* Heylin, p. 6.

** Burnet, vol. i, p. 134.

*** Herbert, p. 326. Burnet, vol. i. p. 132.

When intelligence was conveyed to Rome of these transactions, so injurious to the authority and reputation of the holy see, the conclave was in a rage, and all the cardinals of the imperial faction urged the pope to proceed to a definitive sentence, and to dart his spiritual thunders against Henry. But Clement proceeded no further than to declare the nullity of Cranmer's sentence, as well as that of Henry's second marriage; threatening him with excommunication, if before the first of November ensuing he did not replace every thing in the condition in which it formerly stood.[*] An event had happened from which the pontiff expected a more amicable conclusion of the difference, and which hindered him from carrying matters to extremity against the king.

The pope had claims upon the duchy of Ferrara for the sovereignty of Reggio and Modena;[**] and having submitted his pretensions to the arbitration of the emperor, he was surprised to find a sentence pronounced against him. Enraged at this disappointment, he hearkened to proposals of amity from Francis; and when that monarch made overtures of marrying the duke of Orleans, his second son, to Catharine of Medicis, niece of the pope, Clement gladly embraced an alliance by which his family was so much honored. An interview was even appointed between the pope and French king at Marseilles; and Francis, as a common friend, there employed his good offices in mediating an accommodation between his new ally and the king of England.

* Le Grand, vol. iii. p. 566.

** Burnet, vol. ii. p. 133. Guicciard.

Had this connection of France with the court of Rome taken place a few years sooner, there had been little difficulty in adjusting the quarrel with Henry. The king's request was an ordinary one; and the same plenary power of the pope which had granted a dispensation for his espousing of Catharine, could easily have annulled the marriage. But, in the progress of the quarrel, the state of affairs was much changed on both sides. Henry had shaken off much of that reverence which he had early imbibed for the apostolic see; and finding that his subjects of all ranks had taken part with him, and willingly complied with his measures for breaking off foreign dependence, he had begun to relish his spiritual authority, and would scarcely, it was apprehended, be induced to renew his submissions to the Roman pontiff. The pope, on the other hand, now ran a manifest risk of infringing his authority by a compliance with the king; and as a sentence of divorce could no longer be rested on nullities in Julius's bull, but would be construed as an acknowledgment of papal usurpations, it was foreseen that the Lutherans would thence take occasion of triumph, and would persevere more obstinately in their present principles. But notwithstanding these obstacles, Francis did not despair of mediating an agreement. He observed that the king had still some remains of prejudice in favor of the Catholic church, and was apprehensive of the consequences which might ensue from too violent innovations. He saw the interest that Clement had in preserving the obedience of England, which was one of the richest jewels in the papal crown. And he hoped that these motives on both sides would facilitate a mutual agreement, and would forward the effects of his good offices.

{1534.} Francis first prevailed on the pope to promise, that if the king would send a proxy to Rome, and thereby submit his cause to the holy see, he should appoint commissioners to meet at Cambray, and form the process; and he should immediately afterwards pronounce the sentence of divorce required of him. Bellay, bishop of Paris, was next despatched to London, and obtained a promise from the king that he would submit his cause to the Roman consistory, provided the cardinals of the imperial faction were excluded from it. The prelate carried this verbal promise to Rome; and the pope agreed that, if the king would sign a written agreement to the same purpose, his demands should be fully complied with. A day was appointed for the return of the messengers; and all Europe regarded this affair, which had threatened a violent rupture between England and the Romish church, as drawing towards an amicable conclusion.[*] But the greatest affairs often depend on the most frivolous incidents. The courier who carried the king's written promise was detained beyond the day appointed: news was brought to Rome that a libel had been published in England against the court of Rome, and a farce acted before the king in derision of the pope and cardinals.[**]

* Father Paul, lib. i.

** Father Paul, lib, i.

The pope and cardinals entered into the consistory inflamed with anger; and by a precipitate sentence the marriage of Henry and Catharine was pronounced valid, and Henry declared to be excommunicated if he refused to adhere to it. Two days after, the courier arrived; and Clement, who had been hurried from his usual prudence, found that though he heartily repented of this hasty measure, it would be difficult for him to retract it, or replace affairs on the same footing as before.

It is not probable that the pope, had he conducted himself with ever so great moderation and temper, could hope, during the lifetime of Henry, to have regained much authority or influence in England. That monarch was of a temper both impetuous and obstinate; and having proceeded so far in throwing off the papal yoke, he never could again have been brought tamely to bend his neck to it. Even at the time when he was negotiating a reconciliation with Rome, he either entertained so little hopes of success, or was so indifferent about the event, that he had assembled a parliament, and continued to enact laws totally destructive of the papal authority. The people had been prepared by degrees for this great innovation. Each preceding session had retrenched somewhat from the power and profits of the pontiff. Care had been taken, during some years, to teach the nation that a general council was much superior to a pope. But now a bishop preached every Sunday at Paul's Cross, in order to inculcate the doctrine that the pope was entitled to no authority at all beyond the bounds of his own diocese.[*] The proceedings of the parliament showed that they had entirely adopted this opinion; and there is reason to believe that the king, after having procured a favorable sentence from Rome, which would have removed all doubts with regard to his second marriage and the succession, might indeed have lived on terms of civility with the Roman pontiff, but never would have surrendered to him any considerable share of his assumed prerogative. The importance of the laws passed this session, even before intelligence arrived of the violent resolutions taken at Rome, is sufficient to justify this opinion.

* Burnet, vol. i. p. 144.

All payments made to the apostolic chamber, all provisions, bulls, dispensations, were abolished: monasteries were subjected to the visitation and government of the king alone: the law for punishing heretics was moderated: the ordinary was prohibited from imprisoning or trying any person upon suspicion alone, without presentment by two lawful witnesses; and it was declared, that to speak against the pope's authority was no heresy: bishops were to be appointed, by a conge d'elire from the crown, or, in case of the dean and chapter's refusal, by letters patent; and no recourse was to be had to Rome for pails, bulls, or provisions; Campeggio and Ghinucci, two Italians, were deprived of the bishoprics of Salisbury and Worcester, which they had hitherto enjoyed:[*] the law which had been formerly made against paying annates or first-fruits, but which had been left in the king's power to suspend or enforce, was finally established: and a submission which was exacted two years before from the clergy, and which had been obtained with great difficulty, received this session the sanction of parliament.[**] In this submission, the clergy acknowledged that convocations ought to be assembled by the king's authority only; they promised to enact no new canons without his consent; and they agreed that he should appoint thirty-two commissioners, in order to examine the old canons, and abrogate such as should be found prejudicial to his royal prerogative.[***] An appeal was also allowed from the bishop's court to the king in chancery.

* Le Neve's Fasti Eccles. Angl.

** 25 Henry VIII. cap, 19.

*** Collier, vol. ii. p. 69, 70.

But the most important law passed this session was that which regulated the succession to the crown: the marriage of the king with Catharine was declared unlawful, void, and of no effect: the primate's sentence annulling it was ratified: and the marriage with Queen Anne was established and confirmed. The crown was appointed to descend to the issue of this marriage, and failing them, to the king's heirs forever. An oath likewise was enjoined to be taken in favor of this order of succession, under the penalty of imprisonment during the king's pleasure, and forfeiture of goods and chattels. And all slander against the king, queen, or their issue, was subjected to the penalty of misprision of treason. After these compliances, the parliament was prorogued; and those acts, so contemptuous towards the pope, and so destructive of his authority, were passed at the very time that Clement pronounced his hasty sentence against the king. Henry's resentment against Queen Catharine, on account of her obstinacy, was the reason why he excluded her daughter from all hopes of succeeding to the crown; contrary to his first intentions, when he began the process of divorce, and of dispensation for a second marriage.

The king found his ecclesiastical subjects as compliant as the laity. The convocation ordered that the act against appeals to Rome, together with the king's appeal from the pope to a general council should be affixed to the doors of all the churches in the kingdom: and they voted that the bishop of Rome had, by the law of God, no more jurisdiction in England than any other foreign bishop; and that the authority which he and his predecessors had there exercised, was only by usurpation, and by the sufferance of English princes. Four persons alone opposed this vote in the lower house, and one doubted. It passed unanimously in the upper. The bishops went so far in their complaisance, that they took out new commissions from the crown, in which all their spiritual and episcopal authority was expressly affirmed to be derived ultimately from the civil magistrate, and to be entirely dependent on his good pleasure.[*]

The oath regarding the succession was generally taken throughout the kingdom. Fisher, bishop of Rochester, and Sir Thomas More, were the only persons of note that entertained scruples with regard to its legality. Fisher was obnoxious on account of some practices into which his credulity, rather than any bad intentions, seems to have betrayed him. But More was the person of greatest reputation in the kingdom for virtue and integrity; and as it was believed that his authority would have influence on the sentiments of others, great pains were taken to convince him of the lawfulness of the oath. He declared that he had no scruple with regard to the succession, and thought that the parliament had full power to settle it: he offered to draw an oath himself which would insure his allegiance to the heir appointed; but he refused the oath prescribed by law; because the preamble of that oath asserted the legality of the king's marriage with Anne, and thereby implied that his former marriage with Catharine was unlawful and invalid. Cramner, the primate, and Cromwell, now secretary of state, who highly loved and esteemed More, entreated him to lay aside his scruples; and their friendly importunity seemed to weigh more with him than all the penalties attending his refusal.[**] He persisted, however, in a mild though firm manner, to maintain his resolution; and the king, irritated against him as well as Fisher, ordered both to be indicted upon the statute, and committed prisoners to the Tower.

* Collier's Eccles. Hist. vol. ii.

** Burnet, vol. i. p. 156.

The parliament, being again assembled, conferred on the king the title of the only supreme "head" on earth of the church of England; as they had already invested him with all the real power belonging to it. In this memorable act, the parliament granted him power, or rather acknowledged his inherent power, "to visit, and repress, redress, reform, order, correct, restrain, or amend all errors, heresies, abuses, offences, contempts, and enormities, which fell under any spiritual authority or jurisdiction."[*] They also declared it treason to attempt, imagine, or speak evil against the king, queen, or his heirs; or to endeavor depriving them of their dignities or titles. They gave him a right to all the annates and tithes of benefices which had formerly been paid to the court of Rome. They granted him a subsidy and a fifteenth. They attainted More and Fisher for misprision of treason. And they completed the union of England and Wales, by giving to that principality all the benefit of the English laws.

* 26 Henry VIII. cap. 1.

Thus the authority of the popes, like all exorbitant power, was ruined by the excess of its acquisitions, and by stretching its pretensions beyond what it was possible for any human principles or prepossessions to sustain. Indulgences had in former ages tended extremely to enrich the holy see; but being openly abused, they served to excite the first commotions and opposition in Germany. The prerogative of granting dispensations had also contributed much to attach all the sovereign princes and great families in Europe to the papal authority; but meeting with an unlucky concurrence of circumstances, was now the cause why England separated herself from the Romish communion. The acknowledgment of the king's supremacy introduced there a greater simplicity in the government, by uniting the spiritual with the civil power, and preventing disputes about limits, which never could be exactly determined between the contending jurisdictions. A way was also prepared for checking the exorbitances of superstition, and breaking those shackles by which all human reason, policy, and industry had so long been encumbered. The prince, it may be supposed, being head of the religion, as well as of the temporal jurisdiction of the kingdom, though he might sometimes employ the former as an engine of government, had no interest, like the Roman pontiff, in nourishing its excessive growth; and, except when blinded by his own ignorance or bigotry, would be sure to retain it within tolerable limits, and prevent its abuses. And on the whole, there followed from this revolution many beneficial consequences; though perhaps neither foreseen nor intended by the persons who had the chief hand in conducting it.

While Henry proceeded with so much order and tranquillity in changing the national religion, and while his authority seemed entirely secure in England, he was held in some inquietude by the state of affairs in Ireland and in Scotland.

The earl of Kildare was deputy of Ireland, under the duke of Richmond, the king's natural son, who bore the title of lieutenant; and as Kildare was accused of some violences against the family of Ossory, his hereditary enemies, he was summoned to answer for his conduct. He left his authority in the hands of his son, who, hearing that his father was thrown into prison, and was in danger of his life, immediately took up arms, and joining himself to Oneale, Ocarrol, and other Irish nobility, committed many ravages, murdered Allen, archbishop of Dublin, and laid siege to that city. Kildare meanwhile died in prison; and his son, persevering in his revolt, made applications to the emperor, who promised him assistance. The king was obliged to send over some forces to Ireland, which so harassed the rebels, that this young nobleman, finding the emperor backward in fulfilling his promises, was reduced to the necessity of surrendering himself prisoner to Lord Leonard Gray, the new deputy, brother to the marquis of Dorset. He was carried over to England, together with his five uncles; and after trial and conviction, they were all brought to public justice; though two of the uncles, in order to save the family, had pretended to join the king's party.

The earl of Angus had acquired the entire ascendant in Scotland; and having gotten possession of the king's person then in early youth, he was able, by means of that advantage, and by employing the power of his own family, to retain the reins of government. The queen dowager, however, his consort, bred him great disturbance. For having separated herself from him on account of some jealousies and disgusts, and having procured a divorce, she had married another man of quality, of the name of Stuart; and she joined all the discontented nobility who opposed Angus's authority. James himself was dissatisfied with the slavery to which he was reduced, and by secret correspondence he incited first Walter Scot, then the earl of Lenox, to attempt by force of arms the freeing him from the hands of Angus. Both enterprises failed of success: but James, impatient of restraint, found means at last of escape *ing to Stirling, where his mother then resided; and having summoned all the nobility to attend him, he overturned the authority of the Douglases, and obliged Angus and his brother to fly into England, where they were protected by Henry. The king of Scotland, being now arrived at years of majority, took the government into his own hands; and employed him self with great spirit and valor in repressing those feuds, ravages, and disorders, which, though they disturbed the course of public justice, served to support the martial spirit of the Scots, and contributed by that means to maintain national independency. He was desirous of renewing the ancient league with the French nation; but finding Francis in close union with England, and on that account somewhat cold in hearkening to his proposals, he received the more favorably the advances of the emperor, who hoped, by means of such an ally, to breed disturbance to England, He offered the Scottish king the choice of three princesses, his own near relations, and all of the name of Mary; his sister, the dowager of Hungary; his niece, a daughter of Portugal; or his cousin, the daughter of Henry, whom he pretended to dispose of unknown to her father. James was more inclined to the latter proposal, had it not, upon reflection, been found impracticable; and his natural propensity to France at last prevailed over all other considerations. The alliance with Francis necessarily engaged James to maintain peace with England. But though invited by his uncle Henry to confer with him at Newcastle, and concert common measures for repressing the ecclesiastics in both kingdoms, and shaking off the yoke of Rome, he could not be prevailed on, by entering England, to put himself in the king's power. In order to have a pretext for refusing the conference, he applied to the pope, and obtained a brief, forbidding him to engage in any personal negotiations with an enemy of the holy see. From these measures Henry easily concluded that he could very little depend on the friendship of his nephew. But those events took not place till some time after our present period.



CHAPTER XXXI.



HENRY VIII.

{1534.} The ancient and almost uninterrupted opposition of interests between the laity and clergy in England, and between the English clergy and the court of Rome, had sufficiently prepared the nation for a breach with the sovereign pontiff; and men had penetration enough to discover abuses which were plainly calculated for the temporal advantages of the hierarchy, and which they found destructive of their own. These subjects seemed proportioned to human understanding; and even the people, who felt the power of interest in their own breasts, could perceive the purpose of those numerous inventions which the interested spirit of the Roman pontiff had introduced into religion. But when the reformers proceeded thence to dispute concerning the nature of the sacraments, the operations of grace, the terms of acceptance with the Deity, men were thrown into amazement, and were, during some time, at a loss how to choose their party. The profound ignorance in which both the clergy and laity formerly lived, and their freedom from theological altercations, had produced a sincere but indolent acquiescence in received opinions; and the multitude were neither attached to them by topics of reasoning, nor by those prejudices and antipathies against opponents, which have ever a more natural and powerful influence over them. As soon, therefore, as a new opinion was advanced, supported by such an authority as to call up their attention, they felt their capacity totally unfitted for such disquisitions; and they perpetually fluctuated between the contending parties. Hence the quick and violent movements by which the people were agitated, even in the most opposite directions: hence their seeming prostitution, in sacrificing to present power the most sacred principles: and hence the rapid progress during some time, and the sudden as well as entire check soon after, of the new doctrines. When men were once settled in their particular sects, and had fortified themselves in an habitual detestation of those who were denominated heretics, they adhered with more obstinacy to the principles of their education; and the limits of the two religions thenceforth remained fixed and unchangeable.

Nothing more forwarded the first progress of the reformers, than the offer which they made of submitting all religious doctrines to private judgment, and the summons given every one to examine the principles formerly imposed upon him. Though the multitude were totally unqualified for this undertaking, they yet were highly pleased with it. They fancied that they were exercising their judgment, while they opposed to the prejudices of ancient authority more powerful prejudices of another kind. The novelty itself of the doctrines; the pleasure of an imaginary triumph in dispute; the fervent zeal of the reformed preachers; their patience, and even alacrity, in suffering persecution, death, and torments; a disgust at the restraints of the old religion; an indignation against the tyranny and interested spirit of the ecclesiastics; these motives were prevalent with the people, and by such considerations were men so generally induced, during that age, to throw off the religion of their ancestors.

But in proportion as the practice of submitting religion to private judgment was acceptable to the people, it appeared in some respects dangerous to the rights of sovereigns, and seemed to destroy that implicit obedience on which the authority of the civil magistrate is chiefly founded. The very precedent of shaking so ancient and deep-founded an establishment as that of the Romish hierarchy, might, it was apprehended, prepare the way for other innovations. The republican spirit which naturally took place among the reformers, increased this jealousy. The furious insurrections of the populace, excited by Muncer and other Anabaptists in Germany,[*] furnished a new pretence for decrying the reformation. Nor ought we to conclude, because Protestants in our time prove as dutiful subjects as those of any other communion, that therefore such apprehensions were altogether without any shadow of plausibility. Though the liberty of private judgment be tendered to the disciples of the reformation, it is not in reality accepted of; and men are generally contented to acquiesce implicitly in those establishments, however new, into which their early education has thrown them.

* Sleidan, lib. iv. and v.

No prince in Europe was possessed of such absolute authority as Henry, not even the pope himself, in his own capital, where he united both the civil and ecclesiastical powers; [*] [9] and there was small likelihood, that any doctrine which lay under the imputation of encouraging sedition could ever pretend to his favor and countenance.

* See note I, at the end of the volume.

But besides this political jealousy, there was another reason which inspired this imperious monarch with an aversion to the reformers. He had early declared his sentiments against Luther; and having entered the lists in those scholastic quarrels, he had received from his courtiers and theologians infinite applause for his performance. Elated by this imaginary success, and blinded by a natural arrogance and obstinacy of temper, he had entertained the most lofty opinion of his own erudition; and he received with impatience, mixed with contempt, any contradiction to his sentiments. Luther also had been so imprudent as to treat in a very indecent manner his royal antagonist; and though he afterwards made the most humble submissions to Henry, and apologized for the vehemence of his former expressions, he never could efface the hatred which the king had conceived against him and his doctrines. The idea of heresy still appeared detestable as well as formidable to that prince; and whilst his resentment against the see of Rome had corrected one considerable part of his early prejudices, he had made it a point of honor never to relinquish the remainder. Separate as he stood from the Catholic church, and from the Roman pontiff, the head of it, he still valued himself on maintaining the Catholic doctrine, and or guarding, by fire and sword, the imagined purity of his speculative principles.

Henry's ministers and courtiers were of as motley a character as his conduct; and seemed to waver, during this whole reign, between the ancient and the new religion. The queen, engaged by interest as well as inclination, favored the cause of the reformers: Cromwell, who was created secretary of state, and who was daily advancing in the king's confidence, had embraced the same views; and as he was a man of prudence and abilities, he was able, very effectually, though in a covert manner, to promote the late innovations: Cranmer, archbishop of Canterbury, had secretly adopted the Protestant tenets; and he had gained Henry's friendship by his candor and sincerity; virtues which he possessed in as eminent a degree as those times, equally distracted with faction and oppressed by tyranny, could easily permit. On the other hand, the duke of Norfolk adhered to the ancient faith, and by his high rank, as well as by his talents, both for peace and war, he had great authority in the king's council: Gardiner, lately created bishop of Winchester, had enlisted himself in the same party; and the suppleness of his character, and dexterity of his conduct, had rendered him extremely useful to it.

All these ministers, while they stood in the most irreconcilable opposition of principles to each other, were obliged to disguise their particular opinions, and to pretend an entire agreement with the sentiments of their master. Cromwell and Cranmer still carried the appearance of a conformity to the ancient speculative tenets; but they artfully made use of Henry's resentment to widen the breach with the see of Rome. Norfolk and Gardiner feigned an assent to the king's supremacy, and to his renunciation of the sovereign pontiff; but they encouraged his passion for the Catholic faith, and instigated him to punish those daring heretics who had presumed to reject his theological principles. Both sides hoped, by their unlimited compliance, to bring him over to their party: the king, meanwhile, who held the balance between the factions, was enabled, by the courtship paid him both by Protestants and Catholics, to assume an unbounded authority: and though in all his measures he was really driven by his ungoverned humor, he casually steered a course which led more certainly to arbitrary power, than any which the most profound politics could have traced out to him. Artifice, refinement, and hypocrisy, in his situation, would have put both parties on their guard against him, and would have taught them reserve in complying with a monarch whom they could never hope thoroughly to have gained;* but while the frankness, sincerity, and openness of Henry's temper were generally known, as well as the dominion of his furious passions, each side dreaded to lose him by the smallest opposition, and flattered themselves that a blind compliance with his will would throw him cordially and fully into their interests.

The ambiguity of the king's conduct, though it kept the courtiers in awe, served, in the main, to encourage the Protestant doctrine among his subjects, and promoted that spirit of innovation with which the age was generally seized, and which nothing but an entire uniformity, as will as a steady severity in the administration, could be able to repress. There were some Englishmen, Tindal, Joye, Constantine, and others, who, dreading the exertion of the king's authority had fled to Antwerp;[*] where the great privileges possessed by the Low Country provinces served, during some time, to give them protection. These men employed themselves in writing English books against the corruptions of the church of Rome; against images, relics, pilgrimages; and they excited the curiosity of men with regard to that question, the most important in theology, the terms of acceptance with the Supreme Being, In conformity to the Lutherans and other Protestants, they asserted that salvation was obtained by faith alone; and that the most infallible road to perdition[**] was a reliance on "good works;" by which terms they understood as well the moral duties as the ceremonial and monastic observances.

* Burnet, vol. i. p. 159.

** Sacrilegium est et impietas velle placere Deo per opera et non per solam fidem. Luther adversus regem. Ita vides quam dives sit homo Christianus sive baptizatus, qui etiam volens non protest perdere salutem suam quantiscunque peccatis. Nulla enim peccata possunt eum damnare nisi incredulitas. Id. de Captivitate Babyloniea.

The defenders of the ancient religion, on the other hand, maintained the efficacy of good works; but though they did not exclude from this appellation the social virtues, it was still the superstitions gainful to the church which they chiefly extolled and recommended. The books composed by these fugitives, having stolen over to England, began to make converts every where; but it was a translation of the Scriptures by Tindal that was esteemed the most dangerous to the established faith. The first edition of this work, composed with little accuracy, was found liable to considerable objections; and Tindal, who was poor, and could not afford to lose a great part of the impression, was longing for an opportunity of correcting his errors, of which he had been made sensible. Tonstal, then bishop of London, soon after of Durham, a man of great moderation, being desirous to discourage, in the gentlest manner, these innovations, gave private orders for buying up all the copies that could be found at Antwerp; and he burned them publicly in Cheapside. By this measure he supplied Tindal with money, enabled him to print a new and correct edition of his work, and gave great scandal to the people, in thus committing to the flames the word of God.[*]

The disciples of the reformation met with little severity during the ministry of Wolsey, who, though himself a clergyman, bore too small a regard to the ecclesiastical order to serve as an instrument of their tyranny: it was even an article of impeachment against him,[**] that by his connivance he had encouraged the growth of heresy, and that he had protected and acquitted some notorious offenders. Sir Thomas More, who succeeded Wolsey as chancellor, is at once an object deserving our compassion, and an instance of the usual progress of men's sentiments during that age. This man, whose elegant genius and familiar acquaintance with the noble spirit of antiquity had given him very enlarged sentiments, and who had in his early years advanced principles which even at present would be deemed somewhat too free, had, in the course of events, been so irritated by polemics, and thrown into such a superstitious attachment to the ancient faith, that few inquisitors have been guilty of greater violence in their prosecution of heresy. Though adorned with the gentlest manners, as well as the purest integrity, he carried to the utmost height his aversion to heterodoxy; and James Bainham, in particular, a gentleman of the Temple, experienced from him the greatest severity. Bainham, accused of favoring the new opinions, was carried to More's house; and having refused to discover his accomplices, the chancellor ordered him to be whipped in his presence, and afterwards sent him to the Tower, where he himself saw him put to the torture. The unhappy gentleman, overcome by all these severities, abjured his opinions; but feeling afterwards the deepest compunction for his apostasy, he openly returned to his former tenets, and even courted the crown of martyrdom. He was condemned as an obstinate and relapsed heretic, and was burned in Smithfield.[***]

* Hall. fol. 186. Fox, vol. i. p. 138. Burnet, vol. i p. 159.

** Articles of impeachment in Herbert. Burnet.

*** Fox. Burnet, vol i. p. 165.

Many were brought into the bishops' courts for offences which appear trivial, but which were regarded as symbols of the party: some for teaching their children the Lord's prayer in English; others for reading the New Testament in that language, or for speaking against pilgrimages. To harbor the persecuted preachers, to neglect the fasts of the church, to declaim against the vices of the clergy, were capital offences. One Thomas Bilney, a priest, who had embraced the new doctrine, had been terrified into an abjuration; but was so haunted by remorse, that his friends dreaded some fatal effects of his despair. At last, his mind seemed to be more relieved; but this appearing calm proceeded only from the resolution which he had taken of expiating his past offence by an open confession of the truth, and by dying a martyr to it. He went through Norfolk, teaching the people to beware of idolatry, and of trusting for their salvation either to pilgrimages, or to the cowl of St. Francis, to the prayers of the saints, or to images. He was soon seized, tried in the bishop's court, and condemned as a relapsed heretic; and the writ was sent down to burn him. When brought to the stake, he discovered such patience, fortitude, and devotion, that the spectators were much affected with the horrors of his punishment; and some mendicant friars who were present, fearing that his martyrdom would be imputed to them, and make them lose those alms which they received from the charity of the people, desired him publicly to acquit them[*] of having any hand in his death. He willingly complied; and by this meekness gained the more on the sympathy of the people.

* Burnet, vol. i. p. 164.

Another person, still more heroic, being brought to the stake for denying the real presence, seemed almost in a transport of joy; and he tenderly embraced the fagots which were to be the instruments of his punishment, as the means of procuring him eternal rest. In short, the tide turning towards the new doctrine, those severe executions, which, in another disposition of men's minds, would have sufficed to suppress it, now served only to diffuse it the more among the people, and to inspire them with horror against the unrelenting persecutors.

But though Henry neglected not to punish the Protestant doctrine, which he deemed heresy, his most formidable enemies, he knew, were the zealous adherents to the ancient religion, chiefly the monks, who, having their immediate dependence on the Roman pontiff, apprehended their own ruin to be the certain consequence of abolishing his authority in England. Peyto, a friar, preaching before the king, had the assurance to tell him, "that many lying prophets had deceived him; but he, as a true Micajah, warned him, that the dogs would lick his blood, as they had done Ahab's."[*] The king took no notice of the insult; but allowed the preacher to depart in peace. Next Sunday he employed Dr. Corren to preach before him; who justified the king's proceedings, and gave Peyto the appellations of a rebel, a slanderer, a dog, and a traitor. Elston, another friar of the same house, interrupted the preacher, and told him that he was one of the lying prophets, who sought to establish by adultery the succession of the crown; but that he himself would justify all that Peyto had said. Henry silenced the petulant friar; but showed no other mark of resentment than ordering Peyto and him to be summoned before the council, and to be rebuked for their offence.[**] He even here bore patiently some new instances of their obstinacy and arrogance: when the earl of Essex, a privy councillor, told them that they deserved for their offence to be thrown into the Thames, Elston replied that the road to heaven lay as near by water as by land.[***]

* Strype, vol. i. p. 167.

** Collier, vol. ii. p. 86. Burnet, vol. i. p. 151.

*** Stowe, p. 562

But several monks were detected in a conspiracy, which, as it might have proved more dangerous to the king, was on its discovery attended with more fatal consequences to themselves. Elizabeth Barton, of Aldington, in Kent, commonly called the "holy maid of Kent," had been subject to hysterical fits, which threw her body into unusual convulsions; and having produced an equal disorder in her mind, made her utter strange sayings, which, as she was scarcely conscious of them during the time, had soon after entirely escaped her memory. The silly people in the neighborhood were struck with these appearances, which they imagined to be supernatural; and Richard Masters, vicar of the parish, a designing fellow, founded on them a project, from which he hoped to acquire both profit and consideration. He went to Warham, archbishop of Canterbury, then alive; and having given him an account of Elizabeth's revelations, he so far wrought on that prudent but superstitious prelate, as to receive orders from him to watch her in her trances, and carefully to note down all her future sayings. The regard paid her by a person of so high a rank, soon rendered her still more the object of attention to the neighborhood; and it was easy for Masters to persuade them, as well as the maid herself, that her ravings were inspirations of the Holy Ghost. Knavery, as is usual, soon after succeeding to delusion, she learned to counterfeit trances and she then uttered, in an extraordinary tone, such speeches as were dictated to her by her spiritual director. Masters associated with him Dr. Bocking, a canon of Canterbury; and their design was to raise the credit of an image of the Virgin which stood in a chapel belonging to Masters, and to draw to it such pilgrimages as usually frequented the more famous images and relics. In prosecution of this design, Elizabeth pretended revelations which directed her to have recourse to that image for a cure; and being brought before it, in the presence of a great multitude, she fell anew into convulsions: and after distorting her limbs and countenance during a competent time, she affected to have obtained a perfect recovery by the intercession of the Virgin.[*] This miracle was soon bruited abroad; and the two priests, finding the imposture to succeed beyond their own expectations, began to extend their views, and to lay the foundation of more important enterprises. They taught their penitent to declaim against the new doctrines, which she denominated heresy; against innovations in ecclesiastical government; and against the king's intended divorce from Catharine. She went so far as to assert, that if he prosecuted that design, and married another, he should not be a king a month longer, and should not an hour longer enjoy the favor of the Almighty, but should die the death of a villain. Many monks throughout England, either from folly or roguery, or from faction, which is often a complication of both, entered into the delusion; and one Deering, a friar, wrote a book of the revelations and prophecies of Elizabeth.[**] Miracles were daily added to increase the wonder; and the pulpit every where resounded with accounts of the sanctity and inspirations of the new prophetess. Messages were carried from her to Queen Catharine, by which that princess was exhorted to persist in her opposition to the divorce; the pope's ambassadors gave encouragement to the popular credulity; and even Fisher, bishop of Rochester, though a man of sense and learning, was carried away by an opinion so favorable to the party which he had espoused.[***]

* Stowe, p. 570. Blanquet's Epitome of Chronicler.

** Strype, vol. i. p. 181.

*** Collier, vol. ii. p. 87

The king at last began to think the matter worthy of his attention; and having ordered Elizabeth and her accomplices to be arrested, he brought them before the star chamber, where they freely, without being put to the torture made confession of their guilt. The parliament, in the session held the beginning of this year, passed an act of attainder against some who were engaged in this treasonable imposture,[*] and Elizabeth herself, Masters, Bocking, Deering, Rich, Risby, Gold, suffered for their crime. The bishop of Rochester, Abel, Addison, Lawrence, and others were condemned for misprision of treason; because they had not discovered some criminal speeches which they heard from Elizabeth;[**] and they were thrown into prison. The better to undeceive the multitude, the forgery of many of the prophetess's miracles was detected; and even the scandalous prostitution of her manners was laid open to the public. Those passions which so naturally insinuate themselves amidst the warm intimacies maintained by the devotees of different sexes, had taken place between Elizabeth and her confederates; and it was found that a door to her dormitory, which was said to have been miraculously opened, in order to give her access to the chapel, for the sake of frequent converse with Heaven, had been contrived by Bocking and Masters for less refined purposes.

* 25 Henry VIII. cap. 12. Burnet, vol. i. p. 149. Hall, fol. 220.

** Godwin's Annals, p. 53.

{1535.} The detection of this imposture, attended with so many odious circumstances, both hurt the credit of the ecclesiastics, particularly the monks, and instigated the king to take vengeance on them. He suppressed three monasteries of the Observantine friars; and finding that little clamor was excited by this act of power, he was the more encouraged to lay his rapacious hands on the remainder. Meanwhile he exercised punishment on individuals who were obnoxious to him. The parliament had made it treason to endeavor depriving the king of his dignity or titles: they had lately added to his other titles, that of supreme head of the church: it was inferred, that to deny his supremacy was treason; and many priors and ecclesiastics lost their lives for this new species of guilt. It was certainly a high instance of tyranny to punish the mere delivery of a political opinion, especially one that nowise affected the king's temporal right, as a capital offence, though attended with no overt act; and the parliament, in passing this law, had overlooked all the principles by which a civilized, much more a free people, should be governed: but the violence of changing so suddenly the whole system of government, and making it treason to deny what during many ages it had been heresy to assert, is an event which may appear somewhat extraordinary. Even the stern, unrelenting mind of Henry was at first shocked with these sanguinary measures; and he went so far as to change his garb and dress; pretending sorrow for the necessity by which he was pushed to such extremities. Still impelled, however, by his violent temper, and desirous of striking a terror into the whole nation, he proceeded, by making examples of Fisher and More, to consummate his lawless tyranny.

John Fisher, bishop of Rochester, was a prelate eminent for learning and morals, still more than for his ecclesiastical dignities, and for the high favor which he had long enjoyed with the king; When he was thrown into prison, on account of his refusing the oath which regarded the succession, and his concealment of Elizabeth Barton's treasonable speeches, he had not only been deprived of all his revenues, but stripped of his very clothes, and, without consideration of his extreme age, he was allowed nothing but rags, which scarcely sufficed to cover his nakedness.[*] In this condition he lay in prison above a twelvemonth; when the pope, willing to recompense the sufferings of so faithful an adherent, created him a cardinal though Fisher was so indifferent about that dignity, that, even if the purple were lying at his feet, he declared that he would not stoop to take it. This promotion of a man merely for his opposition to royal authority, roused the indignation of the king; and he resolved to make the innocent person feel the effects of his resentment. Fisher was indicted for denying the king's supremacy, was tried, condemned, and beheaded.

* Fuller's Church Hist. book v. p. 203.

The execution of this prelate was intended as a warning to More, whose compliance, on account of his great authority both abroad and at home, and his high reputation for learning and virtue, was anxiously desired by the king. That prince also bore as great personal affection and regard to More, as his imperious mind, the sport of passions, was susceptible of towards a man who in any particular opposed his violent inclinations. But More could never be prevailed on to acknowledge any opinion so contrary to his principles as that of the king's supremacy; and though Henry exacted that compliance from the whole nation, there was as yet no law obliging any one to take an oath to that purpose. Rich, the solicitor-general, was sent to confer with More, then a prisoner, who kept a cautious silence with regard to the supremacy: he was only inveigled to say, that any question with regard to the law which established that prerogative was a two-edged sword; if a person answer one way, it will confound his soul; if another, it will destroy his body. No more was wanted to found an indictment of high treason against the prisoner. His silence was called malicious, and made a part of his crime; and these words, which had casually dropped from him, were interpreted as a denial of the supremacy.[*] Trials were mere formalities during this reign: the jury gave sentence against More, who had long expected this fate, and who needed no preparation to fortify him against the terrors of death. Not only his constancy, but even his cheerfulness, nay, his usual facetiousness, never forsook him; and he made a sacrifice of his life to his integrity, with the same indifference that he maintained in any ordinary occurrence. When he was mounting the scaffold, he said to one, "Friend, help me up; and when I come down again, let me shift for myself." The executioner asking him forgiveness, he granted the request, but told him, "You will never get credit by beheading me, my neck is so short." Then laying his head on the block, he bade the executioner stay till he put aside his beard: "For," said he, "it never committed treason." Nothing was wanting to the glory of this end, except a better cause, more free from weakness and superstition. But as the man followed his principles and sense of duty, however misguided, his constancy and integrity are not the less objects of our admiration. He was beheaded in the fifty-third year of his age.

* More's Life of Sir Thomas More. Herbert, p. 393

When the execution of Fisher and More was reported at Rome, especially that of the former, who was invested with the dignity of cardinal, every one discovered the most violent rage against the king; and numerous libels were published by the wits and orators of Italy, comparing him to Caligula, Nero, Domitian, and all the most unrelenting tyrants of antiquity. Clement VII. had died about six months after he pronounced sentence against the king; and Paul III., of the name of Farnese, had succeeded to the papal throne. This pontiff, who while cardinal, had always favored Henry's cause, had hoped that personal animosities being buried with his predecessor, might not be impossible to form an agreement with England: and the king himself was so desirous of accommodating matters, that in a negotiation which he entered into with Francis a little before this time, he required that that monarch should conciliate a friendship between him and the court of Rome. But Henry was accustomed to prescribe, not to receive terms; and even while he was negotiating for peace, his usual violence often carried him to commit offences which rendered the quarrel totally incurable. The execution of Fisher was regarded by Paul as so capital an injury, that he immediately passed censures against the king, citing him and all his adherents to appear in Rome within ninety days, in order to answer for their crimes: if they failed, he excommunicated them; deprived the king of his crown; laid the kingdom under an interdict; declared his issue by Anne Boleyn illegitimate; dissolved all leagues which any Catholic princes had made with him; gave his kingdom to any invader; commanded the nobility to take arms against him; freed his subjects from all oaths of allegiance; cut off their commerce with foreign states; and declared it lawful for any one to seize them, to make slaves of their persons, and to convert their effects to his own use.[*] But though these censures were passed, they were not at that time openly denounced; the pope delayed the publication till he should find an agreement with England entirely desperate; and till the emperor, who was at that time hard pressed by the Turks and the Protestant princes in Germany, should be in a condition to carry the sentence into execution.

The king knew that he might expect any injury which it should be in Charles's power to inflict; and he therefore made it the chief object of his policy to incapacitate that monarch from wreaking his resentment upon him.[**]

* Sanders, p. 148.

** Herbert, p. 350, 351.

He renewed his friendship with Francis, and opened negotiations for marrying his infant daughter, Elizabeth, with the duke of Angouleme, third son of Francis. These two monarchs also made advances to the princes of the Protestant league in Germany, ever jealous of the emperor's ambition; and Henry, besides remitting them some money, sent Fox, bishop of Hereford, as Francis did Bellay, lord of Langley, to treat with them. But during the first fervors of the reformation, an agreement in theological tenets was held, as well as a union of interests, to be essential to a good correspondence among states; and though both Francis and Henry flattered the German princes with hopes of their embracing the confession of Augsbourg, it was looked upon as a bad symptom of their sincerity, that they exercised such extreme rigor against all preachers of the reformation in their respective dominions.[*] Henry carried the feint so far, that, while he thought himself the first theologian in the world, he yet invited over Melaricthon, Bucer, Sturmius, Draco, and other German divines, that they might confer with him, and instruct him in the foundation of their tenets. These theologians were now of great importance in the world; and no poet or philosopher, even in ancient Greece, where they were treated with most respect, had ever reached equal applause and admiration with those wretched composers of metaphysical polemics. The German princes told the king, that they could not spare their divines; and as Henry had no hopes of agreement with such zealous disputants, and knew that in Germany the followers of Luther would not associate with the disciples of Zuinglius, because, though they agreed in every thing else, they differed in some minute particulars with regard to the eucharist, he was the more indifferent on account of this refusal. He could also foresee, that even while the league of Smalcalde did not act in concert with him, they would always be carried by their interests to oppose the emperor: and the hatred between Francis and that monarch was so inveterate, that he deemed himself sure of a sincere ally in one or other of these potentates.

* Sleidan, lib. 10.

{1536.} During these negotiations, an incident happened in England, which promised a more amicable conclusion of those disputes, and seemed even to open the way for a reconciliation between Henry and Charles. Queen Catharine was seized with a lingering illness, which at last brought her to her grave; she died at Kimbolton, in the county of Huntingdon, in the fiftieth year of her age. A little before she expired, she wrote a very tender letter to the king, in which she gave him the appellation of "her most dear lord, king, and husband." She told him that as the hour of her death was now approaching, she laid hold of this last opportunity to inculcate on him the importance of his religious duty, and the comparative emptiness of all human grandeur and enjoyment; that though his fondness towards these perishable advantages had thrown her into many calamities, as well as created to himself much trouble, she yet forgave him all past injuries, and hoped that his pardon would be ratified in Heaven; and that she had no other request to make, than to recommend to him his daughter, the sole pledge of their loves; and to crave his protection for her maids and servants. She concluded with these words: "I make this vow, that mine eyes desire you above all things."[*] The king was touched, even to the shedding of tears, by this last tender proof of Catharine's affection; but Queen Anne is said to have expressed her joy for the death of a rival beyond what decency or humanity could permit.[**]

The emperor thought that, as the demise of his aunt had removed all foundation of personal animosity between him and Henry, it might not now be impossible to detach him from the alliance of France, and to renew his own confederacy with England, from which he had formerly reaped so much advantage. He sent Henry proposals for a return to ancient amity, upon these conditions:[***] that he should be reconciled to the see of Rome, that he should assist him in his war with the Turk, and that he should take part with him against Francis, who now threatened the duchy of Milan. The king replied, that he was willing to be on good terms with the emperor, provided that prince would acknowledge that the former breach of friendship came entirely from himself: as to the conditions proposed, the proceedings against the bishop of Rome were so just, and so fully ratified by the parliament of England, that they could not now be revoked; when Christian princes should have settled peace among themselves, he would not fail to exert that vigor which became him, against the enemies of the faith; and after amity with the emperor was once fully restored, he should then be in a situation, as a common friend both to him and Francis, either to mediate an agreement between them, or to assist the injured party.

* Herbert, p. 403.

** Burnet, vol. i. p. 192

*** Du Bellai, liv. v. Herbert. Burnet, vol. iii. in Coll. No. 60.

What rendered Henry more indifferent to the advances made by the emperor was, both his experience of the usual duplicity and insincerity of that monarch, and the intelligence which he received of the present transactions in Europe. Francis Sforza, duke of Milan, had died without issue; and the emperor maintained that the duchy, being a fief of the empire, was devolved to him, as head of the Germanic body: not to give umbrage, however, to the states of Italy, he professed his intention of bestowing that principality on some prince who should be obnoxious to no party, and he even made offer of it to the duke of Angouleme, third son of Francis. The French monarch, who pretended that his own right to Milan was now revived upon Sforza's death, was content to substitute his second son, the duke of Orleans, in his place; and the emperor pretended to close with this proposal. But his sole intention in that liberal concession was to gain time till he should put himself in a warlike posture, and be able to carry an invasion into Francis's dominions. The ancient enmity between these, princes broke out anew in bravadoes, and in personal insults on each other, ill becoming persons of their rank, and still less suitable to men of such unquestioned bravery. Charles soon after invaded Provence in person, with an army of fifty thousand men; but met with no success. His army perished with sickness, fatigue, famine, and other disasters; and he was obliged to raise the siege of Marseilles, and retire into Italy with the broken remains of his forces. An army of imperialists, near thirty thousand strong, which invaded France on the side of the Netherlands, and laid siege to Peronne, made no greater progress, but retired upon the approach of a French army. And Henry had thus the satisfaction to find, both that his ally Francis was likely to support himself without foreign assistance, and that his own tranquillity was fully insured by these violent wars and animosities on the continent.

If any inquietude remained with the English court, it was solely occasioned by the state of affairs in Scotland. James, hearing of the dangerous situation of his ally Francis, generously levied some forces; and embarking them on board vessels which he had hired for that purpose, landed them safely in France. He even went over in person; and making haste to join the camp of the French king, which then lay in Provence, and to partake of his danger, he met that prince at Lyons, who, having repulsed the emperor, was now returning to his capital. Recommended by so agreeable and seasonable an instance of friendship, the king of Scots paid his addresses to Magdalen, daughter of the French monarch; and this prince had no other objection to the match than what arose from the infirm state of his daughter's health, which seemed to threaten her with an approaching end. But James having gained the affections of the princess, and obtained her consent, the father would no longer oppose the united desires of his daughter and his friend: they were accordingly married, and soon after set sail for Scotland, where the young queen, as was foreseen, died in a little time after her arrival. Francis, however, was afraid lest his ally Henry, whom he likewise looked on as his friend, and who lived with him on a more cordial footing than is usual among great princes, should be displeased that this close confederacy between France and Scotland was concluded without his participation. He therefore despatched Pommeraye to London, in order to apologize for this measure; but Henry, with his usual openness and freedom, expressed such displeasure, that he refused even to confer with the ambassador; and Francis was apprehensive of a rupture with a prince who regulated his measures more by humor and passion than by the rules of political prudence. But the king was so fettered by the opposition in which he was engaged against the pope and the emperor, that he pursued no further this disgust against Francis; and in the end, every thing remained in tranquillity both on the side of France and of Scotland.

The domestic peace of England seemed to be exposed to more hazard by the violent innovations in religion; and it may be affirmed that, in this dangerous conjuncture, nothing insured public tranquillity so much as the decisive authority acquired by the king, and his great ascendant over all his subjects. Not only the devotion paid to the crown was profound during that age: the personal respect inspired by Henry was considerable; and even the terrors with which he overawed every one, were not attended with any considerable degree of hatred. His frankness, his sincerity, his magnificence, his generosity, were virtues which counterbalanced his violence, cruelty, and impetuosity. And the important rank which his vigor, more than his address, acquired him in all foreign negotiations, flattered the vanity of Englishmen, and made them the more willingly endure those domestic hardships to which they were exposed. The king, conscious of his advantages, was now proceeding to the most dangerous exercise of his authority; and after paving the way for that measure by several preparatory expedients, he was at last determined to suppress the monasteries, and to put himself in possession of their ample revenues.

The great increase of monasteries, if matters be considered merely in a political light, will appear the radical inconvenience of the Catholic religion; and every other disadvantage attending that communion seems to have an inseparable connection with these religious institutions. Papal usurpations, the tyranny of the inquisition, the multiplicity of holidays; all these fetters on liberty and industry were ultimately derived from the authority and insinuation of monks, whose habitations, being established every where, proved so many seminaries of superstition and of folly. This order of men was extremely enraged against Henry, and regarded the abolition of the papal authority in England as the removal of the sole protection which they enjoyed against the rapacity of the crown and of the courtiers. They were now subjected to the king's visitation; the supposed sacredness of their bulls from Rome was rejected; the progress of the reformation abroad, which had every where been attended with the abolition of the monastic orders, gave them reason to apprehend like consequences in England; and though the king still maintained the doctrine of purgatory, to which most of the convents owed their origin and support, it was foreseen, that, in the progress of the contest, he would every day be led to depart wider from ancient institutions, and be drawn nearer the tenets of the reformers, with whom his political interests naturally induced him to unite. Moved by these considerations, the friars employed all their influence to inflame the people against the king's government; and Henry, finding their safety irreconcilable with his own, was determined to seize the present opportunity, and utterly destroy his declared enemies.

Cromwell, secretary of state, had been appointed vicar-general, or vicegerent, a new office, by which the king's supremacy, or the absolute uncontrollable power assumed over the church, was delegated to him. He employed Layton, London, Price, Gage, Petre, Bellasis, and others, as commissioners who carried on every where a rigorous inquiry with regard to the conduct and deportment of all the friars. During times of faction, especially of the religious kind, no equity is to be expected from adversaries; and as it was known, that the king's intention in this visitation was to find a pretence for abolishing monasteries, we may naturally conclude, that the reports of the commissioners are very little to be relied on. Friars were encouraged to bring in informations against their brethren; the slightest evidence was credited; and even the calumnies spread abroad by the friends of the reformation, were regarded as grounds of proof. Monstrous disorders are therefore said to have been found in many of the religious houses; whole convents of women abandoned to lewdness; signs of abortions procured, of infants murdered, of unnatural lusts between persons of the same sex. It is indeed probable, that the blind submission of the people, during those ages, would render the friars and nuns more unguarded and more dissolute than they are in any Roman Catholic country at present; but still the reproaches, which it is safest to credit, are such as point at vices naturally connected with the very institution of convents, and with the monastic life. The cruel and inveterate factions and quarrels, therefore, which the commissioners mentioned, are very credible among men, who, being confined together within the same walls, never can forget their mutual animosities, and who, being cut off from all the most endearing connections of nature, are commonly cursed with hearts more selfish, and tempers more unrelenting, than fall to the share of other men. The pious frauds practised to increase the devotion and liberality of the people, may be regarded as certain, in an order founded on illusions, lies, and superstition. The supine idleness also, and its attendant, profound ignorance, with which the convents were reproached, admit of no question; and though monks were the true preservers, as well as inventors, of the dreaming and captious philosophy of the schools, no manly or elegant knowledge could be expected among men, whose lives, condemned to a tedious uniformity, and deprived of all emulation, afforded nothing to raise the mind or cultivate the genius.

Some few monasteries, terrified with this rigorous inquisition carried on by Cromwell and his commissioners, surrendered their revenues into the king's hands; and the monks received small pensions as the reward of their obsequiousness. Orders were given to dismiss such nuns and friars as were below four and twenty, whose vows were, on that account, supposed not to be binding. The doors of the convents were opened, even to such as were above that age; and every one recovered his liberty who desired it. But as all these expedients did not fully answer the king's purpose, he had recourse to his usual instrument of power, the parliament; and in order to prepare men for the innovations projected, the report of the visitors was published, and a general horror was endeavored to be excited n the nation against institutions, which, to their ancestors had been the objects of the most profound veneration.

The king, though determined utterly to abolish the monastic order, resolved to proceed gradually in this great work; and he gave directions to the parliament to go no further, at present, than to suppress the lesser monasteries, which possessed revenues below two hundred pounds a year.[*] These were found to be the most corrupted, as lying less under the restraint of shame, and being exposed to less scrutiny;[**] and it was deemed safest to begin with them, and thereby prepare the way for the greater innovations projected. By this act three hundred and seventy-six monasteries were suppressed, and their revenues, amounting to thirty-two thousand pounds a year, were granted to the king; besides their goods, chattels, and plate, computed at a hundred thousand pounds more.[***] It does not appear that any opposition was made to this important law: so absolute was Henry's authority[****] A court, called the court of augmentation of the king's revenue, was erected for the management of these funds. The people naturally concluded from this circumstance, that Henry intended to proceed in despoiling the church of her patrimony.[v]

The act formerly passed, empowering the king to name thirty-two commissioners for framing a body of canon law, was renewed; but the project was never carried into execution. Henry thought, that the present perplexity of that law increased his authority, and kept the clergy in still greater dependence.

Further progress was made in completing the union of Wales with England: the separate jurisdictions of several great lords, or marchers, as they were called, which obstructed the course of justice in Wales, and encouraged robbery and pillaging, were abolished; and the authority of the king's courts was extended every where. Some jurisdictions of a like nature in England were also abolished this session.

* 27 Henry VIII. c. 28.

** Burnet, vol. i. p. 193.

*** It is pretended, (see Holingshed, p. 939,) that ten thousand monks wore turned out on the dissolution of the lesser monasteries. If so, most of them must have been mendicants; for the revenue could not have supported near that number. The mendicants, no doubt, still continued their former profession.

**** 27 Henry VIII. c. 27.

v 27 Henry VIII. c. 4

The commons, sensible that they had gained nothing by opposing the king's will when he formerly endeavored to secure the profits of wardships and liveries, were now contented to frame a law,[*] such as he dictated to them. It was enacted, that the possession of land shall be adjudged to be in those who have the use of it, not in those to whom it is transferred in trust.

* 27 Henry VIII. c. 10.

After all these laws were passed, the king dissolved the parliament; a parliament memorable, not only for the great and important innovations which it introduced, but also for the long time it had sitten, and the frequent prorogations which it had undergone. Henry had found it so obsequious to his will, that he did not choose, during those religious ferments, to hazard a new election; and he continued the same parliament above six years: a practice at that time unusual in England.

The convocation which sat during this session was engaged in a very important work, the deliberating on the new translation which was projected of the Scriptures. The translation given by Tindal, though corrected by himself in a new edition, was still complained of by the clergy as inaccurate and unfaithful; and it was now proposed to them, that they should themselves publish a translation which would not be liable to those objections.

The friends of the reformation asserted, that nothing could be more absurd than to conceal, in an unknown tongue, the word of God itself, and thus to counteract the will of Heaven, which, for the purpose of universal salvation, had published that salutary doctrine to all nations: that if this practice were not very absurd, the artifice at least was very gross, and proved a consciousness, that the glosses and traditions of the clergy stood in direct opposition to the original text, dictated by supreme intelligence: that it was now necessary for the people, so long abused by interested pretensions, to see with their own eyes, and to examine whether the claims of the ecclesiastics were founded on that charter which was on all hands acknowledged to be derived from Heaven: and that, as a spirit of research and curiosity was happily revived, and men were now obliged to make a choice among the contending doctrines of different sects, the proper materials for decision, and above all, the Holy Scriptures, should be set before them; and the revealed will of God, which the change of language had somewhat obscured, be again, by their means, revealed to mankind.

The favorers of the ancient religion maintained, on the other hand, that the pretence of making the people see with their own eyes was a mere cheat, and was itself a very gross artifice, by which the new preachers hoped to obtain the guidance of them, and to seduce them from those pastors whom the laws, whom ancient establishments, whom Heaven itself, had appointed for their spiritual direction: that the people were by their ignorance, their stupidity, their necessary avocations, totally unqualified to choose their own principles; and it was a mockery to set materials before them, of which they could not possibly make any proper use: that even in the affairs of common life, and in their temporal concerns, which lay more within the compass of human reason, the laws had in a great measure deprived them of the right of private judgment, and had, happily for their own and the public interest, regulated their conduct and behavior: that theological questions were placed far beyond the sphere of vulgar comprehension; and ecclesiastics themselves, though assisted by all the advantages of education, erudition, and an assiduous study of the science, could not be fully assured of a just decision, except by the promise made them in Scripture, that God would be ever present with his church, and that the gates of hell should not prevail against her: that the gross errors adopted by the wisest heathens, proved how unfit men were to grope their own way through this profound darkness; nor would the Scriptures, if trusted to every man's judgment, be able to remedy; on the contrary, they would much augment, those fatal illusions: that sacred writ itself was involved in so much obscurity, gave rise to so many difficulties, contained so many appearing contradictions, that it was the most dangerous weapon that could be intrusted into the hands of the ignorant and giddy multitude: that the poetical style in which a great part of it was composed, at the same time that it occasioned uncertainty in the sense, by its multiplied tropes and figures, was sufficient to kindle the zeal of fanaticism, and thereby throw civil society into the most furious combustion: that a thousand sects must arise, which would pretend, each of them, to derive its tenets from the Scripture; and would be able, by specious arguments, or even without specious arguments, to seduce silly women and ignorant mechanics into a belief of the most monstrous principles: and that if ever this disorder, dangerous to the magistrate himself, received a remedy, it must be from the tacit acquiescence of the people in some new authority; and it was evidently better, without further contest or inquiry, to adhere peaceably to ancient, and therefore the more secure establishments.

These latter arguments, being more agreeable to ecclesiastical governments, would probably have prevailed in the convocation, had it not been for the authority of Cranmer, Latimer, and some other bishops, who were supposed to speak the king's sense of the matter. A vote was passed for publishing a new translation of the Scriptures; and in three years' time the work was finished, and printed at Paris. This was deemed a great point gained by the reformers, and a considerable advancement of their cause. Further progress was soon expected, after such important successes.

But while the retainers to the new religion were exulting in their prosperity, they met with a mortification which seemed to blast all their hopes: their patroness, Anne Boleyn, possessed no longer the king's favor; and soon after lost her life by the rage of that furious monarch. Henry had persevered in his love to this lady during six years that his prosecution of the divorce lasted; and the more obstacles he met with to the gratification of his passion, the more determined zeal did he exert in pursuing his purpose. But the affection which had subsisted, and still increased under difficulties, had not long attained secure possession of its object, when it languished from satiety; and the king's heart was apparently estranged from his consort. Anne's enemies soon perceived the fatal change; and they were forward to widen the breach, when they found that they incurred no danger by interposing in those delicate concerns. She had been delivered of a dead son; and Henry's extreme fondness for male issue being thus for the present disappointed, his temper, equally violent and superstitious, was disposed to make the innocent mother answerable for the misfortune.[*] But the chief means which Anne's enemies employed to inflame the king against her, was his jealousy.

* Burnet, vol. i. p. 196.

Anne, though she appears to have been entirely innocent, and even virtuous in her conduct, had a certain gayety, if not levity of character which threw her off her guard, and made her less circumspect than her situation required. Her education in France rendered her the more prone to those freedoms; and it was with difficulty she conformed herself to that strict ceremonial practised in the court of England. More vain than haughty, she was pleased to see the influence of her beauty on all around her; and she indulged herself in an easy familiarity with persons who were formerly her equals, and who might then have pretended to her friendship and good graces. Henry's dignity was offended with these popular manners; and though the lover had been entirely blind, the husband possessed but too quick discernment and penetration. III instruments interposed, and put a malignant interpretation on the harmless liberties of the queen: the viscountess of Rocheford, in particular, who was married to the queen's brother, but who lived on bad terms with her sister-in-law, insinuated the most cruel suspicions into the king's mind; and as she was a woman of a profligate character, she paid no regard either to truth or humanity in those calumnies which she suggested. She pretended that her own husband was engaged in a criminal correspondence with his sister; and not content with this imputation, she poisoned every action of the queen's, and represented each instance of favor, which she conferred on any one, as a token of affection. Henry Norris, groom of the stole, Weston and Brereton, gentlemen of the king's chamber, together with Mark Smeton, groom of the chamber, were observed to possess much of the queen's friendship; and they served her with a zeal and attachment, which, though chiefly derived from gratitude, might not improbably be seasoned with some mixture of tenderness for so amiable a princess. The king's jealousy laid hold of the slightest circumstance; and finding no particular object on which it could fasten, it vented itself equally on every one that came within the verge of its fury.

Had Henry's jealousy been derived from love, though it might on a sudden have proceeded to the most violent extremities, it would have been subject to many remorses and contrarieties; and might at last have served only to augment that affection on which it was founded. But it was a more stern jealousy, fostered entirely by pride: his love was transferred to another object. Jane, daughter of Sir John Seymour, and maid of honor to the queen, a young lady of singular beauty and merit, had obtained an entire ascendant over him; and he was determined to sacrifice every thing to the gratification of this new appetite. Unlike to most monarchs, who judge lightly of the crime of gallantry, and who deem the young damsels of their court rather honored than disgraced by their passion, he seldom thought of any other attachment than that of marriage; and in order to attain this end, he underwent more difficulties, and committed greater crimes, than those which he sought to avoid by forming that legal connection And having thus entertained the design of raising his new mistress to his bed and throne, he more willingly hearkened to every suggestion which threw any imputation of guilt on the unfortunate Anne Boleyn.

The king's jealousy first appeared openly in a tilting at Greenwich, where the queen happened to drop her handkerchief, an incident probably casual, but interpreted by him as an instance of gallantry to some of her paramours.[*] He immediately retired from the place; sent orders to confine her to her chamber; arrested Norris, Brereton, Weston, and Smeton, together with her brother Rocheford; and threw them into prison. The queen, astonished at these instances of his fury, thought that he meant only to try her; but finding him in earnest, she reflected on his obstinate, unrelenting spirit, and she prepared herself for that melancholy doom which was awaiting her. Next day, she was sent to the Tower; and on her way thither, she was informed of her supposed offences, of which she had hitherto been ignorant: she made earnest protestations of her innocence; and when she entered the prison, she fell on her knees, and prayed God so to help her, as she was not guilty of the crime imputed to her. Her surprise and confusion threw her into hysterical disorders; and in that situation she thought that the best proof of her innocence was to make an entire confession; and she revealed some indiscretions and levities, which her simplicity had equally betrayed her to commit and to avow. She owned that she had once rallied Norris on his delaying his marriage, and had told him that he probably expected her when she should be a widow: she had reproved Weston, she said, for his affection to a kinswoman of hers, and his indifference towards his wife; but he told her that she had mistaken the object of his affection, for it was herself; upon which she defied him.[*] She affirmed that Smeton had never been in her chamber but twice, when he played on the harpsichord; but she acknowledged that he had once had the boldness to tell her that a look sufficed him. The king, instead of being satisfied with the candor and sincerity of her confession, regarded these indiscretions only as preludes to greater and more criminal intimacies.

* Burnet, vol. i. p. 198.

** Strype, vol. i. p. 281.

Of all those multitudes whom the beneficence of the queen's tamper had obliged during her prosperous fortune, no one durst interpose between her and the king's fury; and the person whose advancement every breath had favored, and every countenance had smiled upon, was now left neglected and abandoned. Even her uncle, the duke of Norfolk, preferring the connections of party to the ties of blood, was become her most dangerous enemy; and all the retainers to the Catholic religion hoped that her death would terminate the king's quarrel with Rome, and leave him again to his natural and early bent, which had inclined him to maintain the most intimate union with the apostolic see. Cranmer alone, of all the queen's adherents, still retained his friendship for her; and, as far as the king's impetuosity permitted him, he endeavored to moderate the violent prejudices entertained against her.

The queen herself wrote Henry a letter from the Tower, full of the most tender expostulations and of the warmest protestations of innocence.[*] [10] This letter had no influence on the unrelenting mind of Henry, who was determined to pave the way for his new marriage by the death of Anne Boleyn. Morris, Weston, Brereton, and Smeton, were tried; but no legal evidence was produced against them. The chief proof of their guilt consisted in a hearsay from one Lady Wingfield, who was dead. Smeton was prevailed on, by the vain hopes of life, to confess a criminal correspondence with the queen;[**] but even her enemies expected little advantage from this confession; for they never dared to confront him with her; and he was immediately executed; as were also Brereton and Weston. Norris had been much in the king's favor, and an offer of life was made him, if he would confess his crime and accuse the queen; but he generously rejected the proposal, and said that in his conscience he believed her entirely guiltless: but for his part, he could accuse her of nothing, and he would rather die a thousand deaths than calumniate an innocent person.

* See note K, at the end of the volume.

** Burnet, vol. i. p. 202.

The queen and her brother were tried by a jury of peers consisting of the duke of Suffolk, the marquis of Exeter, the earl of Arundel, and twenty-three more: their uncle, the duke of Norfolk, presided as high steward. Upon what proof or pretence the crime of incest was imputed to them, is unknown: the chief evidence, it is said, amounted to no more than that Rocheford had been seen to lean on her bed before some company. Part of the charge against her was that she had affirmed to her minions, that the king never had her heart; and had said to each of them apart, that she loved him better than any person whatsoever; "which was to the slander of the issue begotten between the king and her." By this strained interpretation, her guilt was brought under the statute of the twenty-fifth of this reign; in which it was declared criminal to throw any slander upon the king, queen, or their issue. Such palpable absurdities were at that time admitted; and they were regarded by the peers of England as a sufficient reason for sacrificing an innocent queen to the cruelty of their tyrant. Though unassisted by counsel, she defended herself with presence of mind; and the spectators could not forbear pronouncing her entirely innocent. Judgment, however, was given by the court, both against the queen and Lord Rocheford; and her verdict contained, that she should be burned or beheaded at the king's pleasure. When this dreadful sentence was pronounced, she was not terrified, but lifting up her hands to heaven, said, "O Father! O Creator! thou who art the way, the truth, and the life, thou knowest that I have not deserved this fate;" and then turning to the judges, made the most pathetic declarations of her innocence.

Henry, not satisfied with this cruel vengeance, was resolved entirely to annul his marriage with Anne Boleyn, and to declare her issue illegitimate: he recalled to his memory, that a little after her appearance in the English court, some attachment had been acknowledged between her and the earl of Northumberland, then Lord Piercy; and he now questioned that nobleman with regard to these engagements. Northumberland took an oath before the two archbishops, that no contract or promise of marriage had ever passed between them: he received the sacrament upon it, before the duke of Norfolk and others of the privy council; and this solemn act he accompanied with the most solemn protestations of veracity.[*] The queen, however, was shaken by menaces of executing the sentence against her in its greatest rigor, and was prevailed on to confess in court some lawful impediment to her marriage with the king.[**] The afflicted primate, who sat as judge, thought himself obliged by this confession to pronounce the marriage null and invalid. Henry, in the transports of his fury, did not perceive that his proceedings were totally inconsistent, and that if her marriage were from the beginning invalid, she could not possibly be guilty of adultery.

* Herbert, p. 384*[**missing period]

** Heylin, p. 94.

The queen now prepared for suffering the death to which she was sentenced. She sent her last message to the king, and acknowledged the obligations which she owed him, in thus uniformly continuing his endeavors for her advancement: from a private gentlewoman, she said, he had first made her a marchioness, then a queen, and now, since he could raise her no higher in this world, he was sending her to be a saint in heaven. She then renewed the protestations of her innocence, and recommended her daughter to his care. Before the lieutenant of the Tower, and all who approached her, she made the like declarations; and continued to behave herself with her usual serenity, and even with cheerfulness. "The executioner," she said to the lieutenant, "is, I hear, very expert; and my neck is very slender:" upon which she grasped it in her hand, and smiled. When brought, however, to the scaffold, she softened her tone a little with regard to her protestations of innocence. She probably reflected, that the obstinacy of Queen Catharine, and her opposition to the king's will, had much alienated him from the lady Mary: her own maternal concern, therefore, for Elizabeth prevailed in these last moments over that indignation which the unjust sentence by which she suffered naturally excited in her. She said that she was come to die, as she was sentenced, by the law: she would accuse none, nor say any thing of the ground upon which she was judged. She prayed heartily for the king; called him a most merciful and gentle prince; and acknowledged that he had always been to her a good and gracious sovereign; and if any one should think proper to canvass her cause, she desired him to judge the best.[*] She was beheaded by the executioner of Calais, who was sent for as more expert than any in England. Her body was negligently thrown into a common chest of elm-tree, made to hold arrows, and was buried in the Tower.

* Burnet. vol. i. p. 205.

The innocence of this unfortunate queen cannot reasonably be called in question. Henry himself, in the violence of his rage, knew not whom to accuse as her lover; and though he imputed guilt to her brother, and four persons more, he was able to bring proof against none of them. The whole tenor of her conduct forbids us to ascribe to her an abandoned character, such as is implied in the king's accusation: had she been so lost to all prudence and sense of shame, she must have exposed herself to detection, and afforded her enemies some evidence against her. But the king made the most effectual apology for her, by marrying Jane Seymour the very day after her execution.[*] His impatience to gratify this new passion caused him to forgot all regard to decency; and his cruel heart was not softened a moment by the bloody catastrophe of a person who had so long been the object of his most tender affections.

The lady Mary thought the death of her step-mother a proper opportunity for reconciling herself to the king, who, besides other causes of disgust, had been offended with her on account of the part which she had taken in her mother's quarrel. Her advances were not at first received; and Henry exacted from her some further proofs of submission and obedience: he required this young princess, then about twenty years of age, to adopt his theological tenets; to acknowledge his supremacy; to renounce the pope; and to own her mother's marriage to be unlawful and incestuous. These points were of hard digestion with the princess; but after some delays, and even refusals, she was at last prevailed on to write a letter to her father,[**] containing her assent to the articles required of her; upon which she was received into favor. But notwithstanding the return of the king's affection to the issue of his first marriage, he divested not himself of kindness towards the lady Elizabeth; and the new queen, who was blessed with a singular sweetness of disposition, discovered strong proofs of attachment towards her.

* Burnet, vol. i. p. 297.

** Burnet, vol. i. p. 207. Strype, vol. i. p. 285.

The trial and conviction of Queen Anne, and the subsequent events, made it necessary for the king to summon a new parliament; and he here, in his speech, made a merit to his people, that, notwithstanding the misfortunes attending his two former marriages, he had been induced for their good to venture on a third. The speaker received this profession with suitable gratitude; and he took thence occasion to praise the king for his wonderful gifts of grace and nature: he compared him, for justice and prudence, to Solomon; for strength and fortitude, to Samson; and for beauty and comeliness, to Absalom. The king very humbly replied, by the mouth cf the chancellor, that he disavowed these praises; since, if he were really possessed of such endowments, they were the gift of Almighty God only. Henry found that the parliament was no less submissive in deeds than complaisant in their expressions, and that they would go the same lengths as the former in gratifying even his most lawless passions. His divorce from Anne Boleyn was ratified;[*] that queen and all her accomplices were attainted; the issue of both his former marriages were declared illegitimate, and it was even made treason to assert the legitimacy of either of them; to throw any slander upon the present king, queen, or their issue, was subjected to the same penalty; the crown was settled on the king's issue by Jane Seymour, or any subsequent wife; and in case he should die without children, he was empowered, by his will or letters patent, to dispose of the crown; an enormous authority, especially when intrusted to a prince so violent and capricious in his humor. Whoever, being required, refused to answer upon oath to any article of this act of settlement, was declared to be guilty of treason; and by this clause a species of political inquisition was established in the kingdom, as well as the accusations of treason multiplied to an unreasonable degree. The king was also empowered to confer on any one, by his will or letters patent, any castles, honors, liberties, or franchises; words which might have been extended to the dismembering of the kingdom, by the erection of principalities and independent jurisdictions. It was also, by another act, made treason to marry, without the king's consent, any princess related in the first degree to the crown. This act was occasioned by the discovery of a design formed by Thomas Howard, brother of the duke of Norfolk, to espouse the lady Margaret Douglas, niece to the king, by his sister the queen of Scots and the earl of Angus. Howard, as well as the young lady, was committed to the Tower. She recovered her liberty soon after; but he died in confinement. An act of attainder passed against him this session of parliament.

* The parliament, in annulling the king's marriage with Anne Boleyn, gives this as a reason, "For that his highness had chosen to wife the excellent and virtuous Lady Jane, who, for her convenient years, excellent beauty, and pureness of flesh and blood, would be apt, God willing, to conceive issue by his highness."

Another accession was likewise gained to the authority of the crown; the king or any of his successors was empowered to repeal or annul, by letters patent, whatever act of parliament had been passed before he was four and twenty years of age. Whoever maintained the authority of the bishop of Rome by word or writ, or endeavored in any manner to restore it in England, was subjected to the penalty of a premunire that is, his goods were forfeited, and he was put out of the protection of law. And any person who possessed any office, ecclesiastical or civil, or received any grant or charter from the crown, and yet refused to renounce the pope by oath, was declared to be guilty of treason. The renunciation prescribed runs in the style of, "So help me God, all saints, and the holy evangelists."[*] The pope, hearing of Anne Boleyn's disgrace and death, had hoped that the door was opened to a reconciliation, and had been making some advances to Henry: but this was the reception he met with. Henry was now become indifferent with regard to papal censures; and finding a great increase of authority, as well as of revenue, to accrue from his quarrel with Rome, he was determined to persevere in his present measures. This parliament also, even more than any foregoing, convinced him how much he commanded the respect of his subjects, and what confidence he might repose in them. Though the elections had been made on a sudden, without any preparation or intrigue, the members discovered an unlimited attachment to his person and government.[**]

* 28 Henry VIII. c. 10.

** Burnet, vol. i. p. 213.

The extreme complaisance of the convocation, which sat at the same time with the parliament, encouraged him in his resolution of breaking entirely with the court of Rome. There was secretly a great division of sentiments in the minds of this assembly; and as the zeal of the reformers had been augmented by some late successes, the resentment of the Catholics was no less excited by their fears and losses: but the authority of the king kept every one submissive and silent; and the new assumed prerogative, the supremacy, with whose limits no one was fully acquainted, restrained even the most furious movements of theological rancor. Cromwell presided as vicar-general; and though the Catholic party expected, that on the fall of Queen Anne, his authority would receive a great shock, they were surprised to find him still maintain the same credit as before. With the vicar-general concurred Cranmer the primate, Latimer, bishop of Worcester, Shaxton of Salisbury, Hilsey of Rochester, Fox of Hereford, Barlow of St. David's. The opposite faction was headed by Lee, archbishop of York, Stokesley, bishop of London, Tonstal of Durham, Gardner of Winchester, Longland of Lincoln, Sherborne of Chichester, Nix of Norwich, and Kite of Carlisle. The former party, by their opposition to the pope, seconded the king's ambition and love of power: the latter party, by maintaining the ancient theological tenets, were more conformable to his speculative principles: and both of them had alternately the advantage of gaining on his humor, by which he was more governed than by either of these motives.