In July Wolsey proceeded to France, ostensibly for the settlement of details in connexion with the recent treaty: actually, that Francis might be induced to bring pressure to bear on Charles for the release of the Pope—in the somewhat desperate hope that Clement in his gratitude would thereupon grant Henry's wishes. Should the Pope's release be refused, Wolsey had the idea (soon to be abandoned) that the Cardinals might be summoned to meet in France, on the ground that the Pope was being forcibly deprived of the power of action. [Footnote: S. P., i., 230, 270. Brewer, ii., 209, 219.]

[Sidenote: Knight's mission (Autumn)]

The treaty of Amiens, cementing the union between Francis and Henry, was signed late in August without reference to divorce. Now however Henry began to conduct operations independently of Wolsey, sending his own secretary Knight to Rome with private instructions, the object of which was to evade the ultimate submission of the question to Wolsey's jurisdiction. Under the influence of the Boleyn clique, and knowing Wolsey's aversion to the Boleyn marriage, the King may have suspected that his minister would play him false if he lost all hope of averting that conclusion to the divorce. Or he may merely have resolved that it was time to check any development of his minister's authority. On Wolsey's return to England, instead of being received in privacy according to precedent, he was summoned on his arrival at Richmond Palace to meet his master in the presence of Anne Boleyn.

[Sidenote: Its failure (Dec)]

Knight's mission was a failure. In December, Clement escaped in disguise from his Imperial guards: Knight found him at Orvieto. It was evident that the secret plan of getting the Pope's permission to marry again without upsetting the existing marriage [Footnote: Brewer, ii., 224, 234-239. Both the Conscience of the King and the need of an heir, are dwelt on in the instructions.] was out of the question. So the Secretary presented a form for a dispensation, and for a Commission which was to give Wolsey power to decide summarily against the validity of the dispensation granted by Pope Julius, without appeal; and power to declare Mary legitimate at the same time. The dispensation was to enable Henry to marry thereafter in despite of difficulties which might be raised on certain specified grounds—intelligible only if those difficulties applied in Anne Boleyn's case: and implying the truth of allegations subsequently made as to relations between Henry and Anne's mother and sister. Knight was outwitted by a Cardinal, Lorenzo Pucci, who redrafted the documents so as to make them useless for Henry's purpose. The deluded envoy returned to England under the impression that he had achieved a diplomatic triumph. But the King saw that he must leave the management of such delicate matters to Wolsey.

[Sidenote: The Pope and the Cardinal]

It is evident that the Pope's one desire was to evade all responsibility in the matter; as it was Wolsey's, on the contrary part, to fix the ultimate responsibility on him. Clement wanted the support of England and France; but, though now no longer actually the Emperor's prisoner, he was distinctly in greater danger from him than from the other Powers. Moreover for one Pope to be invited to nullify the proceedings of another was a somewhat dangerous precedent: as implying that a papal decision was not necessarily unimpeachable. The Cardinal however required the Pope's authority. The divorce was not popular in England, where the general inclination was towards the Imperial alliance. Besides, Katharine was firmly convinced that Wolsey was the moving spirit; so was the general public. If the divorce were carried through by any method which seemed to bear out that theory—if it could be looked upon as a political job of the Cardinal's—Henry too would come in for a share of the odium, and might be trusted to visit that misfortune on his minister. So Wolsey would have nothing to say to the suggestion that the King should act on his own account without the Pope, and take his chance of an appeal.

[Sidenote: 1528 Gardiner's mission]

Early in 1528, the negotiations were again on foot. This time they were in the hands of Wolsey's own men—Steven Gardiner and Foxe, the King's almoner. Their instructions were to obtain a commission with absolute authority, in which a legate—Campeggio for choice—should be associated with Wolsey; failing that, a legate without Wolsey but one on whom Wolsey could depend; finally, as least desirable, the commission was to consist of Wolsey and Warham. If the Pope continued recalcitrant, he was to be given to understand that the results for him might be very awkward. Gardiner in fact did not hesitate to indulge in threats which were more than hints. England's goodwill was at stake. If Clement had so little faith in his own authority that he dared not exercise it in a manifestly righteous cause, Henry might repudiate papal authority altogether. Nevertheless, in spite of all Gardiner's skill and vigour—and he showed himself deficient in neither—the result was unsatisfactory. A commission was obtained for Wolsey with Campeggio; but it was not absolute. The decision they might arrive at could not take effect till referred to Rome for confirmation.

[Sidenote: Wolsey's critical position]

Although the purpose of Gardiner and Foxe was not completely achieved, it certainly appeared at this time that Wolsey had practically won over the Pope; in other words, had made sure that the King should get his desire under cover of law, and of the highest moral sanctions, without any breach with the Church, defiance of Authority, or association with heresy. So far, the credit was the Cardinal's, who had dissuaded his master from following a much more arbitrary course. Nevertheless indications were not wanting that the Boleyn influence was at work in a manner very detrimental to Wolsey; that Henry was fully alive to his minister's unpopularity; and that if occasion served he might take the popular side. Thus when Wolsey appointed a suitable person to be Abbess of Wilton, instead of a very unsuitable person who was connected with the Boleyns, the King reprimanded him in his most elevated style—taking occasion at the same time to be scandalised at the subscriptions to Wolsey's educational schemes provided by monasteries which had pleaded poverty at the time of the "Amicable Loan". It was at least tolerably evident that "the King's matter" as the divorce was generally called would have to be brought to a speedy and successful issue if Wolsey was to retain the royal favour.

Clement VII. however was a dexterous procrastinator. Campeggio got his Commission in April. But he did not start from Rome till June: he did not reach French soil till the end of July: in September he got as far as Paris. Meantime, the French troops in Italy were not doing so well, but the Pope was strongly suspected of Imperial leanings. The French King formed the opinion—which he transmitted to his brother of England—that Campeggio's object was to induce Henry to change his determination.

[Sidenote: Campeggio and Wolsey (Autumn)]

When at last Campeggio reached London, still suffering seriously from the gout which was the ostensible cause of his dilatory journeying, Wolsey was explicit. He warned the Legate that the business must be put through promptly. The need of a male heir was imperative; the King was convinced that his wedlock with Katharine was contrary to the Divine law: if he were not quickly released, the respect hitherto shown for the Church by the Defender of the Faith would certainly vanish; while Wolsey himself, whose influence had hitherto kept his master loyal in the face of strong temptation, would no longer be able to restrain him. From Campeggio's letters, [Footnote: Brewer, ii., 296.] it is evident that the King had mastered his own case thoroughly, and knew the legal aspects better than any one else: also, that the intention was to declare Mary his heir unless there should be male issue of the new marriage. The Legate let slip that in view of the determined attitude of Henry and Wolsey, he would have to await further instructions from Rome; whereupon he was again threatened with the secession of England from the Roman Obedience. Next, the two Cardinals tried to induce Katharine to accede to a divorce without a formal trial; on the ground that thereby she would ensure that save on the single point of the re-marriage any demand she might put forward would be granted, and much scandal would be averted. The Queen took some days to consider her reply: but was absolutely obdurate. She was Henry's wife; she could not and would not profess that she was not. On every ground, she would fight to the last.

Campeggio did his best to impress the Pope with the urgency of the case: but Clement was more than ever afraid of Charles, and persisted in the first place that proceedings were to be postponed and prolonged by every effort of ingenuity, and in the second that no verdict adverse to the marriage was to be pronounced without his ratification.

[Sidenote: Henry's attitude]

Henry for his part, learning or knowing before that Ferdinand had received from Pope Julius a confirmation of the dispensation in ampler terms, urged upon Katharine the necessity of obtaining this document in her own interests—hoping that there would be a chance of repudiating it as a forgery. Also he instructed his agents at Rome to persuade the Pope to give him a dispensation for re-marriage, without a divorce, if Katharine retired into a nunnery; [Footnote: L. & P., iv., 2157, 2161. Brewer, ii., 312, 313, and note. Such a marriage was admissible according to some of the Lutherans.] or even for an openly bigamous union. Moreover about the same time, Henry openly separated himself from his wife, and began to treat Anne Boleyn publicly as his partner-elect on the throne.

[Sidenote 1: 1529] [Sidenote 2: The trial]

The Pope's one object was to evade the responsibility of any pronouncement. The Imperialist cause in Italy was progressing: Charles was growing steadily stronger. Clement dared not pronounce in Henry's favour; he was only less afraid of pronouncing against him. He told the agents that the King should act on his own responsibility on the ground of dissatisfaction with Campeggio's conduct; whereas the King was quite resolved to act, but also quite resolved to force the responsibility for his action on Clement. There was a limit to the possibilities of procrastination, but it was not till June 1529 that the Court opened proceedings, citing the King and Queen to appear. Fisher of Rochester, appearing on behalf of the Queen, boldly declared that the marriage was valid and could not be dissolved. Standish supported him, less vigorously. The Queen challenged the jurisdiction of the Court, and appealed from it to the Pope. She regarded Wolsey as the source of her woes; Anne believed that the procrastination was due to his machinations; the King was quite capable of crushing the Cardinal to relieve his own feelings. Popular sentiment was entirely on the Queen's side, but held the Cardinal to blame rather than the King: though even in Court Henry declared, in answer to Wolsey's appeal, that the minister had not suggested but had deterred him from the course adopted. Campeggio prorogued the Court in July. At about the same time, Clement, acting under Imperial pressure, formally revoked the case to Rome. Before the revocation reached England, a desperate attempt was made to persuade Katharine to place herself in the King's hands: it failed. A sharp public altercation between Wolsey and Suffolk showed how the current was setting.

[Sidenote: The storm gathers]

During the following months, Wolsey's loss of the royal favour became increasingly evident, and the opposition to him on the part of the nobility more and more open. Steven Gardiner, who had proved his conspicuous ability, was made the King's private secretary, and became the normal medium of communication—the close personal intercourse hitherto prevalent was at an end. Wolsey's European policy was thrown over by Henry, who allowed Francis and Charles to come to terms without his claiming any voice in the negotiation. A treaty of amity was signed at Cambrai, which terminated all prospect of Francis being induced to assist Henry in bringing pressure to bear either on the Emperor or the Pope, and released Clement from serious alarms as to the results of his accepting the Imperial policy. England had deliberately vacated the position of arbiter, because Henry was too thoroughly engrossed with the divorce to care about anything else. Since both Francis and Charles were for the time satisfied to restrict their ambitions so as not to collide with each other, there was no further demand for the Cardinal's diplomatic genius. The best to which Wolsey could now look forward was that he might be permitted to turn his vast talents to the reform of administration, ecclesiastical, legal, and educational, which he had always postponed to what he regarded as the more vital demands of international politics.

[Sidenote: The storm breaks (Oct.)]

It was not long before even these hopes were destroyed. At the beginning of October, Campeggio departed from England. At Dover, his baggage was ransacked by the King's authority, in the hope of discovering documents which would enable Wolsey to deal with the divorce in his absence. The documents were not forthcoming. Wolsey was of no more use to his master. The day after Campeggio reached Dover a writ was demanded by the King's attorney against the Cardinal for breach of the statute of Praemunire in acting as Legate.

[Sidenote 1: Wolsey's fall] [Sidenote 2: 1530] [Sidenote 3: Wolsey's death (Nov.)]

The fatal blow had been struck. From that hour, the Cardinal's doom was sealed. He ceased absolutely to be a political force and became merely an object for the King, and for every enemy he had raised up against himself, to buffet. A week later, on October 16th, the Dukes of Norfolk and Suffolk demanded the seals from Wolsey as Chancellor; he was deprived of all his benefices and retired to his house at Esher, where he abode in poverty. This contented Henry for the time, and he sent gracious messages—but restricted them to words. Even Thomas More, who succeeded him as Chancellor, is said to have acted so far out of character as to speak of him publicly in insulting terms. Parliament had been summoned for November; a bill depriving him for ever of office was introduced in the Lords: in the Commons, it was boldly resisted by Thomas Cromwell who won thereby great credit for his loyalty; and it was dropped—not against the wishes of the King, who was as yet disinclined to deprive himself of the chance of resuscitating the great minister. In February Wolsey was restored to the see of York, whither he departed to act in the novel capacity of a diocesan devoted solely to his duties—duties which he so discharged as to change bitter unpopularity into warm affection. The King kept a firm hold on his forfeited properties, Gardiner was advanced to his see of Winchester: the college at Ipswich was dissolved. Wolsey was rash enough to attempt to open secret communications with Francis I., in the hope that his influence might be exercised to restore to favour the man who had done so much for him. But Norfolk, in power, had to cultivate Francis; and Francis, finding him a much simpler diplomatic antagonist, had no wish to reinstate the Cardinal. The attempted correspondence became known, and in November, without warning, Wolsey was arrested for high treason. Sick and worn, he started on his last journey towards London; but was stricken with mortal illness, and could travel no further than Leicester Abbey where the end came.

[Sidenote: Wolsey's achievement]

So died the great Cardinal who for nearly twenty years had mainly swayed the destinies of England. Henry VII. had slowly recovered a place among the nations for a country brought low by long years of reckless civil strife. His son's minister again raised her to be the arbiter of Europe, holding the scales between the two mighty princes who virtually ruled Christendom: not by deeds of arms like Edward III. or Henry V., for no English soldier of real distinction arose in his time; but by a diplomatic genius almost without parallel among English statesmen. In this field, the superiority of his abilities to those of his contemporaries made his position with his master absolutely secure, so long as foreign relations were the primary consideration; for though the ends the minister himself had in view were always the same, he was ready to exert his powers to the full, even at the expense of those objects, in carrying out any policy on which Henry himself might determine; and as a general rule the King's wishes did not run counter to his own.

[Sidenote: Appraisement of Wolsey]

His absorbing aim was to magnify England and the King of England in the eyes of Europe: nor was personal ambition lacking, but it was subordinate. That he desired the popedom is clear, and that Henry desired it for him; but he was above the temptation of allowing that desire to dominate his national aims, and had he achieved it, he would have regarded the alliance of the Ecclesiastical Power with England as the real prize secured. His personal weight in the Counsels of Europe would hardly have been increased; and he cared more for Power than for the appearance of it, though he had a possibly exaggerated perception of the practical value of magnificence in securing both national and personal prestige. In part at least this was the cause of that habitual display which, while impressing, also roused the anger of the nobles, who regarded him as an upstart, and of the satirists of ecclesiastical ostentation and luxury. Secure in the confidence of the King, he never attempted to conciliate either popular sentiment or the rivals whom he deposed.

But at all times, if he magnified his own office, it was as the King's right hand. If the King's will, even in opposition to his own, necessitated unpopular measures, he carried those measures out, and took the odium for them on his own head, preserving his master's popularity at the price of his own. He ruled the country on autocratic principles, and the increase of his power was the increase also of the King's. And the King rewarded him after his kind.

But for the all-absorbing interest of diplomacy, his vast abilities as an administrator and organiser might have achieved great things. He would at least have pruned ecclesiastical abuses; and would have forced upon the clergy as an ecclesiastic those reforms which they were always on the verge of introducing when they found themselves anticipated by the drastic action of the temporal Power. Reform was the inevitable corollary of Education, and the development of Education was of all schemes the nearest to Wolsey's heart. Yet whether, if the Divorce question had never arisen, he would have played an effective part in the Reformation is open to doubt, for at bottom the Puritan movement in these islands, the Lutheran movement, and the Counter-reformation, were all the outcome or expression of Moral ideals, not of state-craft; and for Wolsey morals were subordinate to state-craft. It is probable that in any case the assertion in England by the State of its supremacy over the Church would only have been deferred; but Wolsey might have deferred it. As it was, Henry willed otherwise. The great statesman, failing to carry out his master's demands, was hurled from power. The battle of the Reformation was to be fought under other captains.

NOTE.

The term "Divorce" has been employed above, because, although a misnomer, it is universally applied. Properly a divorce is the cancellation of a legally contracted marriage. What Henry sought was a declaration of nullity—that no valid marriage had ever taken place.



CHAPTER VIII

HENRY VIII (iv) 1529-33—THE BREACH WITH ROME

[Sidenote: 1529 No revolt as yet]

It will have been observed that when Wolsey found that the divorce was inevitable, his energies were concentrated on the single purpose of securing it under papal authority. For this he had two reasons—one, that without that authority the King's act would appear in all its arbitrariness, causing grave scandal: the other that if that authority were refused, he foresaw the cleavage between England and Rome which did eventually take place. Apart however from the divorce, there had not been up to the time of Wolsey's fall any hint of an opinion in high places that such a cleavage was per se desirable or desired—although both Wolsey himself and Gardiner had given Clement fair warning that Henry was likely to reconsider the papal claims altogether unless the Pope complied with his wishes. The revocation of the cause to Rome immediately brought the execution of this threat into the sphere of practical politics.

In the second place there had been no tendency to encourage or allow deviations from recognised orthodox doctrine. The new criticism had been so far admitted as to produce a rigid section and a liberal section among the orthodox, such leading prelates as Wolsey himself, Warham, Fox, Fisher, and Tunstal, all favouring the new learning in various degrees, and being supported therein by such learned laymen as Sir Thomas More. Their toleration however had not extended to anything censurable as heresy, and their attitude had been somewhat stiffened by the course of the Lutheran revolt on the Continent. The increased licence within the Empire, following the edict of Spires in 1528, led to an increased activity in the suppression of heretics and heretical publications in England, first under Wolsey and then under his successor in the Chancellorship.

[Sidenote: Growth of anti-clericalism]

In a third direction however, though not much had been done in the way of measures, an anti-clerical party had been growing up: a party which sought to diminish clerical jurisdiction, clerical privileges, and clerical emoluments. Among the ecclesiastics themselves there were not a few who desired to improve clerical administration from within, but without diminution of ecclesiastical authority; the anti-clericals were laymen who wished the reforms to be forced on the Church from outside, reducing ecclesiastical authority in the process. These two policies were in direct opposition, seeing that antagonism to Wolsey—emphatically a reformer of the prior class—was the leading motive with the nobility who headed the second class; while the Commons in general desired primarily to be freed from the exactions by which the clergy benefited, and from which they did not believe the clergy would of their own initiative cut themselves off. Wolsey had begun the internal amendment, by his visitation and suppression of the smallest monasteries and the appropriation of ecclesiastical property to educational purposes, and by some substitution of the superior organisation of the legatine court for that of the Ordinaries; but the latter step had been cancelled by his fall and by the ominous appeal to the statute of Praemunire against legatine jurisdiction. On the other hand, the anti-clerical action had been practically confined so far to the modifications as to Benefit of Clergy; unless we include the publication of pamphlets and rhymes attacking the ecclesiastical body in general, or Wolsey in particular as the incarnation of their shortcomings.

Some years were still to elapse before any material changes from orthodox theological doctrine were to be entertained. But in 1529, the suspension of the Trial was forthwith followed by the adoption of a policy—as yet only provisional—setting aside the Pope's authority; and the assembly of Parliament in November was marked by an immediate attack on ecclesiastical abuses.

[Sidenote: Thomas Cranmer]

In the last six months of this year the King discovered two instruments consummately adapted for executing his will. It appears that the idea of obtaining the opinions of the Doctors at the English Universities had already been mooted, and that one of those selected [Footnote: Strype, Memorials of Cranmer. Hook, Life of Cranmer.] at Cambridge was Thomas Cranmer, a learned and amiable divine with marked leanings towards the New Learning; who in his early graduate days had fallen under the influence of the teaching at Cambridge of Erasmus; in scholarship subtle and erudite, in affairs guileless and easily swayed; timorous by nature, but capable of outbreaks of audacity as timid persons often are: a gentle and lovable man, but lacking in that robust self-confidence needed by one who would take a resolutely independent line; a man intended to be a student and forced by an unkind fate to assume the role of a man of action. Such a character, brought under the direct influence of a powerful will and a magnetic personality, is readily led to see everything as it is desired that he should see it, and at the worst to differ from the master-mind only with submission.

[Sidenote: Appeal to the universities]

When Campeggio suspended the sittings of the Commission the, King withdrew to Waltham Cross. Steven Gardiner and Foxe the King's almoner, who were in his suite, met Cranmer who had left Cambridge on account of an outbreak of the sweating sickness. They had, as was natural, a conversation on "the King's affair"; when Cranmer propounded the theory that if the Universities of Europe—that is, the qualified divines—gave it as their opinion that the union with Katharine had been contrary to the Divine Law, the King might follow the dictates of his conscience and pronounce the marriage null without recognising Papal jurisdiction. This was clearly quite a different thing from producing the judgment of the Doctors merely as an expert opinion which must carry weight with the Judge at Rome. It was practically an assertion that the Pope's judgment was not of higher authority than the King's; an answer to a question as to jurisdiction; a suggestion of replying to the Pope's revocation of the case by a counter-revocation. Foxe reported the conversation to Henry, who caught at the new method of giving a constitutional colour to an arbitrary proceeding. Cranmer was summoned to court, attached to the Boleyn household, set down to write a thesis on the point of conscience, and sent off early in 1530 in the train of the Earl of Wiltshire (to which dignity Sir Thomas Boleyn—had been raised) on an embassy to the Emperor at Bologna. Moreover his plan for consulting the Universities was actively taken in hand.

[Sidenote: The new Parliament]

In the meantime, in November, Henry's most famous Parliament had opened session. The last, called six years before under Wolsey's regime to obtain supplies, had shown a qualified submissiveness. The new one, whether packed or not, displayed prompt signs of activity. Known to fame as the "Seven Years'" or "Reformation" Parliament, it consistently displayed three characteristics: it was anti-papal and anti-clerical; it endorsed the Royal will; but it refused dictation where its pocket was concerned. Its first session lasted only a few weeks, but was marked by an attack on clerical abuses, and by the sudden prominence achieved by Thomas Cromwell.

[Sidenote: Thomas Cromwell]

Concerning Cromwell's early years, much is reported and little is known. The common rumour declared that he was the son of a blacksmith—as it declared Wolsey to be the son of a butcher. He is said to have tried various trades, among others those of man-at-arms in the mercenary troop of an Italian nobleman, wool-merchant and usurer at Antwerp, usurer and petty attorney in England. On all these points the evidence is scanty and inconclusive. About 1520, he found his way into Wolsey's entourage, and was a member of the 1523 parliament. Wolsey found him an apt man of business, and entrusted him with a good deal of the financial management of his educational schemes; in the course of which it is at least probable that he applied the twin practices of bribery and blackmail, which not without reason were attributed at a later date to his servants. Yet, however unscrupulous he may have been in his dealings with others, to the master whose service he had followed he was always loyal. Wolsey made him his secretary; and when the Cardinal fell, the secretary's position seemed exceedingly precarious. Whether from an admirable fidelity or through amazingly astute hypocrisy, he boldly and openly took up the cudgels in parliament on behalf of the stricken minister, apparently challenging imminent ruin for himself. Action so courageous won him applause and good-will instead of present hostility. More than that, it immediately marked him in the eyes of the King—an exceedingly shrewd judge of men—as an invaluable prospective servant for himself. A combination of audacity and fidelity with shrewdness, resourcefulness, and unscrupulosity, was precisely what he wanted and precisely what he had found. The Cardinal's secretary became the King's secretary, and forthwith identified himself with the policy of establishing the Royal autocracy in a stronger form than it had ever before assumed in England. Whether or no Thomas Cromwell learnt his political principles as an adventurer in Italy, he became himself the living embodiment of those doctrines of state-craft which were systematised by Macchiavelli in his treatise "The Prince".

[Sidenote: Pope, Clergy and King]

In the reconstruction of the relations between Church and State which covers more than nine-tenths of the Reformation under Henry VIII. there were three parties concerned; the Pope, the Sovereign, and the Clerical Organisation in England. From time immemorial, Popes and Kings had striven periodically with each other in asserting antagonistic control over the ecclesiastical body; and the ecclesiastical body had made common cause, now with the Pope and now with the King, in resisting encroachments by the rival authority. If the clergy submitted to one or the other, it was always with a reservation that submission to physical force could not impair the inherent rights of the successors of the Apostles. Similarly, if the Pope gave way to the King or the King to the Pope, their respective successors regarded the claims surrendered as rights not cancelled but in abeyance. The prevailing conditions at any given time were always looked upon as a modus vivendi liable to readjustment when any of the three parties felt impelled to claim a larger freedom of action or a larger power of control. In the past however the Spiritual Powers had drawn effectively upon their armoury of excommunications and interdicts in the conflict; it was now to be seen whether these ancient weapons had become obsolete. If they could be defied with comparative impunity, there could be but one end to a struggle between the Spiritual and the Temporal forces.

[Sidenote: Double campaign opens]

By the appeal to the Universities, Henry gave warning of a possible anti-papal campaign: in which he could look for a considerable degree of clerical support up to a certain point, more particularly because the clergy generally were ready to be released from the financial exactions of the Holy See, as well as from its practical exercise of patronage. Parliament opened an anti-clerical campaign, but its measures at first were confined to dealing with almost indefensible and obvious abuses. Bishop Fisher recognised the familiar thin end of the wedge, and charged the Commons with desiring "the goods, not the good" of the Church; but the opposition was slender. In the six weeks of the first session, there were passed, the Probate and Mortuaries Acts, abolishing, reducing, or regulating fees, and the Pluralities Act, forbidding the clergy in general to hold more than one benefice, and requiring Residence—a very inconvenient arrangement for papal nominees. The general value of the Act however was impaired by a schedule of exemptions. Fisher's protest had its counterpart in the protest of Convocation, not against the avowed objects of this legislation but against Parliament as its source: the position being that Convocation was itself preparing legislation with the same ends in view, and was the proper body to do so.

[Sidenote: 1530 Answers of the Universities]

During 1530, Parliament remained inactive. The Earl of Wiltshire's embassy to Bologna, of which the object was to induce Charles to withdraw his opposition to the divorce, naturally proved abortive. The consultation of the Universities however went on apace. The theory propounded for their acceptance was that Katharine had been in actual fact the wife of Henry's brother; that this being so her marriage with Henry was contrary to the Law of God; and that by consequence the second contract was actually not only voidable but void, the dispensation being under those circumstances a dead letter. On the other side it was maintained that whatever validity there might be in this argument, it fell to the ground if—as was asserted on the Queen's behalf—her first marriage had been ceremonial only. The answers of the Universities were inconclusive, some declaring the marriage valid, others declaring it void, and others, including Oxford and Cambridge, declaring that it was against the Law of God without pronouncing the dispensation of Julius ipso facto invalid. Moreover, had the opinions given been decisive in themselves, the method by which they were obtained would have destroyed their moral value. Francis, finding that England's friendship was in the balance, dictated a favourable reply to the French Universities. Those in England knew they were not free agents. Clement professed to give those in Italy a free hand, but in that country Charles was the dominant power. In Germany the Lutherans were hostile to Henry personally on account of his own anti-Lutheran pronouncements. Nowhere was a judgment on the simple merits of the case procurable.

[Sidenote: Preoccupation of the Clergy]

In the meantime, the clergy in England had been mainly occupied with a campaign against heresy, and with the suppression of dangerous literature; [Footnote: According to Mr. Froude, Henry only assented with reluctance to the suppression of Tindal's Testament on condition of the preparation of an authorised version being agreed to. But even Hall, whom he cites, only says that both proposals were adopted after long debate.—Froude, i., p. 298 (Ed. 1862).] but willingly or not found themselves committed to approving the preparation of an authorised translation of the Scriptures—the one movement under Henry which tended definitely, in effect though not of set purpose, to a revision of Doctrine.

[Sidenote 1: Menace of Praemunire] [Sidenote 2: 1531 "Only Supreme Head"] [Sidenote 3: Proceedings in Parliament]

In December of 1530, however, the Church was to receive a rough reminder that the Defender of the Faith was a stickler for the rigidity of the statutes. He had already struck at Wolsey because, urged thereto by himself, the Cardinal had obtained and exercised legatine powers contrary to the Statutes of Praemunire. Such was the King's reverence for the Law that after it had been transgressed with his sanction for ten years he felt it his duty to penalise the transgressor. After another twelve-month, he felt it his further duty to penalise all who had submitted to the illegal authority. The clergy were informed that they lay one and all under the royal displeasure for breach of praemunire (of which they had in fact been technically guilty), and could only hope for pardon by purchasing it for something over L100,000—practically equivalent to about a couple of millions now. Convocation, alive to the futility of resistance, apologised for its iniquity and admitted the justice of the punishment. Thereupon, in the preamble to the bill by which they were to mulct themselves, the King required the insertion of a clause which designated him "Protector and Only Supreme Head of the Church and Clergy in England". This roused general resistance. Convocation proposed conferences, and sought some compromise which they could reconcile with their consciences. The King would have no compromise, demanding instant submission. At last Warham hit upon the expedient of one of those saving phrases which might mean everything or nothing, and yet could not be objected to on the face of it; inserting the words "so far as the laws of Christ permit": the precise degree to which the said laws did permit being susceptible of unlimited argument, as the royal claims or the clerical conscience might respectively demand. Even so had Becket in the past shielded himself with the words "Saving the rights of my Order". For the time being, this diplomatic evasion or pitiful subterfuge, as the advocates and contemners of the clergy respectively call it, saved the situation. At the time, it must be remarked, Henry did not intend the title to be read as repudiating the Papal Supremacy, which had not hitherto been formally called question. On the face of it, it looks like a touch of Cromwell's; in a thing designed to force the hand of the Clergy in the future if the Papal Supremacy should be directly challenged. The clause was accepted (for the Province of Canterbury) on March 22nd; six weeks later it was also accepted by the Convocation of York, with a protest from Tunstal, now bishop of Durham, who had been distinguished by his diplomatic services under Wolsey's regime. During the corresponding session (January-March 1531) no anti-clerical measures were introduced in Parliament; which registered the Royal pardon and received the formal announcement of the decision of the Universities. The "stern and lofty moral principles" [Footnote: Froude, i., 307, 310 (Ed. 1862). The historian's enthusiasm may seem to require some qualification. The retrospective creation of crimes is a dangerous practice: and the penalty applied might even be considered savage.] of the nation were however vindicated, in consequence of the wholesale poisoning of the bishop of Rochester's household, attributed to an attempt to make away with Fisher himself. By a special enactment, the essentially un-English practice of poisoning was retrospectively classified as high treason, and the criminal sentenced to death by boiling.

[Sidenote: 1532 Parliament]

In the beginning of 1532 the campaign was renewed with vigour; whether from the laudable desire of reforming abuses, or with the object of terrorising the Church into complete subservience. Incidentally it is to be observed that so far as the activity of the Commons was directed against the payment of extortionate fees, the Church had a part only, not the whole, of their opposition. They logically and manfully resisted a "Bill of Wards" legalising claims of the Lords in sundry cases of the marriage of wards. This has been jibed at [Footnote: Moore (Aubrey), Hist. of the Reformation, 103.] as showing that they cared for cash and not for principle. As a matter of fact it appears to prove the first, but to have no bearing on the second. It also proves that when they did care, they could be obstinate, for the Bill was dropped: which illustrates the tact with which the King could yield on a point unimportant to him personally.

In especial however this session was signalised by three Acts, dealing with Mortmain, Benefit of Clergy, and Annates: and by the "Supplication against the Ordinaries" which took partial effect in the "Submission of the Clergy".

[Sidenote: Supplication against the Ordinaries]

The Supplication [Footnote: Mr. Froude, i., 211 (Ed. 1862), dates this 1529, but without apparent reason. Cf. Dixon, i., 77, note.] was in effect a statement of grievances, directed against the powers of Convocation in the way of ecclesiastical legislation, and the conduct of the ecclesiastical Courts and their fees. Under this second head it was simply the expression of a popular outcry, which had already begun to take effect in the legislation of 1529; an outcry so far justified that the clergy themselves met it, in part, by declaring that they were giving independent attention to the abuses complained of. As an indictment its weakness lay in the inadequate support by specific instances of the general charges of miscarriage of justice. Under the first head it has the appearance of being inspired by Cromwell, of whose policy a main feature was the concentration of all effective legislative power in the King.

[Sidenote: Resistance of Clergy]

The Supplication was presented, and laid before Convocation for an answer. The answer was given on the lines that, as concerned the grievances in general, so far as they were real they were in process of removal, and that as concerned miscarriage of justice it was impossible to answer effectively unless the charges were made specific. As to ecclesiastical legislation it was replied that this was a function of the Clergy, and that their canons were in accord with Scripture and therefore not antagonistic to the Civil Law; to which was added an appeal to the King as the Protector of the Faith. They were informed that this answer was "too slender"; so sent a second in which appeal was made to Henry's own book against Luther, and an offer was added that they would publish no ordinances without the royal assent excepting on matters of faith. In both answers Gardiner, now bishop of Winchester, is reputed to have been the guiding spirit—thereby showing that Henry could not count upon his assistance in reducing his Order to subservience.

[Sidenote: "Submission of the Clergy"]

This attitude however was by no means sufficient for Henry and Cromwell. It is in fact clear that they had made up their minds to put an end to an anomalous condition of affairs. Hypothetically, the Church and the State had been making laws independently of each other side by side. The two sets of laws might involve incompatibles; the King's lieges might be harassed by the canons of the Church, and loyal churchmen might be embarrassed by the laws of the realm. The time had come when one ultimate authority must be recognised. There was no manner of doubt which of the two that ultimate authority was to be. Yet for the attainment of this end, the Clergy must be required to surrender what they had always accounted a right inviolable, sacred, vested in them by divine commission. The Clergy had to surrender or take the risk of martyrdom: and they elected to surrender—in effect to recognise that they were beaten de facto if not de jure. They struggled hard for a compromise which would salve their collective conscience. Finally (May) they agreed to enact no new canons without the Kind's authority, and to submit to a commission such of the existing canons as were contravened. The wording of this "Submission of the Clergy," as it is called, does not leave it absolutely clear whether the entire canon law or only a portion was to be subjected to the revision of the commission—which was to consist of thirty-two members, half laymen and half clergy—but the balance of opinion is in favour of the partial theory. The defeat was a crushing blow to the aged Warham who never recovered from it and died three months later; and it caused the immediate resignation of the Chancellorship by Sir Thomas More—a rara avis among statesmen of the day, with whom conscience actually had the last word, not the King's will.

[Sidenote 1: Mortmain and Benefit of Clergy] [Sidenote 2: Annates Act]

The other Acts referred to above were passed before the Submission of the Clergy was completed. The Mortmain and Benefit of Clergy Acts were respectively in limitation of bequests to the Church and of privileges of clerical criminals. They were merely normal steps in the reform of abuses. The Annates Act however demands closer attention. Every bishop on appointment to his see paid the first year's income to Rome—whether on an original appointment, or on translation from one see to another. Obviously this was a tremendous tax on the bishops and a source of large income to Rome. There had been frequent complaints, and suggestions that the Pope should reduce his claim. Very recently, Gardiner had been obliged to borrow heavily to meet the exaction on becoming bishop of Winchester. The Bill provided that five per cent. only should be paid, by way of compensation for expenses of papal Bulls, the ground taken up being that the papal claim was contrary to the ruling of the General Council of Basle, and that the payment, being an alienation of the property of the See, was contrary to the bishops consecration oath. The Bill was passed, the bishops—according to letters of the foreign ambassadors in London—dissenting; a course perfectly natural on their part as a protest, not in favour of the payment, but against the authority of the temporal power to intervene. Yet it is frequently stated as a matter of common knowledge that the clergy themselves were the prime movers, and that the Bill was brought in on their petition. This belief would seem to rest exclusively on the misinterpretation of a document attributed by a later historian [Footnote: Strype, Eccl. Memorials I., ii., 158. Froude, i., 361 ff. (Ed. 1862). But cf.. Gairdner, English Church, p. 116. The present writer fell into the usual error in a previous volume on Cranmer; and has to thank Mr. Tomlinson for correcting him.] to Convocation, but almost certainly of parliamentary origin.

The Act however was not put in immediate execution: but the English agents in Italy were instructed to hold it in terrorem over Clement's head.

[Sidenote: The European Powers and the Divorce]

The subsequent methods of procedure were largely the outcome of the diplomatic situation on the Continent. In the first place, the idea of calling an Oecumenical Council had been much in the air. Each of the three great monarchs was desirous of calling one, on his own terms; so were the Lutherans. But for each the terms must be such as should ensure practical subservience to his own dictation: while to the Pope the proposal, so long as it was hypothetical, was a thing he could produce as either a sop or a threat, as circumstances might commend. In the next place, for the time Charles dominated the Pope; but while he was making terms with the Lutherans, under pressure of the advance of the Turks on the east, whereby his loyalty to the papacy was made doubtful, he was also on the other hand, Katharine's unyielding champion. Thus any positive declaration on the divorce from Clement was tolerably certain to finally alienate either Charles or Henry. Now the rivalry of Charles was the great obstacle to Francis: whose object had come to be to utilise England so as to obtain for himself the concessions he wanted from the Emperor; extorting them as the result of joint pressure on the part of France and England or as the price of a separation between France and England. The thing he most feared was a compromise between Henry and Charles. Thus his policy was, by associating himself with Henry, to detach the Pope also from Charles, by the menace of a joint Anglo-French schism from the Roman obedience. Therefore in the summer and autumn of 1532 Francis was ostentatiously friendly to Henry and the cause of the Divorce. Conferences to which Henry was invited to bring Anne Boleyn as his Queen-elect were arranged, and took place at Calais and Boulogne. Henry thereafter made up his mind to a decisive step and on their return to England in November or perhaps in the following January he married Anne privately. Francis however had successfully avoided committing himself unequivocally to an uncompromising English alliance.

[Sidenote: 1533 The crisis arrives]

In December, the Pope and the Emperor both being at Bologna, Clement professed to the English agents a more amenable spirit, suggesting that the divorce should be held over for a General Council, or that Henry should agree to have the trial held outside his own realms; propositions, however, to neither of which the King could be lured to assent. But the year 1533 had hardly opened when Charles was enabled to publish a Papal warning of excommunication against Henry unless he restored Katharine to her full rights as his wife (Feb.); while he detached France from England by the promise of concessions restoring her position in Italy.

Clement might now defer a pronouncement in favour of Katharine; there was no practical room for hoping that he might still pronounce against her. Henry stood alone; if the Pope were finally driven to choose between defying the King or the Emperor there could be no doubt which of the two he would rather have for an enemy. It only remained for Henry to put it beyond question that the declaration must be made, and that his own enmity would take an energetic form. His reply to the Pope was decisive. Early in April, parliament passed the great Act in Restraint of Appeals, which was virtually the announcement of the repudiation of the Roman allegiance; before the end of May, the new Archbishop of Canterbury in his court pronounced the marriage with Katharine void ab initio, and the recent marriage with her rival valid.

[Sidenote: Restraint of Appeals]

In form, the Act in Restraint of Appeals was not a fresh piece of legislation but a declaration of the existing law; a flat assertion that any appeal to the jurisdiction of Rome from the English courts brought the appellant under the penalties of praemunire, the "spiritualty" of the country being competent to deal with spiritual cases, and the sovereign recognising no jurisdiction superior to his own. It did not raise the question of authority in matters of doctrine; nor was it a formal declaration of schism from Rome. Its meaning however was clear. The constitutional theory of independence, put forward on many occasions as the warrant for legislation, was henceforth to be acted upon in its most ample interpretation: though, as with the Annates Bill, the final confirmation was suspended to leave Clement a last chance of surrender. Taken on its merits the Act laid down principles entirely acceptable to all parties who claim or claimed independence of Rome: yet it was quite obviously issued with the direct purpose of setting aside the Pope's authority in a particular case already referred to him.

[Sidenote 1: Cranmer Archbishop] [Sidenote 2: The decisive breach]

It is in fact doubtful whether Henry could have procured a judgment from Warham; but Warham was dead, and the successor appointed was Thomas Cranmer, who already before he had been dragged into public life had committed himself to the sufficiency of the judgment of the English courts. Since taking part in Wiltshire's embassy in 1531 he had been for the most part in Germany on diplomatic affairs, associating with Protestants and imbibing their views. The most pronounced and definite of his doctrines was that of the supremacy of the crown; and on his installation as Archbishop in March, he had qualified [Footnote: Moore (Aubrey), Hist. of Reformation, 109, finds a proof in this of "servility and dishonesty," which terms appear to be in his view equivalents of Erastianism.] his oath of allegiance to Rome accordingly. Other ecclesiastics, from Becket to Gardiner, had been appointed to bishoprics under the impression that they were going to support the secular arm against the claims of their Order, and had falsified expectation. Cranmer maintained as Archbishop the theories of clerical subordination which he had adopted as a University Doctor. Convocation was called on to express an opinion on the marriage; and whether from conviction or despair, it supported the King by a majority. The Archbishop obtained the royal licence to convene a court. Katharine, refusing to appear, was declared contumacious; and the Court pronounced her marriage void while confirming Anne's. The Pope rejoined by pronouncing the judgment void. Henry retorted by confirming the Acts in Restraint of Annates and Appeals; and himself appealed against the Pope to a General Council. Until, in March of the next year, Clement himself definitely pronounced judgment in favour of Katharine, there remained a shadow of a chance of a reconciliation tantamount to the submission of the Holy See; but the chance was not accepted. Practically the judgment of Cranmer's court marked the definite schism from Rome.



CHAPTER IX

HENRY VIII (v), 1533-40—MALLEUS MONACHORUM

[Sidenote: 1533 Ecclesiastical Parties]

WE have noted that a proportion of the higher clergy were at least not unwilling to be freed from the domination and the financial exactions of Rome; this attitude being either the cause or the effect of the line they took as to the divorce. When, however, it was borne in upon them that the price of escaping the yoke of the Popedom was to be the subjection of the Church, in form to the lay monarch, and in fact to the State, the bulk of them endeavoured to protest against the newly imposed subordination. With the "Submission of the Clergy" and the appointment of Cranmer as Warham's successor, it became entirely clear that to protest or resist would be worse than useless. Accordingly we shall now find this section of the clerical body, including such prelates as Gardiner of Winchester, Stokesley of London, and Tunstal of Durham, devoting themselves to evading or rendering nugatory the directions of the Temporal power and its instrument Cranmer, under colour of obedience, while dissociating themselves from the more rigid of the Old Catholics such as Fisher of Rochester, More, the London Carthusians and others. On the other hand, the newer school, who were much more antagonistic to the papacy, such as Cranmer, Latimer and Barlow, found more personal favour with the King and with Cromwell, though their leanings towards the doctrinal tenets of Continental reformers were checked from time to time with sufficient rudeness.

[Sidenote: Pope or King?]

A very peculiar situation however soon resulted from the Royal rejection of the Papal supremacy. To hold the opinion that the Pope was head of the Church implied the recognition of a divided allegiance, casting a doubt on the holder's loyalty to the Secular Sovereign, and easily translated into treason; since the papal party were bound to maintain in theory the validity of the marriage with Katharine, and the rights of her daughter Mary. Henry never lacked a plausible theory to justify his most tyrannous actions. Modern historians however who carry their support of Henry to the extreme point ignore the two facts, that to hold an opinion which if acted on would lead to treason is not in itself treason; and that it was quite logical to maintain the supreme authority of the Pope in matters spiritual, without admitting his power to depose a recalcitrant monarch or to determine the line of succession—which was in fact the position adopted by Sir Thomas More.

[Sidenote: 1534 Confirmatory Acts]

The Spring session of Parliament in 1534 was devoted mainly to the passing of Acts in confirmation and extension of what already been done. The Submission of the Clergy and the Restraint of Appeals were re-affirmed in one Act; but with the important difference that the whole of the Canon law was to be subjected to the Commission when appointed, [Footnote: See p. 128, ante]. till which time the clergy would be acting at their peril in enforcing any rules which might subsequently be condemned as against the Royal Prerogative. This was accompanied by an Act in confirmation of the Annates Act, coupled with the conge d'elire, assuring to the King the right of nomination to ecclesiastical appointments under the form of permitting the Chapters to elect his nominee. A third, the "Peter Pence" Act, abolished the remaining contributions to the Papal Treasury. At the same time the "exempt" monasteries—those, that is, which had not been subject to the supervision of the bishops—were conveyed to the King's control, still without episcopal intervention. A fourth Act, not prima facie ecclesiastical in character, was the Act of Succession, declaring the offspring of Anne Boleyn (the princess Elizabeth had been born in the previous September) heirs to the throne.

[Sidenote: The Pope's last word]

While these proceedings were in progress, the last attempt to subdue the Pope by diplomacy was failing. At the end of March, Clement gave the long deferred judgment on the divorce, pronouncing the marriage with Katharine valid, and that with Anne Boleyn void. Clement survived but a short time. His successor Paul III. had at one time been in Henry's favour; but reconciliation was now outside the range of practical politics, and the new Pope soon found himself more definitely antagonistic to the English monarch than his predecessor had been.

[Sidenote: The Nun of Kent]

The prevailing superstitions of the day and their reality as factors even in public life are curiously illustrated by the story of the "Nun of Kent" —a story concluded by her execution about this time. The "Nun" was a young woman named Elizabeth Barton of humble birth, who was subject to fits or trances, presumably epileptic in character, in which trances she gave vent to utterances which were supposed to be inspired, being generally religious in their bearing. Having acquired some notoriety and a reputation for sanctity, her prophesyings before long took the form of denunciation of the divorce, at that time in its earlier stages. She was exploited by sundry fanatical persons honest or otherwise—in such cases it is seldom possible to fathom the extent to which mania, intentional deception, conscious or unconscious suggestion, and mere credulity, are mingled. In those days, there were few people who would venture to attribute such phenomena to purely natural causes. Such a man as Thomas More, who was eminently rational as well as deeply religious, was not easily beguiled; but the more credulous and equally honest bishop of Rochester was unable to regard the prophesyings as mere imposture, as was also the case with Warham; and being thus countenanced, when the Nun's utterances reached the point of denouncing the wrath of Heaven upon those who consented to the Divorce, she became really dangerous. She and her associates were charged with treason and executed, while Fisher was necessarily to some degree implicated. Before her death the Nun made a confession of elaborate imposture, but too much weight should not be attached to confessions made under such conditions. Given a certain degree of mental aberration, the case is not without parallels pointing to an absence of conscious fraud. But whether in her case it was fraud or mania, the important fact remains that there were numbers of people who attributed her utterances neither to the one nor the other but to inspiration; numbers more who were in doubt on the point; and that those utterances were to some extent utilised in a seditious propaganda; for to declare as a message from on high that the King and his advisers had brought upon themselves the curse of the Almighty must be recognised as effectively, even if not intentionally, preaching sedition.

[Sidenote 1: The Act of Succession] [Sidenote 2: The oath refused]

The proceedings against Elizabeth Barton had been accompanied by revelations of more or less suspicious conduct on the part of the Countess of Salisbury and of Poles, [Footnote: The Countess of Salisbury's children. The de la Poles were now extinct. The Nevilles were the Countess's kinsfolk, her mother having been a daughter of the Kingmaker. See Front.] Courtenays and Nevilles, while the Princess Mary declined to regard herself as illegitimate. This was made the pretext for adopting a very irregular course in connexion with the Act of Succession. The Act not only established the order of Succession to the throne, but in the preamble asserted the invalidity of Katharine's marriage, it was accompanied by an authority to exact an oath of obedience to the Statute, the form of the oath not being laid down. Commissioners were appointed to exact the oath, which was drawn up in a form accepting the entire terms of the Act, not merely promising adhesion to its provisions. Presented to them in this form, both More and Fisher refused to take the oath. Both were prepared to swear to maintain the succession as laid down; neither would avow a belief that the marriage with Katharine was void ab initio. More laid down definitely the doctrine that it was in the power of the State to determine the succession, and the duty of the citizen to accept its decision; but that obviously does not involve an opinion that the reasons for its decision are sound. Cranmer would fain have persuaded the King to accept the oath thus modified as sufficient—not realising that the primary object of Henry and Cromwell was to drive the opponents of the divorce into a public recantation of their opinion. More and Fisher were resolute, and were sent to the Tower, though in form an indictment ought first to have been brought against them in the courts. Cromwell expressed and no doubt felt a very genuine regret at the failure of the plan; but it was ever Cromwell's method to strike at the most influential opponents of his policy. If they would bend, well: if not, they must break. The device of the oath would force the surrender or else the destruction of the best members of the high Catholic party. Three of the most zealous and most irreproachable monastic establishments—the London Carthusians, the Richmond Observants, and the Brentford Brigittines—were inveigled or cowed into temporary submission, but later reverted to the position of More and Fisher, and suffered accordingly. The Greenwich Observants refused submission altogether, and were dissolved.

[Sidenote: "The Bishop of Rome"]

Before the administration of the oath, the news of Clement's decision had come from Rome, with a Bull of Excommunication to follow. It was well for Henry that Francis could be relied on to keep Charles in check; for the foreign ambassadors, whether well-informed or mainly because the wish was father to the thought, were reporting serious disaffection in the country, which otherwise might have led to armed intervention by the Emperor. The answer to Rome however took the emphatic form of a declaration by Convocation and the Universities that "the Bishop of Rome has no more authority in England than any other foreign Bishop"; in addition to the Acts of Parliament already recorded.

[Sidenote 1: Parliament (Nov.)] [Sidenote 2: Treasons Act]

Before the end of the year (1534) Parliament was again in session. The argument submitted to the Pope before the passing of the Annates Act—that it pressed with undue severity on the bishops—was shown in its true character by a new Annates Act which appropriated to the King the funds of which the Pope had been deprived. The relief of the bishops was ignored. By the "Act of the Supreme Head," Parliament also professedly confirmed the declaration of Convocation in 1531; but omitted the saving [Footnote: See p. 125] clause; and by a fresh Act of Succession, regularised the treatment of More and Fisher, enforcing the oath in the form in which it had been submitted to them, retrospectively. Then came the Treasons Act, the coping stone of Resolute Government; bringing into the category of Treason not only the specific overt actions to which it had been limited by the Act of Edward III., but also "verbal treason" and even the refusal to answer incriminating questions. It is easy to see what vast opportunities were thus given for fastening a practically irrefutable charge of treason on any victim selected, when the recognised principle was that the onus probandi lay with the accused. An irresistible instrument of tyranny was created, justified of course by the usual argument that without such powers it was not possible to deal adequately with the abnormal dangers of the situation. It need only be remarked that where there is practically no check on the abuse of such powers save the scrupulosity of the persons in whom they are vested, the risk of flagrant injustice becomes almost incalculable. Since the days of Edward III., no monarch had occupied the throne with less risk of serious treason than Henry VIII. Under all save Henry V. there had been active rebellion, and under him there was at least one serious plot. Yet the treason statute of Edward III. had under them been held sufficient. The new Act was in truth but one step in the systematic development of autocracy under constitutional forms to which the policy of Thomas Cromwell was devoted.

[Sidenote 1: 1529-34 The New Policy] [Sidenote 2: Cromwell]

When Wolsey fell in 1529 the Duke of Norfolk became ostensibly the King's most powerful subject. But it is impossible to trace to him or to his following among the nobility the formulation of any sort of definite policy. Nevertheless, a quite definite policy had been initiated after a short lapse of time. Starting with the checking of palpable ecclesiastical abuses, it had gone on to assert with steadily increasing rigour the subjection of the entire clerical organisation to the Supreme Head, and to embody the assertion of the theory in practical legislation, and dictation to Convocation. It had threatened the papacy, till the threats issued virtually in an ultimatum followed by repudiation of papal authority. It had placed papal and ecclesiastical perquisites under gradual restrictions, till by the last Annates Act it began transferring them openly to the Crown. In many instances, the initiative had been ostensibly taken by Parliament; in others, the King had exercised direct pressure on the clergy, but had obtained from Parliament a ratification of the ecclesiastical concessions. The whole trend of the policy, culminating in the Treasons Act, was to concentrate effective control in the hands of the sovereign, by consent of Parliament. And now Cromwell emerges as the man who was to give that policy tremendous effect, and by inference at least as its probable creator and organiser from the close of 1530. It is not till 1535 however that he becomes openly and indisputably first minister; Wolsey's successor in Henry's confidence—and to Henry's gratitude.

[Sidenote: 1535 More and Fisher]

Before the prorogation of Parliament in February (1535) the two recalcitrants in the Tower, More and Fisher, were attainted High Treason for maintaining their refusal to take the prescribed oath under the Act of Succession. It was perhaps in the hope that the King might hesitate to proceed to extremities, in the face of a very marked expression of sentiment, that the new Pope, Paul III., proceeded to nominate Fisher a Cardinal. It ought to have been obvious that the very contrary effect would have been produced: the step was naturally looked upon as a challenge. More and Fisher were condemned to death and executed in the summer—martyrs assuredly to conscience. The whole of their offence consisted in the single fact that they could not and would not recant their belief in the validity of Katharine's marriage. Had they sought to make converts to that opinion, or to make it a text for preaching sedition, there might have been some colour of justice in their punishment. As it was, such danger as there might be in their holding that view lay entirely in the advertisement of it by insistence on the oath. All Europe shuddered, and half England trembled at the demonstration of ruthless power, when those two were struck down— the aged bishop whose spotless character and saintly life had for many a year given the lie to those who included all the higher clergy in a universal condemnation; and the ex-chancellor, the friend of Erasmus, whose wide learning, kindly wit, intellectual eminence, and unswerving rectitude had won for him a European reputation greater than that of any other Englishman of his time. The Carthusians, Brigittines, and Observants who had been induced to give way on the question of the Oath reverted to the position of More and Fisher. Their heads also were put to death, and the houses broken up.

The wrath of the Pope was expressed in a Bull of Deposition; which however on second thoughts he found it advisable to hold in suspense till three years later.

[Sidenote: Cromwell made Vicar-General]

When More and Fisher opposed themselves obstinately to the King's will, there was no doubt that the King would see to it that they paid the penalty. But we may suspect that it was not Henry's brain but Cromwell's which devised the policy of presenting them with the fatal dilemma. Before they were put to death, the minister's supremacy was already established by his appointment as Vicar-General, with full power to exercise on the King's behalf all the rights vested in the Supreme Head of the Church: rights which—however it might be asserted that they were and had been at all times inherent in the sovereign—were now to be interpreted in a novel and comprehensive spirit. But besides the development alike in extent and intensity of the attack on the clerical organisation, we now find foreign policy taking a new direction for which Cromwell was assuredly responsible.

[Sidenote 1: The German Lutherans] [Sidenote 2: Overtures]

Hitherto, since the fall of Wolsey, the Emperor had been in steady antagonism to the English King: so had the Pope, except when he had hopes of the Imperial pressure on him being removed. France had on the whole given support to England, usually of a lukewarm character. But it does not appear that, until this time, Henry had learnt to look upon the German Lutherans as an available political force: while his active hostility to the Lutheran theology seemed to preclude anything in the nature of a rapprochement with the Protestant princes. Yet the Lutherans, like Henry, had repudiated papal authority. Recently the French King had taken up the idea of bringing about a compromise between the Pope on one side, and the Lutherans and English on the other, which would place Charles in dangerous straits. The prospect however was unpromising at the best; a reconciliation with Rome was really impossible. Cromwell, then, conceived the idea of a Protestant league, which would suggest to Francis the advantage of following Henry's lead in throwing off the Roman allegiance, and ranging himself with the Lutherans and the English. Henry's own theological predilections stood in the way, and the Lutherans regarded him with suspicion: but Cromwell looked to political expediency as a potent salve for healing controversial differences. Thus in the late summer of 1535, the first advances were made in the direction of seeking a mutual understanding with the German Protestants—not without hints that Henry had an open mind on the subject of the Augsburg Confession. The Germans however were in no haste to accept Henry as a brand plucked from the burning; rather, they had a not unnatural suspicion that he merely wanted to make use of them. They propounded conditions, which Cromwell submitted to Gardiner, at this time ambassador at Paris. Whatever Gardiner's views were as to papal ascendancy, he was no Lutheran; and he pointed out that to accept the terms would deprive England of her ecclesiastical independence. Thus the negotiations fell through—as might have been expected. Nevertheless, the desire for the Lutheran alliance remained at the back of Cromwell's policy; not avowed but latent; and it was in an attempt to entangle Henry irrevocably in that policy that he committed, not five years later, the blunder which cost him his head.

[Sidenote: Visitation of the Monasteries]

In the same Autumn—1535—Cromwell as Vicar-General opened his great campaign against the monasteries; actuated, according to the historians on one side, by a determination to remove a cancer which was destroying the morality of the nation; according to the historians on the other side, by the vast opportunities afforded for plunder.

[Sidenote: 1536 Suppression of Lesser Houses]

Heretofore the visitation of "exempt" monasteries had lain with the Superiors of their respective orders, except when special authority had been granted by the Pope to a Morton or a Wolsey. In other cases it had been deputed to the bishops, each in his own diocese. At the time of the recent Peter Pence Act (1534) the exempt houses had been formally subjected to the King. Cromwell now took upon himself the right of visitation, not only of the exempt monasteries, but of the others as well, suspending the jurisdiction of the bishops while his enquiries were going forward, and thus emphasising the doctrine that that jurisdiction was derived from the King. Commissioners were appointed—Legh, Leyton, Bedyl, and Ap Rice—to investigate and report upon the conduct and the finances of the various houses. In a period of about three months (Oct.-Jan.), they made their investigations and prepared their report, keeping up an active correspondence with Cromwell in the meantime. On the strength of this report, a bill was laid before Parliament and passed in February (1536), suppressing all houses with less than L200 a year, 376 in number—of which however 31 were reinstated later in the year as having been well conducted. In part, their inmates were to be redistributed among the greater houses; in part they were to be released from their vows; and in part they were to receive some compensation.

[Sidenote: The evidence discussed]

Now it is clear that in the time at their disposal, the commissioners could not possibly have sifted thoroughly the evidence brought before them. In many cases there was enough that was gross, palpable, obvious, to warrant condemnation at sight. But the scandalous levity and domineering insolence with which they carried out their task must have suggested to the ill-conditioned members of every community that slander and false-witness might lead to favour and profit, and were not likely to be too carefully tested: while it is easy to see how the insulting interrogatories would be angrily resented, and answers be refused, or given in the most injudicious manner, by perfectly innocent persons; while demands for inventories of valuables were met by prevarication and concealment, when the object of the commissioners was suspected of being spoliation. The letters of Leyton and Legh convey the impression that the fouler the scandals unearthed or retailed, the more enjoyment and humour they discovered in their occupation. There can be no doubt that the state of things they found was in general bad; but by their own statement it was by no means universally so; and it is also clear that they accepted adverse witness almost without examination and wilfully minimised all that was favourable.

[Sidenote: The Black Book]

Also, it is very doubtful whether the "black book" of monastic offences was ever laid before parliament. The preamble to the bill set forth, luridly enough, the conclusions arrived at by the King and the vicar-general, and summed up the grounds for them. But it seems by no means improbable that parliament simply accepted the statement thus laid before it. The black book itself disappeared. The Protestant historians of Elizabeth's reign said that Bonner destroyed it; the Roman Catholics affirm that it was the other party who took care that the evidence on which they acted should never be made known. The actual surviving evidence is to be found in the partial summaries known as the Comperta and in the letters of the commissioners to Cromwell. The examination of these can hardly fail to leave the reader with a conviction that the methods of the Commissioners were atrociously iniquitous, but that a strictly judicial investigation would still have revealed a state of things often appalling, not seldom vicious, and commonly reprehensible, without the elements which might have made effective reform possible: while it is beyond a doubt that especially among the younger monks and nuns, the desire to escape from the bonds of monastic rule was common.

[Sidenote: The Consequent Commission]

In favour of the monasteries however, it is to be noted that these 376 minor houses were suppressed not as having been individually condemned, but on the theory that the report pointed to the system of maintaining minor houses as bad. Mixed commissions were now appointed to continue the visitation, carry out the suppression, and recommend exemptions when it was desirable; and the reports of these commissions were of a far less unfavourable character, though (as we have seen) only 31 houses were actually reinstated. It is to be observed also, in a somewhat different connexion, that the further visitation was accompanied by the issuing of Injunctions for the conduct of monastic establishments which may have been designed solely with a view to enforcing a pure and pious manner of living, but are undoubtedly open to the suspicion of having been deliberately calculated to make the monastic life insupportable and so to encourage the religious houses to efface themselves by voluntary surrender—a course which was not infrequently adopted.

[Sidenote: The policy discussed]

There was sufficient precedent for laying the Church under heavy contributions to the exchequer. The idea of deliberately confiscating Church property had before now been seriously put forward. There had been previous suppressions of monastic establishments; but in these cases the funds, ostensibly at least, had been diverted to other purposes recognised as ecclesiastical, such as Wolsey's schools and colleges. The differentiating feature of Cromwell's confiscation was that the funds were for the most part withdrawn from any ecclesiastical purpose whatever. [Footnote: There was precedent for the proposal however in Parliamentary petitions of Richard II.'s reign; but these had not taken effect in legislation.] The monastic lands passed to lay owners by grant or purchase; they enriched the King or his friends or those whom Cromwell thought fit to enrich or to gratify. The evidence that in the public interest it was time for the religious houses to go is convincing; the method of proceeding against the smaller houses first was tactically shrewd, as evoking less opposition at the outset; but even if it be conceded that the Church had forfeited her property, it is impossible to find any excuse for the application of the spoils to other than public objects. The Church might simply be looked upon as a vast corporation, holding its wealth in trust for the nation, and rightly deprived of that wealth when it failed to fulfil the trust. But on that view, the wealth was bound to be handed over to another body, to administer as a trust for the nation. The fact that this was not done makes possible only one conclusion as to the motive of the suppression. The Church was both the wealthiest and the least dangerous victim available for bleeding, besides being open to the charge of deserving to be penalised.

[Sidenote 1: Anne Boleyn threatened] [Sidenote 2: Her condemnation and death]

In January 1536 the deeply-injured Katharine died; to be followed ere many months had passed by her supplanter. Ostensibly, Henry had married Anne Boleyn, because a male heir was needed to secure the succession; but she had borne him only a daughter and a still-born son. Henry was disappointed in her. Moreover, his passion had for some time been cooling: nor was her character—even on the most favourable reading—calculated to retain affections that had begun to wane. She was frivolous and undignified; her arrogance and her assumption had left her few friends. She was jealous of the attentions paid by her husband to Jane Seymour, who had been one of Katharine's ladies-in-waiting—attentions which she received with a becoming reserve. Suddenly it appeared that Anne had been guilty of gross misconduct. Sundry gentlemen of the court, including her brother Lord Rochford were charged with sharing her guilt. One of them ultimately made confession—true or false. There were stories, flatly denied, that she had been contracted to Northumberland: that she had actually been his wife when she married Henry. There were stories that the marriage was void, because of earlier relations between Henry and her mother and sister. Whether the queen was guilty or not, the judges of course did what they were expected to do; she was tried for treason and condemned. Cranmer was torn between an affectionate conviction that she was really a good woman and an inability to believe that the King could be misled, much less do her a deliberate and conscious wrong. But some sort of admission which she made before him was interpreted by the Archbishop as involving the nullity of the marriage. Anne was executed: next day, the King married Jane Seymour; the marriage with Anne was officially declared to have been invalid; Elizabeth being of course de-legitimatised, and so occupying precisely the same position as Mary. Thus Henry was left with three illegitimate children (the third being the Duke of Richmond who died not long after), and no legitimate heir—truly an ironical outcome of that divorce which his apologists defend as having been demanded by the need of a successor with an indisputable title to the throne!

[Sidenote: The Succession]

Within three weeks of Anne Boleyn's execution (May 19th, 1536), a new parliament was sitting; for that which had commenced its sessions at the end of 1529 had been dissolved in the spring of this year. The first business was formally to ratify the late proceedings, and fix the succession on the offspring of the new queen; the second was formally to authorise the King himself to lay down the order of succession thereafter. Incidentally we may note that the actual legitimate heir presumptive [Footnote: See Appendix B, and Front.] to the throne was now the King of Scotland, the son of Henry's elder sister Margaret. The claims of a child of Jane Seymour could alone on legitimist principles take precedence of his, if the judgments invalidating the two previous marriages held good. It is only by admitting the power of parliament to fix or delegate its power of fixing the succession, that James's claim to be heir presumptive could be challenged. But there was no sort of doubt that it would be in actual fact challenged, simply because the English would not take a King from another land. There was not much room in England for advocates of the doctrine of Divine Right. Neither Henry IV, and his successors, nor Henry VII., nor Elizabeth, could have maintained a plausible claim to the throne apart from their title by Act of Parliament. Of present importance however was the fact that both Katharine and Anne were dead before the marriage of Queen Jane; there could therefore be absolutely no ground for challenging the legitimacy of any children of hers, while any conceivable claims on behalf of either Mary or Elizabeth would necessarily yield precedence to the claim of Jane's son, should she bear one. Moreover, since there was now no Katharine to claim rights as a queen, and her supplanter had died a traitor's death, Mary might without risk be re-instated as a Princess on sufficient grounds. Thus a door was opened for a renewal of amity with the Emperor.