estatute, and containing the day and place of his
punishment, and the place where unto he is limited to go, and by what time
he is limited to come thither: for that within that time, showing the said
letter, he may lawfully beg by the way, and otherwise not; and if he do not
accomplish the order to him appointed by the said letter, then to be
eftsoons taken and whipped; and so often as there be fault found in him, to
be whipped till he has his body put to labour for his living, or otherwise
truly get his living, so long as he is able to do so."

Then follow the penalties against the justices of the peace, constables,
and all officers who neglect to arrest such persons; and a singularly
curious catalogue is added of certain forms of "sturdy mendicancy," which,
if unspecified, might have been passed over as exempt, but to which Henry
had no intention of conceding further licence. It seems as if, in framing
the Act, he had Simon Fish's petition before him, and was commencing at
last the rough remedy of the cart's-tail, which Fish had dared to recommend
for a very obdurate evil.[78] The friars of the mendicant orders were
tolerated for a few years longer; but many other spiritual persons may have
suffered seriously under the provisions of the present statute.

"Be it further enacted," the Act continues, "that scholars of the
Universities of Oxford and Cambridge, that go about begging, not being
authorised under the seal of the said universities, by the commissary,
chancellor, or vice-chancellor of the same; and that all and singular
shipmen pretending losses of their ships and goods, going about the country
begging without sufficient authority, shall be punished and ordered in
manner and form as is above rehearsed of strong beggars; and that all
proctors and pardoners, and all other idle persons going about in counties
or abiding in any town, city, or borough, some of them using divers subtle,
crafty, and unlawful games and plays, and some of them feigning themselves
to have knowledge in physick, physnamye, and palmistry, or other crafty
science, whereby they bear the people in hand that they can tell their
destinies, dreams, and fortunes, and such other like fantastical
imaginations, to the great deceit of the king's subjects, shall, upon
examination had before two justices of the peace, if by provable witness
they be found guilty of such deceits, be punished by whipping at two days
together, after the manner before rehearsed. And if they eftsoons offend in
the same or any like offence, to be scourged two days, and the third day to
be put upon the pillory, from nine o'clock till eleven the forenoon of the
same day, and to have the right ear cut off; and if they offend the third
time, to have like punishment with whipping and the pillory, and to have
the other ear cut off."

It would scarcely have been expected that this Act would have failed for
want of severity in its penalties; yet five years later, for this and for
some other reasons, it was thought desirable to expand the provisions of
it, enhancing the penalties at the same time to a degree which has given a
bloody name in the history of English law to the statutes of Henry VIII. Of
this expanded statute[79] we have positive evidence, as I said, that Henry
was himself the author. The merit of it, or the guilt of it--if guilt there
be--originated with him alone. The early clauses contain practical
amendments of an undoubtedly salutary kind. The Act of 1531 had been
defective in that no specified means had been assigned for finding vagrants
in labour, which, with men of broken character, was not immediately easy.
The smaller monasteries having been suppressed in the interval, and
sufficient funds being thus placed at the disposal of the government,
public works[80] were set on foot throughout the kingdom, and this
difficulty was obviated.

Another important alteration was a restriction upon private charity.
Private persons were forbidden, under heavy penalties, to give money to
beggars, whether deserving or undeserving. The poor of each parish might
call at houses within the boundaries for broken meats; but this was the
limit of personal almsgiving; and the money which men might be disposed to
offer was to be collected by the churchwardens on Sundays and holidays in
the churches. The parish priest was to keep an account of receipts and of
expenditure, and relief was administered with some approach to modern
formalities. A further excellent but severe enactment empowered the parish
officers to take up all idle children above the age of five years, "and
appoint them to masters of husbandry or other craft or labour to be
taught;" and if any child should refuse the service to which he was
appointed, or run away "without cause reasonable being shown for it," he
might be publicly whipped with rods, at the discretion of the justice of
the peace before whom he was brought.

So far, no complaint can be urged against these provisions: they display
only that severe but true humanity, which, in offering fair and liberal
maintenance for all who will consent to be honest, insists, not unjustly,
that its offer shall be accepted, and that the resources of charity shall
not be trifled away. On the clause, however, which gave to the Act its
especial and distinguishing character, there will be large difference of
opinion. "The sturdy vagabond," who by the earlier statute was condemned on
his second offence to lose the whole or a part of his right ear, was
condemned by the amended Act, if found a third time offending, with the
mark upon him of his mutilation, "to suffer pains and execution of death,
as a felon and as an enemy of the commonwealth." So the letter stands. For
an able-bodied man to be caught a third time begging was held a crime
deserving death, and the sentence was intended, on fit occasions, to be
executed. The poor man's advantages, which I have estimated at so high a
rate, were not purchased without drawbacks. He might not change his master
at his will, or wander from place to place. He might not keep his children
at his home unless he could answer for their time. If out of employment,
preferring to be idle, he might be demanded for work by any master of the
"craft" to which he belonged, and compelled to work whether he would or no.
If caught begging once, being neither aged nor infirm, he was whipped at
the cart's tail. If caught a second time, his ear was slit, or bored
through with a hot iron. If caught a third time, being thereby proved to be
of no use upon this earth, but to live upon it only to his own hurt and to
that of others, he suffered death as a felon. So the law of England
remained for sixty years. First drawn by Henry, it continued unrepealed
through the reigns of Edward and of Mary, subsisting, therefore, with the
deliberate approval of both the great parties between whom the country was
divided. Reconsidered under Elizabeth, the same law was again formally
passed; and it was, therefore, the expressed conviction of the English
nation, that it was better for a man not to live at all than to live a
profitless and worthless life. The vagabond was a sore spot upon the
commonwealth, to be healed by wholesome discipline if the gangrene was not
incurable; to be cut away with the knife if the milder treatment of the
cart-whip failed to be of profit.[81]

A measure so extreme in its severity was partly dictated by policy. The
state of the country was critical; and the danger from questionable persons
traversing it unexamined and uncontrolled was greater than at ordinary
times. But in point of justice, as well as of prudence, it harmonised with
the iron temper of the age, and it answered well for the government of a
fierce and powerful people, in whose hearts lay an intense hatred of
rascality, and among whom no one need have lapsed into evil courses except
by deliberate preference for them. The moral substance of the English must
have been strong indeed when it admitted of such hardy treatment; but on
the whole, the people were ruled as they preferred to be ruled; and if
wisdom may be tested by success, the manner in which they passed the great
crisis of the Reformation is the best justification of their princes.

The era was great throughout Europe. The Italians of the age of Michael
Angelo; the Spaniards who were the contemporaries of Cortez; the Germans
who shook off the pope at the call of Luther; and the splendid chivalry of
Francis I. of France, were no common men. But they were all brought face to
face with the same trials, and none met them as the English met them. The
English alone never lost their self-possession; and if they owed something
to fortune in their escape from anarchy, they owed more to the strong hand
and steady purpose of their rulers.

To conclude this chapter then.

In the brief review of the system under which England was governed, we have
seen a state of things in which the principles of political economy were,
consciously or unconsciously, contradicted; where an attempt, more or less
successful, was made to bring the production and distribution of wealth
under the moral rule of right and wrong; and where those laws of supply and
demand, which we are now taught to regard as immutable ordinances of
nature, were absorbed or superseded by a higher code. It is necessary for
me to repeat that I am not holding up the sixteenth century as a model
which the nineteenth might safely follow. The population has become too
large, employment has become too complicated and fluctuating, to admit of
external control; while, in default of control, the relapse upon
self-interest as the one motive principle is certain to ensue, and when it
ensues is absolute in its operations. But as, even with us, these so-called
ordinances of nature in time of war consent to be suspended, and duty to
his country becomes with every good citizen a higher motive of action than
the advantages which he may gain in an enemy's market; so it is not
uncheering to look back upon a time when the nation was in a normal
condition of militancy against social injustice; when the government was
enabled by happy circumstances to pursue into detail a single and serious
aim at the well-being--well-being in its widest sense--of all members of
the commonwealth. The world, indeed, was not made particularly pleasant. Of
liberty, in the modern sense of the word, of the supposed right of every
man "to do what he will with his own" or with himself, there was no idea.
To the question, if ever it was asked, May I not do what I will with my
own? there was the brief answer, No man may do what is wrong, either with
that which is his own or with that which is another's. Workmen were not
allowed to take advantage of the scantiness of the labour market to exact
extravagant wages. Capitalists were not allowed to drive the labourers from
their holdings, and destroy their healthy independence. The antagonism of
interests was absorbed into a relation of which equity was something more
than the theoretic principle, and employers and employed were alike
amenable to a law which both were compelled to obey. The working man of
modern times has bought the extension of his liberty at the price of his
material comfort. The higher classes have gained in luxury what they have
lost in power. It is not for the historian to balance advantages. His duty
is with the facts.




CHAPTER II

THE LAST YEARS OF THE ADMINISTRATION OF WOLSEY

Times were changed in England since the second Henry walked barefoot
through the streets of Canterbury, and knelt while the monks flogged him on
the pavement in the Chapter-house, doing penance for Becket's murder. The
clergy had won the battle in the twelfth century because they deserved to
win it. They were not free from fault and weakness, but they felt the
meaning of their profession. Their hearts were in their vows, their
authority was exercised more justly, more nobly, than the authority of the
crown; and therefore, with inevitable justice, the crown was compelled to
stoop before them. The victory was great; but, like many victories, it was
fatal to the conquerors. It filled them full with the vanity of power; they
forgot their duties in their privileges; and when, a century later, the
conflict recommenced, the altering issue proved the altering nature of the
conditions under which it was fought. The laity were sustained in vigour by
the practical obligations of life; the clergy sunk under the influence of a
waning religion, the administration of the forms of which had become their
sole occupation; and as character forsook them, the Mortmain Act,[82] the
Acts of Premunire, and the repeatedly recurring Statutes of Provisors mark
the successive defeats that drove them back from the high post of command
which character alone had earned for them. If the Black Prince had lived,
or if Richard II. had inherited the temper of the Plantagenets, the
ecclesiastical system would have been spared the misfortune of a longer
reprieve. Its worst abuses would have then terminated, and the reformation
of _doctrine_ in the sixteenth century would have been left to fight its
independent way unsupported by the moral corruption of the church from
which it received its most powerful impetus. The nation was ready for
sweeping remedies. The people felt little loyalty to the pope, as the
language of the Statutes of Provisors[83] conclusively proves, and they
were prepared to risk the sacrilege of confiscating the estates of the
religious houses--a complete measure of secularisation being then, as I
have already said,[84] the expressed desire of the House of Commons.[85]
With an Edward III. on the throne such a measure would very likely have
been executed, and the course of English history would have been changed.
It was ordered otherwise, and doubtless wisely. The church was allowed a
hundred and fifty more years to fill full the measure of her offences, that
she might fall only when time had laid bare the root of her degeneracy, and
that faith and manners might be changed together.

The history of the time is too imperfect to justify a positive conclusion.
It is possible, however, that the success of the revolution effected by
Henry IV. was due in part to a reaction in the church's favour; and it is
certain that this prince, if he did not owe his crown to the support of the
church, determined to conciliate it. He confirmed the Statutes of
Provisors,[86] but he allowed them to sink into disuse. He forbade the
further mooting of the confiscation project; and to him is due the first
permission of the bishops to send heretics to the stake.[87] If English
tradition is to be trusted, the clergy still felt insecure; and the French
wars of Henry V. are said to have been undertaken, as we all know from
Shakspeare, at the persuasion of Archbishop Chichele, who desired to
distract his attention from reverting to dangerous subjects. Whether this
be true or not, no prince of the house of Lancaster betrayed a wish to
renew the quarrel with the church. The battle of Agincourt, the conquest
and re-conquest of France, called off the attention of the people; while
the rise of the Lollards, and the intrusion of speculative questions, the
agitation of which has ever been the chief aversion of English statesmen,
contributed to change the current; and the reforming spirit must have
lulled before the outbreak of the wars of the Roses, or one of the two
parties in so desperate a struggle would have scarcely failed to have
availed themselves of it. Edward IV. is said to have been lenient towards
heresy; but his toleration, if it was more than imaginary, was tacit only;
he never ventured to avow it. It is more likely that in the inveterate
frenzy of those years men had no leisure to remember that heresy existed.

The clergy were thus left undisturbed to go their own course to its natural
end. The storm had passed over them without breaking; and they did not
dream that it would again gather. The immunity which they enjoyed from the
general sufferings of the civil war contributed to deceive them; and
without anxiety for the consequences, and forgetting the significant
warning which they had received, they sank steadily into that condition
which is inevitable from the constitution of human nature, among men
without faith, wealthy, powerful, and luxuriously fed, yet condemned to
celibacy, and cut off from the common duties and common pleasures of
ordinary life. On the return of a settled government, they were startled
for a moment in their security; the conduct of some among them had become
so unbearable, that even Henry VII., who inherited the Lancastrian
sympathies, was compelled to notice it; and the following brief act was
passed by his first parliament, proving by the very terms in which it is
couched the existing nature of church discipline. "For the more sure and
likely reformation," it runs, "of priests, clerks, and religious men,
culpable, or by their demerits openly noised of incontinent living in their
bodies, contrary to their order, be it enacted, ordained, and established,
that it be lawful to all archbishops and bishops, and other ordinaries
having episcopal jurisdiction, to punish and chastise such religious men,
being within the bounds of their jurisdiction, as shall be convict before
them, by lawful proof, of adultery, fornication, incest, or other fleshly
incontinency, by committing them to ward and prison, there to remain for
such time as shall be thought convenient for the quality of their
trespasses."[88]

Previous to the passing of this act, therefore, the bishops, who had power
to arrest laymen on suspicion of heresy, and detain them in prison
untried,[89] had no power to imprison priests, even though convicted of
adultery or incest. The legislature were supported by the Archbishop of
Canterbury. Cardinal Morton procured authority from the pope to visit the
religious houses, the abominations of which had become notorious;[90] and
in a provincial synod held on the 24th of February, 1486, he laid the
condition of the secular clergy before the assembled prelates. Many
priests, it was stated, spent their time in hawking or hunting, in lounging
at taverns, in the dissolute enjoyment of the world. They wore their hair
long like laymen; they were to be seen lounging in the streets with cloak
and doublet, sword and dagger. By the scandal of their lives they
imperilled the stability of their order.[91] A number of the worst
offenders, in London especially, were summoned before the synod and
admonished;[92] certain of the more zealous among the learned (_complures
docti_) who had preached against clerical abuses were advised to be more
cautious, for the avoiding of scandal;[93] but the archbishop, taking the
duty upon himself, sent round a circular among the clergy of his province,
exhorting them to general amendment.[94]

Yet this little cloud again disappeared. Henry VII. sat too insecurely on
his throne to venture on a resolute reform, even if his feelings had
inclined him towards it, which they did not. Morton durst not resolutely
grapple with the evil. He rebuked and remonstrated; but punishment would
have caused a public scandal. He would not invite the inspection of the
laity into a disease which, without their assistance, he had not the
strength to encounter; and his incipient reformation died away
ineffectually in words. The church, to outward appearance, stood more
securely than ever. The obnoxious statutes of the Plantagenets were in
abeyance, their very existence, as it seemed, was forgotten; and Thomas ą
Becket never desired more absolute independence for the ecclesiastical
order than Archbishop Warham found established when he succeeded to the
primacy. He, too, ventured to repeat the experiment of his predecessor. In
1511 he attempted a second visitation of the monasteries, and again
exhorted a reform; but his efforts were even slighter than Morton's, and in
their results equally without fruit. The maintenance of his order in its
political supremacy was of greater moment to him than its moral purity: a
decent veil was cast over the clerical infirmities, and their vices were
forgotten as soon as they ceased to be proclaimed.[95] Henry VIII., a mere
boy on his accession, was borne away with the prevailing stream; and
trained from his childhood by theologians, he entered upon his reign
saturated with theological prepossessions. The intensity of his nature
recognising no half measures, he was prepared to make them the law of his
life; and so zealous was he, that it seemed as if the church had found in
him a new Alfred or a Charlemagne. Unfortunately for the church,
institutions may be restored in theory; but theory, be it never so perfect,
will not give them back their life; and Henry discovered, at length, that
the church of the sixteenth century as little resembled the church of the
eleventh, as Leo X. resembled Hildebrand, or Warham resembled St. Anselm.

If, however, there were no longer saints among the clergy, there could
still arise among them a remarkable man; and in Cardinal Wolsey the king
found an adviser who was able to retain him longer than would otherwise
have been possible in the course which he had entered upon; who, holding a
middle place between an English statesman and a catholic of the old order,
was essentially a transition minister; and who was qualified, above all men
then living, by a combination of talent, honesty, and arrogance, to open
questions which could not again be closed when they had escaped the grasp
of their originator. Under Wolsey's influence Henry made war with Louis of
France, in the pope's quarrel, entered the polemic lists with Luther, and
persecuted the English protestants. But Wolsey could not blind himself to
the true condition of the church. He was too wise to be deceived with
outward prosperity; he knew well that there lay before it, in Europe and at
home, the alternative of ruin or amendment; and therefore he familiarised
Henry with the sense that a reformation was inevitable, and dreaming that
it could be effected from within, by the church itself inspired with a
wiser spirit, he himself fell first victim of a convulsion which he had
assisted to create, and which he attempted too late to stay.

His intended measures were approaching maturity, when all Europe was
startled by the news that Rome had been stormed by the Imperial army, that
the pope was imprisoned, the churches pillaged, the cardinals insulted, and
all holiest things polluted and profaned. A spectator, judging only by
outward symptoms, would have seen at that strange crisis in Charles V. the
worst patron of heresy, and the most dangerous enemy of the Holy See; while
the indignation with which the news of these outrages was received at the
English court, would have taught him to look on Henry as the one sovereign
in Europe on whom that See might calculate most surely for support in its
hour of danger. If he could have pierced below the surface, he would have
found that the pope's best friend was the prince who held him prisoner;
that Henry was but doubtfully acquiescing in the policy of an unpopular
minister; and that the English nation would have looked on with stoical
resignation if pope and papacy had been wrecked together. They were not
inclined to heresy; but the ecclesiastical system was not the catholic
faith; and this system, ruined by prosperity, was fast pressing its
excesses to the extreme limit, beyond which it could not be endured. Wolsey
talked of reformation, but delayed its coming; and in the mean time, the
persons to be reformed showed no fear that it would come at all. The
monasteries grew worse and worse. The people were taught only what they
could teach themselves. The consistory courts became more oppressive.
Pluralities multiplied, and non-residence and profligacy. Favoured parish
clergy held as many as eight benefices.[96] Bishops accumulated sees, and,
unable to attend to all, attended to none. Wolsey himself, the church
reformer (so little did he really know what a reformation meant), was at
once Archbishop of York, Bishop of Winchester, of Bath, and of Durham, and
Abbot of St. Alban's. In Latimer's opinion, even twenty years later, and
after no little reform in such matters, there was but one bishop in all
England who was ever at his work and ever in his diocese. "I would ask a
strange question," he said, in an audacious sermon at Paul's Cross, "Who is
the most diligent bishop and prelate in all England, that passeth all the
rest in doing of his office?[97] I can tell, for I know him who it is; I
know him well. But now I think I see you listening and hearkening that I
should name him. There is one that passeth all the others, and is the most
diligent prelate and preacher in all England. And will ye know who it is? I
will tell you. It is the devil. Among all the pack of them that have cure,
the devil shall go for my money, for he applieth his business. Therefore,
ye unpreaching prelates, learn of the devil to be diligent in your office.
If ye will not learn of God, for shame learn of the devil."[98]

Under such circumstances, we need not be surprised to find the clergy sunk
low in the respect of the English people. Sternly intolerant of each
other's faults, the laity were not likely to be indulgent to the vices of
men who ought to have set an example of purity; and from time to time,
during the first quarter of the century, there were explosions of temper
which might have served as a warning if any sense or judgment had been left
to profit by it.

In 1514 a London merchant was committed to the Lollards' Tower for refusing
to submit to an unjust exaction of mortuary;[99] and a few days after was
found dead in his cell. An inquest was held upon the body, when a verdict
of wilful murder was returned against the chancellor of the Bishop of
London; and so intense was the feeling of the city, that the bishop applied
to Wolsey for a special jury to be chosen on the trial. "For assured I am,"
he said, "that if my chancellor be tried by any twelve men in London, they
be so maliciously set _in favorem hęreticę pravitatis_, that they will cast
and condemn any clerk, though he were as innocent as Abel."[100] Fish's
famous pamphlet also shows the spirit which was seething; and though we may
make some allowance for angry rhetoric, his words have the clear ring of
honesty in them; and he spoke of what he had seen and knew. The monks, he
tells the king, "be they that have made a hundred thousand idle dissolute
women in your realm, who would have gotten their living honestly in the
sweat of their faces had not their superfluous riches allured them to lust
and idleness. These be they that when they have drawn men's wives to such
incontinency, spend away their husbands' goods, make the women to run away
from their husbands, bringing both man, wife, and children to idleness,
theft, and beggary. Yea, who is able to number the great broad bottomless
ocean sea full of evils that this mischievous generation may bring upon us
if unpunished?"[101]

Copies of this book were strewed about the London streets; Wolsey issued a
prohibition against it, with the effect which such prohibitions usually
have. Means were found to bring it under the eyes of Henry himself; and the
manner in which it was received by him is full of significance, and betrays
that the facts of the age were already telling on his understanding. He was
always easy of access and easy of manner; and the story, although it rests
on Foxe's authority, has internal marks of authenticity.

"One Master Edmund Moddis, being with the king in talk of religion, and of
the new books that were come from beyond the seas, said that if it might
please his Highness to pardon him, and such as he would bring to his Grace,
he should see such a book as it was a marvel to hear of. The king demanded
who they were? He said 'Two of your merchants--George Elliot and George
Robinson.' The king appointed a time to speak with them. When they came
before his presence in a privy closet, he demanded what they had to say or
to shew him. One of them said that there was a book come to their hands
which they had there to shew his Grace. When he saw it he demanded if any
of them could read it. 'Yea,' said George Elliot, 'if it please your Grace
to hear it.' 'I thought so,' said the king; 'if need were, thou couldst say
it without book.'

"The whole book being read out, the king made a long pause, and then said,
'If a man should pull down an old stone wall, and should begin at the lower
part, the upper part thereof might chance to fall upon his head.' Then he
took the book, and put it in his desk, and commanded them, on their
allegiance, that they should not tell any man that he had seen it."[102]

Symptoms such as these boded ill for a self-reform of the church, and it
was further imperilled by the difficulty which it is not easy to believe
that Wolsey had forgotten. No measures would be of efficacy which spared
the religious houses, and they would be equally useless unless the bishops,
as well as the inferior clergy, were comprehended in the scheme of
amendment. But neither with monks nor bishops could Wolsey interfere except
by a commission from the pope, and the laws were unrepealed which forbade
English subjects, under the severest penalties, to accept or exercise
within the realm an authority which they had received from the Holy See.
Morton had gone beyond the limits of the statute of provisors in receiving
powers from Pope Innocent to visit the monasteries. But Morton had stopped
short with inquiry and admonition. Wolsey, who was in earnest with the
work, had desired and obtained a full commission as legate, but he could
only make use of it at his peril. The statute slumbered, but it still
existed.[103] He was exposing not himself only, but all persons, lay and
clerical, who might recognise his legacy to a Premunire; and he knew well
that Henry's connivance, or even expressed permission, could not avail him
if his conduct was challenged. He could not venture to appeal to
parliament. Parliament was the last authority whose jurisdiction a
churchman would acknowledge in the concerns of the clergy; and his project
must sooner or later have sunk, like those of his two predecessors, under
its own internal difficulties, even if the accident had not arisen which
brought the dispute to a special issue in its most vital point, and which,
fostered by Wolsey for his own purposes, precipitated his ruin.

It is never more difficult to judge equitably the actions of public men
than when private as well as general motives have been allowed to influence
them, or when their actions may admit of being represented as resulting
from personal inclination, as well as from national policy. In life, as we
actually experience it, motives slide one into the other, and the most
careful analysis will fail adequately to sift them. In history, from the
effort to make our conceptions distinct, we pronounce upon these intricate
matters with unhesitating certainty, and we lose sight of truth in the
desire to make it truer than itself. The difficulty is further complicated
by the different points of view which are chosen by contemporaries and by
posterity. Where motives are mixed, men all naturally dwell most on those
which approach nearest to themselves: contemporaries whose interests are at
stake overlook what is personal in consideration of what is to them of
broader moment; posterity, unable to realise political embarrassments which
have ceased to concern them, concentrate their attention on such features
of the story as touch their own sympathies, and attend exclusively to the
private and personal passions of the men and women whose character they are
considering.

These natural, and to some extent inevitable tendencies, explain the
difference with which the divorce between Henry VIII. and Catherine of
Arragon has been regarded by the English nation in the sixteenth and in the
nineteenth centuries. In the former, not only did the parliament profess to
desire it, urge it, and further it, but we are told by a contemporary[104]
that "all indifferent and discreet persons" judged that it was right and
necessary. In the latter, perhaps, there is not one of ourselves who has
not been taught to look upon it as an act of enormous wickedness. In the
sixteenth century, Queen Catherine was an obstacle to the establishment of
the kingdom, an incentive to treasonable hopes. In the nineteenth, she is
an outraged and injured wife, the victim of a false husband's fickle
appetite. The story is a long and painful one, and on its personal side
need not concern us here further than as it illustrates the private
character of Henry. Into the public bearing of it I must enter at some
length, in order to explain the interest with which the nation threw itself
into the question, and to remove the scandal with which, had nothing been
at stake beyond the inclinations of a profligate monarch, weary of his
queen, the complaisance on such a subject of the lords and commons of
England would have coloured the entire complexion of the Reformation.

The succession to the throne, although determined in theory by the ordinary
law of primogeniture, was nevertheless, subject to repeated arbitrary
changes. The uncertainty of the rule was acknowledged and deplored by the
parliament,[105] and there was no order of which the nation, with any unity
of sentiment, compelled the observance. An opinion prevailed--not, I
believe, traceable to statute, but admitted by custom, and having the force
of statute in the prejudices of the nation--that no stranger born out of
the realm could inherit.[106] Although the descent in the female line was
not formally denied, no female sovereign had ever, in fact, sat upon the
throne.[107] Even Henry VII. refused to strengthen his title by advancing
the claims of his wife: and the uncertainty of the laws of marriage, and
the innumerable refinements of the Romish canon law, which affected the
legitimacy of children,[108] furnished, in connection with the further
ambiguities of clerical dispensations, perpetual pretexts, whenever
pretexts were needed, for a breach of allegiance. So long, indeed, as the
character of the nation remained essentially military, it could as little
tolerate an incapable king as an army in a dangerous campaign can bear with
an inefficient commander; and whatever might be the theory of the title,
when the sceptre was held by the infirm hand of an Edward II., a Richard
II., or a Henry VI., the difficulty resolved itself by force, and it was
wrenched by a stronger arm from a grasp too feeble to retain it. The
consent of the nation was avowed, even in the authoritative language of a
statute,[109] as essential to the legitimacy of a sovereign's title; and
Sir Thomas More, on examination by the Solicitor-General, declared as his
opinion that parliament had power to depose kings if it so pleased.[110] So
many uncertainties on a point so vital had occasioned fearful episodes in
English history; the most fearful of them, which had traced its character
in blood in the private records of every English family, having been the
long struggle of the preceding century, from which the nation was still
suffering, and had but recovered sufficiently to be conscious of what it
had endured. It had decimated itself for a question which involved no
principle and led to no result, and perhaps the history of the world may be
searched in vain for any parallel to a quarrel at once so desperate and so
unmeaning.

This very unmeaning character of the dispute increased the difficulty of
ending it. In wars of conquest or of principle, when something definite is
at stake, the victory is either won, or it is lost; the conduct of
individual men, at all events, is overruled by considerations external to
themselves which admit of being weighed and calculated. In a war of
succession, where the great families were divided in their allegiance, and
supported the rival claimants in evenly balanced numbers, the inveteracy of
the conflict increased with its duration, and propagated itself from
generation to generation. Every family was in blood feud with its
neighbour; and children, as they grew to manhood, inherited the duty of
revenging their fathers' deaths.

No effort of imagination can reproduce to us the state of this country in
the fatal years which intervened between the first rising of the Duke of
York and the battle of Bosworth; and experience too truly convinced Henry
VII. that the war had ceased only from general exhaustion, and not because
there was no will to continue it. The first Tudor breathed an atmosphere of
suspended insurrection, and only when we remember the probable effect upon
his mind of the constant dread of an explosion, can we excuse or
understand, in a prince not generally cruel, the execution of the Earl of
Warwick. The danger of a bloody revolution may present an act of arbitrary
or cowardly tyranny in the light of a public duty.

Fifty years of settled government, however, had not been without their
effects. The country had collected itself; the feuds of the families had
been chastened, if they had not been subdued; while the increase of wealth
and material prosperity had brought out into obvious prominence those
advantages of peace which a hot-spirited people, antecedent to experience,
had not anticipated, and had not been able to appreciate. They were better
fed, better cared for, more justly governed than they had ever been before;
and though abundance of unruly tempers remained, yet the wiser portion of
the nation, looking back from their new vantage-ground, were able to
recognise the past in its true hatefulness. Thenceforward a war of
succession was the predominating terror with English statesmen, and the
safe establishment of the reigning family bore a degree of importance which
it is possible that their fears exaggerated, yet which in fact was the
determining principle of their action.

It was therefore with no little anxiety that the council of Henry VIII.
perceived his male children, on whom their hopes were centred, either born
dead, or dying one after another within a few days of their birth, as if
his family were under a blight. When the queen had advanced to an age which
precluded hope of further offspring, and the heir presumptive was an infirm
girl, the unpromising prospect became yet more alarming. The life of the
Princess Mary was precarious, for her health was weak from her childhood.
If she lived, her accession would be a temptation to insurrection; if she
did not live, and the king had no other children, a civil war was
inevitable. At present such a difficulty would be disposed of by an
immediate and simple reference to the collateral branches of the royal
family; the crown would descend with even more facility than the property
of an intestate to the next of kin. At that time, if the rule had been
recognised, it would only have increased the difficulty, for the next heir
in blood was James of Scotland; and, gravely as statesmen desired the union
of the two countries, in the existing mood of the people, the very stones
in London streets, it was said,[111] would rise up against a king of
Scotland who claimed to enter England as sovereign. Even the parliament
itself declared in formal language that they would resist any attempt on
the part of the Scottish king "to the uttermost of their power."[112]

As little, however, as the English would have admitted James's claims,
would James himself have acknowledged their right to reject them. He would
have pleaded the sacred right of inheritance, refusing utterly the
imaginary law which disentitled him: he would have pressed his title with
all Scotland to back him, and probably with the open support of France.
Centuries of humiliation remained unrevenged, which both France and
Scotland had endured at English hands. It was not likely that they would
waste an opportunity thrust upon them by Providence. The country might, it
is true, have encountered this danger, serious as it would have been, if
there had been hope that it would itself have agreed to any other choice.
England had many times fought successfully against the same odds, and would
have cared little for a renewal of the struggle, if united in itself: but
the prospect on this side, also, was fatally discouraging. The elements of
the old factions were dormant, but still smouldering. Throughout Henry's
reign a White Rose agitation had been secretly fermenting; without open
success, and without chance of success so long as Henry lived, but
formidable in a high degree if opportunity to strike should offer itself.
Richard de la Pole, the representative of this party, had been killed at
Pavia, but his loss had rather strengthened their cause than weakened it,
for by his long exile he was unknown in England; his personal character was
without energy; while he made place for the leadership of a far more
powerful spirit in the sister of the murdered Earl of Warwick, the Countess
of Salisbury, mother of Reginald Pole. This lady had inherited, in no
common degree, the fierce nature of the Plantagenets; born to command, she
had rallied round her the Courtenays, the Nevilles, and all the powerful
kindred of Richard the King Maker, her grandfather. Her Plantagenet descent
was purer than the king's; and if Mary died and Henry left no other issue,
half England was likely to declare either for one of her sons, or for the
Marquis of Exeter, the grandson of Edward IV.

In 1515, when Giustiniani,[113] the Venetian ambassador, was at the court,
the Dukes of Buckingham, of Suffolk, and of Norfolk, were also mentioned to
him as having each of them hopes of the crown. Buckingham, meddling
prematurely in the dangerous game, had lost his life for it; but in his
death he had strengthened the chance of Norfolk, who had married his
daughter. Suffolk was Henry's brother-in-law;[114] chivalrous, popular, and
the ablest soldier of his day; and Lady Margaret Lennox, also, daughter of
the Queen of Scotland by her second marriage, would not have wanted
supporters, and early became an object of intrigue. Indeed, as she had been
born in England, it was held in parliament that she stood next in order to
the Princess Mary.[115]

Many of these claims were likely to be advanced if Henry died leaving a
daughter to succeed him. They would all inevitably be advanced if he died
childless; and no great political sagacity was required to foresee the
probable fate of the country if such a moment was chosen for a French and
Scottish invasion. The very worst disasters might be too surely looked for,
and the hope of escape, precarious at the best, hung upon the frail thread
of a single life. We may therefore imagine the dismay with which the nation
saw this last hope failing them--and failing them even in a manner more
dangerous than if it had failed by death; for it did but add another doubt,
when already there were too many. In order to detach France from Scotland,
and secure, if possible, its support for the claims of the princess, it had
been proposed to marry the Princess Mary to a son of the French king. The
negotiations were conducted through the Bishop of Tarbźs,[116] and at the
first conference the Bishop raised a question in the name of his
government, on the validity of the papal dispensation granted by Julius the
Second, to legalise the marriage from which she was sprung. The abortive
marriage Scheme perished in its birth, but the doubt which had been raised
could not perish with it. Doubt on such a subject once mooted might not be
left unresolved, even if the raising it thus publicly had not itself
destroyed the frail chance of an undisputed succession. If the relations of
Henry with Queen Catherine had been of a cordial kind, it is possible that
he would have been contented with resentment; that he would have refused to
reconsider a question which touched his honour and his conscience; and,
united with parliament, would have endeavoured to bear down all
difficulties with a high hand. This at least he might have himself
attempted. Whether the parliament, with so precarious a future before them,
would have consented, is less easy to say. Fortunately or unfortunately,
the interests of the nation pointed out another road, which Henry had no
unwillingness to enter.

On the death of Prince Arthur, five months after his marriage, Henry VII.
and the father of the Princess alike desired that the bond between their
families thus broken should be re-united; and, as soon as it became clear
that Catherine had not been left pregnant (a point which, tacitly at least,
she allowed to be considered uncertain at the time of her husband's
decease), it was proposed that she should be transferred, with the
inheritance of the crown, to the new heir. A dispensation was reluctantly
granted by the pope,[117] and reluctantly accepted by the English ministry.
The Prince of Wales, who was no more than twelve years old at the time, was
under the age at which he could legally sue for such an object; and a
portion of the English council, the Archbishop of Canterbury among them,
were unsatisfied,[118] both with the marriage itself, and with the adequacy
of the forms observed in a matter of so dubious an import. The betrothal
took place at the urgency of Ferdinand. In the year following Henry VII.
became suddenly ill; Queen Elizabeth died; and superstition working on the
previous hesitation, misfortune was construed into an indication of the
displeasure of Heaven. The intention was renounced, and the prince, as soon
as he had completed his fourteenth year, was invited and required to
disown, by a formal act, the obligations contracted in his name.[119] Again
there was a change. The king lived on, the alarm yielded to the temptations
of covetousness. Had he restored Catherine to her father he must have
restored with her the portion of her dowry which had been already received;
he must have relinquished the prospect of the moiety which had yet to be
received. The negotiation was renewed. Henry VII. lived to sign the
receipts for the first instalment of the second payment;[120] and on his
death, notwithstanding much general murmuring,[121] the young Henry, then a
boy of eighteen, proceeded to carry out his father's ultimate intentions.
The princess-dowager, notwithstanding what had passed, was still on her
side willing;--and the difference of age (she was six years older than
Henry) seeming of little moment when both were comparatively young, they
were married. For many years all went well; opposition was silenced by the
success which seemed to have followed, and the original scruples were
forgotten. Though the marriage was dictated by political convenience, Henry
was faithful, with but one exception, to his wife's bed--no slight honour
to him, if he is measured by the average royal standard in such matters;
and, if his sons had lived to grow up around his throne, there is no reason
to believe that the peace of his married life would have been interrupted,
or that, whatever might have been his private feelings, he would have
appeared in the world's eye other than acquiescent in his condition.

But his sons had not lived; years passed on, bringing with them premature
births, children born dead, or dying after a few days or hours,[122] and
the disappointment was intense in proportion to the interests which were at
issue. The especial penalty denounced against the marriage with a brother's
wife[123] had been all but literally enforced; and the king found himself
growing to middle life and his queen passing beyond it with his prayers
unheard, and no hope any longer that they might be heard. The disparity of
age also was more perceptible as time went by, while Catherine's
constitution was affected by her misfortunes, and differences arose on
which there is no occasion to dwell in these pages--differences which in
themselves reflected no discredit either on the husband or the wife, but
which were sufficient to extinguish between two infirm human beings an
affection that had rested only upon mutual esteem, but had not assumed the
character of love.

The circumstances in which Catherine was placed were of a kind which no
sensitive woman could have endured without impatience and mortification;
but her conduct, however natural, only widened the breach which personal
repugnance and radical opposition of character had already made too wide.
So far Henry and she were alike that both had imperious tempers, and both
were indomitably obstinate; but Henry was hot and impetuous, Catherine was
cold and self-contained--Henry saw his duty through his wishes; Catherine,
in her strong Castilian austerity, measured her steps by the letter of the
law; the more her husband withdrew from her, the more she insisted upon her
relation to him as his wife; and continued with fixed purpose and immovable
countenance[124] to share his table and his bed long after she was aware of
his dislike for her.

If the validity of so unfortunate a connection had never been questioned,
or if no national interests had been dependent on the continuance or the
abolition of it, these discomforts were not too great to have been endured
in silence. They were not originally occasioned by any latent inclination
on the part of the king for another woman. They had arisen to their worst
dimensions before he had ever seen Anne Boleyn, and were produced by causes
of a wholly independent kind; and even if it had not been so, when we
remember the tenor of his early life we need not think that he would have
been unequal to the restraint which ordinary persons in similar
circumstances are able to impose on their caprices. The legates spoke no
more than the truth when they wrote to the pope, saying that "it was mere
madness to suppose that the king would act as he was doing merely out of
dislike of the queen, or out of inclination, for another person; he was not
a man whom harsh manners and an unpleasant disposition (_duri mores et
injucunda consuetudo_) could so far provoke; nor could any sane man believe
him to be so infirm of character that sensual allurements would have led
him to dissolve a connexion in which he had passed the flower of youth
without stain or blemish, and in which he had borne himself in his trial so
reverently and honourably."[125] I consider this entirely true in a sense
which no great knowledge of human nature is required to understand. The
king's personal dissatisfaction was great: if this had been all, however,
it would have been extinguished or endured; but the interests of the
nation, imperilled as they were by the maintenance of the marriage,
entitled him to regard his position under another aspect. Even if the
marriage in itself had never been questioned, he might justly have desired
the dissolution of it; and when he recalled the circumstances under which
it was contracted, the hesitation of the council, the reluctance of the
pope, the alarms and vacillation of his father, we may readily perceive how
scruples of conscience must have arisen in a soil well prepared to receive
them--how the loss of his children must have appeared as a judicial
sentence on a violation of the Divine law. The divorce presented itself to
him as a moral obligation, when national advantage combined with
superstition to encourage what he secretly desired; and if he persuaded
himself that those public reasons, without which, in truth and fact, he
would not have stirred, were those that alone were influencing him, the
self-deceit was of a kind with which the experience of most men will
probably have made them too familiar. In those rare cases where inclination
coincides with right, we cannot be surprised if mankind should mislead
themselves with the belief that the disinterested motives weigh more with
them than the personal.

A remarkable and very candid account of Henry's feelings is furnished by
himself in one of the many papers of instructions[126] which he forwarded
to his secretary at Rome. Hypocrisy was not among his faults, and in
detailing the arguments which were to be laid before the pope he has
exhibited a more complete revelation of what was passing in himself--and
indirectly of his own nature in its strength and weakness--than he perhaps
imagined while he wrote. The despatch is long and perplexed; the style that
of a man who saw his end clearly, and was vexed with the intricate and
dishonest trifling with which his way was impeded, and which nevertheless
he was struggling to tolerate. The secretary was to say, "that the King's
Highness having above all other things his intent and mind ever founded
upon such respect unto Almighty God as to a Christian and catholic prince
doth appertain, knowing the fragility and uncertainty of all earthly
things, and how displeasant unto God, how much dangerous to the soul, how
dishonourable and damageable to the world it were to prefer vain and
transitory things unto those that be perfect and certain, hath in this
cause, doubt, and matter of matrimony, whereupon depend so high and
manifold consequences of greatest importance, always cast from his conceit
the darkness and blundering confusion of falsity, and specially hath had
and put before his eyes the light and shining brightness of truth; upon
which foundation as a most sure base for perpetual tranquillity of his
conscience his Highness hath expressly resolved and determined with himself
to build and establish all his acts, deeds, and cogitations touching this
matter; without God did build the house, in vain they laboured that went
about to build it; and all actions grounded upon that immovable fundament
of truth, must needs therein be firm, sound, whole, perfect, and worthy of
a Christian man; which if truth were put apart, they could not for the same
reason be but evil, vain, slipper, uncertain, and in nowise permanent or
endurable." He then laboured to urge on the pope the duty of
straightforward dealing; and dwelt in words which have a sad interest for
us (when we consider the manner in which the subject of them has been dealt
with) on the judgment bar, not of God only, but of human posterity, at
which his conduct would be ultimately tried.

"The causes of private persons dark and doubtful be sometimes," the king
said, "pretermitted and passed over as things more meet at some seasons to
be dissimuled than by continual strife and plea to nourish controversies.
Yet since all people have their eyes conject upon princes, whose acts and
doings not only be observed in the mouths of them that now do live, but
also remain in such perpetual memory to our posterity [so that] the evil,
if any there be, cannot but appear and come to light, there is no reason
for toleration, no place for dissimulation; but [there is reason] more
deeply, highly, and profoundly to penetrate and search for the truth, so
that the same may vanquish and overcome, and all guilt, craft, and
falsehood clearly be extirpate and reject."

I am anticipating the progress of the story in making these quotations; for
the main burden of the despatch concerns a forged document which had been
introduced by the Roman lawyers to embarrass the process, and of which I
shall by-and-bye have to speak directly; but I have desired to illustrate
the spirit in which Henry entered upon the general question--assuredly a
more calm and rational one than historians have usually represented it to
be. In dealing with the obstacle which had been raised, he displayed a most
efficient mastery over himself, although he did not conclude without
touching the pith of the matter with telling clearness. The secretary was
to take some opportunity of speaking to the pope privately; and of warning
him, "as of himself," that there was no hope that the king would give way:
he was to "say plainly to his Holiness that the king's desire and intent
_convolare ad secundas nuptias non patitur negativum_; and whatsoever
should be found of bull, brief, or otherwise, his Highness found his
conscience so inquieted, his succession in such danger, and his most royal
person in such perplexity for things unknown and not to be spoken, that
other remedy there was not but his Grace to come by one way or other, and
specially at his hands, if it might be, to the desired end; and that all
concertation to the contrary should be vain and frustrate."

So peremptory a conviction and so determined a purpose were of no sudden
growth, and had been probably maturing in his mind for years, when the
gangrene was torn open by the Bishop of Tarbźs, and accident precipitated
his resolution. The momentous consequences involved, and the reluctance to
encounter a probable quarrel with the emperor, might have long kept him
silent, except for some extraneous casualty; but the tree being thus rudely
shaken, the ripe fruit fell. The capture of Rome occurring almost at the
same moment, Wolsey caught the opportunity to break the Spanish alliance;
and the prospect of a divorce was grasped at by him as a lever by which to
throw the weight of English power and influence into the papal scale, to
commit Henry definitely to the catholic cause. Like his acceptance of
legatine authority, the expedient was a desperate one, and if it failed it
was ruinous. The nation at that time was sincerely attached to Spain. The
alliance with the house of Burgundy was of old date; the commercial
intercourse with Flanders was enormous, Flanders, in fact, absorbing all
the English exports; and as many as 15,000 Flemings were settled in London.
Charles himself was personally popular; he had been the ally of England in
the late French war; and when in his supposed character of leader of the
anti-papal party in Europe he allowed a Lutheran army to desecrate Rome, he
had won the sympathy of all the latent discontent which was fermenting in
the population. France, on the other hand, was as cordially hated as Spain
was beloved. A state of war with France was the normal condition of
England; and the reconquest of it the universal dream from the cottage to
the castle. Henry himself, early in his reign, had shared in this delusive
ambition; and but three years before the sack of Rome, when the Duke of
Suffolk led an army into Normandy, Wolsey's purposed tardiness in sending
reinforcements had alone saved Paris.[127]

There could be no doubt, therefore, that a breach with the emperor would in
a high degree be unwelcome to the country. The king, and probably such
members of the council as were aware of his feelings, shrank from offering
an open affront to the Spanish people., and anxious as they were for a
settlement of the succession, perhaps trusted that advantage might be taken
of some political contingency for a private arrangement; that Catherine
might be induced by Charles himself to retire privately, and sacrifice
herself, of her free will, to the interests of the two countries. This,
however, is no more than conjecture; I think it probable, because so many
English statesmen were in favour at once of the divorce and of the Spanish
alliance--two objects which, only on some such hypothesis, were compatible.
The fact cannot be ascertained, however, because the divorce itself was not
discussed at the council table until Wolsey had induced the king to change
his policy by the hope of immediate relief.

Wolsey has revealed to us fully his own objects in a letter to Sir Gregory
Cassalis, his agent at Rome. He shared with half Europe in an impression
that the emperor's Italian campaigns were designed to further the
Reformation; and of this central delusion he formed the keystone of his
conduct. "First condoling with his Holiness," he wrote, "on the unhappy
position in which, with the college of the most reverend cardinals, he is
placed,[128] you shall tell him how, day and night, I am revolving by what
means or contrivance I may bring comfort to the church of Christ, and raise
the fallen state of our most Holy Lord. I care not whit it may cost me,
whether of expense or trouble; nay, though I have to shed my blood, or give
my life for it, assuredly so long as life remains to me for this I will
labour. And how let me mention the great and marvellous effects which have
been wrought by my instrumentality on the mind of my most excellent master
the king, whom I have persuaded to unite himself with his Holiness in heart
and soul. I urged innumerable reasons to induce him to part him from the
emperor, to whom he clung with much tenacity. The most effective of them
all was the constancy with which I assured him of the good-will and
affection which were felt for him by his Holiness, and the certainty that
his Holiness would furnish proof of his friendship in conceding his said
Majesty's requests, in such form as the church's treasure and the authority
of the Vicar of Christ shall permit, or so far as that authority extends or
may extend. I have undertaken, moreover, for all these things in their
utmost latitude, pledging my salvation, my faith, my honour and soul upon
them. I have said that his demands shall be granted amply and fully,
without scruple, without room or occasion being left for
after-retractation; and the King's Majesty, in consequence, believing on
these my solemn asseverations that the Pope's Holiness is really and indeed
well inclined towards him, accepting what is spoken by me as spoken by the
legate of the Apostolic See, and therefore, as in the name of his Holiness,
has determined to run the risk which I have pressed upon him; he will spare
no labour or expense, he will disregard the wishes of his subjects, and the
private interest of his Realm, to attach himself cordially and constantly
to the Holy See."[129]

These were the words of a man who loved England well, but who loved Rome
better; and Wolsey has received but scanty justice from catholic writers,
since he sacrificed himself for the catholic cause. His scheme was bold and
well laid, being weak only in that it was confessedly in contradiction to
the instincts and genius of the nation, by which, and by which alone, in
the long run, either this or any other country has been successfully
governed. And yet he might well be forgiven if he ventured on an unpopular
course in the belief that the event would justify him; and that, in uniting
with France to support the pope, he was not only consulting the true
interest of England, but was doing what England actually desired, although
blindly aiming at her object by other means. The French wars, however
traditionally popular, were fertile only in glory. The rivalry of the two
countries was a splendid folly, wasting the best blood of both countries
for an impracticable chimera; and though there was impatience of
ecclesiastical misrule, though there was jealousy of foreign interference,
and general irritation with the state of the church, yet the mass of the
people hated protestantism even worse than they hated the pope, the clergy,
and the consistory courts. They believed--and Wolsey was, perhaps, the only
leading member of the privy council, except Archbishop Warham, who was not
under the same delusion--that it was possible for a national church to
separate itself from the unity of Christendom, and at the same time to
crush or prevent innovation of doctrine; that faith in the sacramental
system could still be maintained, though the priesthood by whom those
mysteries were dispensed should minister in gilded chains. This was the
English historical theory handed down from William Rufus, the second Henry,
and the Edwards; yet it was and is a mere phantasm, a thing of words and
paper fictions, as Wolsey saw it to be. Wolsey knew well that an
ecclesiastical revolt implied, as a certainty, innovation of doctrine; that
plain men could not and would not continue to reverence the office of the
priesthood, when the priests were treated as the paid officials of an
earthly authority higher than their own. He was not to be blamed if he took
the people at their word; if he believed that, in their doctrinal
conservatism, they knew and meant what they were saying: and the reaction
which took place under Queen Mary, when the Anglican system had been tried
and failed, and the alternative was seen to be absolute between a union
with Rome or a forfeiture of catholic orthodoxy, prove after all that he
was wiser than in the immediate event he seemed to be; that if his policy
had succeeded, and if, strengthened by success, he had introduced into the
church those reforms which he had promised and desired,[130] he would have
satisfied the substantial wishes of the majority of the nation.

Like other men of genius, Wolsey also combined practical sagacity with an
unmeasured power of hoping. As difficulties gathered round him, he
encountered them with the increasing magnificence of his schemes; and after
thirty years' experience of public life, he was as sanguine as a boy. Armed
with this little lever of the divorce, he saw himself, in imagination, the
rebuilder of the catholic faith and the deliverer of Europe. The king being
remarried, and the succession settled, he would purge the Church of
England, and convert the monasteries into intellectual garrisons of pious
and learned men, occupying the land from end to end. The feuds with France
should cease for ever, and, united in a holy cause, the two countries
should restore the papacy, put down the German heresies, depose the
emperor, and establish in his place some faithful servant of the church.
Then Europe once more at peace, the hordes of the Crescent, which were
threatening to settle the quarrels of Christians in the West as they had
settled them in the East--by the extinction of Christianity itself,--were
to be hurled back into their proper barbarism.[131] These magnificent
visions fell from him in conversations with the Bishop of Bayonne, and may
be gathered from hints and fragments of his correspondence. Extravagant as
they seem, the prospect of realising them was, humanly speaking, neither
chimerical nor even improbable. He had but made the common mistake of men
of the world who are the representatives of an old order of things at the
time when that order is doomed and dying. He could not read the signs of
the times; and confounded the barrenness of death with the barrenness of a
winter which might be followed by a new spring and summer; he believed that
the old life-tree of Catholicism, which in fact was but cumbering the
ground, might bloom again in its old beauty. The thing which he called
heresy was the fire of Almighty God, which no politic congregation of
princes, no state machinery, though it were never so active, could trample
out; and as in the early years of Christianity the meanest slave who was
thrown to the wild beasts for his presence at the forbidden mysteries of
the gospel, saw deeper, in the divine power of his faith, into the future
even of this earthly world than the sagest of his imperial persecutors, so
a truer political prophet than Wolsey would have been found in the most
ignorant of those poor men, for whom his myrmidons were searching in the
purlieus of London, who were risking death and torture in disseminating the
pernicious volumes of the English Testament.

If we look at the matter, however, from a more earthly point of view, the
causes which immediately defeated Wolsey's policy were not such as human
foresight could have anticipated. We ourselves, surveying the various
parties in Europe with the light of our knowledge of the actual sequel, are
perhaps able to understand their real relations; but if in 1527 a political
astrologer had foretold that within two years of that time the pope and the
emperor who had imprisoned him would be cordial allies, that the positions
of England and Spain toward the papacy would be diametrically reversed, and
that the two countries were on the point of taking their posts, which they
would ever afterwards maintain, as the champions respectively of the
opposite principles to those which at that time they seemed to represent,
the prophecy would have been held scarcely less insane than a prophecy six
or even three years before the event, that in the year 1854 England would
be united with an Emperor Napoleon for the preservation of European order.

Henry, then, in the spring of the year 1527, definitively breaking the
Spanish alliance, formed a league with Francis I., the avowed object of
which was the expulsion of the Imperialists from Italy; with a further
intention--if it could be carried into effect--of avenging the outrage
offered to Europe in the pope's imprisonment, by declaring vacant the
imperial throne. Simultaneously with the congress at Amiens where the terms
of the alliance were arranged, confidential persons were despatched into
Italy to obtain an interview--if possible--with the pope, and formally
laying before him the circumstances of the king's position, to request him
to make use of his powers to provide a remedy. It is noticeable that at the
outset of the negotiation the king did not fully trust Wolsey. The latter
had suggested, as the simplest method of proceeding, that the pope should
extend his authority as legate, granting him plenary power to act as
English vicegerent so long as Rome was occupied by the Emperor's troops.
Henry, not wholly satisfied that he was acquainted with his minister's full
intentions in desiring so large a capacity, sent his own secretary, unknown
to Wolsey, with his own private propositions--requesting simply a
dispensation to take a second wife, his former marriage being allowed to
stand with no definite sentence passed upon it; or, if that were
impossible, leaving the pope to choose his own method, and settle the
question in the manner least difficult and least offensive.[132]

Wolsey, however, soon satisfied the king that he had no sinister
intentions. By the middle of the winter we find the private messenger
associated openly with Sir Gregory Cassalis, the agent of the minister's
communications;[133] and a series of formal demands were presented jointly
by these two persons in the names of Henry and the legate; which, though
taking many forms, resolved themselves substantially into one. The pope was
required to make use of his dispensing power to enable the King of England
to marry a wife who could bear him children, and thus provide some better
security than already existed for the succession to the throne. This demand
could not be considered as in itself unreasonable; and if personal feeling
was combined with other motives to induce Henry to press it, personal
feeling did not affect the general bearing of the question. The king's
desire was publicly urged on public grounds, and thus, and thus only, the
pope was at liberty to consider it. The marriages of princes have ever been
affected by other considerations than those which influence such relations
between private persons. Princes may not, as "unvalued persons" may, "carve
for themselves;" they pay the penalty of their high place, in submitting
their affections to the welfare of the state; and the same causes which
regulate the formation of these ties must be allowed to influence the
continuance of them. The case which was submitted to the pope was one of
those for which his very power of dispensing had been vested in him; and
being, as he called himself, the Father of Christendom, the nation thought
themselves entitled to call upon him to make use of that power. A resource
of the kind must exist somewhere--the relation between princes and subjects
indispensably requiring it. It had been vested in the Bishop of Rome,
because it had been presumed that the sanctity of his office would secure
an impartial exercise of his authority. And unless he could have shown
(which he never attempted to show) that the circumstances of the succession
were not so precarious as to call for his interference, it would seem that
the express contingency had arisen which was contemplated in the
constitution of the canon law;[134] and that where a provision had been
made by the church of which he was the earthly head, for difficulties of
this precise description, the pope was under an obligation either to make
the required concessions in virtue of his faculty, or, if he found himself
unable to make those concessions, to offer some distinct explanation of his
refusal. I speak of the question as nakedly political. I am not considering
the private injuries of which Catherine had so deep a right to complain,
nor the complications subsequently raised on the original validity of the
first marriage. A political difficulty, on which alone he was bound to give
sentence, was laid before the pope in his judicial capacity, in the name of
the nation; and the painful features which the process afterwards assumed
are due wholly to his original weakness and vacillation.

Deeply, however, as we must all deplore the scandal and suffering which
were occasioned by the dispute, it was in a high degree fortunate, that at
the crisis of public dissatisfaction in England with the condition of the
church, especially in the conduct of its courts of justice, a cause should
have arisen which tested the whole question of church authority in its
highest form; where the dispute between the laity and the ecclesiastics was
represented in a process in which the pope sat as judge; in which the king
was the appellant, and the most vital interests of the nation were at stake
upon the issue. It was no accident which connected a suit for divorce with
the reformation of religion. The ecclesiastical jurisdiction was upon its
trial, and the future relations of church and state depended upon the
pope's conduct in a matter which no technical skill was required to decide,
but only the moral virtues of probity and courage. The time had been when
the clergy feared only to be unjust, and when the functions of judges might
safely be entrusted to them. The small iniquities of the consistory courts
had shaken the popular faith in the continued operation of such a fear; and
the experience of an Alexander VI., a Julius II., and a Leo X. had induced
a suspicion that even in the highest quarters justice had ceased to be much
considered. It remained for Clement VII. to disabuse men of their alarms,
or by confirming them to forfeit for ever the supremacy of his order in
England. Nor can it be said for him that the case was one in which it was
unusually difficult to be virtuous. Justice, wounded dignity, and the
interests of the See pointed alike to the same course. Queen Catherine's
relationship to the emperor could not have recommended her to the
tenderness of the pope, and the policy of assenting to an act which would
infallibly alienate Henry from Charles, and therefore attach him to the
Roman interests, did not require the eloquence of Wolsey to make it
intelligible. If, because he was in the emperor's power, he therefore
feared the personal consequences to himself, his cowardice of itself
disqualified him to sit as a judge.

It does not fall within my present purpose to detail the first stages of
the proceedings which followed. In substance they are well known to all
readers of English history, and may be understood without difficulty as
soon as we possess the clue to the conduct of Wolsey. I shall, however, in
a few pages briefly epitomise what passed.

At the outset of the negotiation, the pope, although he would take no
positive steps, was all, in words, which he was expected to be. Neither he
nor the cardinals refused to acknowledge the dangers which threatened the
country. He discussed freely the position of the different parties, the
probabilities of a disputed succession, and the various claimants who would
present themselves, if the king died without an heir of undisputed
legitimacy.[135] Gardiner writes to Wolsey,[136] "We did even more
inculcate what speed and celerity the thing required, and what danger it
was to the realm to have this matter hang in suspense. His Holiness
confessed the same, and thereupon began to reckon what divers titles might
be pretended by the King of Scots and others, and granted that, without an
heir male, with provision to be made by consent of the state for his
succession, and unless that what shall be done herein be established in
such fashion as nothing may hereafter be objected thereto, the realm was
like to come to dissolution."

In stronger language the Cardinal-Governor of Bologna declared that "he
knew the gyze of England as well as few men did, and if the king should die
without heirs male, he was sure it would cost two hundred thousand men's
lives. Wherefore he thought, supposing his Grace should have no more
children by the queen, and that by taking of another wife he might have
heirs male, the bringing to pass that matter, and by that to avoid the
mischiefs afore written, he thought would deserve Heaven."[137] Whatever
doubt their might be, therefore, whether the original marriage with
Catherine was legal, it was universally admitted that there was none about
the national desirableness of the dissolution of it; and if the pope had
been free to judge only by the merits of the case, it is impossible to
doubt that he would have cut the knot, either by granting a dispensation to
Henry to marry a second wife--his first being formally, though not
judicially, separated from him--or in some other way.[138] But the emperor
was "a lion in his path;" the question of strength between the French and
the Spaniards remained undecided, and Clement would come to no decision
until he was assured of the power of the allies to protect him from the
consequences. Accordingly he said and unsaid, sighed, sobbed, beat his
breast, shuffled, implored, threatened;[139] in all ways he endeavoured to
escape from his dilemma, to say yes and to say no, to do nothing, to offend
no one, and above all to gain time, with the weak man's hope that
"something might happen" to extricate him. Embassy followed embassy from
England, each using language more threatening than its predecessor. The
thing, it was said, must be done, and should be done. If it was not done by
the pope it would be done at home in some other way, and the pope must take
the consequences.[140] Wolsey warned him passionately of the rising
storm,[141] a storm which would be so terrible when it burst "that it would
be better to die than to live." The pope was strangely unable to believe
that the danger could be real, being misled perhaps by other information
from the friends of Queen Catherine, and by an over-confidence in the
attachment of the people to the emperor. He acted throughout in a manner
natural to a timid amiable man, who found himself in circumstances to which
he was unequal; and as long as we look at him merely as a man we can pity
his embarrassment. He forgot, however, that only because he was supposed to
be more than a man had kings and emperors consented to plead at his
judgment seat--a fact of which Stephen Gardiner, then Wolsey's secretary,
thought it well to remind him in the following striking language:--

"Unless," said the future Bishop of Winchester in the council, at the close
of a weary day of unprofitable debating, "unless some other resolution be
taken than I perceive you intend to make, hereupon shall be gathered a
marvellous opinion of your Holiness, of the college of cardinals, and of
the authority of this See. The King's Highness, and the nobles of the realm
who shall be made privy to this, shall needs think that your Holiness and
these most reverend and learned councillors either will not answer in this
cause, or cannot answer. If you will not, if you do not choose to point out
the way to an erring man, the care of whom is by God committed to you, they
will say, 'Oh race of men most ungrateful, and of your proper office most
oblivious! You who should be simple as doves are full of all deceit, and
craft, and dissembling. If the king's cause be good, we require that you
pronounce it good. If it be bad, why will you not say that it is bad, so to
hinder a prince to whom you are so much bounden from longer continuing with
it? We ask nothing of you but justice, which the king so loves and values,
that whatever sinister things others may say or think of him, he will
follow that with all his heart; that, and nothing else, whether it be for
the marriage or against the marriage.'

"But if the King's Majesty," continued Gardiner, hitting the very point of
the difficulty, "if the King's Majesty and the nobility of England, being
persuaded of your good will to answer if you can do so, shall be brought to
doubt of your ability, they will be forced to a harder conclusion
respecting this See--namely, that God has taken from it the key of
knowledge; and they will begin to give better ear to that opinion of some
persons to which they have as yet refused to listen, that those papal laws
which neither the pope himself nor his council can interpret, deserve only
to be committed to the flames." "I desired his Holiness," he adds, "to
ponder well this matter."[142]

Clement was no hero, but in his worst embarrassments his wit never failed
him. He answered that he was not learned, and "to speak truth, albeit there
was a saying in the canon law, that _Pontifex habet omnia jura in scrinio
pectoris_ (the pope has all laws locked within his breast), yet God had
never given him the key to open that lock." He was but "seeking pretexts"
for delay, as Gardiner saw, till the issue of the Italian campaign of the
French in the summer of 1528 was decided. He had been liberated, or had
been allowed to escape from Rome, in the fear that if detained longer he
might nominate a vicegerent; and was residing at an old ruined castle at
Orvieto, waiting upon events, leaving the Holy City still occupied by the
Prince of Orange. In the preceding autumn, immediately after the congress
at Amiens, M. de Lautrec, accompanied by several English noblemen, had led
an army across the Alps. He had defeated the Imperialists in the north of
Italy in several minor engagements; and in January his success appeared so
probable, that the pope took better heart, and told Sir Gregory Cassalis,
that if the French would only approach near enough to enable him to plead
compulsion, he would grant a commission to Wolsey, with plenary power to
conclude the cause.[143] De Lautrec, however, foiled in his desire to bring
the Imperialists to a decisive engagement, wasted his time and strength in
ineffectual petty sieges; and finally, in the summer, on the unhealthy
plains of Naples, a disaster more fatal in its consequences than the battle
of Pavia, closed the prospects of the French to the south of the Alps; and
with them all Wolsey's hopes of realising his dream. Struck down, not by a
visible enemy, but by the silent hand of fever, the French general himself,
his English friends, and all his army melted away from off the earth. The
pope had been wise in time. He had committed himself in words and
intentions; but he had done nothing which he could not recall. He obtained
his pardon from the emperor by promising to offend no more; and from that
moment never again entertained any real thought of concession. Acting under
explicit directions, he made it his object thenceforward to delay and to
procrastinate. Charles had no desire to press matters to extremities. War
had not yet been declared[144] against him by Henry; nor was he anxious
himself to precipitate a quarrel from which, if possible, he would gladly
escape. He had a powerful party in England, which it was unwise to alienate
by hasty, injudicious measures; and he could gain all which he himself
desired by a simple policy of obstruction. His object was merely to
protract the negotiation and prevent a decision, in the hope either that
Henry would be wearied into acquiescence, or that Catherine herself would
retire of her own accord, or, finally, that some happy accident might occur
to terminate the difficulty. It is, indeed, much to the honour of Charles
V. that he resolved to support the queen. She had thrown herself on his
protection; but princes in such matters consider prudence more than
feeling, and he could gain nothing by defending her: while, both for
himself and for the church he risked the loss of much. He over-rated the
strength of his English connection, and mistook the English character; but
he was not blind to the hazard which he was incurring, and would have
welcomed an escape from the dilemma perhaps as warmly as Henry would have
welcomed it himself. The pope, who well knew his feelings, told Gardiner,
"It would be for the wealth of Christendom if the queen were in her
grave; and he thought the emperor would be thereof most glad of all;"
saying, also, "that he thought like as the emperor had destroyed the
temporalities of the church, so should she be the destruction of the
spiritualities."[145]

In the summer of 1528, before the disaster at Naples, Cardinal Campeggio
had left Rome on his way to England, where he was to hear the cause in
conjunction with Wolsey. An initial measure of this obvious kind it had
been impossible to refuse; and the pretexts under which it was for many
months delayed, were exhausted before the pope's ultimate course had been
made clear to him. But Campeggio was instructed to protract his journey to
its utmost length, giving time for the campaign to decide itself. He
loitered into the autumn, under the excuse of gout and other convenient
accidents, until the news reached him of De Lautrec's death, which took
place on the 21st of August; and then at length proceeding, he betrayed to
Francis I., on passing through Paris, that he had no intention of allowing
judgment to be passed upon the cause.[146] Even Wolsey was beginning to
tremble at what he had attempted, and was doubtful of success.[147] The
seeming relief came in time, for Henry's patience was fast running out. He
had been over-persuaded into a course which he had never cordially
approved. The majority of the council, especially the Duke of Norfolk and
the Duke of Suffolk, were traditionally imperial, and he himself might well
doubt whether he might not have found a nearer road out of his difficulties
by adhering to Charles. Charles, after all, was not ruining the papacy, and
had no intention of ruining it; and his lightest word weighed more at the
court of Rome than the dubious threats and prayers of France. The Bishop of
Bayonne, resident French ambassador in London, whose remarkable letters
transport us back into the very midst of that unquiet and stormy scene,
tells us plainly that the French alliance was hated by the country, that
the nobility were all for the emperor, and that among the commons the
loudest discontent was openly expressed against Wolsey from the danger of
the interruption of the trade with Flanders. Flemish ships had been
detained in London, and English ships in retaliation had been arrested in
the Zealand ports; corn was unusually dear, and the expected supplies from
Spain and Germany were cut off;[148] while the derangement of the woollen
trade, from the reluctance of the merchants to venture purchases, was
causing distress all over the country, and Wolsey had been driven to the
most arbitrary measures to prevent open disturbance.[149] He had set his
hopes upon the chance of a single cast which he would not believe could
fail him, but on each fresh delay he was compelled to feel his declining
credit, and the Bishop of Bayonne wrote, on the 20th of August, 1528, that
the cardinal was in bad spirits, and had told him in confidence, that "if
he could only see the divorce arranged, the king remarried, the succession
settled, and the laws and the manners and customs of the country reformed,
he would retire from the world and would serve God the remainder of his
days."[150] To these few trifles he would be contented to confine
himself--only to these; he was past sixty, he was weary of the world, and
his health was breaking, and he would limit his hopes to the execution of a
work for which centuries imperfectly sufficed. It seemed as if he measured
his stature by the lengthening shadow, as his sun made haste to its
setting. Symptoms of misgiving may be observed in the many anxious letters
which he wrote while Campeggio was so long upon his road; and the Bishop of
Bayonne, whose less interested eyes could see more deeply into the game,
warned him throughout that the pope was playing him false.[151] Only in a
revulsion from violent despondency could such a man as Wolsey have allowed
himself, on the mere arrival of the legate, and after a few soft words from
him, to write in the following strain to Sir Gregory Cassalis:--

"You cannot believe the exultation with which at length I find myself
successful in the object for which these many years, with all my industry,
I have laboured. At length I have found means to bind my most excellent
sovereign and this glorious realm to the holy Roman see in faith and
obedience for ever. Henceforth will this people become the most sure pillar
of support to bear up the sacred fabric of the church. Henceforth, in
recompense for that enduring felicity which he has secured to it, our most
Holy Lord has all England at his devotion. In brief time will this noble
land make its grateful acknowledgments to his clemency at once for the
preservation of the most just, most wise, most excellent of princes, and
for the secure establishment of the realm and the protection of the royal
succession."[152]

This letter was dated on the fourth of October, and was written in the hope
that the pope had collected his courage, and that the legate had brought
powers to proceed to judgment. In a few days the prospect was again
clouded, and Wolsey was once more in despair.[153] Campeggio had brought
with him instructions if possible to arrange a compromise,--if a compromise
was impossible, to make the best use of his ingenuity, and do nothing and
allow nothing to be done. In one of two ways, however, it was hoped that he
might effect a peaceful solution. He urged the king to give way and to
proceed no further; and this failing, as he was prepared to find, he urged
the same thing upon the queen.[154] He invited Catherine, or he was
directed to invite her, in the pope's name,[155] for the sake of the
general interests of Christendom, to take the vows and enter what was
called _religio laxa_, a state in which she might live unincumbered by
obligations except the easy one of chastity, and free from all other
restrictions either of habit, diet, or order. The proposal was Wolsey's,
and was formed when he found the limited nature of Campeggio's
instructions;[156] but it was adopted by the latter; and I cannot but think
(though I have no proof of it) that it was not adopted without the
knowledge of the emperor. Whatever were his own interests, Charles V. gave
Catherine his unwavering support: he made it his duty to maintain her in
the ignominious position in which she was placed, and submitted his own
conduct to be guided by her wishes. It cannot be doubted, however, from the
pope's words, and also from the circumstances of the case, that if she
could have prevailed upon herself to yield, it would have relieved him from
a painful embarrassment. As a prince, he must have felt the substantial
justice of Henry's demand, and in refusing to allow the pope to pass a
judicial sentence of divorce, he could not but have known that he was
compromising the position of the Holy See: while Catherine herself, on the
other hand, if she had yielded, would have retired without a stain; no
opinion would have been pronounced upon her marriage; the legitimacy of the
Princess Mary would have been left without impeachment; and her right to
the succession, in the event of no male heir following from any new
connection which the king might form, would have been readily secured to
her by act of parliament. It may be asked why she did not yield, and it is
difficult to answer the question. She was not a person who would have been
disturbed by the loss of a few court vanities. Her situation as Henry's
wife could not have had many charms for her, nor can it be thought that she
retained a personal affection for him. If she had loved him, she would have
suffered too deeply in the struggle to have continued to resist, and the
cloister would have seemed a paradise. Or if the cloister had appeared too
sad a shelter for her, she might have gone back to the gardens of the
Alhambra, where she had played as a child, carrying with her the
affectionate remembrance of every English heart, and welcomed by her own
people as an injured saint. Nor again can we suppose that the possible
injury of her daughter's prospects from the birth of a prince by another
marriage could have seemed of so vast moment to her. Those prospects were
already more than endangered, and would have been rather improved than
brought into further peril.

It is not for us to dictate the conduct which a woman smarting under
injuries so cruel ought to have pursued. She had a right to choose the
course which seemed the best to herself, and England especially could not
claim of a stranger that readiness to sacrifice herself which it might have
demanded and exacted of one of its own children. We may regret, however,
what we are unable to censure; and the most refined ingenuity could
scarcely have invented a more unfortunate answer than that which the Queen
returned to the legate's request. She seems to have said that she was ready
to take vows of chastity if the king would do the same. It does not appear
whether the request was _formally_ made, or whether it was merely suggested
to her in private conversation. That she told the legates, however, what
her answer would be, appears certain from the following passage, sadly
indicating the "devices of policy" to which in this unhappy business
honourable men allowed themselves to be driven:--

"Forasmuch as it is like that the queen shall make marvellous difficulty,
and in nowise be conformable to enter religion[157] or take vows of
chastity, but that to induce her thereunto, there must be ways and means of
high policy used, and all things possible devised to encourage her to the
same; wherein percase she shall resolve that she in no wise will condescend
so to do, unless that the King's Highness also do the semblable for his
part; the king's said orators shall therefore in like wise ripe and
instruct themselves by their secret learned council in the court of Rome,
if, for so great a benefit to ensue unto the king's succession, realm, and
subjects, with the quiet of his conscience, his Grace should promise so to
enter religion on vows of chastity for his part, only thereby to conduce
the queen thereunto, whether in that case the Pope's Holiness may dispense
with the King's Highness for the same promise, oath, or vow, discharging
his Grace clearly of the same."[158]

The explanation of the queen's conduct lies probably in regions into which
it is neither easy nor well to penetrate; in regions of outraged delicacy
and wounded pride, in a vast drama of passion which had been enacted behind
the scenes. From the significant hints which are let fall of the original
cause of the estrangement, it was of a kind more difficult to endure than
the ordinary trial of married women, the transfer of a husband's affection
to some fairer face; and a wife whom so painful a misfortune had failed to
crush would be likely to have been moved by it to a deeper and more bitter
indignation even, because while she could not blame herself, she knew not
whom she might rightly allow herself to blame. And if this were so, the
king is not likely to have allayed the storm when at length, putting faith
in Wolsey's promises, he allowed himself openly to regard another person as
his future wife, establishing her in the palace at Greenwich under the same
roof with the queen, with reception rooms, and royal state, and a position
openly acknowledged,[159] the gay court and courtiers forsaking the gloomy
dignity of the actual wife for the gaudy splendour of her brilliant rival.
Tamer blood than that which flowed in the veins of a princess of Castile
would have boiled under these indignities; and we have little reason to be
surprised if policy and prudence were alike forgotten by Catherine in the
bitterness of the draught which was forced upon her, and if her own
personal wrongs outweighed the interests of the world. Henry had proceeded
to the last unjustifiable extremity as soon as the character of Campeggio's
mission had been made clear to him, as if to demonstrate to all the world
that he was determined to persevere at all costs and hazards.[160] Taking
the management of the negotiation into his own keeping, he sent Sir Francis
Bryan, the cousin of Anne Boleyn, to the pope, to announce that what he
required must be done, and to declare peremptorily, no more with covert
hints, but with open menace, that in default of help from Rome, he would
lay the matter before parliament, to be settled at home by the laws of his
own country.

Meanwhile, the emperor, who had hitherto conducted himself with the
greatest address, had fallen into his first error. He had retreated
skilfully out of the embarrassment in which the pope's imprisonment
involved him, and mingling authority and dictation with kindness and
deference, he had won over the Holy See to his devotion, and neutralised
the danger to which the alliance of France and England threatened to expose
him. His correspondence with the latter country assured him of the
unpopularity of the course which had been pursued by the cardinal; he was
aware of the obstruction of trade which it had caused, and of the general
displeasure felt by the people at the breach of an old friendship; while
the league with France in behalf of the Roman church had been barren of
results, and was made ridiculous by the obvious preference of the pope for
the enemy from whom it was formed to deliver him. If Charles had understood
the English temper, therefore, and had known how to avail himself of the
opportunity, events might have run in a very different channel. But he was
not aware of the earnestness with which the people were bent upon securing
the succession, nor of their loyal attachment to Henry. He supposed that
disapproval of the course followed by Wolsey to obtain the divorce implied
an aversion to it altogether; and trusting to his interest in the privy
council, and to his commercial connection with the city, he had attempted
to meet menace with menace; he had replied to the language addressed by
Henry to the pope with an attempt to feel the pulse of English
disaffection, and he opened a correspondence with the Earl of Desmond for
an Irish revolt.[161]

The opportunity for a movement of this kind had not yet arrived. There was,
in England at least, as yet no wide disaffection; but there was a chance of
serious outbreaks; and Henry instantly threw himself upon the nation. He
summoned the peers by circular to London, and calling a general meeting,
composed of the nobility, the privy council, the lord mayor, and the great
merchants of the city, he laid before them a specific detail of his objects
in desiring the divorce;[162] and informed them of the nature of the
measures which had been taken.[163] This, the French ambassador informs us,
gave wide satisfaction and served much to allay the disquiet; but so great
was the indignation against Wolsey, that disturbances in London were every
day anticipated; and at one time the danger appeared so threatening, that
an order of council was issued, commanding all strangers to leave the city,
and a general search was instituted for arms.[164] The strangers aimed at
were the Flemings, whose numbers made them formidable, and who were,
perhaps, supposed to be ready to act under instruction from abroad. The
cloud, however, cleared away; the order was not enforced; and the
propitious moment for treason had not yet arrived. The emperor had felt so
confident that, in the autumn of 1528, he had boasted that, "before the
winter was over, he would fling Henry from his throne by the hands of his
own Subjects." The words had been repeated to Wolsey, who mentioned them
openly at his table before more than a hundred gentlemen. A person present
exclaimed, "That speech has lost the emperor more than a hundred thousand
hearts among us;"[165] an expression which reveals at once the strength and
the weakness of the imperial party. England might have its own opinions of
the policy of the government, but it was in no humour to tolerate treason,
and the first hint of revolt was followed by an instant recoil. The
discovery of more successful intrigues in Scotland and Ireland completed
the destruction of Charles's influence;[166] and the result of these
ill-judged and premature efforts was merely to unite the nation in their
determination to prosecute the divorce.

Thus were the various parties in the vast struggle which was about to
commence gravitating into their places; and mistake combined with policy to
place them in their true positions. Wolsey, in submitting "the king's
matter" to the pope, had brought to issue the question whether the papal
authority should be any longer recognised in England; and he had secured
the ruin of that authority by the steps through which he hoped to establish
it; while Charles, by his unwise endeavours to foment a rebellion, severed
with his own hand the links of a friendship which would have been seriously
embarrassing if it had continued. By him, also, was dealt the concluding
stroke in this first act of the drama; and though we may grant him credit
for the ingenuity of his contrivance, he can claim it only at the expense
of his probity. The pope, when the commission was appointed for the trial
of the cause in England, had given a promise in writing that the commission
should not be revoked. It seemed, therefore, that the legates would be
compelled, in spite of themselves, to pronounce sentence; and that the
settlement of the question, in one form or other, could not long be
delayed. At the pressure of the crisis in the winter of 1528-9, a document
was produced alleged to have been found in Spain, which furnished a pretext
for a recall of the engagement, and opening now questions, indefinite and
inexhaustible, rendered the passing of a sentence in England impossible.
Unhappily, the weight of the king's claim (however it had been rested on
its true merits in conversation and in letters) had, by the perverse
ingenuity of the lawyers, been laid on certain informalities and defects in
the original bull of dispensation, which had been granted by Julius II. for
the marriage of Henry and Catherine. At the moment when the legates' court
was about to be opened, a copy of a brief was brought forward, bearing the
same date as the bull, exactly meeting the objection. The authenticity of
this brief was open, on its own merits, to grave doubt; and suspicion
becomes certainty when we find it was dropped out of the controversy so
soon as the immediate object was gained for which it was produced. But the
legates' hands were instantly tied by it. The "previous question" of
authenticity had necessarily to be tried before they could take another
step; and the "original" of the brief being in the hands of the emperor,
who refused to send it into England, but offered to send it to Rome, the
cause was virtually transferred to Rome, where Henry, as he knew, was
unlikely to consent to plead, or where he could himself rule the decision.
He had made a stroke of political finesse, which answered not only the
purpose that he immediately intended, but answered, also, the purpose that
he did not intend--of dealing the hardest blow which it had yet received to
the supremacy of the Holy See.

The spring of 1529 was wasted in fruitless efforts to obtain the brief. At
length, in May, the proceedings were commenced; but they were commenced
only in form, and were never more than an illusion. Catherine had been
instructed in the course which she was to pursue. She appealed from the
judgment of the legates to that of the pope; and the pope, with the plea of
the new feature which had arisen in the case, declared that he could not
refuse to revoke his promise. Having consented to the production of the
brief, he had in fact no alternative; nor does it appear what he could have
urged in excuse of himself. He may have suspected the forgery; nay, it is
certain that in England he was believed to be privy to it; but he could not
ignore an important feature of necessary evidence, especially when pressed
upon him by the emperor; and it was in fact no more than an absurdity to
admit the authority of a papal commission, and to refuse to permit an
appeal from it to the pope in person. We may thank Clement for dispelling a
chimera by a simple act of consistency. The power of the See of Rome in
England was a constitutional fiction, acknowledged only on condition that
it would consent to be inert. So long as a legate's court sat in London,
men were able to conceal from themselves the fact of a foreign
jurisdiction, and to feel that, substantially, their national independence
was respected; when the fiction aspired to become a reality, but one
consequence was possible. If Henry himself would have stooped to plead at a
foreign tribunal, the spirit of the nation would not have permitted him to
inflict so great a dishonour on the free majesty of England.

So fell Wolsey's great scheme, and with it fell the last real chance of
maintaining the pope's authority in England under any form. The people were
smarting under the long humiliation of the delay, and ill-endured to see
the interests of England submitted, as they virtually were, to the
arbitration of a foreign prince. The emperor, not the pope, was the true
judge who sat to decide the quarrel; and their angry jealousy refused to
tolerate longer a national dishonour.

"The great men of the realm," wrote the legates, "are storming in bitter
wrath at our procrastination. Lords and commons alike complain that they
are made to expect at the hands of strangers things of vital moment to
themselves and their fortunes. And many persons here who would desire to
see the pope's authority in this country diminished or annulled, are
speaking in language which we cannot repeat without horror."[167]

And when, being in such a mood, they were mocked, after two weary years of
negotiation, by the opening of a fresh vista of difficulties, when they
were informed that the further hearing of the cause was transferred to
Italy, even Wolsey, with certain ruin before him, rose in protest before
such a dream of shame. He was no more the Roman legate, but the English
minister.

"If the advocation be passed," he wrote to Cassalis,[168] "or shall now at
any time hereafter pass, with citation of the king in person, or by
proctor, to the court of Rome, or with any clause of interdiction or
excommunication, _vel cum invocatione brachii sęcularis_, whereby the king
should be precluded from taking his advantage otherwise, the dignity and
prerogative royal of the king's crown, whereunto all the nobles and
subjects of this realm will adhere and stick unto the death, may not
tolerate nor suffer that the same be obeyed. And to say the truth, in so
doing the pope should not only show himself the king's enemy, but also as
much as in him is, provoke all other princes and people to be the
semblable. Nor shall it ever be seen that the king's cause shall be
ventilated or decided in any place out of his own realm; _but that if his
Grace should come at any time to the Court of Rome, he would do the same
with such a main and army royal as should be formidable to the pope and all
Italy_."[169]

Wolsey, however, failed in his protest; the advocation was passed,
Campeggio left England, and he was lost. A crisis had arrived, and a
revolution of policy was inevitable. From the accession of Henry VII., the
country had been governed by a succession of ecclesiastical ministers, who
being priests as well as statesmen, were essentially conservative; and
whose efforts in a position of constantly increasing difficulty had been
directed towards resisting the changing tendencies of the age, and either
evading a reformation of the church while they admitted its necessity, or
retaining the conduct of it in their own hands, while they were giving
evidence of their inability to accomplish the work. It was now over; the
ablest representative of this party, in a last desperate effort to retain
power, had decisively failed. Writs were issued for a parliament when the
legate's departure was determined, and the consequences were inevitable.
Wolsey had known too well the unpopularity of his foreign policy, to
venture on calling a parliament himself. He relied on success as an
ultimate justification; and inasmuch as success had not followed, he was
obliged to bear the necessary fate of a minister who, in a free country,
had thwarted the popular will and whom fortune deserted in the struggle.
The barriers which his single hand had upheld suddenly gave way, the
torrent had free course, and he himself was the first to be swept away. In
modern language, we should describe what took place as a change of
ministry, the government being transferred to an opposition, who had been
irritated by long depression under the hands of men whom they despised, and
who were borne into power by an irresistible force in a moment of
excitement and danger. The king, who had been persuaded against his better
judgment to accept Wolsey's schemes, admitted the rising spirit without
reluctance, contented to moderate its action, but no longer obstructing or
permitting it to be obstructed. Like all great English statesmen, he was
constitutionally conservative, but he had the tact to perceive the
conditions under which, in critical times, conservatism is possible; and
although he continued to endure for himself the trifling of the papacy, he
would not, for the sake of the pope's interest, delay further the
investigation of the complaints of the people against the church; while in
the future prosecution of his own cause, he resolved to take no steps
except with the consent of the legislature, and in a question of national
moment, to consult only the nation's wishes.

The new ministry held a middle place between the moving party in the
commons and the expelled ecclesiastics, the principal members of it being
the chief representatives of the old aristocracy, who had been Wolsey's
fiercest opponents, but who were disinclined by constitution and sympathy
from sweeping measures. An attempt was made, indeed, to conciliate the more
old-fashioned of the churchmen, by an offer of the seals to Warham,
Archbishop of Canterbury, probably because he originally opposed the
marriage between the king and his sister-in-law, and because it was hoped
that his objections remained unaltered. Warham, however, as we shall see,
had changed his mind: he declined, on the plea of age, and the office of
chancellor was given to Sir Thomas More, perhaps the person least
disaffected to the clergy who could have been found among the leading
laymen. The substance of power was vested in the Dukes of Norfolk and
Suffolk, the great soldier-nobles of the age, and Sir William Fitz-William,
lord admiral; to all of whom the ecclesiastical domination had been most
intolerable, while they had each of them brilliantly distinguished
themselves in the wars with France and Scotland. According to the French
ambassador, we must add one more minister, supreme, if we may trust him,
above them all. "The Duke of Norfolk," he writes, "is made president of the
council, the Duke of Suffolk vice-president, and above them both is
Mistress Anne;"[170] this last addition to the council being one which
boded little good to the interests of the See that had so long detained her
in expectation. So confident were the destructive party of the temper of
the approaching parliament, and of the irresistible pressure of the times,
that the general burden of conversation of the dinner-tables in the great
houses in London was an exulting expectation of a dissolution of the church
establishment, and a confiscation of ecclesiastical property; the king
himself being the only obstacle which was feared by them. "These noble
lords imagine," continues the same writer, "that the cardinal once dead of
ruined, they will incontinently plunder the church, and strip it of all its
wealth," adding that there was no occasion for him to write this in cipher,
for it was everywhere openly spoken of.[171]

Movements, nevertheless, which are pregnant with vital change, are slow in
assuming their essential direction, even after the stir has commenced.
Circumstances do not immediately open themselves; the point of vision
alters gradually; and fragments of old opinions, and prepossessions, and
prejudices remain interfused with the new, even in the clearest minds, and
cannot at a moment be shaken off. Only the unwise change suddenly; and we
can never too often remind ourselves, when we see men stepping forward with
uncertainty and hesitation over a road, where to us, we know the actual
future, all seems so plain, that the road looked different to the actors
themselves, who were beset with imaginations of the past, and to whom the
gloom of the future appeared thronged with phantoms of possible
contingencies. The hasty expectations of the noble lords were checked by
Henry's prudence; and though parties were rapidly arranging themselves,
there was still confusion. The city, though disinclined to the pope and the
church, continued to retain an inclination for the emperor; and the pope
had friends among Wolsey's enemies, who, by his overthrow, were pressed
forward into prominence, and divided the victory with the reformers. The
presence of Sir Thomas More in the council was a guarantee that no
exaggerated measures against the church would be permitted so long as he
held the seals; and Henry, perhaps, was anxious to leave room for
conciliation, which he hoped that the pope would desire as much as himself,
so soon as the meeting of parliament had convinced him that the mutinous
disposition of the nation had not been overstated by his own and Wolsey's
letters.

The impression conceived two years before of the hostile relations between
the pope and Charles had not yet been wholly effaced; and even as late as
September, 1529, after the closing of the legates' court, in the very heat
of the public irritation, there were persons who believed that when Clement
met his imperial captor face to face, and the interview had taken place
which had been arranged for the ensuing January, his eyes would be opened,
and that he would fall back upon England.[172] At the same time, the
incongruities in the constitution of the council became so early apparent,
that their agreement was thought impossible, and Wolsey's return to power
was discussed openly as a probability[173]--a result which Anne Boleyn,
who, better than any other person, knew the king's feelings, never ceased
to fear, till, a year after his disgrace, the welcome news were brought to
her that he had sunk into his long rest, where the sick load of office and
of obloquy would gall his back no more.

There was a third party in the country, unconsidered as yet, who had a part
to play in the historical drama: a party which, indeed, if any one had
known it, was the most important of all; the only one which, in a true,
high sense, was of importance at all; and for the sake of which, little as
it then appeared to be so, the whole work was to be done--composed at that
time merely of poor men, poor cobblers, weavers, carpenters, trade
apprentices, and humble artisans, men of low birth and low estate, who
might be seen at night stealing along the lanes and alleys of London,
carrying with them some precious load of books which it was death to
possess; and giving their lives gladly, if it must be so, for the brief
tenure of so dear a treasure. These men, for the present, were likely to
fare ill from the new ministry. They were the disturbers of order, the
anarchists, the men disfigured _pravitate hereticā_, by monstrous
doctrines, and consequently by monstrous lives--who railed at authorities,
and dared to read New Testaments with their own eyes--who, consequently, by
their excesses and extravagances, brought discredit upon liberal opinions,
and whom moderate liberals (as they always have done, and always will do
while human nature remains itself) held it necessary for their credit's
sake to persecute, that a censorious world might learn to make no confusion
between true wisdom and the folly which seemed to resemble it. The
Protestants had not loved Wolsey, and they had no reason to love him; but
it was better to bear a fagot of dry sticks in a procession when the
punishment was symbolic, than, lashed fast to a stake in Smithfield, amidst
piles of the same fagots kindled into actual flames, to sink into a heap of
blackened dust and ashes; and before a year had passed, they would gladly
have accepted again the hated cardinal, to escape from the philosophic
mercies of Sir Thomas More. The number of English Protestants at this time
it is difficult to conjecture. The importance of such men is not to be
measured by counting heads. In 1526, they were organised into a society,
calling themselves "the Christian brotherhood,"[174] with a central
committee sitting in London; with subscribed funds, regularly audited, for
the purchase of Testaments and tracts; and with paid agents, who travelled
up and down the country to distribute them. Some of the poorer clergy
belonged to the society;[175] and among the city merchants there were many
well inclined to it, and who, perhaps, attended its meetings "by night,
secretly, for fear of the Jews." But, as a rule, "property and influence"
continued to hold aloof in the usual haughty style, and the pioneers of the
new opinions had yet to win their way along a scorched and blackened path
of suffering, before the State would consent to acknowledge them. We think
bitterly of these things, and yet we are but quarrelling with what is
inevitable from the constitution of the world. New doctrines ever gain
readiest hearing among the common people; not only because the interests of
the higher classes are usually in some degree connected with the
maintenance of existing institutions; but because ignorance is itself a
protection against the many considerations which embarrass the judgment of
the educated. The value of a doctrine cannot be determined on its own
apparent merits by men whose habits of mind are settled in other forms;
while men of experience know well that out of the thousands of theories
which rise in the fertile soil below them, it is but one here and one there
which grows to maturity; and the precarious chances of possible vitality,
where the opposite probabilities are so enormous, oblige them to discourage
and repress opinions which threaten to disturb established order, or which,
by the rules of existing beliefs, imperil the souls of those who entertain
them. Persecution has ceased among ourselves, because we do not any more
believe that want of theoretic orthodoxy in matters of faith is necessarily
fraught with the tremendous consequences which once were supposed to be
attached to it. If, however, a school of Thugs were to rise among us,
making murder a religious service; if they gained proselytes, and the
proselytes put their teaching in execution, we should speedily begin again
to persecute opinion. What teachers of Thuggism would appear to ourselves,
the teachers of heresy actually appeared to Sir Thomas More, only being as
much more hateful as the eternal death of the soul is more terrible than
the single and momentary separation of it from the body. There is, I think,
no just ground on which to condemn conscientious Catholics on the score of
persecution, except only this: that as we are now convinced of the
injustice of the persecuting laws, so among those who believed them to be
just, there were some who were led by an instinctive protest of human
feeling to be lenient in the execution of those laws; while others of
harder nature and more narrow sympathies enforced them without reluctance,
and even with exultation. The heart, when it is rightly constituted,
corrects the folly of the head; and wise good men, even though they
entertain no conscious misgiving as to the soundness of their theories, may
be delivered from the worst consequences of those theories, by trusting
their more genial instincts. And thus, and thus only, are we justified in
censuring those whose names figure largely in the persecuting lists. Their
defence is impregnable to logic. We blame them for the absence of that
humanity which is deeper than logic, and which should have taught them to
refuse the conclusions of their speculative creed.

Such, then, was the state of parties in the autumn of 1529. The old
conservatives, the political ecclesiastics, had ceased to exist, and the
clergy as a body were paralysed by corruption. There remained--

The English party who had succeeded to power, and who were bent upon a
secular revolt.

The papal party, composed of theoretic theologians, like Fisher, Bishop of
Rochester, and represented on the council by Sir Thomas More.

And both of these were united in their aversion to the third party, that of
the doctrinal Protestants, who were still called heretics.

These three substantially divided what was sound in England; the first
composed of the mass of the people, representing the principles of
prudence, justice, good sense, and the working faculties of social life:
the two last sharing between them the higher qualities of nobleness,
enthusiasm, self-devotion; but in their faith being without discretion, and
in their piety without understanding. The problem of the Reformation was to
reunite virtues which could be separated only to their mutual confusion;
and to work out among them such inadequate reconciliation as the wilfulness
of human nature would allow.

Before I close this chapter, which is intended as a general introduction, I
have to say something of two prominent persons whose character antecedent
to the actions in which we are to find them engaged it is desirable that we
should understand; I mean Henry VIII. himself, and the lady whom he had
selected to fill the place from which Catherine of Arragon was to be
deposed.

If Henry VIII. had died previous to the first agitation of the divorce, his
loss would have been deplored as one of the heaviest misfortunes which had
ever befallen the country; and he would have left a name which would have
taken its place in history by the side of that of the Black Prince or of
the conqueror of Agincourt. Left at the most trying age, with his character
unformed, with the means at his disposal of gratifying every inclination,
and married by his ministers when a boy to an unattractive woman far his
senior, he had lived for thirty-six years almost without blame, and bore
through England the reputation of an upright and virtuous king. Nature had
been prodigal to him of her rarest gifts. In person he is said to have
resembled his grandfather, Edward IV., who was the handsomest man in
Europe. His form and bearing were princely; and amidst the easy freedom of
his address, his manner remained majestic. No knight in England could match
him in the tournament except the Duke of Suffolk: he drew with ease as
strong a bow as was borne by any yeoman of his guard; and these powers were
sustained in unfailing vigour by a temperate habit and by constant
exercise. Of his intellectual ability we are not left to judge from the
suspicious panegyrics of his contemporaries. His state papers and letters
may be placed by the side of those of Wolsey or of Cromwell, and they lose
nothing in the comparison. Though they are broadly different, the
perception is equally clear, the expression equally powerful, and they
breathe throughout an irresistible vigour of purpose. In addition to this
he had a fine musical taste, carefully cultivated; he spoke and wrote in
four languages; and his knowledge of a multitude of other subjects, with
which his versatile ability made him conversant, would have formed the
reputation of any ordinary man. He was among the best physicians of his
age; he was his own engineer, inventing improvements in artillery, and new
constructions in ship-building; and this not with the condescending
incapacity of a royal amateur, but with thorough workmanlike understanding.
His reading was vast, especially in theology, which has been ridiculously
ascribed by Lord Herbert to his father's intention of educating him for the
Archbishopric of Canterbury; as if the scientific mastery of such a subject
could have been acquired by a boy of twelve years of age, for he was no
more when he became Prince of Wales. He must have studied theology with the
full maturity of his intellect; and he had a fixed and perhaps unfortunate
interest in the subject itself.[176]

In all directions of human activity Henry displayed natural powers of the
highest order, at the highest stretch of industrious culture. He was
"attentive," as it is called, "to his religious duties," being present at
the services in chapel two or three times a day with unfailing regularity,
and showing to outward appearance a real sense of religious obligation in
the energy and purity of his life. In private he was good-humoured and
good-natured. His letters to his secretaries, though never undignified, are
simple, easy, and unrestrained; and the letters written by them to him are
similarly plain and businesslike, as if the writers knew that the person
whom they were addressing disliked compliments, and chose to be treated as
a man. Again, from their correspondence with one another, when they
describe interviews with him, we gather the same pleasant impression. He
seems to have been always kind, always considerate; inquiring into their
private concerns with genuine interest, and winning, as a consequence,
their warm and unaffected attachment.

As a ruler he had been eminently popular. All his wars had been successful.
He had the splendid tastes in which the English people most delighted, and
he had substantially acted out his own theory of his duty which was
expressed in the following words:--

"Scripture taketh princes to be, as it were, fathers and nurses to their
subjects, and by Scripture it appeareth that it appertaineth unto the
office of princes to see that right religion and true doctrine be
maintained and taught, and that their subjects may be well ruled and
governed by good and just laws; and to provide and care for them that all
things necessary for them may be plenteous; and that the people and
commonweal may increase; and to defend them from oppression and invasion,
as well within the realm as without; and to see that justice be
administered unto them indifferently; and to hear benignly all their
complaints; and to show towards them, although they offend, fatherly pity.
And, finally, so to correct them that be evil, that they had yet rather
save them than lose them if it were not for respect of justice, and
maintenance of peace and good order in the commonweal."[177]

These principles do really appear to have determined Henry's conduct in his
earlier years. His social administration we have partially seen in the
previous chapter. He had more than once been tried with insurrection, which
he had soothed down without bloodshed, and extinguished in forgiveness; and
London long recollected the great scene which followed "evil May-day,"
1517, when the apprentices were brought down to Westminster Hall to receive
their pardons. There had been a dangerous riot in the streets, which might
have provoked a mild government to severity; but the king contented himself
with punishing the five ringleaders, and four hundred other prisoners,
after being paraded down the streets in white shirts with halters round
their necks, were dismissed with an admonition, Wolsey weeping as he
pronounced it.[178]

It is certain that if, as I said, he had died before the divorce was
mooted, Henry VIII., like that Roman Emperor said by Tacitus to have been
_consensu omnium dignus imperii nisi imperasset_, would have been
considered by posterity as formed by Providence for the conduct of the
Reformation, and his loss would have been deplored as a perpetual calamity.
We must allow him, therefore, the benefit of his past career, and be
careful to remember it, when interpreting his later actions. Not many men
would have borne themselves through the same trials with the same
integrity; but the circumstances of those trials had not tested the true
defects in his moral constitution. Like all princes of the Plantagenet
blood, he was a person of a most intense and imperious will. His impulses,
in general nobly directed, had never known contradiction; and late in life,
when his character was formed, he was forced into collision with
difficulties with which the experience of discipline had not fitted him to
contend. Education had done much for him, but his nature required more
correction than his position had permitted, whilst unbroken prosperity and
early independence of control had been his most serious misfortune. He had
capacity, if his training had been equal to it, to be one of the greatest
of men. With all his faults about him, he was still perhaps the greatest of
his contemporaries; and the man best able of all living Englishmen to
govern England, had been set to do it by the conditions of his birth.

The other person whose previous history we have to ascertain is one, the
tragedy of whose fate has blotted the remembrance of her sins--if her sins
were, indeed, and in reality, more than imaginary. Forgetting all else in
shame and sorrow, posterity has made piteous reparation for her death in
the tenderness with which it has touched her reputation; and with the
general instincts of justice, we have refused to qualify our indignation at
the wrong which she experienced, by admitting either stain or shadow on her
fame. It has been with Anne Boleyn as it has been with Catherine of
Arragon--both are regarded as the victims of a tyranny which catholics and
protestants unite to remember with horror; and each has taken the place of
a martyred saint in the hagiology of the respective creeds. Catholic
writers have, indeed, ill repaid, in their treatment of Anne, the
admiration with which the mother of Queen Mary has been remembered in the
Church of England; but the invectives which they have heaped upon her have
defeated their object by their extravagance. It has been believed that
matter failed them to sustain a just accusation, when they condescended to
outrageous slander. Inasmuch, however, as some natural explanation can
usually be given of the actions of human beings in this world without
supposing them to have been possessed by extraordinary wickedness, and if
we are to hold Anne Boleyn entirely free from fault, we place not the king
only, but the privy council, the judges, the Lords and Commons, and the two
Houses of Convocation, in a position fatal to their honour and degrading to
ordinary humanity; we cannot without inquiry acquiesce in so painful a
conclusion. The English nation also, as well as she, deserves justice at
our hands; and it must not be thought uncharitable if we look with some
scrutiny at the career of a person who, except for the catastrophe with
which it was closed, would not so readily have obtained forgiveness for
having admitted the addresses of the king, or for having received the
homage of the court as its future sovereign, while the king's wife, her
mistress, as yet resided under the same roof, with the title and the
position of queen, and while the question was still undecided of the
validity of the first marriage. If in that alone she was to blame, her
fault was, indeed, revenged a thousandfold,--and yet no lady of true
delicacy would have accepted such a position; and feeling for Queen
Catherine should have restrained her, if she was careless of respect for
herself. It must, therefore, be permitted me, out of such few hints and
scattered notices as remain, to collect such information as may be trusted
respecting her early life before her appearance upon the great stage. These
hints are but slight, since I shall not even mention the scandals of
Sanders, any more than I shall mention the panegyrics of Foxe; stories
which, as far as I can learn, have no support in evidence, and rest on no
stronger foundation than the credulity of passion.

Anne Boleyn was the second daughter of Sir Thomas Boleyn, a gentleman of
noble family, though moderate fortune;[179] who, by a marriage with the
daughter of the Duke of Norfolk, was brought into connection with the
highest blood in the realm. The year of her birth has not been certainly
ascertained, but she is supposed to have been seven years old[180] in 1514,
when she accompanied the Princess Mary into France, on the marriage of that
lady with Louis XII. Louis dying a few months subsequently, the princess
married Sir Charles Brandon, afterwards created Duke of Suffolk, and
returned to England. Anne Boleyn did not return with her; she remained in
Paris to become accomplished with the graces and elegancies, if she was not
contaminated by the vices, of that court, which, even in those days of
loyal licentiousness, enjoyed an undesirable pre-eminence in profligacy. In
the French capital she could not have failed to see, to hear, and to become
familiar with occurrences with which no young girl can be brought in
contact with impunity, and this poisonous atmosphere she continued to
breathe for nine years. She came back to England in 1525, to be maid of
honour to Queen Catherine, and to be distinguished at the court, by general
consent, for her talents, her accomplishments, and her beauty. Her
portraits, though all professedly by Holbein, or copied from pictures by
him, are singularly unlike each other. The profile in the picture which is
best known is pretty, innocent, and piquant, though rather insignificant:
there are other pictures, however, in which we see a face more powerful,
though less prepossessing. In these the features are full and languid. The
eyes are large; but the expression, though remarkable, is not pleasing, and
indicates cunning more than thought, passion more than feeling; while the
heavy lips and massive chin wear a look of sensuality which is not to be
mistaken. Possibly all are like the original, but represented her under
different circumstances, or at different periods of her life. Previous to
her engagement with the king, she was the object of fleeting attentions
from the young noblemen about the court. Lord Percy, eldest son of Lord
Northumberland, as we all know, was said to have been engaged to her. He
was in the household of Cardinal Wolsey; and Cavendish, who was with him
there, tells a long romantic story of the affair, which, if his account be
true, was ultimately interrupted by Lord Northumberland himself. The story
is not without its difficulties, since Lord Percy had been contracted,
several years previously, to a daughter of the Earl of Shrewsbury,[181]
whom he afterwards married, and by the law he could not have formed a
second engagement so long as the first was undissolved. And again, he
himself, when subsequently examined before the privy council, denied
solemnly on his oath that any contract of the kind had existed.[182] At the
same time, we cannot suppose Cavendish to have invented so circumstantial a
narrative, and Percy would not have been examined if there had been no
reason for suspicion. Something, therefore, probably had passed between him
and the young maid of honour, though we cannot now conjecture of what
nature; and we can infer only that it was not openly to her discredit, or
she would not have obtained the position which cost her so dear. She
herself confessed subsequently, before Archbishop Cranmer, to a connection
of some kind into which she had entered before her acquaintance with Henry.
No evidence survives which will explain to what she referred, for the act
of parliament which mentions the fact furnishes no details.[183] But it was
of a kind which made her marriage with the king illegal, and
illegitimatised the offspring of it; and it has been supposed, therefore,
that, in spite of Lord Percy's denial, he had really engaged himself to
her, and was afraid to acknowledge it.[184] This supposition, however, is
not easy to reconcile with the language of the act, which speaks of the
circumstance, whatever it was, as only "recently known;" nor could a
contract with Percy have invalidated her marriage with the king, when Percy
having been pre-contracted to another person, it would have been itself
invalid. A light is thrown upon the subject by a letter found among
Cromwell's papers, addressed by some unknown person to a Mr. Melton, also
unknown, but written obviously when "Mistress Anne" was a young lady about
the court, and before she had been the object of any open attention from
Henry.

"MR. MELTON.--This shall be to advertise you that Mistress Anne is changed
from that she was at when we three were last together. Wherefore I pray you
that ye be no devil's sakke, but according to the truth ever justify, as ye
shall make answer before God; and do not suffer her in my absence to be
married to any other man. I must go to my master, wheresoever he be, for
the Lord Privy Seal desireth much to speak with me, whom if I should speak
with in my master's absence, it would cause me to lose my head; and yet I
know myself as true a man to my prince as liveth, whom (as my friend
informeth me) I have offended grievously in my words. No more to you, but
to have me commended unto Mistress Anne, and bid her remember her promise,
which none can loose, but God only, to whom I shall daily during my life
commend her."[185]

The letter must furnish its own interpretation; for it receives little from
any other quarter. Being in the possession of Cromwell, however, it had
perhaps been forwarded to him at the time of Queen Anne's trial, and may
have thus occasioned the investigation which led to the annulling of her
marriage.

From the account which was written of her by the grandson of Sir Thomas
Wyatt the poet, we still gather the impression (in spite of the admiring
sympathy with which Wyatt writes) of a person with whom young men took
liberties,[186] however she might seem to forbid them. In her diet she was
an epicure, fond of dainty and delicate eating, and not always contented if
she did not obtain what she desired. When the king's attentions towards her
became first marked, Thomas Heneage, afterwards lord chamberlain, wrote to
Wolsey, that he had one night been "commanded down with a dish for Mistress
Anne for supper"; adding that she caused him "to sup with her, and she
wished she had some of Wolsey's good meat, as carps, shrimps, and
others."[187] And this was not said in jest, since Heneage related it as a
hint to Wolsey, that he might know what to do, if he wished to please her.
In the same letter he suggested to the cardinal that she was a little
displeased at not having received a token or present from him; she was
afraid she was forgotten, he said, and "the lady, her mother, desired him
to send unto his Grace, and desire his Grace to bestow a morsel of tunny
upon her." Wolsey made her presents also at times of a more valuable
character, as we find her acknowledging in language of exaggerated
gratitude;[188] and, perhaps the most painful feature in all her earlier
history lies in the contrast between the servility with which she addressed
the cardinal so long as he was in power, and the bitterness with which the
Bishop of Bayonne (and, in fact, all contemporary witnesses) tells us, that
she pressed upon his decline. Wolsey himself spoke of her under the title
of "the night-crow,"[189] as the person to whom he owed all which was most
cruel in his treatment; as "the enemy that never slept, but studied and
continually imagined, both sleeping and waking, his utter
destruction."[190]

Taking these things together, and there is nothing to be placed beside them
of a definitely pleasing kind, except beauty and accomplishments, we form,
with the assistance of her pictures, a tolerable conception of this lady; a
conception of her as a woman not indeed questionable, but as one whose
antecedents might lead consistently to a future either of evil or of good;
and whose character removes the surprise which we might be inclined to feel
at the position with respect to Queen Catherine in which she consented to
be placed. A harsh critic would describe her, on this evidence, as a
self-indulgent coquette, indifferent to the obligations of gratitude, and
something careless of the truth. From the letter referring to her,
preserved by Cromwell, it appears that she had broken a definite promise at
a time when such promises were legally binding, and that she had really
done so was confirmed by her subsequent confession. The breach of such
promises by a woman who could not be expected to understand the grounds on
which the law held them to be sacred, implies no more than levity, and
levity of this kind has been found compatible with many high qualities.
Levity, however, it does undoubtedly imply, and the symptom, if a light
one, must be allowed the weight which is due to it.

It is a miserable duty to be compelled to search for these indications of
human infirmities; above all when they are the infirmities of a lady whose
faults, let them have been what they would, were so fearfully and terribly
expiated; and, if there were nothing else at issue but poor questions of
petty scandal, it were better far that they perished in forgetfulness, and
passed away out of mind and memory for ever. The fortunes of Anne Boleyn
were unhappily linked with those of men to whom the greatest work ever yet
accomplished in this country was committed; and the characters of a king of
England, and of the three estates of the realm, are compromised in the
treatment which she received from them.




CHAPTER III

THE PARLIAMENT OF 1529

No Englishman can look back uninterested on the meeting of the parliament
of 1529. The era at which it assembled is the most memorable in the history
of this country, and the work which it accomplished before its dissolution
was of larger moment politically and spiritually than the achievements of
the Long Parliament itself. For nearly seven years it continued surrounded
by intrigue, confusion, and at length conspiracy, presiding over a people
from whom the forms and habits by which they had moved for centuries were
falling like the shell of a chrysalis. While beset with enemies within the
realm and without, it effected a revolution which severed England from the
papacy, yet it preserved peace unbroken and prevented anarchy from breaking
bounds; and although its hands are not pure from spot, and red stains rest
on them which posterity have bitterly and long remembered; yet if we
consider the changes which it carried through, and if we think of the price
which was paid by other nations for victory in the same struggle, we shall
acknowledge that the records of the world contain no instance of such a
triumph, bought at a cost so slight and tarnished by blemishes so trifling.

The letters of the French Ambassador[191] describe to us the gathering of
the members into London, and the hum of expectation sounding louder and
louder as the day of the opening approached. In order that we may see
distinctly what London felt on this occasion, that we may understand in
detail the nature of those questions with which parliament was immediately
to deal, we will glance at some of the proceedings which had taken place in
the Bishops' Consistory Courts during the few preceding years. The duties
of the officials of these courts resembled in theory the duties of the
censors under the Roman Republic. In the middle ages, a lofty effort had
been made to overpass the common limitations of government, to introduce
punishment for sins as well as crimes, and to visit with temporal penalties
the breach of the moral law. The punishment best adapted for such offences
was some outward expression of the disapproval with which good men regard
acts of sin; some open disgrace; some spiritual censure; some suspension of
communion with the church, accompanied by other consequences practically
inconvenient, to be continued until the offender had made reparation, or
had openly repented, or had given confirmed proof of amendment. The
administration of such a discipline fell, as a matter of course, to the
clergy. The clergy were the guardians of morality; their characters were a
claim to confidence, their duties gave them opportunities of observation
which no other men could possess; while their priestly office gave solemn
weight to their sentences. Thus arose throughout Europe a system of
spiritual surveillance over the habits and conduct of every man, extending
from the cottage to the castle, taking note of all wrong dealing, of all
oppression of man by man, of all licentiousness and profligacy, and
representing upon earth, in the principles by which it was guided, the laws
of the great tribunal of Almighty God.

Such was the origin of the church courts, perhaps the greatest institutions
ever yet devised by man. But to aim at these high ideals is as perilous as
it is noble; and weapons which may be safely trusted in the hands of saints
become fatal implements of mischief when saints have ceased to wield them.
For a time, we need not doubt, the practice corresponded to the intention.
Had it not been so, the conception would have taken no root, and would have
been extinguished at its birth. But a system which has once established
itself in the respect of mankind will be tolerated long after it has
forfeited its claim to endurance, as the name of a great man remains
honoured though borne by worthless descendants; and the Consistory courts
had continued into the sixteenth century with unrestricted jurisdiction,
although they had been for generations merely perennially flowing
fountains, feeding the ecclesiastical exchequer. The moral conduct of every
English man and woman remained subject to them. Each private person was
liable to be called in question for every action of his life; and an
elaborate network of canon law perpetually growing, enveloped the whole
surface of society. But between the original design and the degenerate
counterfeit there was this vital difference,--that the censures were no
longer spiritual. They were commuted in various gradations for pecuniary
fines, and each offence against morality was rated at its specific money
value in the episcopal tables. Suspension and excommunication remained as
ultimate penalties; but they were resorted to only to compel unwilling
culprits to accept the alternative.

The misdemeanours of which the courts took cognisance[192] were "offences
against chastity," "heresy," or "matter sounding thereunto," "witchcraft,"
"drunkenness," "scandal," "defamation," "impatient words," "broken
promises," "untruth," "absence from church," "speaking evil of saints,"
"non-payment of offerings," and other delinquencies incapable of legal
definition; matters, all of them, on which it was well, if possible, to
keep men from going wrong; but offering wide opportunities for injustice;
while all charges, whether well founded or ill, met with ready acceptance
in courts where innocence and guilt alike contributed to the revenue.[193]
"Mortuary claims" were another fertile matter for prosecution; and probate
duties and legacy duties; and a further lucrative occupation was the
punishment of persons who complained against the constitutions of the
courts themselves; to complain against the justice of the courts being to
complain against the church, and to complain against the church being
heresy. To answer accusations on such subjects as these, men were liable to
be summoned, at the will of the officials, to the metropolitan courts of
the archbishops, hundreds of miles from their homes.[194] No expenses were
allowed; and if the charges were without foundation, it was rare that costs
could be recovered. Innocent or guilty, the accused parties were equally
bound to appear.[195] If they failed, they were suspended for contempt. If
after receiving notice of their suspension, they did not appear, they were
excommunicated; and no proof of the groundlessness of the original charge
availed to relieve them from their sentence, till they had paid for their
deliverance.

Well did the church lawyers understand how to make their work productive.
Excommunication seems but a light thing when there are many communions. It
was no light thing when it was equivalent to outlawry; when the person
excommunicated might be seized and imprisoned at the will of the ordinary;
when he was cut off from all holy offices; when no one might speak to him,
trade with him, or show him the most trivial courtesy; and when his
friends, if they dared to assist him, were subject to the same penalties.
In the _Register_ of the Bishop of London[196] there is more than one
instance to be found of suspension and excommunication for the simple crime
of offering shelter to an excommunicated neighbour; and thus offence begot
offence, guilt spread like a contagion through the influence of natural
humanity, and a single refusal of obedience to a frivolous citation might
involve entire families in misery and ruin.

The people might have endured better to submit to so enormous a tyranny, if
the conduct of the clergy themselves had given them a title to respect, or
if equal justice had been distributed to lay and spiritual offenders.
"Benefit of clergy," unhappily, as at this time interpreted, was little
else than a privilege to commit sins with impunity. The grossest moral
profligacy in a priest was passed over with indifference; and so far from
exacting obedience in her ministers to a higher standard than she required
of ordinary persons, the church extended her limits under fictitious
pretexts as a sanctuary for lettered villany. Every person who could read
was claimed by prescriptive usage as a clerk, and shielded under her
protecting mantle; nor was any clerk amenable for the worst crimes to the
secular jurisdiction, until he had been first tried and degraded by the
ecclesiastical judges. So far was this preposterous exemption carried, that
previous to the passing of the first of the 23rd of Henry the Eighth,[197]
those who were within the degrees might commit murder with impunity, the
forms which it was necessary to observe in degrading a priest or deacon
being so complicated as to amount to absolute protection.[198]

Among the clergy, properly so called, however, the prevailing offence was
not crime, but licentiousness. A doubt has recently crept in among our
historians as to the credibility of the extreme language in which the
contemporary writers spoke upon this painful topic. It will scarcely be
supposed that the picture has been overdrawn in the act books of the
Consistory courts; and as we see it there it is almost too deplorable for
belief, as well in its own intrinsic hideousness as in the unconscious
connivance of the authorities. Brothels were kept in London for the
especial use of priests;[199] the "confessional" was abused in the most
open and abominable manner.[200] Cases occurred of the same frightful
profanity in the service of the mass, which at Rome startled Luther into
Protestantism;[201] and acts of incest between nuns and monks were too
frequently exposed to allow us to regard the detected instances as
exceptions.[202] It may be said that the proceedings upon these charges
prove at least that efforts were made to repress them. The bishops must
have the benefit of the plea, and the two following instances will show how
far it will avail their cause. In the Records of the London Court I find a
certain Thomas Wyseman, priest, summoned for fornication and incontinency.
He was enjoined for penance, that on the succeeding Sunday, while high mass
was singing, he should offer at each of the altars in the Church of St.
Bartholomew a candle of wax, value one penny, saying therewith five
_Paternosters_, five _Ave Marys_, and five _Credos_. On the following
Friday he was to offer a candle of the same price before the crucifix,
standing barefooted, and one before the image of cur Lady of Grace. This
penance accomplished he appeared again at the court and compounded for
absolution, paying six shillings and eightpence.[203]

An exposure too common to attract notice, and a fine of six and eightpence
was held sufficient penalty for a mortal sin.

Even this, however, was a severe sentence compared with the sentence passed
upon another priest who confessed to incest with the prioress of Kilbourn.
The offender was condemned to bear a cross in a procession in his parish
church, and was excused his remaining guilt for three shillings and
fourpence.[204]

I might multiply such instances indefinitely; but there is no occasion for
me to stain my pages with them.[205]

An inactive imagination may readily picture to itself the indignation
likely to have been felt by a high-minded people, when they were forced to
submit their lives, their habits, their most intimate conversations and
opinions to a censorship conducted by clergy of such a character; when the
offences of these clergy themselves were passed over with such indifferent
carelessness. Men began to ask themselves who and what these persons were
who retained the privileges of saints,[206] and were incapable of the most
ordinary duties; and for many years before the burst of the Reformation the
coming storm was gathering. Priests were hooted, or "knocked down into the
kennel,"[207] as they walked along the streets--women refused to receive
the holy bread from hands which they thought polluted,[208] and the
appearance of an apparitor of the courts to serve a process or a citation
in a private house was a signal for instant explosion. Violent words were
the least which these officials had to fear, and they were fortunate if
they escaped so lightly. A stranger had died in a house in St. Dunstan's
belonging to a certain John Fleming, and an apparitor had been sent "to
seal his chamber and his goods" that the church might not lose her dues.
John Fleming drove him out, saying loudly unto him, "Thou shalt seale no
door here; go thy way, thou stynkyng knave, ye are but knaves and brybours
everych one of you."[209] Thomas Banister, of St. Mary Wolechurch, when a
process was served upon him, "did threaten to slay the apparitor." "Thou
horson knave," he said to him, "without thou tell me who set thee awork to
summon me to the court, by Goddis woundes, and by this gold, I shall brake
thy head."[210] A "waiter, at the sign of the Cock," fell in trouble for
saying that "the sight of a priest did make him sick," also, "that he would
go sixty miles to indict a priest," saying also in the presence of
many--"horsyn priests, they shall be indicted as many as come to my
handling."[211] Often the officers found threats convert themselves into
acts. The apparitor of the Bishop of London went with a citation into the
shop of a mercer of St. Bride's, Henry Clitheroe by name. "Who does cite
me?" asked the mercer. "Marry, that do I," answered the apparitor, "if thou
wilt anything with it;" whereupon, as the apparitor deposeth, the said
Henry Clitheroe did hurl at him from off his finger that instrument of his
art called the "thymmelle," and he, the apparitor, drawing his sword, "the
said Henry did snatch up his virga, Anglice, his yard, and did pursue the
apparitor into the public streets, and after multiplying of many blows did
break the head of the said apparitor."[212] These are light matters, but
they were straws upon the stream; and such a scene as this which follows
reveals the principles on which the courts awarded their judgment. One
Richard Hunt was summoned for certain articles implying contempt, and for
vilipending his lordship's jurisdiction. Being examined, he confessed to
the words following: "That all false matters were bolstered and clokyd in
this court of Paul's Cheyne; moreover he called the apparitor, William
Middleton, false knave in the full court, and his father's dettes, said he,
by means of his mother-in-law and master commissary, were not payd; and
this he would abide by, that he had now in this place said no more but
truth." Being called on to answer further, he said he would not, and his
lordship did therefore excommunicate him.[213] From so brief an entry we
cannot tell on which side the justice lay; but at least we can measure the
equity of a tribunal which punished complaints against itself with
excommunication, and dismissed the confessed incest of a priest with a fine
of a few shillings.

Such then were the English consistory courts. I have selected but a few
instances from the proceedings of a single one of them. If we are to
understand the weight with which the system pressed upon the people, we
must multiply the proceedings at St. Paul's by the number of the English
dioceses; the number of dioceses by the number of archdeaconries; we must
remember that in proportion to the distance from London the abuse must have
increased indefinitely from the absence of even partial surveillance; we
must remember that appeals were permitted only from one ecclesiastical
court to another; from the archdeacon's court to that of the bishop of the
diocese, from that of the bishop to the Court of Arches; that any language
of impatience or resistance furnished suspicion of heresy, and that the
only security therefore was submission. We can then imagine what England
must have been with an archdeacon's commissary sitting constantly in every
town; exercising an undefined jurisdiction over general morality; and every
court swarming with petty lawyers who lived upon the fees which they could
extract. Such a system for the administration of justice was perhaps never
tolerated before in any country.

But the time of reckoning at length was arrived; slowly the hand had
crawled along the dial plate; slowly as if the event would never come: and
wrong was heaped on wrong; and oppression cried, and it seemed as if no ear
had heard its voice; till the measure of the circle was at length
fulfilled, the finger touched the hour, and as the strokes of the great
hammer rang out above the nation, in an instant the mighty fabric of
iniquity was shivered into ruins. Wolsey had dreamed that it might still
stand, self-reformed as he hoped to see it; but in his dread lest any hands
but those of friends should touch the work, he had "prolonged its sickly
days," waiting for the convenient season which was not to be; he had put
off the meeting of parliament, knowing that if parliament were once
assembled, he would be unable to resist the pressure which would be brought
to bear upon him; and in the impatient minds of the people he had
identified himself with the evils which he alone for the few last years had
hindered from falling. At length he had fallen himself, and his disgrace
was celebrated in London with enthusiastic rejoicing as the inauguration of
the new era. On the eighteenth of October, 1529, Wolsey delivered up the
seals. He was ordered to retire to Esher; and, "at the taking of his
barge," Cavendish saw no less than a thousand boats full of men and women
of the city of London, "waffeting up and down in Thames," to see him sent,
as they expected, to the Tower.[214] A fortnight later the same crowd was
perhaps again assembled on a wiser occasion, and with truer reason for
exultation, to see the king coming up in his barge from Greenwich to open
parliament.

"According to the summons," says Hall, "the King of England began his high
court of parliament the third day of November, on which day he came by
water to his palace of Bridewell, and there he and his nobles put on their
robes of Parliament, and so came to the Black Friars Church, where a mass
of the Holy Ghost was solemnly sung by the king's chaplain; and after the
mass, the king, with all his Lords and Commons which were summoned to
appear on that day, came into the Parliament. The king sate on his throne
or seat royal, and Sir Thomas More, his chancellor, standing on the right
hand of the king, made an eloquent oration, setting forth the causes why at
that time the king so had summoned them."[215]

"Like as a good shepherd," More said, "which not only keepeth and attendeth
well his sheep, but also foreseeth and provideth for all things which
either may be hurtful or noysome to his flock; so the king, which is the
shepherd, ruler, and governor of his realm, vigilantly foreseeing things to
come, considers how that divers laws, before this time made, are now, by
long continuance of time and mutation of things, become very insufficient
and imperfect; and also, by the frail condition of man, divers new
enormities are sprung amongst the people, for the which no law is yet made
to reform the same. For this cause the king at this time has summoned his
high court of parliament; and I liken the king to a shepherd or herdsman,
because if a prince be compared to his riches, he is but a rich man; if a
prince be compared to his honour, he is but an honourable man; but compare
him to the multitude of his people, and the number of his flock, then he is
a ruler, a governor of might and puissance; so that his people maketh him a
prince, as of the multitude of sheep cometh the name of a shepherd.

"And as you see that amongst a great flock of sheep some be rotten and
faulty, which the good shepherd sendeth from the good sheep; so the great
wether which is of late fallen, as you all know, so craftily, so scabedly,
yea, so untruly juggled with the king, that all men must needs guess that
he thought in himself, either the king had no wit to perceive his crafty
doings, or else that he would not see nor know them.

"But he was deceived, for his Grace's sight was so quick and penetrable
that he saw him; yea, and saw through him, both within and without; and
according to his desert he hath had a gentle correction, which small
punishment the king will not to be an example to other offenders; but
clearly declareth that whosoever hereafter shall make like attempt, or
shall commit like offence, shall not escape with like punishment.

"And because you of the Commons House be a gross multitude, and cannot all
speak at one time, the king's pleasure is, that you resort to the Nether
House, and then amongst yourselves, according to the old and antient
custom, choose an able person to be your common mouth and speaker."[216]

The invective against "the great wether" was not perhaps the portion of the
speech to which the audience listened with least interest. In the minds of
contemporaries, principles are identified with persons, who form, as it
were, the focus on which the passions concentrate. At present we may
consent to forget Wolsey, and fix our attention on the more permanently
essential matter--the reform of the laws. The world was changing; how
swiftly, how completely, no living person knew;--but a confusion no longer
tolerable was a patent fact to all men; and with a wise instinct it was
resolved that the grievances of the nation, which had accumulated through
centuries, should be submitted to a complete ventilation, without reserve,
check, or secrecy.

For this purpose it was essential that the Houses should not be interfered
with, that they should be allowed full liberty to express their wishes and
to act upon them. Accordingly, the practice then usual with ministers, of
undertaking the direction of the proceedings, was clearly on this occasion
foregone. In the House of Commons then, as much as now, there was in theory
unrestricted liberty of discussion, and free right for any member to
originate whatever motion he pleased. "The discussions in the English
Parliament," wrote Henry himself to the pope, "are free and unrestricted;
the crown has no power to limit their debates or to controul the votes of
the members. They determine everything for themselves, as the interests of
the commonwealth require."[217] But so long as confidence existed between
the crown and the people, these rights were in great measure surrendered.
The ministers prepared the business which was to be transacted; and the
temper of the Houses was usually so well understood, that, except when
there was a demand for money, it was rare that a measure was proposed the
acceptance of which was doubtful, or the nature of which would provoke
debate. So little jealousy, indeed, was in quiet times entertained of the
power of the crown, and so little was a residence in London to the taste of
the burgesses and the country gentlemen, that not only were their expenses
defrayed by a considerable salary, but it was found necessary to forbid
them absenting themselves from their duties by a positive enactment.[218]

In the composition of the House of Commons, however, which had now
assembled, no symptoms appeared of such indifference. The election had
taken place in the midst of great and general excitement; and the members
chosen, if we may judge from their acts and their petitions, were men of
that broad resolved temper, who only in times of popular effervescence are
called forward into prominence. It would have probably been unsafe for the
crown to attempt dictation or repression at such a time, if it had desired
to do so. Under the actual circumstances, its interest was to encourage the
fullest expression of public feeling.

The proceedings were commenced with a formal "act of accusation" against
the clergy, which was submitted to the king in the name of the Commons of
England, and contained a summary of the wrongs of which the people
complained. This remarkable document must have been drawn up before the
opening of parliament, and must have been presented in the first week of
the session,--probably on the first day on which the House met to transact
business.[219] There is appearance of haste in the composition, little
order being observed in the catalogue of grievances; but inasmuch as it
contains the germ of all the acts which were framed in the following years
for the reform of the church, and is in fact the most complete exhibition
which we possess of the working of the church system at the time when it
ceased to be any more tolerable, I have thought it well to insert it
uncurtailed. Although the fact of the presentation of this petition has
been well known, it has not been accurately described by any of our
historians, none of them appearing to have seen more than incorrect and
imperfect epitomes of it.[220]

"TO THE KING OUR SOVEREIGN LORD

"In most humble wise show unto your Highness and your most prudent wisdom
your faithful, loving, and most obedient servants the Commons in this your
present parliament assembled; that of late, as well through new fantastical
and erroneous opinions grown by occasion of frantic seditious books
compiled, imprinted, published, and made in the English tongue, contrary
and against the very true Catholic and Christian faith; as also by the
extreme and uncharitable behaviour and dealing of divers ordinaries, their
commissaries and sumners, which have heretofore had, and yet have the
examination in and upon the said errours and heretical opinions; much
discord, variance, and debate hath risen, and more and more daily is like
to increase and ensue amongst the universal sort of your said subjects, as
well spiritual as temporal, each against the other--in most uncharitable
manner, to the great inquietation, vexation, and breach of your peace
within this your most Catholic Realm:

"The special particular griefs whereof, which most principally concern your
Commons and lay subjects, and which are, as they undoubtedly suppose, the
very chief fountains, occasions, and causes that daily breedeth and
nourisheth the said seditious factions, deadly hatred, and most
uncharitable part taking, of either part of said subjects spiritual and
temporal against the other, followingly do ensue.--

"I. First the prelates and spiritual ordinaries of this your most excellent
Realm of England, and the clergy of the same, have in their convocations
heretofore made or caused to be made, and also daily do make many and
divers fashions of laws, constitutions, and ordinances; without your
knowledge or most Royal assent, and without the assent and consent of any
of your lay subjects; unto the which laws your said lay subjects have not
only heretofore been and daily be constrained to obey, in their bodies,
goods, and possessions; but have also been compelled to incur daily into
the censures of the same, and been continually put to importable charges
and expenses, against all equity, right, and good conscience. And yet your
said humble subjects ne their predecessors could ever be privy to the said
laws; ne any of the said laws have been declared unto them in the English
tongue, or otherwise published, by knowledge whereof they might have
eschewed the penalties, dangers, or censures of the same; which laws so
made your said most humble and obedient servants, under the supportation of
your Majesty, suppose to be not only to the diminution and derogation of
your imperial jurisdiction and prerogative royal, but also to the great
prejudice, inquietation, and damage of your said subjects.

"II. Also now of late there hath been devised by the Most Reverend Father
in God, William, Archbishop of Canterbury, that in the courts which he
calleth his Courts of the Arches and Audience, shall only be ten proctors
at his deputation, which be sworn to preserve and promote the only
jurisdiction of his said courts; by reason whereof, if any of your lay
subjects should have any lawful cause against the judges of the said
courts, or any doctors or proctors of the same, or any of their friends
and adherents, they can ne may in nowise have indifferent counsel: and
also all the causes depending in any of the said courts may by the
confederacy of the said few proctors be in such wise tracted and delayed,
as your subjects suing in the same shall be put to importable charges,
costs, and expense. And further, in case that any matter there being
preferred should touch your crown, your regal jurisdiction, and
prerogative Royal, yet the same shall not be disclosed by any of the
said proctors for fear of the loss of their offices. Your most obedient
subjects do therefore, under protection of your Majesty, suppose that
your Highness should have the nomination of some convenient number of
proctors to be always attendant upon the said Courts of Arches and
Audience, there to be sworn to the preferment of your jurisdiction and
prerogative, and to the expedition of the causes of your lay subjects
repairing and suing to the same.

"III. And also many of your said most humble and obedient subjects, and
_specially those that be of the poorest sort_, within this your Realm, be
daily convented and called before the said spiritual ordinaries, their
commissaries and substitutes, _ex officio_; sometimes, at the pleasure of
the said ordinaries, for malice without any cause; and sometimes at the
only promotion and accusement of their summoners and apparitors, being
light and undiscreet persons; without any lawful cause of accusation, or
credible fame proved against them, and without any presentment in the
visitation: and your said poor subjects be thus inquieted, disturbed,
vexed, troubled, and put to excessive and importable charges for them to
bear--and many times be suspended and excommunicate for small and light
causes upon the only certificate of the proctors of the adversaries, made
under a feigned seal which every proctor hath in his keeping; whereas the
party suspended or excommunicate many times never had any warning; and yet
when he shall be absolved, if it be out of court, he shall be compelled to
pay to his own proctor twenty[221] _pence_; to the proctor which is against
him other twenty pence, and twenty pence to the scribe, besides a privy
reward that the judge shall have, to the great impoverishing of your said
poor lay subjects.

"IV. Also your said most humble and obedient servants find themselves
grieved with the great and excessive fees taken in the said spiritual
courts, and especially in the said Courts of the Arches and Audience; where
they take for every citation two shillings and sixpence; for every
inhibition six shillings and eightpence; for every proxy sixteen pence; for
every certificate sixteen pence; for every libel three shillings and
fourpence; for every answer for every libel three shillings and fourpence;
for every act, if it be but two words according to the register, fourpence;
for every personal citation or decree three shillings and fourpence; for
every sentence or judgment, to the judge twenty-six shillings and
eightpence; for every testament upon such sentence or judgment twenty-six
shillings and eightpence; for every significavit twelve shillings; for
every commission to examine witnesses twelve shillings, which charges be
thought importable to be borne by your said subjects, and very necessary to
be reformed.

"V. And also the said prelates and ordinaries daily do permit and suffer
the parsons, vicars, curates, parish priests, and other spiritual persons
having cure of souls within this your Realm, to exact and take of your
humble servants divers sums of money for the sacraments and sacramentals of
Holy Church, sometimes denying the same without they be first paid[222] the
said sums of money, which sacraments and sacramentals your said most humble
and obedient subjects, under protection of your Highness, do suppose and
think ought to be in most reverend, charitable, and godly wise freely
ministered unto them at all times requisite, without denial, or exaction of
any manner sums of money to be demanded or asked for the same.

"VI. And also in the spiritual courts of the said prelates and ordinaries
there be limited and appointed so many judges, scribes, apparitors,
summoners, appraysers, and other ministers for the approbation of
Testaments, which covet so much their own private lucres, and the
satisfaction and appetites of the said prelates and ordinaries, that when
any of your said loving subjects do repair to any of the said courts for
the probate of any Testaments, they do in such wise make so long delays, or
excessively do take of them so large fees and rewards for the same as is
importable for them to bear, directly against all justice, law, equity, and
good conscience. Therefore your most humble and obedient subjects do, under
your gracious correction and supportation, suppose it were very necessary
that the said ordinaries in their deputation of judges should be bound to
appoint and assign such discreet, gracious, and honest persons, having
sufficient learning, wit, discretion, and understanding; and also being
endowed with such spiritual promotion, stipend, and salary; as they being
judges in their said courts might and may minister to every person
repairing to the same, justice--without taking any manner of fee or reward
for any manner of sentence or judgment to be given before them.

"VII. And also divers spiritual persons being presented as well by your
Highness as others within this your Realm to divers benefices or other
spiritual promotions, the said ordinaries and their ministers do not only
take of them for their letters of institution and induction many large sums
of money and rewards; but also do pact and covenant with the same, taking
sure bonds for their indemnity to answer to the said ordinaries for the
firstfruits of their said benefices after their institution--so as they,
being once presented or promoted, as aforesaid, are by the said ordinaries
very uncharitably handled, to their no little hindrance and impoverishment;
which your said subjects suppose not only to be against all laws, right,
and good conscience, but also to be simony, and contrary to the laws of
God.

"VIII. And also _the said spiritual ordinaries do daily confer and give
sundry benefices unto certain young folks, calling them their nephews or
kinsfolk_, being in their minority and within age, not apt ne able to serve
the cure of any such benefice: whereby the said ordinaries do keep and
detain the fruits and profits of the same benefices in their own hands, and
thereby accumulate to themselves right great and large sums of money and
yearly profits, to the most pernicious example of your said lay
subjects--and so the cures and promotions given unto such infants be only
employed to the enriching of the said ordinaries; and the poor silly souls
of your people, which should be taught in the parishes given as aforesaid,
for lack of good curates [be left] to perish without doctrine or any good
teaching.

"IX. Also, a great number of holydays now at this present time, with very
small devotion, be solemnised and kept throughout this your Realm, upon the
which many great, abominable, and execrable vices, idle and wanton sports,
be used and exercised, which holydays, if it may stand with your Grace's
pleasure, and specially such as fall in the harvest, might, by your
Majesty, with the advice of your most honourable council, prelates, and
ordinaries, be made fewer in number; and those that shall be hereafter
ordained to stand and continue, might and may be the more devoutly,
religiously, and reverendly observed, to the laud of Almighty God, and to
the increase of your high honour and favour.

"X. And furthermore the said spiritual ordinaries, their commissaries and
substitutes, sometimes for their own pleasure, sometimes by the sinister
procurement of other spiritual persons, use to make out process against
divers of your said subjects, and thereby compel them to appear before
themselves, to answer at a certain day and place to such articles as by
them shall be, _ex officio_, then proposed; and that secretly and not in
open places;[223] and forthwith upon their appearance, without any
declaration made or showed, commit and send them to ward, sometimes for
[half] a year, sometimes for a whole year or more, before they may in
anywise know either the cause of their imprisonment or the name of their
accuser;[224] and finally after their great costs and charges therein, when
all is examined and nothing can be proved against them, but they clearly
innocent for any fault or crime that can be laid unto them, they be again
set at large without any recompence or amends in that behalf to be towards
them adjudged.

"XI. And also if percase upon the said process and appearance any party be
upon the said matter, cause, or examination, brought forth and named,
either as party or witness, and then upon the proof and trial thereof be
not able to prove and verify the said accusation and testimony against the
party accused, then the person so accused is for the more part without any
remedy for his charges and wrongful vexation to be towards him adjudged and
recovered.

"XII. Also upon the examination of the said accusation, if heresy be
ordinarily laid unto the charge of the parties so accused, then the said
ordinaries or their ministers use to put to them such subtle
interrogatories concerning the high mysteries of our faith, as are able
quickly to trap a simple unlearned, or yet a well-witted layman without
learning, and bring them by such sinister introductions soon to their own
confusion. And further, if there chance any heresy to be by such subtle
policy, by any person confessed in words, and yet never committed neither
in thought nor deed, then put they, without further favour, the said person
either to make his purgation, and so thereby to lose his honesty and
credence for ever; or else as some simple silly soul [may do], the said
person may stand precisely to the testimony of his own well-known
conscience, rather than confess his innocent truth in that behalf [to be
other than he knows it to be], and so be utterly destroyed. And if it
fortune the said party so accused to deny the said accusation, and to put
his adversaries to prove the same as being untrue, forged and imagined
against him, then for the most part such witnesses as are brought forth for
the same, be they but two in number, never so sore diffamed, of little
truth or credence, they shall be allowed and enabled, only by discretion of
the said ordinaries, their commissaries or substitutes; and thereupon
sufficient cause be found to proceed to judgment, to deliver the party so
accused either to secular hands, after abjuration,[225] without remedy; or
afore if he submit himself, as best happeneth, he shall have to make his
purgation and bear a faggot, to his extreme shame and undoing.

"In consideration of all these things, most gracious Sovereign Lord, and
forasmuch as there is at this present time, and by a few years past hath
been outrageous violence on the one part and much default and lack of
patient sufferance, charity, and good will on the other part; and
consequently a marvellous disorder [hath ensued] of the godly quiet, peace,
and tranquillity in which this your Realm heretofore, ever hitherto, has
been through your politic wisdom, most honourable fame, and catholic faith
inviolably preserved; it may therefore, most benign Sovereign Lord, like
your excellent goodness for the tender and universally indifferent zeal,
benign love and favour which your Highness beareth towards both the said
parties, that the said articles (if they shall be by your most clear and
perfect judgment, thought any instrument of the said disorders and
factions), being deeply and weightily, after your accustomed ways and
manner, searched and considered; graciously to provide (all violence on
both sides utterly and clearly set apart) some such necessary and behoveful
remedies as may effectually reconcile and bring in perpetual unity, your
said subjects, spiritual and temporal; and for the establishment thereof,
to make and ordain on both sides such strait laws against transgressors and
offenders as shall be too heavy, dangerous, and weighty for them, or any of
them, to bear, suffer, and sustain.

"Whereunto your said Commons most humbly and entirely beseech your Grace,
as the only Head, Sovereign Lord and Protector of both the said parties, in
whom and by whom the only and sole redress, reformation, and remedy herein
absolutely resteth [of your goodness to consent]. By occasion whereof all
your Commons in their conscience surely account that, beside the marvellous
fervent love that your Highness shall thereby engender in their hearts
towards your Grace, ye shall do the most princely feat, and show the most
honourable and charitable precedent and mirrour that ever did sovereign
lord upon his subjects; and therewithal merit and deserve of our merciful
God eternal bliss--whose goodness grant your Grace in goodly, princely, and
honourable estate long to reign, prosper, and continue as the Sovereign
Lord over all your said most humble and obedient servants."[226]

But little comment need be added in explanation of this petition, which,
though drawn with evident haste, is no less remarkable for temper and good
feeling, than for the masterly clearness with which the evils complained of
are laid bare. Historians will be careful for the future how they swell the
charges against Wolsey with quoting the lamentations of Archbishop Warham,
when his Court of Arches was for a while superseded by the Legate's Court,
and causes lingering before his commissaries were summarily dispatched at a
higher tribunal.[227] The archbishop professed, indeed, that he derived no
personal advantage from his courts,[228] and as we have only the popular
impression to the contrary to set against his word, we must believe him;
yet it was of small moment to the laity who were pillaged, whether the
spoils taken from them filled the coffers of the master, or those of his
followers and friends.

When we consider, also, the significant allusion[229] to the young folks
whom the bishops called their nephews, we cease to wonder at their lenient
dealing with the poor priests who had sunk under the temptations of frail
humanity; and still less can we wonder at the rough handling which was soon
found necessary to bring back these high dignitaries to a better mind.

The House of Commons, in casting their grievances into the form of a
petition, showed that they had no desire to thrust forward of themselves
violent measures of reform; they sought rather to explain firmly and
decisively what the country required. The king, selecting out of the many
points noticed those which seemed most immediately pressing, referred them
back to the parliament, with a direction to draw up such enactments as in
their own judgment would furnish effective relief. In the meantime he
submitted the petition itself to the consideration of the bishops,
requiring their immediate answer to the charges against them, and
accompanied this request with a further important requisition. The
legislative authority of convocation lay at the root of the evils which
were most complained of. The bishops and clergy held themselves independent
of either crown or parliament, passing canons by their own irresponsible
and unchecked will, irrespective of the laws of the land, and sometimes in
direct violation of them; and to these canons the laity were amenable
without being made acquainted with their provisions, learning them only in
the infliction of penalties for their unintended breach. The king required
that thenceforward the convocation should consent to place itself in the
position of parliament, and that his own consent should be required and
received before any law passed by convocation should have the force of
statute.[230]

Little notion, indeed, could the bishops have possessed of the position in
which they were standing. It seemed as if they literally believed that the
promise of perpetuity which Christ had made to his church was a charm which
would hold them free in the quiet course of their injustice; or else, under
the blinding influence of custom, they did not really know that any
injustice adhered to them. They could see in themselves only the ideal
virtues of their saintly office, and not the vices of their fragile
humanity; they believed that they were still holy, still spotless, still
immaculate, and therefore that no danger might come near them. It cannot
have been but that, before the minds of such men as Warham and Fisher, some
visions of a future must at times have floated, which hung so plainly
before the eyes of Wolsey and of Sir Thomas More.[231] They could not have
been wholly deaf to the storm in Germany; and they must have heard
something of the growls of smothered anger which for years had been audible
at home, to all who had ears to hear.[232] Yet if any such thoughts at
times did cross their imagination, they were thrust aside as an uneasy
dream, to be shaken off like a nightmare, or with the coward's consolation,
"It will last my time." If the bishops ever felt an uneasy moment, there is
no trace of uneasiness in the answer which they sent in to the king, and
which now, when we read it with the light which is thrown back out of the
succeeding years, seems like the composition of mere lunacy. Perhaps they
had confidence in the support of Henry. In their courts they were in the
habit of identifying an attack upon themselves with an attack upon the
doctrines of the Church; and reading the king's feelings in their own, they
may have considered themselves safe under the protection of a sovereign who
had broken a lance with Luther, and had called himself the Pope's champion.
Perhaps they thought that they had bound him to themselves by a declaration
which they had all signed in the preceding summer in favour of the
divorce.[233] Perhaps they were but steeped in the dulness of official
lethargy. The defence is long, wearying the patience to read it; wearying
the imagination to invent excuses for the falsehoods which it contains. Yet
it is well to see all men in the light in which they see themselves; and
justice requires that we allow the bishops the benefit of their own reply.
It was couched in the following words:--[234]

"After our most humble wise, with our most bounden duty of honour and
reverence to your excellent Majesty, endued from God with incomparable
wisdom and goodness. Please it the same to understand that we, your orators
and daily bounden bedemen, have read and perused a certain supplication
which the Commons of your Grace's honourable parliament now assembled have
offered unto your Highness, and by your Grace's commandment delivered unto
us, that we should make answer thereunto. We have, as the time hath served,
made this answer following, beseeching your Grace's indifferent benignity
graciously to hear the same.

"And first for that discord, variance, and debate which, in the preface of
the said supplication they do allege to have risen among your Grace's
subjects, spiritual and temporal, occasioned, as they say, by the
uncharitable behaviour and demeanour of divers ordinaries: to this we, the
ordinaries, answer, assuring your Majesty that in our hearts there is no
such discord or variance ort our part against our brethren in God and
ghostly children your subjects, as is induced in this preface; but our
daily prayer is and shall be that all peace and concord may increase among
your Grace's true subjects our said children, whom God be our witness we
love, have loved, and shall love ever with hearty affection; never
intending any hurt ne harm towards any of them in soul or body; ne have we
ever enterprised anything against them of trouble, vexation, or
displeasure; but only have, with all charity, exercised the spiritual
jurisdiction of the Church, as we are bound of duty, upon certain
evil-disposed persons infected with the pestilent poison of heresy. And to
have peace with such had been against the Gospel of our Saviour Christ,
wherein he saith, _Non veni mittere pacem sed gladium_. Wherefore,
forasmuch as we know well that there be as well-disposed and
well-conscienced men of your Grace's Commons in no small number assembled,
as ever we knew at any time in parliament; and with that consider how on
our part there is given no such occasion why the whole number of the
spirituality and clergy should be thus noted unto your Highness; we
humbling our hearts to God and remitting the judgment of this our
inquietation to Him, and trusting, as his Scripture teacheth, that if we
love him above all, omnia cooperabuntur in bonum, shall endeavour to
declare to your Highness the innocency of us, your poor orators.

"And where, after the general preface of the same supplication, your
Grace's Commons descend to special particular griefs, and first to those
divers fashions of laws concerning temporal things, whereon, as they say,
the clergy in their convocation have made and daily do make divers laws, to
their great trouble and inquietation, which said laws be sometimes
repugnant to the statutes of your Realm, with many other complaints
thereupon:[235] To this we say, that forasmuch as we repute and take our
authority of making of laws to be grounded upon the Scriptures of God and
the determination of Holy Church, which must be the rule and square to try
the justice and righteousness of all laws, as well spiritual as temporal,
we verily trust that in such laws as have been made by us, or by our
predecessors, the same being sincerely interpreted, and after the meaning
of the makers, there shall be found nothing contained in them but such as
may be well justified by the said rule and square. And if it shall
otherwise appear, as it is our duty whereunto we shall always most
diligently apply ourselves to reform our ordinances to God's commission,
and to conform our statutes to the determination of Scripture and Holy
Church; _so we hope in God, and shall daily pray for the same, that your
Highness will, if there appear cause why, with the assent of your people,
temper your Grace's laws accordingly; whereby shall ensue a most sure and
hearty conjunction and agreement; God being lapis angularis_.

"And as concerning the requiring of your Highness's royal assent to the
authorising of such laws as have been made by our predecessors, or shall be
made by us, in such points and articles, as we have authority to rule and
order; we knowing your Highness's wisdom, virtue, and learning, nothing
doubt but that the same perceiveth how the granting thereunto dependeth not
upon our will and liberty, _and that we may not submit the execution of our
charges and duty certainly prescribed to us by God to your Highness's
assent_; although, indeed, the same is most worthy for your most princely
and excellent virtues, not only to give your royal assent, but also to
devise and command what we should for good order or manners by statutes and
laws provide in the church. Nevertheless, we considering we may not so nor
in such sort restrain the doing of our office in the feeding and ruling of
Christ's people, we most humbly desire your Grace (as the same hath done
heretofore) to show your Grace's mind and opinion unto us, which we shall
most gladly hear and follow if it shall please God to inspire us so to do;
and with all humility we therefore beseech your Grace, following the steps
of your most noble progenitors, to maintain and defend such laws and
ordinances as we, according to our calling and by the authority of God,
shall for his honour make to the edification of virtue and the maintaining
of Christ's faith, whereof your Highness is defender in name, and hath been
hitherto indeed a special protector.

"Furthermore, where there be found in the said supplication, with mention
of your Grace's person, other griefs that some of the said laws extend to
the goods and possessions of your said lay subjects, declaring the
transgressors not only to fall under the terrible censure of
excommunication, but also under the detestable crime of heresy:

"To this we answer that we remember no such, and yet if there be any such,
it is but according to the common law of the Church, and also to your
Grace's law, which determine and decree that every person spiritual or
temporal condemned of heresy shall forfeit his moveables or immoveables to
your Highness, or to the lord spiritual or temporal that by law hath right
to them.[236] Other statutes we remember none that toucheth lands or goods.
If there be, it were good that they were brought forth to be weighed and
pondered accordingly.

"Item as touching the second principal article of the said supplication,
where they say that divers and many of your Grace's obedient subjects, and
especially they that be of the poorest sort, be daily called before us or
before our substitutes ex officio; sometimes at the pleasure of us, the
ordinaries, without any probable cause, and sometimes at the only promotion
of our summoner, without any credible fame first proved against them, and
without presentment in the visitation or lawful accusation:

"On this we desire your high wisdom and learning to consider that albeit in
the ordering of Christ's people, your Grace's subjects, God of His
spiritual goodness assisteth his church, and inspireth by the Holy Ghost as
we verily trust such rules and laws as tend to the wealth of his elect
folk; yet upon considerations to man unknown, his infinite wisdom leaveth
or permitteth men to walk in their infirmity and frailty; so that we cannot
ne will arrogantly presume of ourselves, as though being in name spiritual
men, we were also in all our acts and doings clean and void from all
temporal affections and carnality of this world, or that the laws of the
church made for spiritual and ghostly purpose be not sometime applied to
worldly intent. This we ought and do lament, as becometh us, very sore.
Nevertheless, as the evil deeds of men be the mere defaults of those
particular men, and not of the whole order of the clergy, nor of the law
wholesomely by them made; our request and petition shall be with all
humility and reverence; that laws well made be not therefore called evil
because by all men and at all times they be not well executed; and that in
such defaults as shall appear such distribution may be used _ut unusquisque
onus suum portet_, and remedy be found to reform the offenders; unto the
which your Highness shall perceive as great towardness in your said orators
as can be required upon declaration of particulars. And other answer than
this cannot be made in the name of your whole clergy, for though _in multis
offendimus omnes_, as St. James saith, yet not 'in omnibus offendimus
omnes;' and the whole number can neither justify ne condemn particular acts
to them unknown but thus. He that calleth a man ex officio for correction
of sin, doeth well. He that calleth men for pleasure or vexation, doeth
evil. Summoners should be honest men. If they offend in their office, they
should be punished. To prove first [their faults] before men be called, is
not necessary. He that is called according to the laws ex officio or
otherwise, cannot complain. He that is otherwise ordered should have by
reason convenient recompence and so forth; that is well to be allowed, and
misdemeanour when it appeareth to be reproved.

"Item where they say in the same article that upon their appearance ex
officio at the only pleasure of the ordinaries, they be committed to prison
without bail or mainprize; and there they lie some half a year or more
before they come to their deliverance; to this we answer,--

"That we use no prison before conviction but for sure custody, and only of
such as be suspected of heresy, in which crime, thanked be God, there hath
fallen no such notable person in our time, or of such qualities as hath
given occasion of any sinister suspicion to be conceived of malice or
hatred to his person other than the heinousness of their crime deserveth.
_Truth it is that certain apostates, friars, monks, lewd priests, bankrupt
merchants, vagabonds, and lewd idle fellows of corrupt intent, have
embraced the abominable and erroneous opinions lately sprung in Germany_;
and by them some have been seduced in simplicity and ignorance. Against
these, if judgment has been exercised according to the laws of the church,
and conformably to the laws of this realm, we be without blame. If we have
been too remiss and slack, we shall gladly do our duty from henceforth. If
any man hath been, under pretence of this [crime], particularly offended,
it were pity to suffer any man to be wronged; and thus it ought to be, and
otherwise we cannot answer, no man's special case being declared in the
said petition.

"Item where they say further that they so appearing ex officio, be
condemned to answer to many subtle questions by the which a simple,
unlearned, or else a well-witted layman without learning sometimes is, and
commonly may be trapped and induced into peril of open penance to their
shame, or else [forced] to redeem their penance for money, as is commonly
used; to this we answer that we should not use subtlety, for we should do
all things plainly and openly; and if we do otherwise, we do amiss. We
ought not to ask questions, but after the capacities of the man. Christ
hath defended his true doctrine and faith in his Catholic church from all
subtlety, and so preserved good men in the same, as they have not (blessed
be God) been vexed, inquieted, or troubled in Christ's church. Thereupon
evil men fall in danger by their own subtlety; we protest afore God we have
neither known, read, nor heard of any one man damaged or prejudiced by
spiritual jurisdiction in this behalf, neither in this realm nor any other,
but only by his own deserts. Such is the goodness of God in maintaining the
cause of his Catholic faith.

"Item where they say they be compelled to do open penance, or else redeem
the same for money; as for penance, we answer it consisteth in the arbitre
of a judge who ought to enjoin such penance as might profit for correction
of the fault. Whereupon we disallow that judge's doing who taketh money for
penance for lucre or advantage, not regarding the reformation of sin as he
ought to do. But when open penance may sometimes work in certain persons
more hurt than good, it is commendable and allowable in that case to punish
by the purse, and preserve the fame of the party; foreseeing always the
money be converted _in usus pios et eleemosynam_, and thus we think of the
thing, and that the offenders should be punished.

"Item where they complain that two witnesses be admitted, be they never so
defamed, of little truth or credence, adversaries or enemies to the
parties; yet in many cases they be allowed by the discretion of the
ordinaries to put the party defamed, ex officio, to open penance, and then
to redemption for money; so that every of your subjects, upon the only will
of the ordinaries or their substitutes, without any accuser, proved fame,
or presentment, is or may be infamed, vexed, and troubled, to the peril of
their lives, their shames, costs, and expenses:

"To this we reply, _the Gospel of Christ teacheth us to believe two
witnesses; and as the cause is, so the judge must esteem the quality of the
witness; and in heresy no exception is necessary to be considered if their
tale be likely; which hath been highly provided lest heretics without
jeopardy might else plant their_ _heresies in lewd and light persons, and
taking exception to the witnesses, take boldness to continue their folly.
This is the universal law of Christendom, and hath universally done good.
Of any injury done to any man thereby we know not_.

"Item where they say it is not intended by them to take away from us our
authority to correct and punish sins, and especially the detestable crime
of heresy:

"To this we answer, in the prosecuting heretics we regard our duty and
office whereunto we be called, and if God will discharge us thereof, or
cease that plague universal, as, by directing the hearts of princes, and
specially the heart of your Highness (laud and thanks be unto Him), His
goodness doth commence and begin to do, we should and shall have great
cause to rejoice; as being our authority therein costly, dangerous, full of
trouble and business, without any fruit, pleasure, or commodity worldly,
but a continued conflict and vexation with pertinacity, wilfulness, folly,
and ignorance, whereupon followeth their bodily and ghostly destruction, to
our great sorrow.

"Item where they desire that by assent of your Highness (if the laws
heretofore made be not sufficient for the repression of heresy) more
dreadful and terrible laws may be made; this We think is undoubtedly a more
charitable request than as we trust necessary, considering that by the aid
of your Highness, and the pains of your Grace's statutes freely executed,
your realm may be in short time clean purged from the few small dregs that
do remain, if any do remain.

"Item where they desire some reasonable declaration may be made to your
people, how they may, if they will, avoid the peril of heresy. No better
declaration, we say, can be made than is already by our Saviour Christ, the
Apostles, and the determination of the church, which if they keep, they
shall not fail to eschew heresy.

"Item where they desire that some charitable fashion may be devised by your
wisdom for the calling of any of your subjects before us, that it shall not
stand in the only will and pleasure of the ordinaries at their own
imagination, without lawful accusation by honest witness, according to your
law; to this we say that a better provision cannot be devised than is
already devised by the clergy in our opinion; and if any default appear in
the execution, it shall be amended on declaration of the particulars, and
the same proved.

"Item where they say that your subjects be cited out of the diocese which
they dwell in, and many times be suspended and excommunicate for light
causes upon the only certificate devised by the proctors, and that all your
subjects find themselves grieved with the excessive fees taken in the
spiritual courts:

"To this article, for because it concerneth specially the spiritual courts
of me the Archbishop of Canterbury, please it your Grace to understand that
about twelve months past I reformed certain things objected here; and now
within these ten weeks I reformed many other things in my said courts, as I
suppose is not unknown unto your Grace's Commons; and some of the fees of
the officers of my courts I have brought down to halves, some to the third
part, and some wholly taken away and extincted; and yet it is objected to
me as though I had taken no manner of reformation therein. Nevertheless I
shall not cease yet; but in such things as I shall see your Commons most
offended I will set redress accordingly, so as, I trust, they will be
contented in that behalf. And I, the said archbishop, beseech your Grace to
consider what service the doctors in civil law, which have had their
practice in my courts, have done your Grace concerning treaties, truces,
confederations, and leagues devised and concluded with outward princes; and
that without such learned men in civil law your Grace could not have been
so conveniently served as at all times you have been, which thing, perhaps,
when such learned men shall fail, will appear more evident than it doth
now. The decay whereof grieveth me to foresee, not so greatly for any cause
concerning the pleasure or profit of myself, being a man spent, and at the
point to depart this world, and having no penny of any advantage by my said
courts, but principally for the good love which I bear to the honour of
your Grace and of your realm. And albeit there is, by the assent of the
Lords Temporal and the Commons of your Parliament, an act passed thereupon
already, the matter depending before your Majesty by way of supplication
offered to your Highness by your said Commons;[237] yet, forasmuch as we
your Grace's humble chaplains, the Archbishops of Canterbury and York, be
bounden by oath to be intercessors for the rights of our churches; and
forasmuch as the spiritual prelates of the clergy, being of your Grace's
parliament, consented to the said act for divers great causes moving their
conscience, we your Grace's said chaplains show unto your Highness that it
hath appertained to the Archbishops of Canterbury and York for the space of
four hundred years or thereabouts to have spiritual jurisdiction over all
your Grace's subjects dwelling within the provinces; and to have authority
to call before them, not only in spiritual causes devolved to them by way
of appeal, but also by way of querimony and complaint; which right and
privilege pertaineth not only to the persons of the said archbishops, but
also to the pre-eminences of their churches. Insomuch that when the
archbishop of either of the sees dieth, the said privileges do not only
remain to his successor (by which he is named Legatus natus), but also in
the meantime of vacation the same privilege resteth in the churches of
Canterbury and York; and is executed by the prior, dean and chapter of the
said churches; and so the said act is directly against the liberty and
privileges of the churches of Canterbury and York; and what dangers be to
them which study and labour to take away the liberties and privileges of
the church, whoso will read the general councils of Christendom and the
canons of the fathers of the Catholic church ordained in that behalf, shall
soon perceive. And further, we think verily that our churches, to which the
said privileges were granted, can give no cause why the pope himself (whose
predecessors granted that privilege) or any other (the honour of your Grace
ever except) may justly take away the same privileges so lawfully
prescribed from our churches, though we [ourselves] had greatly offended,
abusing the said privileges. But when in our persons we trust we have given
no cause why to lose that privilege, we beseech your Grace of your goodness
and absolute power to set such orders in this behalf as we may enjoy our
privileges lawfully admitted so long.

"Item where they complain that there is exacted and demanded in divers
parishes of this your realm, other manner of tythes than hath been
accustomed to be paid this hundred years past; and in some parts of this
your realm there is exacted double tythes, that is to say, threepence, or
twopence-halfpenny, for one acre, over and beside the tythe for the
increase of cattle that pastureth the same:

"To this we say, that tythes being due by God's law, be so duly paid
(thanked be God), by all good men, as there needeth not exaction in the
most parts of this your Grace's realm. As for double tythes, they cannot be
maintained due for one increase; whether in any place they be unduly
exacted in fact we know not. This we know in learning, that neither a
hundred years, nor seven hundred of non-payment, may debar the right of
God's law. The manner of payment, and person unto whom to pay, may be in
time altered, but the duty cannot by any means be taken away.

"Item where they say that when a mortuary is due, curates sometimes, before
they will demand it, will bring citation for it; and then will not receive
the mortuaries till they may have such costs as they say they have laid out
for the suit of the same; when, indeed, if they would first have charitably
demanded it, they needed not to have sued for the same, for it should have
been paid with good will:

"We answer that curates thus offending, if they were known, ought to be
punished, but who thus doeth we know not.

"Item where they say that divers spiritual persons being presented to
benefices within this your realm, we and our ministers do take of them
great sums of money and reward; we reply that this is a particular abuse,
and he that taketh reward doeth not well; and if any penny be exacted above
the accustomed rate and after convenient proportion, it is not well done.
But in taking the usual fee for the sealing, writing, and registering the
letters, which is very moderate, we cannot think it to be reputed as any
offence; neither have we heard any priests in our days complain of any
excess therein.

"And where they say in the same article that such as be presented be
delayed without reasonable cause, to the intent that we the ordinaries may
have the profit of the benefice during the vacation, unless they will pact
and convent with us by temporal bonds, whereof some bonds contain that we
should have part of the profit of the said benefice, which your said
subjects suppose to be not only against right and conscience, but also
seemeth to be simony, and contrary to the laws of God:

"To this we do say that a delay without reasonable cause, and for a
lucrative intent, is detestable in spiritual men, and the doers cannot
eschew punishment: but otherwise a delay is sometimes expedient to examine
the clerk, and sometimes necessary when the title is in variance. All other
bargains and covenants being contrary to the law ought to be punished, as
the quality is of the offence more or less, as simony or inordinate
covetousness.

"Item where they say that we give benefices to our nephews and kinsfolk,
being in young age or infants, whereby the cure is not substantially looked
into, nor the parishioners taught as they should be; we reply to this that
the thing which is not lawful in others is in spiritual men more
detestable. Benefices should be disposed of not _secundum carnem et
sanguinem, sed secundum merita_. And when there is a default it is not
authorised by the clergy as good, but reproved; whereupon in this the
clergy is not to be blamed, but the default as it may appear must be laid
to particular men.

"And where they say that we take the profit of such benefices for the time
of the minority of our said kinsfolk, if it be done to our own use and
profit it is not well; _if it be bestowed to the bringing up and use of the
same parties_, or applied to the maintenance of the church and God's
service, or distributed among the poor, we do not see but that it may be
allowed.

"Item where they say that divers and many spiritual persons, not contented
with the convenient livings and promotions of the church, daily intromit
and exercise themselves in secular offices and rooms, as stewards,
receivers, auditors, bailiffs, and other temporal occupations, withdrawing
themselves from the good contemplative lives that they have professed, not
only to the damage but also to the perilous example of your loving and
obedient subjects; to this we your bedesmen answer that beneficed men may
lawfully be stewards and receivers to their own bishops, as it evidently
appeareth in the laws of the church; and we by the same laws ought to have
no other. And as for priests to be auditors and bailiffs, we know none
such.

"And where, finally, they, in the conclusion of their supplication, do
repeat and say that forasmuch as there is at this present time, and by a
few years past hath been much misdemeanour and violence upon the one part,
and much default and lack of patience, charity, and good will on the other
part; and marvellous discord in consequence of the quiet, peace, and
tranquillity in which this your realm hath been ever hitherto preserved
through your politic wisdom:

"To the first part as touching such discord as is reported, and also the
misdemeanour which is imputed to us and our doings, we trust we have
sufficiently answered the same, humbly beseeching your Grace so to esteem
and weigh such answer with their supplication as shall be thought good and
expedient by your high wisdom. Furthermore we ascertain your Grace as
touching the violence which they seem to lay to our charge, albeit divers
of the clergy of this your realm have sundry times been _rigorously
handled, and with much violence entreated by certain ill-disposed and
seditious persons of the lay fee, have been injured in their bodies, thrown
down in the kennel in the open_ _streets at mid-day_, even here within your
city and elsewhere, to the great rebuke and disquietness of the clergy of
your realm, the great danger of the souls of the said misdoers, and
perilous example of your subjects. Yet we think verily, and do affirm the
same, that no violence hath been so used on our behalf towards your said
lay subjects in any case; unless they esteem this to be violence that we do
use as well for the health of their souls as for the discharge of our
duties in taking, examining, and punishing heretics according to the law:
wherein we doubt not but that your Grace, and divers of your Grace's
subjects, do understand well what charitable entreaty we have used with
such as have been before us for the same cause of heresy; and what means we
have devised and studied for safeguard specially of their souls; and that
charitably, as God be our judge, and without violence as [far as] we could
possibly devise. In execution thereof, and also of the laws of the church
for repression of sin, and also for reformation of mislivers, it hath been
to our great comfort that your Grace hath herein of your goodness, assisted
and aided us in this behalf for the zeal and love which your Grace beareth
to God's church and to His ministers; especially in defence of His faith
whereof your Grace only and most worthily amongst all Christian princes
beareth the title and name. And for that marvellous discord and grudge
among your subjects as is reported in the supplication of your Commons, we
beseech your Majesty, all the premises considered, to repress those that be
misdoers; protesting in our behalf that we ourselves have no grudge nor
displeasure towards your lay subjects our ghostly children. We intreat your
Grace of your accustomed goodness to us your bedemen to continue our chief
protector, defender, and aider in and for the execution of our office and
duty; specially touching repression of heresy, reformation of sin, and due
behaviour and order of all your Grace's subjects, spiritual and temporal;
which (no doubt thereof) shall be much to the pleasure of God, great
comfort to men's souls, quietness and unity of all your realm; and, as we
think, most principally to the great comfort of your Grace's Majesty. Which
we beseech lowly upon our knees, so entirely as we can, to be the author of
unity, charity, and concord as above, for whose preservation we do and
shall continually pray to Almighty God long to reign and prosper in most
honourable estate to his pleasure."

This was the bishops' defence; the best which, under the circumstances,
they considered themselves capable of making. The House of Commons had
stated their complaints in the form of special notorious facts; the bishops
replied with urging the theory of their position, and supposed that they
could relieve the ecclesiastical system from the faults of its ministers,
by laying the sole blame on the unworthiness of individual persons. The
degenerate representatives of a once noble institution could not perhaps be
expected to admit their degeneracy, and confess themselves, as they really
were, collectively incompetent; yet the defence which they brought forward
would have been valid only so long as the blemishes were the rare
exceptions in the working of an institution which was still generally
beneficent. It was no defence at all when the faults had become the rule,
and when there was no security in the system itself for the selection of
worth and capacity to exercise its functions. The clergy, as I have already
said, claimed the privileges of saints, while their conduct fell below the
standard of that of ordinary men; and the position taken in this answer was
tenable only on the hypothesis which it, in fact, deliberately asserted,
that the judicial authority of the church had been committed to it by God
Himself; and that no misconduct of its ministers in detail could forfeit
their claims or justify resistance to them.

There is something touching in the bishops' evidently sincere
unconsciousness that there could be real room for blame. Warham, who had
been Archbishop of Canterbury thirty years, took credit to himself for the
reforms which, under the pressure of public opinion, he had introduced, in
the last few weeks or months; and did not know that in doing so he had
passed sentence on a life of neglect. In the opinion of the entire bench no
infamy, however notorious, could shake the testimony of a witness in a case
of heresy; no cruelty was unjust when there was suspicion of so horrible a
crime; while the appointment of minors to church benefices (not to press
more closely the edge of the accusation) they admitted while they affected
to deny it; since they were not ashamed to defend the appropriation of the
proceeds of benefices occupied by such persons, if laid out on the
education and maintenance of the minors themselves.

Yet these things were as nothing in comparison with the powers claimed for
convocation; and the prelates of the later years of Henry's reign must have
looked back with strange sensations at the language which their
predecessors had so simply addressed to him. If the canons which
convocation might think good to enact were not consistent with the laws of
the Realm, "His Majesty" was desired to produce the wished-for uniformity
by altering the laws of the Realm; and although the bishops might not
submit their laws to His Majesty's approval, they would be happy, they told
him, to consider such suggestions as he might think proper to make. The
spirit of the Plantagenets must have slumbered long before such words as
these could have been addressed to an English sovereign, and little did the
bishops dream that these light words were the spell which would burst the
charm, and bid that spirit wake again in all its power and terror.

The House of Commons in the mean time had not been idle. To them the
questions at issue were unincumbered with theoretic difficulties. Enormous
abuses had been long ripe for dissolution, and there was no occasion to
waste time in unnecessary debates. At such a time, with a House practically
unanimous, business could be rapidly transacted, the more rapidly indeed in
proportion to its importance. In six weeks, for so long only the session
lasted, the astonished church authorities saw bill after bill hurried up
before the Lords, by which successively the pleasant fountains of their
incomes would be dried up to flow no longer; or would flow only in shallow
rivulets along the beds of the once abundant torrents, The jurisdiction of
the spiritual courts was not immediately curtailed, and the authority which
was in future to be permitted to convocation lay over for further
consideration, to be dealt with in another manner. But probate duties and
legacy duties, hitherto assessed at discretion, were dwarfed into fixed
proportions,[238] not to touch the poorer laity any more, and bearing even
upon wealth with a reserved and gentle hand. Mortuaries were shorn of their
luxuriance; when effects were small, no mortuary should be required; when
large, the clergy should content themselves with a modest share. No velvet
cloaks should be stripped any more from strangers' bodies to save them from
a rector's grasp;[239] no shameful battles with apparitors should disturb
any more the recent rest of the dead.[240] Such sums as the law would
permit should be paid thenceforward in the form of decent funeral fees for
householders dying in their own parishes, and there the exactions should
terminate.[241]

The carelessness of the bishops in the discharge of their most immediate
duties obliged the legislature to trespass also in the provinces purely
spiritual, and undertake the discipline of the clergy. The Commons had
complained in their petition that the clergy, instead of attending to their
duties, were acting as auditors, bailiffs, stewards, or in other
capacities, as laymen; they were engaged in trade also, in farming, in
tanning, in brewing, in doing anything but the duties which they were paid
for doing; while they purchased dispensations for non-residence on their
benefices; and of these benefices, in favoured cases, single priests held
as many as eight or nine. It was thought unnecessary to wait for the
bishops' pleasure to apply a remedy here. If the clergy were unjustly
accused of these offences, a law of general prohibition would not touch
them. If the belief of the House of Commons was well founded, there was no
occasion for longer delay. It was therefore enacted[242]--"for the more
quiet and virtuous increase and maintenance of divine service, the
preaching and teaching the Word of God with godly and good example, for the
better discharge of cures, the maintenance of hospitality, the relief of
poor people, the increase of devotion and good opinion of the lay fee
towards spiritual persons"--that no such persons thenceforward should take
any land to farm beyond what was necessary, _bonā fide_, for the support of
their own households; that they should not buy merchandise to sell again;
that they should keep no tanneries or brewhouses, or otherwise directly or
indirectly trade for gain. Pluralities were not to be permitted with
benefices above the yearly value of eight pounds, and residence was made
obligatory under penalty in cases of absence without special reason, of ten
pounds for each month of such absence. The law against pluralities was
limited as against existing holders, each of whom, for their natural lives,
might continue to hold as many as four benefices. But dispensations, either
for non-residence or for the violation of any other provision of the act,
were made penal in a high degree, whether obtained from the bishops or from
the court of Rome.

These bills struck hard and struck home. Yet even persons who most
disapprove of the Reformation will not at the present time either wonder at
their enactment or complain of their severity. They will be desirous rather
to disentangle their doctrine from suspicious connection, and will not be
anxious to compromise their theology by the defence of unworthy professors
of it.

The bishops, however, could ill tolerate an interference with the
privileges of the ecclesiastical order. The Commons, it was exclaimed, were
heretics and schismatics;[243] the cry was heard everywhere, of Lack of
faith, Lack of faith; and the lay peers being constitutionally
conservative, and perhaps instinctively apprehensive of the infectious
tendencies of innovation, it seemed likely for a time that an effective
opposition might be raised in the Upper House. The clergy commanded an
actual majority in that House from their own body, which they might employ
if they dared; and although they were not likely to venture alone on so
bold a measure, yet a partial support from the other members was a
sufficient encouragement. The aged Bishop of Rochester was made the
spokesman of the ecclesiastics on this occasion. "My Lords," he said, "you
see daily what bills come hither from the Commons House, and all is to the
destruction of the church. For God's sake see what a realm the kingdom of
Bohemia was; and when the church went down, then fell the glory of that
kingdom. Now with the Commons is nothing but Down with the church, and all
this meseemeth is for lack of faith only."[244] "In result," says Hall,
"the acts were sore debated; the Lords Spiritual would in no wise consent,
and committees of the two Houses sate continually for discussion." The
spiritualty defended themselves by prescription and usage, to which a
Gray's Inn lawyer something insolently answered, on one occasion, "the
usage hath ever been of thieves to rob on Shooter's Hill, _ergo_, it is
lawful." "With this answer," continues Hall, "the spiritual men were sore
offended because their doings were called robberies, but the temporal men
stood by their sayings, insomuch that the said gentlemen declared to the
Archbishop of Canterbury, that both the exaction of probates of testaments
and the taking of mortuaries were open robbery and thefts."

At length, people out of doors growing impatient, and dangerous symptoms
threatening to show themselves, the king summoned a meeting in the
Star-chamber between eight members of both Houses. The lay peers, after
some discussion, conclusively gave way; and the bishops, left without
support, were obliged to yield. They signified their unwilling consent, and
the bills, "somewhat qualified," were the next day agreed to--"to the great
rejoicing of the lay people, and the great displeasure of the spiritual
persons."[245]

Nor were the House of Commons contented with the substance of victory. The
reply to their petition had perhaps by that time been made known to them,
and at any rate they had been accused of sympathy with heresy, and they
would not submit to the hateful charge without exacting revenge. The more
clamorous of the clergy out of doors were punished probably by the stocks;
from among their opponents in the Upper House, Fisher was selected for
special and signal humiliation. The words of which he had made use were
truer than the Commons knew; perhaps the latent truth of them was the
secret cause of the pain which they inflicted; but the special anxiety of
the English reformers was to disconnect themselves, with marked emphasis,
from the movement in Germany, and they determined to compel the offending
bishop to withdraw his words.

They sent the speaker, Sir Thomas Audeley, to the king, who "very
eloquently declared what dishonour it was to his Majesty and the realm,
that they which were elected for the wisest men in the shires, cities, and
boroughs within the realm of England, should be declared in so noble a
presence to lack faith." It was equivalent to saying "that they were
infidels, and no Christians--as ill as Turks and Saracens." Wherefore he
"most humbly besought the King's Highness to call the said bishop before
him, and to cause him to speak more discreetly of such a number as was in
the Commons House."[246] Henry consented to their request, it is likely
with no great difficulty, and availed himself of the opportunity to read a
lesson much needed to the remainder of the bench. He sent for Fisher, and
with him for the Archbishop of Canterbury, and for six other bishops. The
speaker's message was laid before them, and they were asked what they had
to say. It would have been well for the weak trembling old men if they
could have repeated what they believed and had maintained their right to
believe it. Bold conduct is ever the most safe; it is fatal only when there
is courage but for the first step, and fails when a second is required to
support it. But they were forsaken in their hour of calamity, not by
courage only, but by prudence, by judgment, by conscience itself. The
Bishop of Rochester stooped to an equivocation too transparent to deceive
any one; he said that "he meant only the doings of the Bohemians were for
lack of faith, and not the doings of the Commons House"--"which saying was
confirmed by the bishops present." The king allowed the excuse, and the
bishops were dismissed; but they were dismissed into ignominy, and
thenceforward, in all Henry's dealings with them, they were treated with
contemptuous disrespect. For Fisher himself we must feel only sorrow. After
seventy-six years of a useful and honourable life, which he might have
hoped to close in a quiet haven, he was launched suddenly upon stormy
waters, to which he was too brave to yield, which he was too timid to
contend against; and the frail vessel drifting where the waves drove it,
was soon piteously to perish.

Thus triumphant on every side, the parliament, in the middle of December,
closed its session, and lay England celebrated its exploits as a national
victory. "The king removed to Greenwich, and there kept his Christmas with
the queen with great triumph, with great plenty of viands, and disguisings,
and interludes, to the great rejoicing of his people;"[247] the members of
the House of Commons, we may well believe, following the royal example in
town and country, and being the little heroes of the day. Only the bishops
carried home sad hearts within them, to mourn over the perils of the church
and the impending end of all things; Fisher, unhappily for himself, to
listen to the wailings of the Nun of Kent, and to totter slowly into
treason.

Here, for the present leaving the clergy to meditate on their future, and
reconsider the wisdom of their answer to the king respecting the
ecclesiastical jurisdiction (a point on which they were not the less
certain to be pressed, because the process upon it was temporarily
suspended), we must turn to the more painful matter which, for a time
longer, ran parallel with the domestic reformation, and as yet was unable
to unite with it. After the departure of Campeggio, the further hearing of
the divorce cause had been advoked to Rome, where it was impossible for
Henry to consent to plead; while the appearance of the supposed brief had
opened avenues of new difficulty which left no hope of a decision within
the limits of an ordinary lifetime. Henry was still, however, extremely
reluctant[248] to proceed to extremities, and appeal to the parliament. He
had threatened that he would tolerate no delay, and Wolsey had evidently
expected that he would not. Queen Catherine's alarm had gone so far, that
in the autumn she had procured an injunction from the pope, which had been
posted in the churches of Flanders, menacing the king with spiritual
censures if he took any further steps.[249] Even this she feared that he
would disregard, and in March, 1529-30, a second inhibition was issued at
her request, couched in still stronger language.[250] But these measures
were needless, or at least premature. Henry expected that the display of
temper in the country in the late session would produce an effect both on
the pope and on the emperor; and proposing to send an embassy to
remonstrate jointly with them on the occasion of the emperor's coronation,
which was to take place in the spring at Bologna, he had recourse in the
mean time to an expedient which, though blemished in the execution, was
itself reasonable and prudent.

Among the many _technical_ questions which had been raised upon the
divorce, the most serious was on the validity of the original dispensation;
a question not only on the sufficiency of the form the defects of which the
brief had been invented to remedy; but on the more comprehensive
uncertainty whether Pope Julius had not exceeded his powers altogether in
granting a dispensation where there was so close affinity. No one supposed
that the pope could permit a brother to marry a sister; a dispensation
granted in such a case would be _ipso facto_ void.--Was not the
dispensation similarly void which permitted the marriage of a brother's
widow? The advantage which Henry expected from raising this difficulty was
the transfer of judgment from the partial tribunal of Clement to a broader
court. The pope could not, of course, adjudicate on the extent of his own
powers; especially as he always declared himself to be ignorant of the law;
and the decision of so general a question rested either with a general
council, or must be determined by the consent of Christendom, obtained in
some other manner. If such general consent declared against the pope, the
cause was virtually terminated. If there was some approach to a consent
against him, or even if there was general uncertainty, Henry had a legal
pretext for declining his jurisdiction, and appealing to a council.

Thomas Cranmer, then a doctor of divinity at Cambridge,[251] is said to
have been the person who suggested this ingenious expedient, and to have
advised the king, as the simplest means of carrying it out, to consult in
detail the universities and learned men throughout Europe. His notorious
activity in collecting the opinions may have easily connected him with the
origination of the plan, which probably occurred to many other persons as
well as to him; but whoever was the first adviser, it was immediately acted
upon, and English agents were despatched into Germany, Italy, and France,
carrying with them all means of persuasion, intellectual, moral, and
material, which promised to be of most cogent potency with lawyers'
convictions.

This matter was in full activity when the Earl of Wiltshire, Anne Boleyn's
father, with Cranmer, the Bishop of London, and Edward Lee, afterwards
Archbishop of York, was despatched to Bologna to lay Henry's remonstrances
before the emperor, who was come at last in person to enjoy his miserable
triumph, and receive from the pope the imperial crown. Sir Nicholas Carew,
who had been sent forward a few weeks previously, described in piteous
language the state to which Italy had been reduced by him. Passing through
Pavia, the English emissary saw the children crying about the streets for
bread, and dying of hunger; the grapes in midwinter rotting on the vines,
because there was no one to gather them; and for fifty miles scarcely a
single creature, man or woman, in the fields. "They say," added Carew, "and
the pope also showed us the same, that the whole people of that country,
with divers other places in Italia, with war, famine, and pestilence, are
utterly dead and gone."[252] Such had been the combined work of the vanity
of Francis and the cold selfishness of Charles; and now the latter had
arrived amidst the ruins which he had made, to receive his crown from the
hands of a pope who was true to Italy, if false to all the world besides,
and whom, but two years before, he had imprisoned and disgraced. We think
of Clement as the creature of the emperor, and such substantially he
allowed himself to be; but his obedience was the obedience of fear to a
master whom he hated, and the bishop of Tarbčs, who was present at the
coronation, and stood at his side through the ceremony, saw him trembling
under his robes with emotion, and heard him sigh bitterly.[253] Very
unwillingly, we may be assured, he was compelled to act his vacillating
part to England, and England, at this distance of time, may forgive him for
faults to which she owes her freedom, and need not refuse him some tribute
of sympathy in his sorrows.

Fallen on evil times, which greater wisdom and greater courage than had for
many a century been found in the successors of St. Peter would have failed
to encounter successfully, Clement VII. remained, with all his cowardice, a
true Italian; his errors were the errors of his age and nation, and were
softened by the presence, in more than usual measure, of Italian genius and
grace. Benvenuto Cellini, who describes his character with much minuteness,
has left us a picture of a hot-tempered, but genuine and kind-hearted man,
whose taste was elegant, and whose wit, from the playful spirit with which
it was pervaded, and from a certain tendency to innocent levity, approached
to humour. He was liable to violent bursts of feeling; and his inability to
control himself, his gesticulations, his exclamations, and his tears, all
represent to us a person who was an indifferent master of the tricks of
dissimulation to which he was reduced, and whose weakness entitles him to
pity, if not to respect. The papacy had fallen to him at the crisis of its
deepest degradation. It existed as a politically organised institution,
which it was convenient to maintain, but from which the private hearts of
all men had fallen away; and it depended for its very life upon the support
which the courts of Europe would condescend to extend to it. Among these
governments, therefore, distracted as they were by mutual hostility, the
pope was compelled to make his choice; and the fatality of his position
condemned him to quarrel with the only prince on whom, at the outset of
these complications, he had a right to depend.

In 1512, France had been on the point of declaring her religious
independence; and as late as 1525, Francis entertained thoughts of offering
the patriarchate to Wolsey.[254] Charles V., postponing his religious
devotion for the leisure of old age, had reserved the choice of his party,
to watch events and to wait upon opportunity; while, from his singular
position, he wielded in one hand the power of Catholic Spain, in the other
that of Protestant Germany, ready to strike with either, as occasion or
necessity recommended. If his Spaniards had annexed the New World to the
papacy, his German lanzknechts had stormed the Holy City, murdered
cardinals, and outraged the pope's person: while both Charles and Francis,
alike caring exclusively for their private interests, had allowed the Turks
to overrun Hungary, to conquer Rhodes, and to collect an armament at
Constantinople so formidable as to threaten Italy itself, and the very
Christian faith. Henry alone had shown hitherto a true feeling for
religion; Henry had made war with Louis XII. solely in the pope's quarrel;
Henry had broken an old alliance with the emperor to revenge the capture of
Rome, and had won Francis back to his allegiance. To Henry, if to any one,
the Roman bishop had a right to look with confidence. But the power of
England was far off, and could not reach to Rome. Francis had been baffled
and defeated, his armies destroyed, his political influence in the
Peninsula annihilated. The practical choice which remained to Clement lay
only, as it seemed, between the emperor and martyrdom; and having, perhaps,
a desire for the nobler alternative, yet being without the power to choose
it, his wishes and his conduct, his words to private persons and his open
actions before the world, were in perpetual contradiction. He submitted
while his heart revolted; and while at Charles's dictation he was
threatening Henry with excommunication if he proceeded further with his
divorce, he was able at that very time to say, in confidence, to the Bishop
of Tarbčs, that he would be well contented if the King of England would
marry on his own responsibility, availing himself of any means which he
might possess among his own people, so only that he himself was not
committed to a consent or the privileges of the papacy were not trenched
upon.[255]

Two years later, when the course which the pope would really pursue under
such circumstances was of smaller importance, Henry gave him an opportunity
of proving the sincerity of this language; and the result was such as he
expected it to be. As yet, however, he had not relinquished the hope of
succeeding by a more open course.

In March, 1529-30, the English ambassadors appeared at Bologna. Their
instructions were honest, manly, and straightforward. They were directed to
explain, _ab initio_, the grounds of the king's proceedings, and to appeal
to the emperor's understanding of the obligations of princes. Full
restitution was to be offered of Catherine's dowry, and the Earl of
Wiltshire was provided with letters of credit adequate to the amount.[256]
If these proposals were not accepted, they were to assume a more peremptory
tone, and threaten the alienation of England; and if menaces were equally
ineffectual, they were to declare that Henry, having done all which lay
within his power to effect his purpose with the goodwill of his friends,
since he could not do as he would, must now do as he could, and discharge
his conscience. If the emperor should pretend that he would "abide the law,
and would defer to the pope," they were to say, "that the sacking of Rome
by the Spaniards and Germans had so discouraged the pope and cardinals,
that they feared for body and goods," and had ceased to be free agents; and
concluding finally that the king would fear God rather than man, and would
rely on comfort from the Saviour against those who abused their authority,
they were then to withdraw.[257] The tone of the directions was not
sanguine, and the political complications of Europe, on which the emperor's
reply must more or less have depended, were too involved to allow us to
trace the influences which were likely to have weighed with him. There
seems no primā facie reason, however, why the attempt might not have been
successful. The revolutionary intrigues in England had decisively failed,
and the natural sympathy of princes, and a desire to detach Henry from
Francis, must have combined to recommend a return of the old cordiality
which had so long existed between the sovereigns of England and Flanders.
But whatever was the cause, the opening interview assured the Earl of
Wiltshire that he had nothing to look for. He was received with distant
courtesy; but Charles at once objected even to hearing his instructions, as
an interested party.[258] The earl replied that he stood there, not as the
father of the queen's rival, but as the representative of his sovereign;
but the objection declared the attitude which Charles was resolved to
maintain, and which, in fact, he maintained throughout. "The emperor,"
wrote Lord Wiltshire to Henry, "is stiffly bent against your Grace's
matter, and is most earnest in it; while the pope is led by the emperor,
and neither will nor dare displease him."[259] From that quarter, so long
as parties remained in their existing attitude, there was no hope. It seems
to have been hinted, indeed, that if war broke out again between Charles
and Francis, something might be done as the price of Henry's surrendering
the French alliance;[260] but the suggestion, if it was made, was probably
ironical; and as Charles was unquestionably acting against his interest in
rejecting the English overtures, it is fair to give him credit for having
acted on this one occasion of his life, upon generous motives. A respectful
compliment was paid to his conduct by Henry himself in the reproaches which
he addressed to the pope.[261]

So terminated the first and the last overture on this subject which Henry
attempted with Charles V. The ambassadors remained but a few days at
Bologna, and then discharged their commission and returned. The pope,
however, had played his part with remarkable skill, and by finessing
dexterously behind the scenes, had contrived to prevent the precipitation
of a rupture with himself. His simple and single wish was to gain time,
trusting to accident or Providence to deliver him from his dilemma. On the
one hand, he yielded to the emperor in refusing to consent to Henry's
demand; on the other, he availed himself of all the intricacies to parry
Catherine's demand for a judgment in her favour. He even seemed to part
with the emperor on doubtful terms. "The latter," said the Bishop of
Tarbčs,[262] "before leaving Bologna, desired his Holiness to place two
cardinals' hats at his disposal, to enable him to reward certain services."
His Holiness ventured to refuse. During his imprisonment, he said he had
been compelled to nominate several persons for that office whose conduct
had been a disgrace to their rank; and when the emperor denied his orders,
the pope declared that he had seen them. The cardinals' hats, therefore,
should be granted only when they were deserved, "when the Lutherans in
Germany had been reduced to obedience, and Hungary had been recovered from
the Turks." If this was acting, it was skilfully managed, and it deceived
the eyes of the French ambassador.

Still further to gratify Henry, the pope made a public declaration with
respect to the dispute which had arisen on the extent of his authority,
desiring, or professing to desire, that all persons whatever throughout
Italy should be free to express their opinions without fear of incurring
his displeasure. This declaration, had it been honestly meant, would have
been creditable to Clement's courage: unfortunately for his reputation, his
outward and his secret actions seldom corresponded, and the emperor's
agents were observed to use very dissimilar language in his name. The
double policy, nevertheless, was still followed to secure delay. Delay was
his sole aim,--either that Catherine's death, or his own, or Henry's, or
some relenting in one or other of the two princes who held their minatory
arms extended over him, might spare himself and the church the calamity of
a decision. For to the church any decision was fatal. If he declared for
Charles, England would fall from it; if for Henry, Germany and Flanders
were lost irrecoverably, and Spain itself might follow. His one hope was to
procrastinate; and in this policy of hesitation for two more years he
succeeded, till at length the patience of Henry and of England was worn
out, and all was ended. When the emperor required sentence to be passed, he
pretended to be about to yield; and at the last moment, some technical
difficulty ever interfered to make a decision impossible. When Henry was
cited to appear at Rome, a point of law was raised upon the privilege of
kings, threatening to open into other points of law, and so to multiply to
infinity. The pope, indeed, finding his own ends so well answered by
evasion, imagined that it would answer equally those of the English nation,
and he declared to Henry's secretary that "if the King of England would
send a mandate ad totam causam, then if his Highness would, there might be
given so many delays by reason of matters which his Highness might lay in,
and the remissorials that his Grace might ask, ad partes, that peradventure
in ten years or longer a sentence should not be given."[263] In point of
worldly prudence, his conduct was unexceptionably wise; but something
beyond worldly prudence was demanded of a tribunal which claimed to be
inspired by the Holy Ghost.

The dreary details of the negotiations I have no intention of pursuing.
They are of no interest to any one,--a miserable tissue of insincerity on
one side, and hesitating uncertainty on the other. There is no occasion for
us to weary ourselves with the ineffectual efforts to postpone an issue
which was sooner or later inevitable.

I may not pass over in similar silence another unpleasant episode in this
business,--the execution of Cranmer's project for collecting the sentiments
of Europe on the pope's dispensing power. The details of this transaction
are not wearying only, but scandalous; and while the substantial justice of
Henry's cause is a reason for deploring the means to which he allowed
himself to be driven in pursuing it, we may not permit ourselves either to
palliate those means or to conceal them. The project seemed a simple one,
and likely to be effective and useful. Unhappily, the appeal was still to
ecclesiastics, to a body of men who were characterised throughout Europe by
a universal absence of integrity, who were incapable of pronouncing an
honest judgment, and who courted intimidation and bribery by the readiness
with which they submitted to be influenced by them. Corruption was resorted
to on all sides with the most lavish unscrupulousness, and the result
arrived at was general discredit to all parties, and a conclusion which
added but one more circle to the labyrinth of perplexities. Croke,[264] a
Doctors' Commons lawyer, who was employed in Italy, described the state of
feeling in the peninsula as generally in Henry's favour; and he said that
he could have secured an all but universal consent, except for the secret
intrigues of the Spanish agents, and their open direct menaces, when
intrigue was insufficient. He complained bitterly of the treachery of the
Italians who were in the English pay; the two Cassalis, Pallavicino, and
Ghinucci, the Bishop of Worcester. These men, he said, were betraying Henry
when they were pretending to serve him, and were playing secretly into the
hands of the emperor.[265] His private despatches were intercepted, or the
contents of them by some means were discovered; for the persons whom he
named as inclining against the papal claims, became marked at once for
persecution. One of them, a Carmelite friar, was summoned before the
Cardinal Governor of Bologna, and threatened with death;[266] and a certain
Father Omnibow, a Venetian who had been in active co-operation with Dr.
Croke, wrote himself to Henry, informing him in a very graphic manner of
the treatment to which, by some treachery, he had been exposed. Croke and
Omnibow were sitting one morning in the latter's cell, "when there entered
upon them the emperor's great ambassador, accompanied with many gentlemen
of Spain, and demanded of the Father how he durst be so bold to take upon
him to intermeddle in so great and weighty a matter, the which did not only
lessen and enervate the pope's authority, but was noyful and odious to all
Realms Christened."[267] Omnibow being a man of some influence in Venice,
the ambassador warned him on peril of his life to deal no further with such
things: there was not the slightest chance that the King of England could
obtain a decision in his favour, because the question had been placed in
the hands of six cardinals who were all devoted to the emperor: the pope,
it was sternly added, had been made aware of his conduct, and was
exceedingly displeased, and the general[268] of his order had at the same
time issued an injunction, warning all members to desist at their peril
from intercourse with the English agents. The Spanish party held themselves
justified in resorting to intimidation to defend themselves against English
money; the English may have excused their use of money as a defence against
Spanish intimidation; and each probably had recourse to their several
methods prior to experience of the proceedings of their adversaries, from a
certain expectation of what those proceedings would be. Substantially, the
opposite manoeuvres neutralised each other, and in Catholic countries,
opinions on the real point at issue seem to have been equally balanced. The
Lutheran divines, from their old suspicion of Henry, were more decided in
their opposition to him. "The Italian Protestants," wrote Croke to the
king, "be utterly against your Highness in this cause, and have letted as
much as with their power and malice they could or might."[269] In Germany
Dr. Bames and Cranmer found the same experience. Luther himself had not
forgotten his early passage at arms with the English Defender of the Faith,
and was coldly hostile; the German theologians, although they expressed
themselves with reserve and caution, saw no reason to court the anger of
Charles by meddling in a quarrel in which they had no interest; they
revenged the studied slight which had been passed by Henry on themselves,
with a pardonable indifference to the English ecclesiastical revolt.

If, however, in Germany and Italy the balance of unjust interference lay on
the imperial side, it was more than adequately compensated by the answering
pressure which was brought to bear in England and in France on the opposite
side. Under the allied sovereigns, the royal authority was openly exercised
to compel such expressions of sentiment as the courts of London and Paris
desired; and the measures which were taken oblige us more than ever to
regret the inventive efforts of Cranmer's genius. For, in fact, these
manoeuvres, even if honestly executed, were all unrealities. The question
at issue was one of domestic English politics, and the metamorphosis of it
into a question of ecclesiastical law was a mere delusion. The discussion
was transferred to a false ground, and however the king may have chosen to
deceive himself, was not being tried upon its real merits. A complicated
difficulty vitally affecting the interests of a great nation, was laid for
solution before a body of persons incompetent to understand or decide it,
and the laity, with the alternative before them of civil war, and the
returning miseries of the preceding century, could brook no judgment which
did not answer to their wishes.

The French king, contemptuously indifferent to justice, submitted to be
guided by his interest; feeling it necessary for his safety to fan the
quarrel between Henry and the emperor, he resolved to encourage whatever
measures would make the breach between them irreparable. The reconciliation
of Herod and Pontius Pilate[270] was the subject of his worst alarm; and a
slight exercise of ecclesiastical tyranny was but a moderate price by which
to ensure himself against so dangerous a possibility.

Accordingly, at the beginning of June, the University of Paris was
instructed by royal letters to pronounce an opinion on the extent to which
the pope might grant dispensations for marriage within the forbidden
degrees. The letters were presented by the grand master, and the latter in
his address to the faculty, maintained at the outset an appearance of
impartiality. The doctors were required to decide according to their
conscience, having the fear of God before their eyes; and no open effort
was ventured to dictate the judgment which was to be delivered.

The majority of the doctors understood their duty and their position, and a
speedy resolution was anticipated, when a certain Dr. Beda, an energetic
Ultramontane, commenced an opposition. He said that, on a question which
touched the power of the pope, they were not at liberty to pronounce an
opinion without the permission of his Holiness himself; and that the
deliberation ought not to go forward till they had applied for that
permission and had received it. This view was supported by the Spanish and
Italian party in the university. The debate grew warm, and at length the
meeting broke up in confusion without coming to a resolution. Beda, when
remonstrated with on the course which he was pursuing, did not hesitate to
say that he had the secret approbation of his prince; that, however Francis
might disguise from the world his real opinions, in his heart he only
desired to see the pope victorious. An assertion so confident was readily
believed, nor is it likely that Beda ventured to make it without some
foundation. But being spoken of openly it became a matter of general
conversation, and reaching the ears of the English ambassador, it was met
with instant and angry remonstrance. "The ambassador," wrote the grand
master to Francis, "has been to me in great displeasure, and has told me
roundly that his master is trifled with by us. We give him words in plenty
to keep his beak in the water; but it is very plain that we are playing
false, and that no honesty is intended. Nor are his words altogether
without reason; for many persons declare openly that nothing will be done.
If the alliance of England, therefore, appear of importance to your
Highness, it would be well for you to write to the Dean of the Faculty,
directing him to close an impertinent discussion, and require an answer to
the question asked as quickly as possible."[271] The tone of this letter
proves, with sufficient clearness, the true feelings of the French
government; but at the moment the alternative suggested by the grand master
might not be ventured. Francis could not afford to quarrel with England, or
to be on less than cordial terms with it, and for a time at least his
brother sovereigns must continue to be at enmity. The negotiations for the
recovery of the French princes out of their Spanish prison, were on the
point of conclusion; and, as Francis was insolvent, Henry had consented to
become security for the money demanded for their deliverance. Beda had,
moreover, injured his cause by attacking the Gallican liberties; and as
this was a point on which the government was naturally sensitive, some
tolerable excuse was furnished for the lesson which it was thought proper
to adminster to the offending doctor.

On the seventeenth of June, 1530, therefore, Francis wrote as follows to
the President of the Parliament of Paris:--

"We have learnt, to our great displeasure, that one Beda, an imperialist,
has dared to raise an agitation among the theologians, dissuading them from
giving their voices on the cause of the King of England.--On receipt of
this letter, therefore, you shall cause the said Beda to appear before you,
and you shall show him the grievous anger which he has given us cause to
entertain towards him. And further you shall declare to him, laying these
our present writings before his eyes that he may not doubt the truth of
what you say, that if he does not instantly repair the fault which he has
committed, he shall be punished in such sort as that he shall remember
henceforth what it is for a person of his quality to meddle in the affairs
of princes. If he venture to remonstrate; if he allege that it is matter of
conscience, and that before proceeding to pronounce an opinion it is
necessary to communicate with the pope; in our name you shall forbid him to
hold any such communication: and he and all who abet him, and all persons
whatsoever, not only who shall themselves dare to consult the pope on this
matter, but who shall so much as entertain the proposal of consulting him,
shall be dealt with in such a manner as shall be an example to all the
world. The liberties of the Gallican Church are touched, and the
independence of our theological council, and there is no privilege
belonging to this realm on which we are more peremptorily determined to
insist."[272]

The haughty missive, a copy of which was sent to England,[273] produced the
desired effect. The doctors became obedient and convinced, and the required
declaration of opinion in Henry's favour, was drawn up in the most ample
manner. They made a last desperate effort to escape from the position in
which they were placed when the seal of the university was to be affixed to
the decision; but the resistance was hopeless, the authorities were
inexorable, and they submitted. It is not a little singular that the
English political agent employed on this occasion, and to whose lot it fell
to communicate the result to the king, was Reginald Pole. He it was, who
behind the scenes, and assisting to work the machinery of the intrigue,
first there, perhaps, contracted his disgust with the cause on which he was
embarked. There learning to hate the ill with which he was forced
immediately into contact, he lost sight of the greater ill to which it was
opposed; and in the recoil commenced the first steps of a career, which
brought his mother to the scaffold, which overspread all England with an
atmosphere of treason and suspicion, and which terminated at last after
years of exile, rebellion, and falsehood, in a brief victory of blood and
shame. So ever does wrong action beget its own retribution, punishing
itself by itself, and wrecking the instruments by which it works. The
letter which Pole wrote from Paris to Henry will not be uninteresting. It
revealed his distaste for his occupation, though prudence held him silent
as to his deeper feelings.

"Please it your Highness to be advertised, that the determination and
conclusion of the divines in this university was achieved and finished
according to your desired purpose, upon Saturday last past. The sealing of
the same has been put off unto this day, nor never could be obtained before
for any soliciting on our parts which were your agents here, which never
ceased to labour, all that lay in us, for the expedition of it, both with
the privy president and with all such as we thought might in any part aid
us therein. But what difficulties and stops hath been, to let the obtaining
of the seal of the university, notwithstanding the conclusion passed and
agreed unto by the more part of the faculty, by reason of such oppositions
as the adversary part hath made to embezzle the determination that it
should not take effect nor go forth in that same form as it was concluded,
it may please your Grace, to be advertised by this bearer, Master Fox; who,
with his prudence, diligence, and great exercise in the cause, hath most
holp to resist all these crafts, and to bring the matter to that point as
your most desired purpose hath been to have it. He hath indeed acted
according to that hope which I had of him at the beginning and first
breaking of the matter amongst the faculty here, when I, somewhat fearing
and foreseeing such contentions, altercations, and empeschements as by most
likelihood might ensue, did give your Grace advertisement, how necessary I
thought it was to have Master Fox's presence. And whereas I was informed by
Master Fox how it standeth with your Grace's pleasure, considering my
fervent desire thereon, that, your motion once achieved and brought to a
final conclusion in this university, I should repair to your presence, your
Grace could not grant me at this time a petition more comfortable unto me.
And so, making what convenient speed I may, my trust is shortly to wait
upon your Highness. Thus Jesu preserve your most noble Grace to his
pleasure, and your most comfort and honour. Written at Paris, the seventh
day of July, by your Grace's most humble and faithful servant, REGINALD
POLE."[274]

We must speak of this transaction as it deserves, and call it wholly bad,
unjust, and inexcusable. Yet we need not deceive ourselves into supposing
that the opposition which was crushed so roughly was based on any principal
of real honesty. In Italy, intrigue was used against intimidation. In
France intimidation was used against intrigue; and the absence of rectitude
in the parties whom it was necessary to influence, provoked and justified
the contempt with which they were treated.

The conduct of the English universities on the same occasion was precisely
what their later characters would have led us respectively to expect from
them. At Oxford the heads of houses and the senior doctors and masters
submitted their consciences to state dictation, without opposition, and, as
it seemed, without reluctance. Henry was wholly satisfied that the right
was on his own side; he was so convinced of it, that an opposition to his
wishes among his own subjects, he could attribute only to disloyalty or to
some other unworthy feeling; and therefore, while he directed the
convocation, "giving no credence to sinister persuasions, to show and
declare their just and true learning in his cause," he was able to dwell
upon the answer which he expected from them, as a plain matter of duty; and
obviously as not admitting of any uncertainty whatever.

"We will and command you," he said, "that ye, not leaning to wilful and
sinister opinions of your own several minds, considering that we be your
sovereign liege lord [and] totally giving your time, mind, and affections
to the true overtures of divine learning in this behalf, do show and
declare your true and just learning in the said cause, like as ye will
abide by: wherein ye shall not only please Almighty God, but also us your
liege lord. And we, for your so doing, shall be to you and to our
university there so good and gracious a lord for the same, as ye shall
perceive it well done in your well fortune to come. And in case you do not
uprightly, according to divine learning, handle yourselves herein, ye may
be assured that we, not without great cause, shall so quickly and sharply
look to your unnatural misdemeanour herein, that it shall not be to your
quietness and ease hereafter."[275] The admonitory clauses were
sufficiently clear; they were scarcely needed, however, by the older
members of the university. An enlarged experience of the world which years,
at Oxford as well as elsewhere, had not failed to bring with them, a just
apprehension of the condition of the kingdom, and a sense of the
obligations of subjects in times of political difficulty, sufficed to
reconcile the heads of the colleges to obedience; and threats were not
required where it is unlikely that a thought of hesitation was entertained.
But there was a class of residents which appears to be perennial in that
university, composed out of the younger masters; a class of men who,
defective alike in age, in wisdom, or in knowledge, were distinguished by a
species of theoretic High Church fanaticism; who, until they received their
natural correction from advancing years, required from time to time to be
protected against their own extravagance by some form of external pressure.
These were the persons whom the king was addressing in his more severe
language, and it was not without reason that he had recourse to it.

In order to avoid difficulty, and to secure a swift and convenient
resolution, it was proposed that both at Oxford and Cambridge the
universities should be represented by a committee composed of the heads of
houses, the proctors, and the graduates in divinity and law: that this
committee should agree upon a form of a reply; and that the university seal
should then be affixed without further discussion. This proposition was
plausible as well as prudent, for it might be supposed reasonably that
young half-educated students were incapable of forming a judgment on an
intricate point of law; and to admit their votes was equivalent to allowing
judgment to be given by party feeling. The masters who were to be thus
excluded refused however to entertain this view of their incapacity. The
question whether the committee should be appointed was referred to
convocation, where, having the advantage of numbers, they coerced the
entire proceedings; and some of them "expressing themselves in a very
forward manner" to the royal commissioners,[276] and the heads of houses
being embarrassed, and not well knowing what to do, the king found it
necessary again to interpose. He was unwilling, as he said, to violate the
constitution of the university by open interference, "considering it to
exist under grant and charter from the crown as a body politic, in the
ruling whereof in things to be done in the name of the whole, the number of
private suffrages doth prevail." "He was loth, too," he added, "to show his
displeasure, whereof he had so great cause ministered unto him, unto the
whole in general, whereas the fault perchance consisted and remained in
light and wilful heads," and he trusted that it might suffice if the
masters of the colleges used their private influence and authority[277] in
overcoming the opposition. For the effecting of this purpose, however, and
in order to lend weight to their persuasion, he assisted the convocation
towards a conclusion with the following characteristic missive:--

"To our trusty and well-beloved the heads of houses, doctors, and proctors
of our University of Oxford:

"Trusty and well-beloved, we greet you well; and of late being informed, to
our no little marvel and discontentation, that a great part of the youth of
that our university, with contentious and factious manner daily combining
together, neither regarding their duty to us their sovereign lord, nor yet
conforming themselves to the opinions and orders of the virtuous, wise,
sage, and profound learned men of that university, wilfully do stick upon
the opinion to have a great number of regents and non-regents to be
associate unto the doctors, proctors, and bachelors of divinity for the
determination of our question; which we believe hath not been often seen,
that such a number of right small learning in regard to the other should be
joined with so famous a sort, or in a manner stay their seniors in so
weighty a cause. And forasmuch as this, we think, should be no small
dishonour to our university there, but most especially to you the seniors
and rulers of the same; and as also, we assure you, this their unnatural
and unkind demeanour is not only right much to our displeasure, but much to
be marvelled of, upon what ground and occasion, they being our mere
subjects, should show themselves more unkind and wilful in this matter than
all other universities, both in this and all other regions do: we, trusting
in the dexterity and wisdom of you and other the said discreet and
substantial learned men of that university, be in perfect hope that ye will
conduce and frame the said young persons unto order and conformity as it
becometh you to do. Whereof we be desirous to hear with incontinent
diligence; and doubt you not we shall regard the demeanour of every one of
the university according to their merits and deserts. And if the youth of
the university will play masteries as they begin to do, we doubt not but
they shall well perceive that non est bonum irritare crabrones.[278]

"Given under our hand and seal, at our Castle of Windsor,

"HENRY R."[279]

It is scarcely necessary to say, that, armed with this letter, the heads of
houses subdued the recalcitrance of the overhasty "youth;" and Oxford duly
answered as she was required to answer.

The proceedings at Cambridge were not very dissimilar; but Cambridge being
distinguished by greater openness and largeness of mind on this as on the
other momentous subjects of the day than the sister university, was able to
preserve a more manly bearing, and escape direct humiliation. Cranmer had
written a book upon the divorce in the preceding year, which, as coming
from a well-known Cambridge man, had occasioned a careful ventilation of
the question there; the resident masters had been divided by it into
factions nearly equal in number, though unharmoniously composed. The heads
of houses, as at Oxford, were inclined to the king, but they were
embarrassed and divided by the presence on the same side of the suspected
liberals, the party of Shaxton, Latimer, and Cranmer himself. The agitation
of many months had rendered all members of the university, young and old,
so well acquainted (as they supposed) with the bearings of the difficulty,
that they naturally resisted, as at the other university, the demand that
their power should be delegated to a committee; and the Cambridge
convocation, as well as that of Oxford, threw out this resolution when it
was first proposed to them. A king's letter having made them more amenable,
a list of the intended committee was drawn out, which, containing Latimer's
name, occasioned a fresh storm. But the number in the senate house being
nearly divided, "the labour of certain friends" turned the scale; the vote
passed, and the committee was allowed, on condition that the question
should be argued publicly in the presence of the whole university. Finally,
judgment was obtained on the king's side, though in a less absolute form
than he had required, and the commissioners did not think it prudent to
press for a more extreme conclusion. They had been desired to pronounce
that the pope had no power to permit a man to marry his brother's widow.
They consented only to say that a marriage within those degrees was
contrary to the divine law; but the question of the pope's power was left
unapproached.[280]

It will not be uninteresting to follow this judgment a further step, to the
delivery of it into the hands of the king, where it will introduce us to a
Sunday at Windsor Castle three centuries ago. We shall find present there,
as a significant symptom of the time, Hugh Latimer, appointed freshly
select preacher in the royal chapel, but already obnoxious to English
orthodoxy, on account of his Cambridge sermons. These sermons, it had been
said, contained many things good and profitable, "on sin, and godliness,
and virtue," but much also which was disrespectful to established beliefs,
the preacher being clearly opposed to "candles and pilgrimages," and
"calling men unto the works that God commanded in his Holy Scripture, all
dreams and unprofitable glosses set aside and utterly despised." The
preacher had, therefore, been cited before consistory courts and
interdicted by bishops, "swarms of friars and doctors flocking against
Master Latimer on every side."[281] This also was to be noted about him,
that he was one of the most fearless men who ever lived. Like John Knox,
whom he much resembled, in whatever presence he might be, whether of poor
or rich, of laymen or priests, of bishops or kings, he ever spoke out
boldly from his pulpit what he thought, directly if necessary to particular
persons whom he saw before him respecting their own actions. Even Henry
himself he did not spare where he saw occasion for blame; and Henry, of
whom it was said that he never was mistaken in a _man_--loving a _man_[282]
where he could find him with all his heart--had, notwithstanding, chosen
this Latimer as one of his own chaplains.

The unwilling bearer of the Cambridge judgment was Dr. Buckmaster, the
vice-chancellor, who, in a letter to a friend, describes his reception at
the royal castle.

"To the right worshipful Dr. Edmonds, vicar of Alborne, in Wiltshire, my
duty remembered,--

"I heartily commend me unto you, and I let you understand that yesterday
week, being Sunday at afternoon, I came to Windsor, and also to part of Mr.
Latimer's sermon; and after the end of the same I spake with Mr. Secretary
[Cromwell], and also with Mr. Provost; and so after evensong I delivered
our letters in the Chamber of Presence, all the court beholding. The king,
with Mr. Secretary, did there read them; and did then give me thanks and
talked with me a good while. He much lauded our wisdom and good conveyance
in the matter, with the great quietness in the same. He showed me also what
he had in his hands for our university, according to that which Mr.
Secretary did express unto us, and so he departed from me. But by and bye
he greatly praised Mr. Latimer's sermon; and in so praising said on this
wise: 'This displeaseth greatly Mr. Vice-Chancellor yonder; yon same,' said
he to the Duke of Norfolk, 'is Mr. Vice-Chancellor of Cambridge,' and so
pointed unto me. Then he spake secretly unto the said duke, which, after
the king's departure, came unto me and welcomed me, saying, among other
things, the king would speak with me on the next day. And here is the first
act. On the next day I waited until it was dinner time; and so at the last
Dr. Butts, [king's physician,] came unto me, and brought a reward, twenty
nobles for me, and five marks for the junior proctor which was with me,
saying that I should take that for a resolute answer, and that I might
depart from the court when I would. Then came Mr. Provost, and when I had
shewed him of the answer, he said I should speak with the king after dinner
for all that, and so he brought me into a privy place where after dinner he
would have me wait. I came thither and he both; and by one of the clock the
king entered in. It was in a gallery. There were Mr. Secretary, Mr.
Provost, Mr. Latimer, Mr. Proctor, and I, and no more. The king then talked
with us until six of the clock. I assure you he was scarce contented with
Mr. Secretary and Mr. Provost, that this was not also determined, _an Papa
possit dispensare_. I made the best, and confirmed the same that they had
shewed his Grace before; and how it would never have been so obtained. He
opened his mind, saying he would have it determined after Easter, and of
the same was counselled awhile.

"Much other communication we had, which were too long here to recite. Then
his Highness departed, casting a little holy water of the court; and I
shortly after took my leave of Mr. Secretary and Mr. Provost, with whom I
did not drink, nor yet was bidden, and on the morrow departed from thence,
thinking more than I did say, and being glad that I was out of the court,
where many men, as I did both hear and perceive, did wonder at me. And here
shall be an end for this time of this fable.

"All the world almost crieth out of Cambridge for this act, and specially
on me; but I must bear it as well as I may. I have lost a benefice by it,
which I should have had within these ten days; for there hath one fallen in
Mr. Throgmorton's[283] gift which he hath faithfully promised unto me many
a time, but now his mind is turned and alienate from me. If ye go to court
after Easter I pray you have me in remembrance. Mr. Latimer preacheth
still,--quod ęmuli ejus graviter ferunt.

"Thus fare you well. Your own to his power,
WILLIAM BUCKMASTER.[284]
Cambridge, Monday after Easter, 1530."

It does not appear that Cambridge was pressed further, and we may,
therefore, allow it to have acquitted itself creditably, If we sum up the
results of Cranmer's measure as a whole, it may be said that opinions had
been given by about half Europe directly or indirectly unfavourable to the
papal claims; and that, therefore, the king had furnished himself with a
legal pretext for declining the jurisdiction of the court of Rome, and
appealing to a general council. Objections to the manner in which the
opinions had been gained could be answered by recriminations equally just;
and in the technical aspect of the question a step had certainly been
gained. It will be thought, nevertheless, on wider grounds, that the
measure was a mistake; that it would have been far better if the legal
labyrinth had never been entered, and if the divorce had been claimed only
upon those considerations of policy for which it had been first demanded,
and which formed the true justification of it. Not only might a shameful
chapter of scandal have been spared out of the world's history, but the
point on which the battle was being fought lay beside the real issue.
Europe was shaken with intrigue, hundreds of books were written, and tens
of thousands of tongues were busy for twelve months weaving logical
subtleties, and all for nothing. The truth was left unspoken because it was
not convenient to speak it, and all parties agreed to persuade themselves
and accept one another's persuasions, that they meant something which they
did not mean. Beyond doubt the theological difficulty really affected the
king. We cannot read his own book[285] upon it without a conviction that
his arguments were honestly urged, that his misgivings were real, and that
he meant every word which he said. Yet it is clear at the same time that
these misgivings would not have been satisfied, if all the wisdom of the
world--pope, cardinals, councils, and all the learned faculties
together--had declared against him, the true secret of the matter lying
deeper, understood and appreciated by all the chief parties concerned, and
by the English laity, whose interests were at stake; but in all these
barren disputings ignored as if it had no existence.

It was perhaps less easy than it seems to have followed the main road. The
bye ways often promise best at first entrance into them, and Henry's
peculiar temper never allowed him to believe beforehand that a track which
he had chosen could lead to any conclusion except that to which he had
arranged that it should lead. With an intellect endlessly fertile in
finding reasons to justify what he desired, he could see no justice on any
side but his own, or understand that it was possible to disagree with him
except from folly of ill-feeling. Starting always with a foregone
conclusion, he arrived of course where he wished to arrive. His "Glasse of
Truth" is a very picture of his mind. "If the marshall of the host bids us
do anything," he said, "shall we do it if it be against the great captain?
Again, if the great captain bid us do anything, and the king or the emperor
commandeth us to do another, dost thou doubt that we must obey the
commandment of the king or emperor, and contemn the commandment of the
great captain? Therefore if the king or the emperor bid one thing, and God
another, we must obey God, and contemn and not regard neither king nor
emperor." And, therefore, he argued, "we are not to obey the pope, when the
pope commands what is unlawful."[286] These were but many words to prove
what the pope would not have questioned; and either they concluded nothing
or the conclusion was assumed.

We cannot but think that among the many misfortunes of Henry's life his
theological training was the greatest; and that directly or indirectly it
was the parent of all the rest. If in this unhappy business he had trusted
only to his instincts as an English statesman; if he had been contented
himself with the truth, and had pressed no arguments except those which in
the secrets of his heart had weight with him, he would have spared his own
memory a mountain of undeserved reproach, and have spared historians their
weary labour through these barren deserts of unreality.




CHAPTER IV

CHURCH AND STATE

The authorities of the church, after the lesson which they had received
from the parliament in its first session, were now allowed a respite of two
years, during which they might reconsider the complaints of the people, and
consult among themselves upon the conduct which they would pursue with
respect to those complaints. They availed themselves of their interval of
repose in a manner little calculated to recover the esteem which they had
forfeited, or to induce the legislature further to stay their hand. Instead
of reforming their own faults, they spent the time in making use of their
yet uncurtailed powers of persecution; and they wreaked the bitterness of
their resentment upon the unfortunate heretics, who paid with their blood
at the stake for the diminished revenues and blighted dignities of their
spiritual lords and superiors. During the later years of Wolsey's
administration, the Protestants, though threatened and imprisoned, had
escaped the most cruel consequences of their faith. Wolsey had been a
warm-hearted and genuine man, and although he had believed as earnestly as
his brother bishops, that Protestantism was a pernicious thing, destructive
alike to the institutions of the country and to the souls of mankind, his
memory can be reproached with nothing worse than assiduous but humane
efforts for the repression of it. In the three years which followed his
dismissal, a far more bloody page was written in the history of the
reformers; and under the combined auspices of Sir Thomas More's fanaticism,
and the spleen of the angry clergy, the stake re-commenced its hateful
activity. This portion of my subject requires a full and detailed
treatment; I reserve the account of it, therefore, for a separate chapter,
and proceed for the present with the progress of the secular changes.

Although, as I said, no further legislative measures were immediately
contemplated against the clergy, yet they were not permitted to forget the
alteration in their position which had followed upon Wolsey's fall; and as
they had shown in the unfortunate document which they had submitted to the
king, so great a difficulty in comprehending the nature of that alteration,
it was necessary clearly and distinctly to enforce it upon them. Until that
moment they had virtually held the supreme power in the state. The
nobility, crippled by the wars of the Roses, had sunk into the second
place; the Commons were disorganised, or incapable of a definite policy;
and the chief offices of the government had fallen as a matter of course to
the only persons who for the moment were competent to hold them. The
jealousy of ecclesiastical encroachments, which had shown itself so
bitterly under the Plantagenets, had been superseded from the accession of
Henry VII. by a policy of studied conciliation, and the position of Wolsey
had but symbolised the position of his order. But Wolsey was now gone, and
the ecclesiastics who had shared his greatness while they envied it, were
compelled to participate also in his change of fortune.

This great minister, after the failure of a discreditable effort to fasten
upon him a charge of high treason,--a charge which, vindictively pressed
through the House of Lords, was wisely rejected by the Commons,--had been
prosecuted with greater justice for a breach of the law, in having
exercised the authority of papal legate within the realm of England. His
policy had broken down: he had united against him in a common exasperation
all orders in the state, secular and spiritual; and the possible
consequences of his adventurous transgression had fallen upon him. The
parliaments of Edward I., Edward III., Richard II., and Henry IV. had by a
series of statutes pronounced illegal all presentations by the pope to any
office or dignity in the Anglican church, under penalty of a premunire; the
provisions of these acts extending not only to the persons themselves who
accepted office under such conditions, but comprehending equally whoever
acknowledged their authority, "their executors, procurators, fautors,
maintainers, and receivers."[287] The importance attached to these laws was
to be seen readily in the frequent re-enactment of them, with language of
increasing vehemence; and although the primary object was to neutralise the
supposed right of the pope to present to English benefices, and although
the office of papal legate is not especially named in any one of the
prohibitory clauses, yet so acute a canonist as Wolsey could not have been
ignorant that it was comprehended under the general denunciation. The 5th
of the 16th of Richard II. was in fact explicitly universal in its
language, and dwelt especially on the importance of prohibiting the
exercise of any species of jurisdiction which could encroach on the royal
authority. He had therefore consciously violated a law on his own
responsibility, which he knew to exist, but which he perhaps trusted had
fallen into desuetude, and would not again be revived. It cannot be denied
that in doing so, being at the time the highest law officer of the crown,
he had committed a grave offence, and was justly liable to the full
penalties of the broken statute. He had received the royal permission, but
it was a plea which could not have availed him, and he did not attempt to
urge it.[288] The contingency of a possible violation of the law by the
king himself had been expressly foreseen and provided against in the act
under which he was prosecuted,[289] and being himself the king's legal
adviser, it was his duty to have kept his sovereign[290] informed of the
true nature of the statute. He had neglected this, his immediate
obligation, in pursuit of the interests of the church, and when Henry's
eyes were opened, he did not consider himself called upon to interfere to
shield his minister from the penalties which he had incurred, nor is it
likely that in the face of the irritation of the country he could have done
so if he had desired. It was felt, indeed, that the long services of
Wolsey, and his generally admirable administration, might fairly save him
(especially under the circumstances of the case) from extremity of
punishment; and if he had been allowed to remain unmolested in the affluent
retirement which was at first conceded to him, his treatment would not have
caused the stain which we have now to lament on the conduct of the
administration which succeeded his fall. He indeed himself believed that
the final attack upon him was due to no influence of rival statesmen, but
to the hatred of Anne Boleyn; and perhaps he was not mistaken. This,
however, is a matter which does not concern us here, and I need not pursue
it. It is enough that he had violated the law of England, openly and
knowingly, and on the revival of the national policy by which that law had
been enacted, he reaped the consequences in his own person.

It will be a question whether we can equally approve of the enlarged
application of the statute which immediately followed. The guilt of Wolsey
did not rest with himself; it extended to all who had recognised him in his
capacity of legate; to the archbishops and bishops, to the two Houses of
Convocation, to the Privy Council, to the Lords and Commons, and indirectly
to the nation itself. It was obvious that such a state of things was not
contemplated by the act under which he was tried, and where in point of law
all persons were equally guilty, in equity they were equally innocent; the
circumstances of the case, therefore, rendered necessary a general pardon,
which was immediately drawn out. The government, however, while granting
absolution to the nation, determined to make some exceptions in their
lenity; and harsh as their resolution appeared, it is not difficult to
conjecture the reasons which induced them to form it. The higher clergy had
been encouraged by Wolsey's position to commit those excessive acts of
despotism which had created so deep animosity among the people. The
overthrow of the last ecclesiastical minister was an opportunity to teach
them that the privileges which they had abused were at an end; and as the
lesson was so difficult for them to learn, the letter of the law which they
had broken was put in force to quicken their perceptions. They were to be
punished indirectly for their other evil doings, and forced to surrender
some portion of the unnumbered exactions which they had extorted from the
helplessness of their flocks.

In pursuance of this resolution, therefore, official notice was issued in
December, 1530, that the clergy lay all under a premunire, and that the
crown intended to prosecute. Convocation was to meet in the middle of
January, and this comforting fact was communicated to the bishops in order
to divert their attention to subjects which might profitably occupy their
deliberations. The church legislature had sate in the preceding years
contemporaneously with the sitting of parliament, at the time when their
privileges were being discussed, and when their conduct had been so angrily
challenged: but these matters had not disturbed their placid equanimity:
and while the bishops were composing their answer to the House of Commons,
Convocation had been engaged in debating the most promising means of
persecuting heretics and preventing the circulation of the Bible.[291] The
session had continued into the spring of 1529-30, when the king had been
prevailed upon to grant an order in council prohibiting Tyndale's
Testament, in the preface of which the clergy were spoken of
disrespectfully.[292] His consent had been obtained with great difficulty,
on the representation of the bishops that the translation was faulty, and
on their undertaking themselves to supply the place of it with a corrected
version. But in obtaining the order, they supposed themselves to have
gained a victory; and their triumph was celebrated in St. Paul's churchyard
with an auto da fé, over which the Bishop of London consented to preside;
when such New Testaments as the diligence of the apparitors could discover,
were solemnly burned.

From occupation such as this a not unwholesome distraction was furnished by
the intimation of the premunire; and that it might produce its due effect,
it was accompanied with the further information that the clergy of the
province of Canterbury would receive their pardon only upon payment of a
hundred thousand pounds--a very considerable fine, amounting to more than a
million of our money. Eighteen thousand pounds was required simultaneously
from the province of York; and the whole sum was to be paid in instalments
spread over a period of five years.[293] The demand was serious, but the
clergy had no alternative but to submit or to risk the chances of the law;
and feeling that, with the people so unfavourably disposed towards them,
they had no chance of a more equitable construction of their position, they
consented with a tolerable grace, the Upper House of Convocation first, the
Lower following. Their debates upon the subject have not been preserved. It
was probably difficult to persuade them that they were treated with
anything but the most exquisite injustice; since Wolsey's legatine
faculties had been the object of their general dread; and if he had
remained in power, the religious orders would have been exposed to a
searching visitation in virtue of these faculties, from which they could
have promised themselves but little advantage. But their punishment, if
tyrannical in form, was equitable in substance, and we can reconcile
ourselves without difficulty to an act of judicial confiscation.

The money, however, was not the only concession which the threat of the
premunire gave opportunity to extort; and it is creditable to the clergy
that the demand which they showed most desire to resist was not that which
most touched their personal interests. In the preamble of the subsidy bill,
under which they were to levy their ransom, they were required by the
council to designate the king by the famous title which gave occasion for
such momentous consequences, of "Protector and only Supreme Head of the
Church and Clergy of England."[294] It is not very easy to see what Henry
proposed to himself by requiring this designation, at so early a stage in
the movement. The breach with the pope was still distant, and he was
prepared to make many sacrifices before he would even seriously contemplate
a step which he so little desired. It may have been designed as a reply to
the papal censures: it may have been to give effect to his own menaces,
which Clement to the last believed to be no more than words;[295] or
perhaps (and this is the most likely) he desired by some emphatic act, to
make his clergy understand the relation in which thenceforward they were to
be placed towards the temporal authority. It is certain only that this
title was not intended to imply what it implied when, four years later, it
was conferred by act Of parliament, and when virtually England was severed
by it from the Roman communion.

But whatever may have been the king's motive, he was serious in requiring
that the title should be granted to him. Only by acknowledging Henry as
Head of the Church should the clergy receive their pardon, and the longer
they hesitated, the more peremptorily he insisted on their obedience. The
clergy had defied the lion, and the lion held them in his grasp; and they
could but struggle helplessly, supplicate and submit. Archbishop Warham,
just drawing his life to a close, presided for the last time in the
miserable scene, imagining that the clouds were gathering for the storms of
the latter day, and that Antichrist was coming in his power.

There had been a debate of three days, whether they should or should not
consent, when, on the 9th of February, a deputation of the judges appeared
in Convocation, to ask whether the Houses were agreed, and to inform them
finally that the king had determined to allow no qualifications. The clergy
begged for one more day, and the following morning the bishops held a
private meeting among themselves, to discuss some plan to turn aside the
blow. They desired to see Cromwell, to learn, perhaps, if there was a
chance of melting the hard heart of Henry; and after an interview with the
minister which could not have been encouraging, they sent two of their
number, the Bishops of Exeter and Lincoln, to attempt the unpromising task.
It was in vain; the miserable old men were obliged to return with the
answer that the king would not see them--they had seen only the judges, who
had assured them, in simple language, that the pardon was not to be settled
until the supremacy was admitted. The answer was communicated to the House,
and again "debated." Submission was against the consciences of the unhappy
clergy; to obey their consciences involved forfeiture of property; and
naturally in such a dilemma they found resolution difficult. They attempted
another appeal, suggesting that eight of their number should hold a
conference with the privy council, and "discover, if they might, some
possible expedient." But Henry replied, as before, that he would have a
clear answer, "_yes_, or _no_." They might say "yes," and their pardon was
ready. They might say "no"--and accept the premunire and its penalties. And
now, what should the clergy have done? No very great courage was required
to answer, "This thing is wrong; it is against God's will, and therefore it
must not be, whether premunire come or do not come." They might have said
it, and if they could have dared this little act of courage, victory was in
their hands. With the cause against them so doubtful, their very attitude
would have commanded back the sympathies of half the nation, and the king's
threats would have exploded as an empty sound. But Henry knew the persons
with whom he had to deal--forlorn shadows, decked in the trappings of
dignity--who only by some such rough method could be brought to a knowledge
of themselves. "Shrink to the clergy"--I find in a state paper of the
time--"Shrink to the clergy, and they be lions; lay their faults roundly
and charitably to them, and they be as sheep, and will lightly be reformed,
for their consciences will not suffer them to resist."[296]

They hesitated for another night. The day following, the archbishop
submitted the clause containing the title to the Upper House, with a saving
paragraph, which, as Burnet sententiously observes, the nature of things
did require to be supposed.[297] "Ecclesię et cleri Anglicani," so it ran,
"singularem protectorem, et unicum et supremum Dominum, et quantum per
legem Christi licet, etiam supremum caput ipsius Majestatem agnoscimus--We
recognise the King's Majesty to be our only sovereign lord, the singular
protector of the church and clergy of England, and as far as is allowed by
the law of Christ, also as our Supreme Head." The words were read aloud by
the archbishop, and were received in silence. "Do you assent?" he asked.
The House remained speechless. "Whoever is silent seems to consent," the
archbishop said. A voice answered out of the crowd, "Then are we all
silent." They separated for a few hours to collect themselves. In the
afternoon sitting they discussed the sufficiency of the subterfuge; and at
length agreeing that it saved their consciences, the clause was finally
passed, the Bishop of Rochester, among the rest, giving his unwilling
acquiescence.

So for the present terminated this grave matter. The pardon was immediately
submitted to parliament, where it was embodied in a statute;[298] and this
act of dubious justice accomplished, the Convocation was allowed to return
to its usual occupations, and continue the prosecutions of the heretics.

The House of Commons, during their second session, had confined themselves
meanwhile to secular business. They had been concerned chiefly with
regulations affecting trade and labour; and the proceedings on the
premunire being thought for the time to press sufficiently on the clergy,
they deferred the further prosecution of their own complaints till the
following year. Two measures, however, highly characteristic of the age,
must not be passed over, one of which concerned a matter that must have
added heavily to the troubles of the Bishop of Rochester at a time when he
was in no need of any addition to his burdens.

Fisher was the only one among the prelates for whom it is possible to feel
respect. He was weak, superstitious, pedantical; towards the Protestants he
was even cruel; but he was a singlehearted man, who lived in honest fear of
evil, so far as he understood what evil was; and he alone could rise above
the menaces of worldly suffering, under which his brethren on the bench
sank so rapidly into meekness and submission. We can therefore afford to
compassionate him in the unexpected calamity by which he was overtaken, and
which must have tried his failing spirit in no common manner.

He lived, while his duties required his presence in London, at a house in
Lambeth, and being a hospitable person, he opened his doors at the dinner
hour for the poor of the neighbourhood. Shortly after the matter which I
have just related, many of these people who were dependent on his bounty
were reported to have become alarmingly ill, and several gentlemen of the
household sickened also in the same sudden and startling manner. One of
these gentlemen died, and a poor woman also died; and it was discovered on
inquiry that the yeast which had been used in various dishes had been
poisoned. The guilty person was the cook, a certain Richard Rouse; and
inasmuch as all crimes might be presumed to have had motives, and the
motive in the present instance was undiscoverable, it was conjectured by
Queen Catherine's friends that he had been bribed by Anne Boleyn, or by
some one of her party, to remove out of the way the most influential of the
English opponents of the divorce.[299] The story was possibly without
foundation, although it is not unlikely that Fisher himself believed it.
The shock of such an occurrence may well have unsettled his powers of
reasoning, and at all times he was a person whose better judgment was
easily harassed into incapacity. The origin of the crime, however, is of
less importance than the effect of the discovery upon the nation, in whom
horror of the action itself absorbed every other feeling. Murder of this
kind was new in England. Ready as the people ever were with sword or
lance--incurably given as they were to fighting in the best ordered
times--an Englishman was accustomed to face his enemy, man to man, in the
open day; and the Italian crime (as it was called) of poisoning had not
till recent years been heard of.[300] Even revenge and passion recognised
their own laws of honour and fair play; and the cowardly ferocity which
would work its vengeance in the dark, and practise destruction by wholesale
to implicate one hated person in the catastrophe, was a new feature of
criminality. Occurring in a time so excited, when all minds were on the
stretch, and imaginations were feverish with fancies, it appeared like a
frightful portent, some prodigy of nature, or enormous new birth of
wickedness, not to be received or passed by as a common incident, and not
to be dealt with by the process of ordinary law. Parliament undertook the
investigation, making it the occasion, when the evidence was completed, of
a special statute, so remarkable that I quote it in its detail and wording.
The English were a stern people--a people knowing little of compassion
where no lawful ground existed for it; but they were possessed of an awful
and solemn horror of evil things,--a feeling which, in proportion as it
exists, inevitably and necessarily issues in tempers of iron. The stern man
is ever the most tender when good remains amidst evil, and is still
contending with it; but we purchase compassion for utter wickedness only by
doubting in our hearts whether wickedness is more than misfortune.

"The King's royal Majesty," says the 9th of the 22nd of Henry VIII.,
"calling to his most blessed remembrance that the making of good and
wholesome laws, and due execution of the same against the offenders
thereof, is the only cause that good obedience and order hath been
preserved in this realm; and his Highness having most tender zeal for the
same, considering that man's life above all things is chiefly to be
favoured, and voluntary murders most highly to be detested and abhorred;
and specially all kinds of murders by poisoning, which in this realm
hitherto, our Lord be thanked, hath been most rare and seldom committed or
practised: and now, in the time of this present parliament, that is to say,
on the eighteenth day of February, in the twenty-second year of his most
victorious reign, one Richard Rouse, late of Rochester, in the county of
Kent, cook, otherwise called Richard Cook, of his most wicked and damnable
disposition, did cast a certain venom or poison into a vessel replenished
with yeast or barm, standing in the kitchen of the reverend father in God,
John Bishop of Rochester, at his place in Lambeth Marsh; with which yeast
or barm, and other things convenient, porridge or gruel was forthwith made
for his family there being; whereby not only the number of seventeen
persons of his said family, which did eat of that porridge, were mortally
infected or poisoned, and one of them, that is to say, Bennet Curwan,
gentleman, is thereof deceased; but also certain poor people which resorted
to the said bishop's place, and were there charitably fed with the remains
of the said porridge and other victuals; were in like wise infected; and
one poor woman of them, that is to say, Alice Tryppitt, widow, is also
thereof now deceased: Our said sovereign lord the king, of his blessed
disposition inwardly abhorring all such abominable offences, because that
in manner no person can live in surety out of danger of death by that
means, if practices thereof should not be eschewed, hath ordained and
enacted by authority of this present parliament, that the said poisoning be
adjudged and deemed as high treason; and that the said Richard, for the
said murder and poisoning of the said two persons, shall stand and be
attainted of high treason.

"And because that detestable offence, now newly practised and committed,
requireth condign punishment for the same, it is ordained and enacted by
authority of this present parliament that the said Richard Rouse shall be
therefore boiled to death, without having any advantage of his clergy; and
that from henceforth every wilful murder of any person or persons hereafter
to be committed or done by means or way of poisoning, shall be reputed,
deemed, and judged in the law to be high treason; and that all and every
person or persons which shall hereafter be indicted and condemned by order
of the law of such treason, shall not be admitted to the benefit of his or
their clergy, but shall be immediately after such attainder or
condemnation, committed to execution of death by boiling for the same."

The sentence was carried into effect[301] in Smithfield, "on the tenebra
Wednesday following, to the terrible example of all others." The spectacle
of a living human being boiled to death, was really witnessed three hundred
years ago by the London citizens, within the walls of that old
cattle-market; an example terrible indeed, the significance of which is not
easily to be exhausted. For the poisoners of the soul there was the
stake,[302] for the poisoners of the body, the boiling cauldron,--the two
most fearful punishments for the most fearful of crimes. The stake at which
the heretic suffered was an inherited institution descending through the
usage of centuries; the poisoner's cauldron was the fresh expression of the
judgment of the English nation on a novel enormity; and I have called
attention to it because the temper which this act exhibits is the key to
all which has seemed most dark and cruel in the rough years which followed;
a temper which would keep no terms with evil, or with anything which,
rightly or wrongly, was believed to be evil, but dreadfully and inexorably
hurried out the penalties of it.

Following the statute against poisoning, there stands "an act for the
banishment out of the country of divers outlandish and vagabond people
called Egyptians;"[303] and attached to it another of analogous import,
"for the repression of beggars and vagabonds," the number of whom, it was
alleged, was increasing greatly throughout the country, and much crime and
other inconveniences were said to have been occasioned by them. We may
regard these two measures, if we please, as a result of the energetic and
reforming spirit in the parliament, which was dragging into prominence all
forms of existing disorders, and devising remedies for those disorders. But
they indicate something more than this: they point to the growth of a
disturbed and restless disposition, the interruption of industry, and other
symptoms of approaching social confusion; and at the same time they show us
the government conscious of the momentous nature of the struggle into which
it was launched; and with timely energy bracing up the sinews of the nation
for its approaching trial. The act against the gipsies especially,
illustrates one of the most remarkable features of the times. The air was
impregnated with superstition; in a half consciousness of the impending
changes, all men were listening with wide ears to rumours and prophecies
and fantastic fore-shadowings of the future; and fanaticism, half deceiving
and half itself deceived, was grasping the lever of the popular excitement
to work out its own ends.[304] The power which had ruled the hearts of
mankind for ten centuries was shaking suddenly to its foundation. The
Infallible guidance of the Church was failing; its light gone out, or
pronounced to be but a mere deceitful ignis fatuus; and men found
themselves wandering in darkness, unknowing where to turn or what to think
or believe. It was easy to clamour against the spiritual courts. From men
smarting under the barefaced oppression of that iniquitous jurisdiction,
the immediate outcry rose without ulterior thought; but unexpectedly the
frail edifice of the church itself threatened under the attack to crumble
into ruins; and many gentle hearts began to tremble and recoil when they
saw what was likely to follow on their light beginnings. It was true that
the measures as yet taken by the parliament and the crown professed to be
directed, not to the overthrow of the church, but to the re-establishment
of its strength. But the exulting triumph of the Protestants, the promotion
of Latimer to a royal chaplaincy, the quarrel with the papacy, and a dim
but sure perception of the direction in which the stream was flowing,
foretold to earnest Catholics a widely different issue; and the simplest of
them knew better than the court knew, that they were drifting from the sure
moorings of the faith into the broad ocean of uncertainty. There seems,
indeed, to be in religious men, whatever be their creed, and however
limited their intellectual power, a prophetic faculty of insight into the
true bearings of outward things,--an insight which puts to shame the
sagacity of statesmen, and claims for the sons of God, and only for them,
the wisdom even of the world. Those only read the world's future truly who
have faith in principle, as opposed to faith in human dexterity; who feel
that in human things there lies really and truly a spiritual nature, a
spiritual connection, a spiritual tendency, which the wisdom of the serpent
cannot alter, and scarcely can affect.

Excitement, nevertheless, is no guarantee for the understanding; and these
instincts, powerful as they are, may be found often in minds wild and
chaotic, which, although they vaguely foresee the future, yet have no power
of sound judgment, and know not what they foresee, or how wisely to
estimate it. Their wisdom, if we may so use the word, combines crudely with
any form of superstition or fanaticism. Thus in England, at the time of
which we are speaking, Catholics and Protestants had alike their horoscope
of the impending changes, each nearer to the truth than the methodical
calculations of the statesmen; yet their foresight did not affect their
convictions, or alter the temper of their hearts. They foresaw the same
catastrophe, yet their faith still coloured the character of it. To the one
it was the advent of Antichrist, to the other the inauguration of the
millennium. The truest hearted men on all sides were deserted by their
understandings at the moment when their understandings were the most deeply
needed: and they saw the realities which were round them transfigured into
phantoms through the mists of their hopes and fears. The present was
significant only as it seemed in labour with some gigantic issue, and the
events of the outer world flew from lip to lip, taking as they passed every
shape most wild and fantastical. Until "the king's matter" was decided,
there was no censorship upon speech, and all tongues ran freely on the
great subjects of the day. Every parish pulpit rang with the divorce, or
with the perils of the Catholic faith; at every village ale-house, the talk
was of St. Peter's keys, the sacrament, or of the pope's supremacy, or of
the points in which a priest differed from a layman. Ostlers quarrelled
over such questions as they groomed their masters' horses; old women
mourned across the village shopboards of the evil days which were come or
coming; while every kind of strangest superstition, fairy stories and witch
stories, stories of saints and stories of devils, were woven in and out and
to and fro, like quaint, bewildering arabesques, in the tissue of the
general imagination.[305]

These were the forces which were working on the surface of the English
mind; while underneath, availing themselves skilfully of the excitement,
the agents of the disaffected among the clergy, or the friars mendicant,
who to a man were devoted to the pope and to Queen Catherine, passed up and
down the country, denouncing the divorce, foretelling ruin, disaster, and
the wrath of God; and mingling with their prophecies more than dubious
language on the near destruction or deposition of a prince who was opposing
God and Heaven. The soil was manured by treason, and the sowers made haste
to use their opportunity. Thus especially was there danger in those
wandering encampments of "outlandish people," whose habits rendered them
the ready-made missionaries of sedition; whose swarthy features might hide
a Spanish heart, and who in telling fortunes might readily dictate
policy.[306] Under the disguise of gipsies, the emissaries of the emperor
or the pope might pass unsuspected from the Land's End to
Berwick-upon-Tweed, penetrating the secrets of families, tying the links of
the Catholic organisation: and in the later years of the struggle, as the
intrigues became more determined and a closer connection was established
between the Continental powers and the disaffected English, it became
necessary to increase the penalty against these irregular wanderers from
banishment to death. As yet, however, the milder punishment was held
sufficient, and even this was imperfectly enforced.[307] The tendencies to
treason were still incipient--they were tendencies only, which had as yet
shown themselves in no decisive acts; the future was uncertain, the action
of the government doubtful. The aim was rather to calm down the excitement
of the people, and to extinguish with as little violence as possible the
means by which it was fed.

Ominous symptoms of eccentric agitation, however, began to take shape in
the confusion, A preacher, calling himself the favourite of the Virgin
Mary, had started up at Edinburgh, professing miraculous powers of
abstinence from food. This man was sent by James V. to Rome, where, after
having been examined by Clement, and having sufficiently proved his
mission, he was furnished with a priest's habit and a certificate under
leaden seal.[308] Thus equipped, he went a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, and
loaded himself with palm-leaves and with stones from the pillar at which
Christ was scourged; and from thence making his way to England, he appeared
at Paul's Cross an evident saint and apostle, cursing the king and his
divorce, denouncing his apostacy, and threatening the anger of Heaven. He
was arrested and thrown into prison, where he remained, as it was believed,
fifty days without food, or fed in secret by the Virgin, At the close of
the time the government thought it prudent to send him back to Scotland,
without further punishment.[309]

Another more famous prophetess was then in the zenith of her
reputation--the celebrated Nun of Kent--whose cell at Canterbury, for some
three years, was the Delphic shrine of the Catholic oracle, from which the
orders of Heaven were communicated even to the pope himself. This singular
woman seems for a time to have held in her hand the balance of the fortunes
of England. By the papal party she was universally believed to be inspired.
Wolsey believed it, Warham believed it, the bishops believed it, Queen
Catherine believed it, Sir Thomas More's philosophy was no protection to
him against the same delusion; and finally, she herself believed the world,
when she found the world believed in her. Her story is a psychological
curiosity; and, interwoven as it was with the underplots of the time, we
cannot observe it too accurately.

In the year 1525, there lived in the parish of Aldington, in Kent, a
certain Thomas Cobb, bailiff or steward to the Archbishop of Canterbury,
who possessed an estate there. Among the servants of this Thomas Cobb was a
country girl called Elizabeth Barton--a decent person, so far as we can
learn, but of mere ordinary character, and until that year having shown
nothing unusual in her temperament. She was then attacked, however, by some
internal disease; and after many months of suffering, she was reduced into
that abnormal and singular condition, in which she exhibited the phenomena
known to modern wonder-seekers as those of somnambulism or clairvoyance.
The scientific value of such phenomena is still undetermined, but that they
are not purely imaginary is generally agreed. In the histories of all
countries and of all times, we are familiar with accounts of young women of
bad health and irritable nerves, who have exhibited at recurring periods
certain unusual powers; and these exhibitions have had especial attraction
for superstitious persons, whether they have believed in God, or in the
devil, or in neither. A further feature also uniform in such cases, has
been that a small element of truth may furnish a substructure for a
considerable edifice of falsehood; human credulity being always an
insatiable faculty, and its powers being unlimited when once the path of
ordinary experience has been transcended. We have seen in our own time to
what excesses occurrences of this kind may tempt the belief, even when
defended with the armour of science. In the sixteenth century, when
demoniacal possession was the explanation usually received even of ordinary
insanity, we can well believe that the temptation must have been great to
recognise supernatural agency in a manifestation far more uncommon; and
that the difficulty of retaining the judgment in a position of equipoise
must have been very great not only to the spectators but still more to the
subject of the phenomenon herself. To sustain ourselves continuously under
the influence of reason, even when our faculties are preserved in their
natural balance, is a task too hard for most of us. We cannot easily make
too great allowance for the moral derangement likely to follow, when a weak
girl suddenly found herself possessed of powers which she was unable to
understand. Bearing this in mind, for it is only just that we should do so,
we continue the story.

This Elizabeth Barton, then, "in the trances, of which she had divers and
many,[310] consequent upon her illness, told wondrously things done and
said in other places whereat she was neither herself present, nor yet had
heard no report thereof." To simple-minded people who believed in Romanism
and the legends of the saints, the natural explanation of such a marvel
was, that she must be possessed either by the Holy Ghost or by the devil.
The archbishop's bailiff, not feeling himself able to decide in a case of
so much gravity, called in the advice of the parish priest, one Richard
Masters; and together they observed carefully all that fell from her. The
girl had been well disposed, as the priest probably knew. She had been
brought up religiously; and her mind running upon what was most familiar to
it, "she spake words of marvellous holyness in rebuke of sin and
vice;"[311] or, as another account says, "she spake very godly certain
things concerning the seven deadly sins and the Ten Commandments."[312]
This seemed satisfactory as to the source of the inspiration. It was
clearly not a devil that spoke words against sin, and therefore, as there
was no other alternative, it was plain that God had visited her. Her powers
were assuredly from heaven; and it was plain, also, by a natural sequence
of reasoning, that she held some divine commission, of which her
clairvoyance was the miracle in attestation.

An occurrence of such moment was not to be kept concealed in the parish of
Aldington. The priest mounted his horse, and rode to Lambeth with the news
to the Archbishop of Canterbury; and the story having lost nothing of its
marvel by the way,[313] the archbishop, who was fast sinking into dotage,
instead of ordering a careful inquiry, and appointing some competent person
to conduct it, listened with greedy interest; he assured Father Richard
that "the speeches which she had spoken came of God; and bidding him keep
him diligent account of all her utterances, directed him to inform her in
his name that she was not to refuse or hide the goodness and works of God."
Cobb, the bailiff, being encouraged by such high authority, would not keep
any longer in his kitchen a prophetess with the archbishop's imprimatur
upon her; and as soon as the girl was sufficiently recovered from her
illness to leave her bed, he caused her to sit at his own mess with his
mistress and the parson.[314] The story spread rapidly through the country;
inquisitive foolish people came about her to try her skill with questions;
and her illness, as she subsequently confessed, having then left her, and
as only her reputation was remaining, she bethought herself whether it
might not be possible to preserve it a little longer. "Perceiving herself
to be much made of, to be magnified and much set by, by reason of trifling
words spoken unadvisedly by idleness of her brain, she conceived in her
mind that having so good success, and furthermore from so small an occasion
and nothing to be esteemed, she might adventure further to enterprise and
essay what she could do, being in good advisement and remembrance."[315]
Her fits no longer recurred naturally, but she was able to reproduce either
the reality or the appearance of them; and she continued to improvise her
oracles with such ability as she could command, and with tolerable success.

In this undertaking she was speedily provided with an efficient coadjutor.
The Catholic church had for some time been unproductive of miracles, and as
heresy was raising its head and attracting converts, so opportune an
occurrence was not to be allowed to sleep. The archbishop sent his
comptroller to the Prior of Christ Church at Canterbury, with directions
that two monks whom he especially named, Doctor Bocking, the cellarer, and
Dan William Hadley, should go to Aldington to observe.[316] At first, not
knowing what was before them, both prior and monks were unwilling to meddle
with the matter.[317] They submitted, however, "from the obedience which
they owed unto their lord;" and they had soon reason to approve the
correctness of the archbishop's judgment. Bocking, selected no doubt from
previous knowledge of his qualities, was a man devoted to his order, and
not over-scrupulous as to the means by which he furthered the interests of
it. With instinctive perception he discovered material in Elizabeth Barton
too rich to be allowed to waste itself in a country village. Perhaps he
partially himself believed in her, but he was more anxious to ensure the
belief of others, and he therefore set himself to assist her inspiration
towards more effective utterance. Conversing with her in her intervals of
quiet, he discovered that she was wholly ignorant, and unprovided with any
stock of mental or imaginative furniture; and that consequently her
prophecies were without body, and too indefinite to be theologically
available. This defect he remedied by instructing her in the Catholic
legends, and by acquainting her with the revelations of St. Brigitt and St.
Catherine of Sienna.[318] In these women she found an enlarged reflection
of herself; the details of their visions enriched her imagery; and being
provided with these fair examples, she was able to shape herself into
fuller resemblance with the traditionary model of the saints.

As she became more proficient, Father Bocking extended his lessons to the
Protestant controversy, initiating his pupil into the mysteries of
justification, sacramental grace, and the power of the keys. The ready
damsel redelivered his instructions to the world in her moments of
possession; and the world discovered a fresh miracle in the inspired wisdom
of the untaught peasant. Lists of these pregnant sayings were
forwarded[319] regularly to the archbishop, which still possibly lie
mouldering in the Lambeth library, to be discovered by curious antiquaries.
It is idle to inquire how far she was yet conscious of her falsehood.
Conscious wilful deception lies far down the road in a course of this kind;
and supported by the assurance of an archbishop, she was in all likelihood
deep in lying before she actually knew it. Fanaticism and deceit are
strangely near relations to each other, and the deceiver is often the
person first deceived, and the last who is aware of the imposture.

The instructions of the Father had made her acquainted with many stories of
miraculous cures. The Catholic saints followed the type of the apostles,
and to heal diseases by supernatural means was a more orthodox form of
credential than clairvoyance or second sight. Being now cured of her real
disorder, yet able to counterfeit the appearance of it, she could find no
difficulty in arranging in her own case a miracle of the established kind,
and so striking an incident would answer a further end. In the parish was a
chapel of the Virgin, which was a place of pilgrimage; the pilgrims added
something to the income of the priest; and if, by a fresh demonstration of
the Virgin's presence at the favoured spot, the number of these pilgrims
could be increased, they would add more. For both reasons, therefore, the
miracle was desired; and the priest and the monk were agreed that any means
were justifiable which would encourage the devotion of the people.[320]
Accordingly, the girl announced, in one of her trances, that "she would
never take health of her body till such time as she had visited the image
of our Lady" in that chapel. The Virgin had herself appeared to her, she
said, and had fixed a day for her appearance there, and had promised that
on her obedience she would present herself in person and take away her
disorder.[321] The day came; and as (under the circumstances) there was no
danger of failure, the holy fathers had collected a vast concourse of
people to witness the marvel. The girl was conducted to the chapel by a
procession of more than two thousand persons, headed by the monk, the
clergyman, and many other religious persons, the whole multitude "singing
the Litany and saying divers psalms and orations by the way."

"And when she was brought thither[322] and laid before the image of our
Lady, her face was wonderfully disfigured, her tongue hanging out, and her
eyes being in a manner plucked out and laid upon her cheeks, and so greatly
deformed. There was then heard a voice speaking within her belly, as it had
been in a tonne, her lips not greatly moving: she all that while continuing
by the space of three hours or more in a trance. The which voice, when it
told of anything of the joys of heaven, spake so sweetly and so heavenly,
that every man was ravished with the hearing thereof; and contrarywise,
when it told anything of hell, it spake so horribly and terribly, that it
put the hearers in a great fear. It spake also many things for the
confirmation of pilgrimages and trentals, hearing of masses and confession,
and many other such things. And after she had lyen there a long time, she
came to herself again, and was perfectly whole. So this miracle was
finished and solemnly sung; and a book was written of all the whole story
thereof, and put into print; which ever since that time was commonly sold,
and went abroad among the people."

The miracle successfully accomplished, the residence at Aldington was no
longer adapted for an acknowledged and favoured saint. The Virgin informed
her that she was to leave the bailiff and devote herself to her exclusive
service. She was to be Sister Elizabeth, and her especial favourite; and
Father Bocking was to be her spiritual father. The priory of St.
Sepulchre's, Canterbury, was chosen for the place of her profession; and as
soon as she was established in her cell, she became a recognised priestess
or prophetess, alternately communicating revelations, or indulging the
curiosity of foolish persons, and for both services consenting to be paid.
The church had by this time spread her reputation through England. The book
of her oracles, which extended soon to a considerable volume, was shown by
Archbishop Warham to the king, who sent it to Sir Thomas More, desiring him
to look at it. More's good sense had not yet forsaken him; he pronounced it
"a right poor production, such as any simple woman might speak of her own
wit;"[323] and Henry himself "esteemed the matter as light as it afterwards
proved lewd." But the world were less critical censors: the saintly halo
was round her head, and her most trivial words caught the reflection of the
glory, and seemed divine. "Divers and many, as well great men of the realm
as mean men, and many learned men, but specially many religious men, had
great confidence in her, and often resorted to her."[324] They "consulted
her much as to the will of God touching the heresies and schisms in the
realm;" and when the dispute arose between the bishops and the House of
Commons, they asked her what judgment there was in heaven "on the taking
away the liberties of the church;" to which questions her answers, being
dictated by her confessor, were all which the most eager churchman could
desire. Her position becoming more and more determined, the eccentric
periods of her earlier visions subsided into regularity. Once a fortnight
she was taken up into heaven into the presence of God and the saints, with
heavenly lights, heavenly voices, heavenly melodies and joys. The place of
ascent was usually the priory chapel, to which it was essential, therefore,
that she should have continual access: and she was allowed, in consequence,
to pass the dormitory door when she pleased--a privilege of which the
Statute uncharitably hints that she availed herself for a less respectable
purpose. But whatever was her secret conduct, her outward behaviour was in
full keeping with her language and profession. She related many startling
stories, not always of the most decent kind, of the attempts which the
devil made to lead her astray. The devil and the angels were in fact
alternate visitors to her cell, and the former, on one occasion, burnt a
mark upon her hand, which she exhibited publicly, and to which the monks
were in the habit of appealing, when there were any signs of scepticism in
the visitors to the priory. On the occasion of these infernal visits,
"great stinking smokes" were seen to issue from her chamber, "savouring
grievously through all the dorture;" with which, however, it was suspected
subsequently that a paper of brimstone and assafoetida, found among her
property after her arrest, had been in some way connected. We smile at
these stories, looking back at them with eyes enlightened by scientific
scepticism; but they furnished matter for something else than smiles when
the accounts of them could be exhibited by the clergy as a living proof of
the credibility of the Aurea Legenda,--when the subject of them could be
held up as a witness, accredited by miracles, to the truth of the old
faith, a living evidence to shame the incredulity of the Protestant
sectaries. She became a figure of great and singular significance; a "wise
woman," to whom persons of the highest rank were not ashamed to have
recourse to inquire of her the will of God, and to ask the benefit of her
intercessory prayers, for which also they did not fail to pay at a rate
commensurate with their credulity.[325]

This position the Nun of Kent, as she was now called, had achieved for
herself, when the divorce question was first agitated. The monks at the
Canterbury priory, of course, eagerly espoused the side of the queen, and
the Nun's services were at once in active requisition. Absurd as the
stories of her revelations may seem to us, she had already given evidence
that she was no vulgar impostor, and in the dangerous career on which she
now entered, she conducted herself with the utmost skill and audacity. Far
from imitating the hesitation of the pope and the bishops, she issued
boldly, "in the name and by the authority of God," a solemn prohibition
against the king; threatening that, if he divorced his wife, he should not
"reign a month, but should die a villain's death."[326] Burdened with this
message, she forced herself into the presence of Henry himself;[327] and
when she failed to produce an effect upon Henry's obdurate scepticism, she
turned to the hesitating ecclesiastics, and roused their flagging spirits.
The archbishop bent under her denunciations, and at her earnest request
introduced her to Wolsey, then tottering on the edge of ruin.[328] He, too,
in his confusion and perplexity, was frightened, and doubted. She made
herself known to the papal ambassadors, and through them she took upon
herself to threaten Clement,[329] assuming, in virtue of her divine
commission, an authority above all principalities and powers. If it were
likely that she could have heard the story of the Maid of Orleans, it might
be supposed that her imagination tempted her to play again a similar career
on an English stage, and that she fancied herself the destined saviour of
the Church of Christ, as the Maid had been the saviour of France.

It would indeed be a libel on the fair fame of Joan of Arc, if she were to
be compared to a confessed impostor; but Joan of Arc might have been the
reality which the Nun attempted to counterfeit; and the history of the true
heroine might have suggested easily to the imitator the outline of her
part. A revolution had been effected in Europe by a somnambulist peasant
girl; another peasant girl, a somnambulist also, might have seen in the
achievement which had been already accomplished, an earnest of what might
be done by herself. While we call the Nun, too, an impostor, we are bound
to believe that she first imposed upon herself, and that her wildest
adventures into falsehood were compatible with a belief that she was really
and truly inspired. Nothing short of such a conviction would have enabled
her to play a part among kings and queens, and so many of the ablest
statesmen of that most able age. Nothing else could have tempted her, on
the failure of her prophecies, into the desperate career of treason into
which we are soon to see her launched.

Her proceedings were known partially, but partially only, to the king; and
the king seems to have been the only person whose understanding was proof
against her influence. To him she appeared nothing worse than an excited
fanatic, and he allowed her to go her own way, as the best escapement of a
frenzy. Until parliament had declared it illegal to discuss the marriage
question further, he interfered with no one, and therefore not with her. If
her own word was to be taken, he even showed her much personal kindness,
having offered to make her an abbess, which is difficult to believe,
especially as she said that she had refused his offer. She stated also that
at the time of Lord Wiltshire's mission to the emperor, the Countess of
Wiltshire endeavoured to persuade her to accept a place at the court, as a
companion to Anne; which again is unsupported by other evidence, and sounds
improbable.[330] But it is plain, that until she was found to be meditating
treason, she experienced no treatment from the government of which she had
cause to complain; and thus for the present we may leave her pursuing her
machinations with the Canterbury friars, and return to the parliament.

The second session had been longer than the first; it had commenced on the
16th of January, and continued for ten weeks. On the 30th of March, which
was to be its last day, Sir Thomas More came down to the House of Commons,
and there read aloud to the members the decision of the various
universities on the papal power, and the judgment of European learning on
the general question of the king's divorce. The country, he said, was much
disturbed, and the king desired them each to report what they had heard in
their several counties and towns, "in order that all men might perceive
that he had not attempted this matter of his own will or pleasure, as some
strangers reported, but only for the discharge of his conscience and surety
of the succession of his realm."[331] This appears to have been the first
time that the subject was mentioned before parliament, and the occasion was
reasonably and sensibly chosen. The clergy having possession of the
pulpits, had used their opportunity to spread a false impression where the
ignorance of the people would allow them to venture the experiment; the
king having resolved to fall back upon the support of his subjects,
naturally desired the assistance of the country gentlemen and the nobles to
counteract the efforts of disaffection, and provided them with accurate
information in the simplest manner which he could have chosen.

But the desire expressed by Henry was no more than an unnecessary form, for
as a body, the educated laity were as earnestly bent upon the divorce as
the king himself could be, and might have been trusted to use all means by
which to further it. The parliament was prorogued, but the Lords, shortly
after the separation, united with such of the Commons as remained in
London, to give a proof of their feeling by a voluntary address to the
pope. The meaning of this movement was not to be mistaken. On one side, the
Nun of Kent was threatening Clement, speaking, perhaps, the feelings of the
clergy and of all the women in England; on the other side, the parliament
thought well to threaten him, speaking for the great body of English _men_,
for all persons of substance and property, who desired above all things
peace and order and a secured succession.

The language of this remarkable document[332] was as follows:--

"To the Most Holy Lord our Lord and Father in Christ, Clement, by Divine
Providence the seventh of that name, we desire perpetual happiness in our
Lord Jesus Christ.

"Most blessed Father, albeit the cause concerning the marriage of the most
invincible prince, our sovereign lord, the King of England and of France,
Defender of the Faith, and Lord of Ireland, does for sundry great and
weighty reasons require and demand the aid of your Holiness, that it may be
brought to that brief end and determination which we with so great and
earnest desire have expected, and which we have been contented hitherto to
expect, though so far vainly, at your Holiness's hands; we have been
unable, nevertheless, to keep longer silence herein, seeing that this
kingdom and the affairs of it are brought into so high peril through the
unseasonable delay of sentence. His Majesty, who is our head, and by
consequence the life of us all, and we through him as subject members by a
just union annexed to the head, have with great earnestness entreated your
Holiness for judgment; we have however entreated in vain: we are by the
greatness of our grief therefore forced separately and distinctly by these
our letters most humbly to demand a speedy determination. There ought,
indeed, to have been no need of this request on our part. The justice of
the cause itself, approved to be just by the sentence of so many learned
men, by the suffrage of the most famous universities in England, France,
and Italy, should have sufficed alone to have induced your Holiness to
confirm the sentence given by others; especially when the interests of a
king and kingdom are at stake, which in so many ways have deserved well of
the apostolic see. This we say ought to have been motive sufficient with
you, without need of petition on our part; and if we had added our
entreaties, it should have been but as men yielding to a causeless anxiety,
and wasting words for which there was no occasion. Since, however, neither
the merit of the cause nor the recollection of the benefits which you have
received, nor the assiduous and diligent supplications of our prince have
availed anything with your Holiness; since we cannot obtain from you what
it is your duty as a father to grant; the load of our grief, increased as
it is beyond measure by the remembrance of the past miseries and calamities
which have befallen this nation, makes vocal every member of our
commonwealth, and compels us by word and letter to utter our complaints.

"For what a misfortune is this,--that a sentence which our own two
universities, which the University of Paris, and many other universities in
France, which men of the highest learning and probity everywhere, at home
and abroad, are ready to defend with word and pen, that such sentence, we
say, cannot be obtained from the apostolic see by a prince to whom that see
owes its present existence. Amidst the attacks of so many and so powerful
enemies, the King of England ever has stood by that see with sword and pen,
with voice and with authority. Yet he alone is to reap no benefit from his
labours. He has saved the papacy from ruin, that others might enjoy the
fruits of the life which he has preserved for it. We see not what answer
can be made to this; and meanwhile we perceive a flood of miseries
impending over the commonwealth, threatening to bring back upon us the
ancient controversy on the succession, which had been extinguished only
with so much blood and slaughter. We have now a king most eminent for his
virtues, and reigning by unchallenged title, who will secure assured
tranquillity to the realm if he leave a son born of his body to succeed
him. The sole hope that such a son may be born to him lies in the being
found for him some lawful marriage into which he may enter; and to such
marriage the only obstacle lies with your Holiness. It cannot be until you
shall confirm the sentence of so many learned men on the character of his
former connection. This if you will not do, if you who ought to be our
father have determined to leave us as orphans, and to treat us as
castaways, we shall interpret such conduct to mean only that we are left to
care for ourselves, and to seek our remedy elsewhere. We do not desire to
be driven to this extremity, and therefore we beseech your Holiness without
further delay to assist his Majesty's just and reasonable desires. We
entreat you to confirm the judgment of these learned men; and for the sake
of that love and fatherly affection which your office requires you to show
towards us, not to close your bowels of compassion against us, your most
dutiful, most loving, most obedient children. The cause of his Majesty is
the cause of each of ourselves; the head cannot suffer, but the members
must bear a part. We have all our common share in the pain and in the
injury; and as the remedy is wholly in the power of your Holiness, so does
the duty of your fatherly office require you to administer it. If, however,
your Holiness will not do this, or if you choose longer to delay to do it,
our condition hitherto will have been so much the more wretched, that we
have so long laboured fruitlessly and in vain. But it will not be wholly
irremediable; extreme remedies are ever harsh of application; but he that
is sick will by any means be rid of his distemper; and there is hope in the
exchange of miseries, when, if we cannot obtain what is good, we may obtain
a lesser evil, and trust that time may enable us to endure it.

"These things we beseech your Holiness, in the name of our Lord Jesus
Christ, to consider with yourself. You profess that on earth you are His
vicar. Endeavour, then, to show yourself so to be, by pronouncing your
sentence to the glory and praise of God, and giving your sanction to that
truth which has been examined, approved, and after much deliberation
confirmed by the most learned men of all nations. We meanwhile will pray
the all-good God, whom we know by most sure testimony to be truth itself,
that He will deign so to inform and direct the counsels of your Holiness,
that we obtaining by your authority what is holy, just, and true, may be
spared from seeking it by other more painful methods."

Thus was the great crisis steadily maturing itself, and the cause by this
petition was made to rest upon its proper merits. The justification of the
demand for the divorce was the danger of civil war; and into civil war the
nation had no intention of permitting themselves to be drifted by papal
imbecility. Whatever was the origin of Henry's resolution, it was acted out
with calmness, and justified by sober reason; and backed by the good sense
of his lay subjects, he proceeded bravely, in spite of excommunication,
interdict, and the Nun of Kent, towards the object which his country's
interests, as well as his own, required.

It would have been well if his private behaviour as a man had been as
unobjectionable as his conduct as a sovereign. Hitherto he had remained
under the same roof with Queen Catherine, but with that indelicacy which
was the singular blemish on his character, he had maintained her rival in
the same household with the state of a princess,[333] and needlessly
wounded feelings which he was bound to have spared to the utmost which his
duty permitted. The circumstances of the case, if they were known to us,
though they could never excuse such a proceeding, might perhaps partially
palliate it. Catherine was harsh and offensive, and it was by her own
determination, and not by Henry's desire, that she was unprovided with an
establishment elsewhere. There lay, moreover, as I have said, behind the
scenes a whole drama of contention and bitterness, which now is happily
concealed from us; but which being concealed, leaves us without the clue to
these painful doings. Indelicate, however, the position given to Anne
Boleyn could not but be; and, if it was indelicate in Henry to grant such a
position, what shall we say of the lady who consented, in the presence of
her sovereign and mistress, to wear such ignominious splendour?

But in these most offensive relations there was henceforth to be a change.
In June, 1531, two months after the prorogation of parliament, a deputation
of the privy council went to the apartments of Catherine at Greenwich, and
laying before her the papers which had been read by Sir Thomas More to the
two Houses, demanded formally, whether, for the sake of the country, and
for the quiet of the king's conscience, she would withdraw her appeal to
Rome, and submit to an arbitration in the kingdom. It was, probably, but an
official request, proposed without expectation that she would yield. After
rejecting a similar entreaty from the pope himself, she was not likely,
inflexible as she had ever been, to yield when the pope had admitted her
appeal, and the emperor, victorious through Europe, had promised her
support. She refused, of course, like herself, proudly, resolutely,
gallantly, and not without the scorn which she was entitled to feel. The
nation had no claims upon her, and "for the king's conscience," she
answered, "I pray God send his Grace good quiet therein, and tell him I say
I am his lawful wife, and to him lawfully married; and in that point I will
abide till the court of Rome, which was privy to the beginning, hath made
thereof a determination and a final ending."[334] The learned councillors
retired with their answer. A more passive resistance would have been more
dignified; but Catherine was a queen, and a queen she chose to be; and in
defence of her own high honour, and of her daughter's, by no act of hers
would she abate one tittle of her dignity, or cease to assert her claim to
it. Her reply, however, appears to have been anticipated, and the request
was only preparatory to ulterior measures. For the sake of public decency,
and certainly in no unkind spirit towards herself, a retirement from the
court was now to be forced upon her. At Midsummer she accompanied the king
to Windsor; in the middle of July he left her there, and never saw her
again. She was removed to the More, a house in Hertfordshire, which had
been originally built by George Neville, Archbishop of York, and had
belonged to Wolsey, who had maintained it with his usual splendour.[335]
Once more an attempt was made to persuade her to submit; but with no better
result, and a formal establishment was then provided for her at Ampthill, a
large place belonging to Henry not far from Dunstable. There at least she
was her own mistress, surrounded by her own friends, who were true to her
as queen, and she attracted to her side from all parts of England those
whom sympathy or policy attached to her cause. The court, though keeping a
partial surveillance over her, did not dare to restrict her liberty; and as
the measures against the church became more stringent, and a separation
from the papacy more nearly imminent, she became the nucleus of a powerful
political party. Her injuries had deprived the king and the nation of a
right to complain of her conduct. She owed nothing to England. Her
allegiance, politically, was to Spain; spiritually she was the subject of
the pope; and this dubious position gave her an advantage which she was not
slow to perceive. Rapidly every one rallied to her who adhered to the old
faith, and to whom the measures of the government appeared a sacrilege.
Through herself, or through her secretaries and confessors, a
correspondence was conducted which brought the courts of the continent into
connection with the various disaffected parties in England, with the Nun of
Kent and her friars, with the Poles, the Nevilles, the Courtenays, and all
the remaining faction of the White Rose. And so first the great party of
sedition began to shape itself, which for sixty years, except in the
shortlived interlude of its triumph under Catherine's daughter, held the
nation on the edge of civil war. We shall see this faction slowly and
steadily organising itself, starting from scattered and small beginnings,
till at length it overspread all England and Ireland and Scotland,
exploding from time to time in abortive insurrections, yet ever held in
check by the tact and firmness of the government, and by the inherent
loyalty of the English to the land of their birth. There was a proverb then
current that "the treasons of England should never cease."[336] It was
perhaps fortunate that the papal cause was the cause of a foreign power,
and could only be defended by a betrayal of the independence of the
country. In Scotland and Ireland the insurrectionists were more successful,
being supported in either instance by the national feeling. But the
strength of Scotland had been broken at Flodden; and Ireland, though hating
"the Saxons" with her whole heart, was far off and divided. The true danger
was at home; and when the extent and nature of it is fairly known and
weighed, we shall understand better what is called the "tyranny" of Henry
VIII. and of Elizabeth; and rather admire the judgment than condemn the
resolution which steered the country safe among those dangerous shoals.
Elizabeth's position is more familiar to us, and is more reasonably
appreciated because the danger was more palpable. Henry has been hardly
judged because he trampled down the smouldering fire, and never allowed it
to assume the form which would have justified him with the foolish and the
unthinking. Once and once only the flame blazed out; but it was checked on
the instant, and therefore it has been slighted and forgotten. But with
despatches before his eyes, in which Charles V. was offering James of
Scotland the hand of the Princess Mary, with the title for himself of
Prince of England and Duke of York[337]--with Ireland, as we shall speedily
see it, in flame from end to end, and Dublin castle the one spot left
within the island on which the banner of St. George still floated--with a
corps of friars in hair shirts and chains, who are also soon to be
introduced to us, and an inspired prophetess at their head preaching
rebellion in the name of God--with his daughter, and his daughter's mother
in league against him, some forty thousand clergy to be coerced into honest
dealing, and the succession to the crown floating in uncertainty--finally,
with excommunication hanging over himself, and at length falling, and his
deposition pronounced, Henry, we may be sure, had no easy time of it, and
no common work to accomplish; and all these things ought to be present
before our minds, as they were present before his mind, if we would see him
as he was, and judge him as we would be judged ourselves.

Leaving disaffection to mature itself, we return to the struggle between
the House of Commons and the bishops, which recommenced in the following
winter; first pausing to notice a clerical interlude of some illustrative
importance which took place in the close of the summer. The clergy, as we
saw, were relieved of their premunire on engaging to pay 118,000 pounds
within five years. They were punished for their general offences; the
formal offence for which they were condemned being one which could not
fairly be considered an offence at all. When they came to discuss therefore
the manner in which the money was to be levied, they naturally quarrelled
among themselves as to where the burden of the fine should fairly rest, and
a little scene has been preserved to us by Hall, through which, with
momentary distinctness, we can look in upon those poor men in their
perplexity. The bishops had settled among themselves that each diocese
should make its own arrangements; and some of these great persons intended
to spare their own shoulders to the utmost decent extremity. With this
object, Stokesley, Bishop of London, who was just then very busy burning
heretics, and therefore in bad odour with the people, resolved to call a
meeting of five or six of his clergy, on whom he could depend; and passing
quietly with their assistance such resolutions as seemed convenient, to
avoid in this way the more doubtful expedient of a large assembly.

The necessary intimations were given, and the meeting was to be held on the
1st of September, in the Chapter-house of St. Paul's. The bishop arrived at
the time appointed, but unhappily for his hopes, not only the chosen six,
but with them six hundred of the clergy of Middlesex, accompanied by a mob
of the London citizens, all gathered in a crowd at the Chapter-house door,
and clamouring to be admitted.

The bishop, trusting in the strength of the chains and bolts, and still
hoping to manage the affair officially, sent out a list of persons who
might be allowed to take part in the proceedings, and these with difficulty
made their way to the entrance. A rush was made by the others as they were
going in, and there was a scuffle, which ended for the moment in the
victory of the officials: but the triumph was of brief duration; the
excluded clergy were now encouraged by the people; they returned vigorously
to the attack, broke down the doors, "struck the bishop's officers over the
face," and the whole crowd, priests and laity, rushed together, storming
and shouting, into the Chapter-house. The scene may be easily imagined;
dust flying, gowns torn, heads broken, well-fed faces in the hot September
weather steaming with anger and exertion, and every voice in loudest
outcry. At length the clamour was partially subdued, and the bishop,
beautifully equal to the emergency, arose bland and persuasive.

"My brethren," he said, "I marvel not a little why ye be so heady. Ye know
not what shall be said to you, therefore I pray you keep silence, and hear
me patiently. My friends, ye all know that we be men, frail of condition
and no angels; and by frailty and lack of wisdom we have misdemeaned
ourselves towards the king our sovereign lord and his laws; so that all we
of the clergy were in premunire, by reason whereof all our promotions,
lands, goods, and chattels were to him forfeit, and our bodies ready to be
imprisoned. Yet his Grace, moved with pity and compassion, demanded of us
what we could say why he should not extend his laws upon us.

"Then the fathers of the clergy humbly besought his Grace for mercy, to
whom he answered he was ever inclined to mercy. Then for all our great
offences we had but little penance; for when he might, by the rigour of his
laws, have taken all our livelihoods, he was contented with one hundred
thousand pounds, to be paid in five years. And though this sum may be more
than we may easily bear, yet, by the rigour of his law, we should have
borne the whole burden; whereupon, my brethren, I charitably exhort you to
bear your parts of your livelihood and salary towards payment of this sum
granted."[338]

The ingenuity of this address deserved all praise; but the beauty of the
form was insufficient to disguise the inconclusiveness of the reasoning. It
confessed an offence which the hearers knew to be none; the true
provocation which had led to the penalty--the unjust extortion of the high
church officials--was ignored. The crowd laughed and hooted. The clergy
fiercely tightened their purse-strings, and the bishop was heard out with
hardly restrained indignation. "My lord," it was shortly answered by one of
them, "twenty nobles a year is but a bare living for a priest. Victual and
all else is now so dear that poverty enforceth us to say nay. Besides that,
my lord, we never meddled with the cardinal's faculties. Let the bishops
and abbots which have offended pay." Loud clamour followed and shouts of
applause. The bishop's officers gave the priests high words. The priests
threw back the taunts as they came; and the London citizens, delighting in
the scandalous quarrel, hounded on the opposition. From words they passed
to blows; the bedell and vergers tried to keep order, but "were buffeted
and stricken,"[339] and the meeting broke up in wild uproar and confusion.
For this matter five of the lay crowd and fifteen London curates were sent
to the Tower by Sir Thomas More; but the undignified manoeuvre had failed,
and the fruit of it was but fresh disgrace. United, the clergy might have
defied the king and the parliament; but in the race of selfishness the
bishops and high dignitaries had cared only for their own advantage. They
had left the poorer members of their order with no interest in common with
that of their superiors, beyond the shield which the courts consented to
extend over moral delinquency; and in the hour of danger they found
themselves left naked and alone to bear the storm as they were able.

This incident, and it was perhaps but one of many, is not likely to have
softened the disposition of the Commons, or induced them to entertain more
respectfully the bishops' own estimate of their privileges. The convocation
and the parliament met simultaneously, on the 15th of January, and the
conflict, which had been for two years in abeyance, recommenced. The
initial measure was taken by convocation, and this body showed a spirit
still unsubdued, and a resolution to fight in their own feebly tyrannical
manner to the last. A gentleman in Gloucestershire had lately died, by name
Tracy. In his last testament he had bequeathed his soul to God through the
mercies of Christ, declining the mediatorial offices of the saints; and
leaving no money to be expended in masses.[340] Such notorious heresy could
not be passed over with impunity, and the first step of the assembled
clergy[341] was to issue a commission to raise the body and burn it. Their
audacity displayed at once the power which they possessed, and the temper
in which they were disposed to use it. The Archbishop of Canterbury seems
to have been responsible for this monstrous order, which unfortunately was
carried into execution before Henry had time to interfere.[342] It was the
last act of the kind, however, in which he was permitted to indulge, and
the legislature made haste to take away such authority from hands so
incompetent to use it. From their debates upon burning the dead Tracy,
convocation were proceeding to discuss the possibility of burning the
living Latimer,[343] when they were recalled to their senses by a summons
to prepare some more reasonable answer than that which the bishops had made
for them on their privilege of making laws. Twenty more years of work were
to be lived by Latimer before they were to burn him, and their own
delinquencies were for the present of a more pressing nature. The House of
Commons at the same time proceeded to frame necessary bills on the other
points of their complaint.

The first act upon the roll recalls the Constitutions of Clarendon and the
famous quarrel between Becket and the Crown. When Catholicism was a living
belief, when ordained priests were held really and truly to possess those
awful powers which the mystery of transubstantiation assigns to them, they
were acknowledged by common consent to be an order apart from the rest of
mankind, and being spiritual men, to be amenable only to spiritual
jurisdiction. It was not intended that, if they committed crimes, they
should escape the retributive consequences of those crimes: offenders
against the law might (originally at least) be degraded, if the bishops
thought good, and stripped of their commission be delivered thus to the
secular arm. But the more appropriate punishment for such persons was of a
more awful kind, proportioned to the magnitude of the fault; and was
conveyed or held to be conveyed in the infliction of the spiritual death of
excommunication. Excommunication was, in real earnest, the death of the
soul, at a time when communion with the church was the only means by which
the soul could be made partaker of the divine life; and it was a noble
thing to believe that there was something worse for a man than legal
penalties on his person or on his mortal body; it was beautiful to
recognise in an active living form, that the heaviest ill which could
befall a man was to be cut off from God. But it is only for periods that
humanity can endure the atmosphere of these high altitudes of morality. The
early Christians attempted a community of goods, but they were unequal to
it for more than a generation. The discipline of Catholicism was assisted
by superstition,--it remained vigorous for many hundreds of years, but it
languished at last; and although there was so great virtue in a living
idea, that its forms preserved the reverence of mankind unabated, even when
in their effect and working they had become as evil as they once were
noble; yet reverence and endurance were at length exhausted, and these
forms were to submit to alteration in conformity with the altered nature of
the persons whom they affected.

I have already alluded to the abuse of "benefit of clergy;"[344] we have
arrived at the first of those many steps by which at length it was finally
put away,--a step which did not, however, as yet approach the heart of the
evil, but touched only its extreme outworks. The clergy had monopolised the
learning of the middle ages, and few persons external to their body being
able to read or write, their privileges became co-extensive, as I above
stated, with these acquirements. The exemption from secular jurisdiction,
which they obtained in virtue of their sacred character, had been used as a
protection in villainy for every scoundrel who could write his name. Under
this plea, felons of the worst kind might claim, till this time, to be
taken out of the hands of the law judges, and to be tried at the bishops'
tribunals; and at these tribunals, such a monstrous solecism had
Catholicism become, the payment of money was ever welcomed as the ready
expiation of crime. To prevent the escape of the Bishop of Rochester's
cook, who was a "clerk," parliament had specially interfered, and sentenced
him without trial, by attainder. They now passed a general act, remarkable
alike in what it provided as in what, for the present, it omitted to
provide.[345] The preamble related the nature of the evil which was to be
remedied, and the historical position of it. It dwelt upon the assurances
which had been given again and again by the ordinaries that their
privileges should not be abused; but these promises had been broken as
often as they had been made; so that "continually manifest thieves and
murderers, indicted and found guilty of their misdeeds by good and
substantial inquests, and afterwards, by the usages of the common lawes of
the land, delivered to the ordinaries as clerks convict, were speedily and
hastily delivered and set at large by the ministers of the said ordinaries
for corruption and lucre; or else because the ordinaries enclaiming such
offenders by the liberties of the church would in no wise take the charges
in safe keeping of them, but did suffer them to make their purgation by
such as nothing knew of their misdeeds, and by such fraud did annull and
make void the good and provable trial which was used against such offenders
by the king's law; to the pernicious example, increase, and courage of such
offenders, if the King's Highness by his authority royal put not speedy
remedy thereto."

To provide such necessary remedy, it was enacted that thenceforward no
person under the degree of subdeacon, if guilty of felony, should be
allowed to plead "his clergy" any more, but should be proceeded against by
the ordinary law. So far it was possible to go--an enormous step if we
think of what the evil had been; and in such matters to make a beginning
was the true difficulty--it was the logical premise from which the
conclusion could not choose but follow. Yet such was the mystical
sacredness which clung about the ordained clergy, that their patent
profligacy had not yet destroyed it--a priest might still commit a murder,
and the profane hand of the law might not reach to him.

The measure, however, if imperfect, was excellent in its degree; and when
this had been accomplished, the House proceeded next to deal with the
Arches Court--the one enormous grievance of the time. The petition of the
Commons has already exhibited the condition of this institution; but the
act by which the power of it was limited added more than one particular to
what had been previously stated, and the first twenty lines of the statute
which was now passed[346] may be recommended to the consideration of the
modern censors of the Reformation. The framer of the resolution was no bad
friend to the bishops, if they had possessed the faculty of knowing who
their true friends were, for the statement of complaint was limited, mild,
and moderate. Again, as with the "benefit of clergy," the real ground for
surprise is that any fraction of a system so indefensible should have been
permitted to continue. The courts were nothing else but the vicious sources
of unjust revenue; and with the opportunity so fairly offered, it is
strange indeed that they were not swept utterly away. But sweeping measures
have never found favour in England. There has ever been in English
legislation, even when most reforming, that temperate spirit of equity
which has refused to visit the sins of centuries upon a single generation.
The statute limited its accusations to the points which it was designed to
correct, and touched these with a hand firmly gentle.

"Whereas great numbers of the king's subjects," says the preamble, "as well
men, wives, servants, or others dwelling in divers dioceses of the realm of
England and Wales, heretofore have been at many times called by citations
and other processes compulsory to appear in the Arches, Audience, and other
high Courts of the archbishops of this realm, far from and out of the
dioceses where such persons are inhabitant and dwelling; and many times to
answer to surmised and feigned causes and matters, which have been sued
more for vexation and malice than from any just cause of suit; and when
certificate hath been made by the sumners, apparitors, or any such light
litterate persons, that the party against whom such citations have been
awarded hath been cited or summoned; and thereupon the same party so
certified to be cited or summoned hath not appeared according to the
certificate, the same party therefore hath been excommunicated, or, at the
least, suspended from all divine service; and thereupon, before that he or
she could be absolved, hath been compelled, not only to pay the fees of the
court whereunto he or she was so called, amounting to the sum of two
shillings, or twenty pence at the least; but also to pay to the sumner, for
every mile distant from the place where he or she then dwelled unto the
same court whereunto he or she was summoned to appear, twopence; to the
great charge and impoverishment of the king's subjects, and to the great
occasion of misbehaviour of wives, women, and servants, and to the great
impairment and diminution of their good names and honesties--be it
enacted----" We ask what?--looking with impatience for some large measure
to follow these solemn accusations; and we find parliament contenting
itself with forbidding the bishops, under heavy penalties, to cite any man
out of his own diocese, except for specified causes (heresy being one of
them), and with limiting the fees which were to be taken by the officers of
the courts.[347] It could hardly be said that in this parliament there was
any bitter spirit against the church. This act showed only mild forbearance
and complacent endurance of all tolerable evil.

Another serious matter was dealt with in the same moderate temper. The
Mortmain Act had prohibited the church corporations from further absorbing
the lands; but the Mortmain Act was evaded in detail, the clergy using
their influence to induce persons on their deathbeds to leave estates to
provide a priest for ever "to sing for their souls." The arrangement was
convenient possibly for both parties, or if not for both, certainly for
one; but to tie up lands for ever for a special service was not to the
advantage of the country; and it was held unjust to allow a man a perpetual
power over the disposition of property to atone for the iniquities of his
life. But the privilege was not abolished altogether; it was submitted only
to reasonable limitation. Men might still burden their lands to find a
priest for twenty years. After twenty years the lands were to relapse for
the service of the living, and sinners were expected in equity to bear the
consequence in their own persons of such offences as remained after that
time unexpiated.[348]

Thus, in two sessions, the most flagrant of the abuses first complained of
were in a fair way of being remedied. The exorbitant charges for
mortuaries, probate duties, legacy duties, the illegal exactions for the
sacraments, the worst injustices of the ecclesiastical courts, the
non-residence, pluralities, neglect of cures, the secular occupations and
extravagant privileges of the clergy, were either terminated or brought
within bounds. There remained yet to be disposed of the legislative power
of the convocation and the tyrannical prosecutions for heresy. The last of
these was not yet ripe for settlement; the former was under reconsideration
by the convocation itself, which at length was arriving at a truer
conception of its position; and this question was not therefore to be dealt
with by the legislature.

One more important measure, however, was passed by parliament before it
separated, and it is noticeable as the first step which was taken in the
momentous direction of a breach with the See of Rome. A practice had
existed for some hundreds of years in all the churches of Europe, that
bishops and archbishops, on presentation to their sees, should transmit to
the pope, on receiving their bulls of investment, one year's income from
their new preferments. It was called the payment of annates, or
firstfruits, and had originated in the time of the crusades, as a means of
providing a fund for the holy wars. Once established, it had settled into
custom,[349] and was one of the chief resources of the papal revenue. From
England alone, as much as 160,000 pounds had been paid out of the country
in fifty years;[350] and the impost was alike oppressive to individuals and
injurious to the state. Men were appointed to bishopricks frequently at an
advanced age, and dying, as they often did, within two or three years of
their nomination, their elevation had sometimes involved their families and
friends in debt and embarrassment;[351] while the annual export of so much
bullion was a serious evil at a time when the precious metals formed the
only currency, and were so difficult to obtain. Before a quarrel with the
court of Rome had been thought of as a possible contingency, the king had
laboured with the pope to terminate the system by some equitable
composition; and subsequently cessation of payment had been mentioned more
than once in connection with the threats of a separation. The pope had made
light of these threats, believing them to be no more than words; there was
an opportunity, therefore, of proving that the English government was
really in earnest, in a manner which would touch him in a point where he
was naturally sensitive, and would show him at the same time that he could
not wholly count on the attachment even of the clergy themselves. For, in
fact, the church itself was fast disintegrating