The church in general was averse to the reformation; and the lower house of convocation framed a list of opinions, in the whole sixty-seven, which they pronounced erroneous, and which was a collection of principles, some held by the ancient Lollards, others by the modern Protestants, or Gospellers, as they were sometimes called. These opinions they sent to the upper house to be censured; but in the preamble of their representation, they discovered the servile spirit by which they were governed. They said, "that they intended not to do or speak any thing which might be unpleasant to the king, whom they acknowledged their supreme head, and whose commands they were resolved to obey; renouncing the pope's usurped authority, with all his laws and inventions, now extinguished and abolished; and addicting themselves to Almighty God and his laws, and unto the king and the laws made within this kingdom."[*]

* Collier, vol. ii. p. 119.

The convocation came at last, after some debate, to decide articles of faith; and their tenets were of as motley a kind as the assembly itself, or rather as the king's system of theology, by which they were resolved entirely to square their principles. They determined the standard of faith to consist in the Scriptures and the three creeds, the Apostolic, Nicene, and Athanasian; and this article was a signal victory to the reformers: auricular confession and penance were admitted, a doctrine agreeable to the Catholics: no mention was made of marriage, extreme unction, confirmation, or holy orders, as sacraments; and in this omission the influence of the Protestants appeared: the real presence was asserted conformably to the ancient doctrine: the terms of acceptance were established to be the merits of Christ, and the mercy and good pleasure of God, suitably to the new principles.

So far the two sects seem to have made a fair partition by alternately sharing the several clauses. In framing the subsequent articles, each of them seems to have thrown in its ingredient. The Catholics prevailed in asserting, that the use of images was warranted by Scripture; the Protestants, in warning the people against idolatry, and the abuse of these sensible representations. The ancient faith was adopted in maintaining the expedience of praying to saints; the late innovations in rejecting the peculiar patronage of saints to any trade, profession, or course of action. The former rites of worship, the use of holy water, and the ceremonies practised on Ash Wednesday, Palm Sunday, Good Friday, and other festivals, were still maintained; but the new refinements, which made light of these institutions, were also adopted, by the convocation's denying that they had any immediate power of remitting sin, and by its asserting that their sole merit consisted in promoting pious and devout dispositions in the mind.

But the article with regard to purgatory contains the most curious jargon, ambiguity, and hesitation, arising from the mixture of opposite tenets. It was to this purpose: "Since, according to due order of charity, and the book of Maccabees, and divers ancient authors, it is a very good and charitable deed to pray for souls departed, and since such a practice has been maintained in the church from the beginning, all bishops and teachers should instruct the people not to be grieved for the continuance of the same. But since the place where departed souls are retained before they reach paradise, as well as the nature of their pains, is left uncertain by Scripture, all such questions are to be submitted to God, to whose mercy it is meet and convenient to commend the deceased, trusting that he accepteth our prayers for them."[*]

* Collier, vol. ii. p. 122, et seq. Fuller. Burnet, vol. i. p. 215.

These articles, when framed by the convocation, and corrected by the king, were subscribed by every member of that assembly; while, perhaps, neither there nor throughout the whole kingdom, could one man be found, except Henry himself, who had adopted precisely these very doctrines and opinions. For though there be not any contradiction in the tenets above mentioned, it had happened in England, as in all countries where factious divisions have place; a certain creed was embraced by each party; few neuters were to be found; and these consisted only of speculative or whimsical people, of whom two persons could scarcely be brought to an agreement in the same dogmas. The Protestants, all of them, carried their opposition to Rome further than those articles; none of the Catholics went so far: and the king, by being able to retain the nation in such a delicate medium, displayed the utmost power of an imperious despotism of which any history furnishes an example. To change the religion of a country, even when seconded by a party, is one of the most perilous enterprises which any sovereign can attempt, and often proves the most destructive to royal authority. But Henry was able to set the political machine in that furious movement, and yet regulate and even stop its career: he could say to it, Thus far shalt thou go, and no farther: and he made every vote of his parliament and convocation subservient, not only to his interests and passions, but even to his greatest caprices; nay, to his most refined and most scholastic subtilties.

The concurrence of these two national assemblies served, no doubt, to increase the king's power over the people, and raised him to an authority more absolute than any prince in a simple monarchy, even by means of military force, is ever able to attain. But there are certain bounds, beyond which the most slavish submission cannot be extended. All the late innovations, particularly the dissolution of the smaller monasteries, and the imminent danger to which all the rest were exposed,[*] [11] had bred discontent among the people, and had disposed them to revolt. The expelled monks, wandering about the country, excited both the piety and compassion of men; and as the ancient religion took hold of the populace by powerful motives, suited to vulgar capacity, it was able, now that it was brought into apparent hazard, to raise the strongest zeal in its favor.[**] Discontents had even reached some of the nobility and gentry, whose ancestors had founded the monasteries, and who placed a vanity in those institutions, as well as reaped some benefit from them, by the provisions which they afforded them for their younger children.

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

** Strype, vol. i. p. 249.

The more superstitious were interested for the souls of their fore-fathers, which, they believed, must now lie during many ages in the torments of purgatory, for want of masses to relieve them. It seemed unjust to abolish pious institutions for the faults, real or pretended, of individuals. Even the most moderate and reasonable deemed it somewhat iniquitous, that men who had been invited into a course of life by all the laws, human and divine, which prevailed in their country, should be turned out of their possessions, and so little care be taken of their future subsistence. And when it was observed, that the rapacity and bribery of the commissioners and others, employed in visiting the monasteries, intercepted much of the profits resulting from these confiscations, it tended much to increase the general discontent.[*]

But the people did not break into open sedition till the complaints of the secular clergy concurred with those of the regular. As Cromwell's person was little acceptable to the ecclesiastics, the authority which he exercised, being so new, so absolute, so unlimited, inspired them with disgust and terror. He published, in the king's name, without the consent either of parliament or convocation, an ordinance by which he retrenched many of the ancient holy days; prohibited several superstitions gainful to the clergy, such as pilgrimages, images, relics; and even ordered the incumbents in the parishes to set apart a considerable portion of their revenue for repairs and for the support of exhibitioners and the poor of their parish. The secular priests, finding themselves thus reduced to a grievous servitude, instilled into the people those discontents which they had long harbored in their own bosoms.

The first rising was in Lincolnshire. It was headed by Dr. Mackrel, prior of Barlings, who was disguised like a mean mechanic, and who bore the name of Captain Cobler. This tumultuary army amounted to above twenty thousand men;[**] but notwithstanding their number, they showed little disposition of proceeding to extremities against the king, and seemed still overawed by his authority.

* Burnet, vol. i. p. 223.

** Burnet, vol. i. p. 227. Herbert.

They acknowledged him to be supreme head of the church of England; but they complained of suppressing the monasteries, of evil counsellors, of persons meanly born raised to dignity, of the danger to which the jewels and plate of their parochial churches were exposed; and they prayed the king to consult the nobility of the realm concerning the redress of these grievances.[*] Henry was little disposed to entertain apprehensions of danger, especially from a low multitude whom he despised. He sent forces against the rebels, under the command of the duke of Suffolk; and he returned them a very sharp answer to their petition. There were some gentry whom the populace had constrained to take part with them, and who kept a secret correspondence with Suffolk. They informed him, that resentment against the king's reply was the chief cause which retained the malecontents in arms, and that a milder answer would probably suppress the rebellion. Henry had levied a great force at London, with which he was preparing to march against the rebels; and being so well supported by power, he thought that, without losing his dignity, he might now show them some greater condescension. He sent a new proclamation, requiring them to return to their obedience, with secret assurances of pardon. This expedient had its effect: the populace was dispersed: Mackrel and some of their leaders fell into the king's hands, and were executed: the greater part of the multitude retired peaceably to their usual occupations: a few of the more obstinate fled to the north, where they joined the insurrection that was raised in those parts.

The northern rebels, as they were more numerous, were also on other accounts more formidable than those of Lincolnshire; because the people were there more accustomed to arms, and because of their vicinity to the Scots, who might make advantage of these disorders. One Aske, a gentleman, had taken the command of them, and he possessed the art of governing the populace. Their enterprise they called the "pilgrimage of grace:" some priests marched before in the habits of their order, carrying crosses in their hands: in their banners was woven a crucifix, with the representation of a chalice, and of the five wounds of Christ:[**] they wore on their sleeve an emblem of the five wounds, with the name of Jesus wrought in the middle: they all took an oath, that they had entered into the pilgrimage of grace from no other motive than their love to God, their care of the king's person and issue, their desire of purifying the nobility, of driving base-born persons from about the king, of restoring the church, and of suppressing heresy. Allured by these fair pretences, about forty thousand men from the counties of York, Durham, Lancaster, and those northern provinces, flocked to their standard; and their zeal, no less than their numbers, inspired the court with apprehensions.

* Herbert, p. 410.

** Fox, vol. ii. p. 992.

The earl of Shrewsbury, moved by his regard for the king's service, raised forces, though at first without any commission, in order to oppose the rebels. The earl of Cumberland repulsed them from his castle of Skipton: Sir Ralph Evers defended Scarborough Castle against them:[*] Courtney, marquis of Exeter, the king's cousin-german, obeyed orders from court, and levied troops. The earls of Huntingdon, Derby, and Rutland imitated his example. The rebels, however, prevailed in taking both Hull and York: they had laid siege to Pomfret Castle, into which the archbishop of York and Lord Darsy had thrown themselves. It was soon surrendered to them; and the prelate and nobleman, who secretly wished success to the insurrection, seemed to yield to the force imposed on them, and joined the rebels.

* Stowe, p. 574. Baker, p. 258.

The duke of Norfolk was appointed general of the king's forces against the northern rebels; and as he headed the party at court which supported the ancient religion, he was also suspected of bearing some favor to the cause which he was sent to oppose. His prudent conduct, however, seems to acquit him of this imputation. He encamped near Doncaster, together with the earl of Shrewsbury; and as his army was small, scarcely exceeding five thousand men, he made choice of a post where he had a river in front, the ford of which he purposed to defend against the rebels. They had intended to attack him in the morning; but during the night there fell such violent rains as rendered the river utterly unpassable; and Norfolk wisely laid hold of the opportunity to enter into treaty with them. In order to open the door for negotiation, he sent them a herald; whom Aske, their leader, received with great ceremony; he himself sitting in a chair of state, with the archbishop of York on one hand, and Lord Darcy on the other. It was agreed that two gentlemen should be despatched to the king with proposals from the rebels; and Henry purposely delayed giving an answer, and allured them with hopes of entire satisfaction, in expectation that necessity would soon oblige them to disperse themselves. Being informed that his artifice had in a great measure succeeded, he required them instantly to lay down their arms, and submit to mercy; promising a pardon to all, except six whom he named, and four whom he reserved to himself the power of naming. But though the greater part of the rebels had gone home for want of subs stence, they had entered into the most solemn engagements to return to their standards in case the king's answer should not prove satisfactory. Norfolk, therefore, soon found himself in the same difficulty as before; and he opened again a negotiation with the leaders of the multitude. He engaged them to send three hundred persons to Doncaster with proposals for an accommodation; and he hoped, by intrigue and separate interests, to throw dissension among so great a number. Aske himself had intended to be one of the deputies, and he required a hostage for his security: but the king, when consulted, replied, that he knew no gentleman, or other, whom he esteemed so little as to put him in pledge for such a villain. The demands of the rebels were so exorbitant, that Norfolk rejected them; and they prepared again to decide the contest by arms. They were as formidable as ever, both by their numbers and spirit; and notwithstanding the small river which lay between them and the royal army, Norfolk had great reason to dread the effects of their fury. But while they were preparing to pass the ford, rain fell a second time in such abundance, as made it impracticable for them to execute their design; and the populace, partly reduced to necessity by want of provisions, partly struck with superstition at being thus again disappointed by the same accident, suddenly dispersed themselves. The duke of Norfolk, who had received powers for that end, forwarded the dispersion by the promise of a general amnesty; and the king ratified this act of clemency. He published, however, a manifesto against the rebels, and an answer to their complaints; in which he employed a very lofty style, suited to so haughty a monarch. He told them, that they ought no more to pretend giving a judgment with regard to government, that a blind man with regard to colors. "And we," he added, "with our whole council, think it right strange that ye, who be but brutes and inexpert folk, do take upon you to appoint us who be meet or not for our council."

{1537.} As this pacification was not likely to be of long continuance, Norfolk was ordered to keep his army together, and to march into the northern parts, in order to exact a general submission. Lord Darcy, as well as Aske, was sent for to court; and the former, upon his refusal or delay to appear, was thrown into prison. Every place was full of jealousy and complaints. A new insurrection broke out, headed by Musgrave and Tilby; and the rebels besieged Carlisle with thousand men. Being repulsed by that city, they were encountered in their retreat by Norfolk, who put them to flight; and having made prisoners of all their officers, except Musgrave, who escaped, he instantly put them to death by martial law, to the number of seventy persons. An attempt made by Sir Francis Bigot and Halam to surprise Hull, met with no better success; and several other risings were suppressed by the vigilance of Norfolk. The king, enraged by these multiplied revolts, was determined not to adhere to the general pardon which he had granted; and from a movement of his usual violence he made the innocent suffer for the guilty. Norfolk, by command from his master, spread the royal banner, and, wherever he thought proper, executed martial law in the punishment of offenders. Besides Aske, leader of the first insurrection, Sir Robert Constable, Sir John Bulmer, Sir Thomas Piercy, Sir Stephen Hamilton, Nicholas Tempest, William Lumley, and many others, were thrown into prison; and most of them were condemned and executed. Lord Hussey was found guilty, as an accomplice in the insurrection of Lincolnshire, and was executed at Lincoln. Lord Darcy, though he pleaded compulsion, and appealed for his justification to a long life spent in the service of the crown, was beheaded on Tower Hill. Before his execution, he accused Norfolk of having secretly encouraged the rebels; but Henry, either sensible of that nobleman's services, and convinced of his fidelity or afraid to offend one of such extensive power and great capacity, rejected the information. Being now satiated with punishing the rebels, he published anew a general pardon, to which he faithfully adhered; [*] and he erected, by patent, a court of justice at York, for deciding lawsuits in the northern counties; a demand which had been made by the rebels.

Soon after this prosperous success, an event happened which crowned Henry's joy—the birth of a son, who was baptized by the name of Edward. Yet was not his happiness without alloy: the queen died two days after.**

* Herbert, p. 428.

** Strype, vol. ii. p. 6.

But a son had so long been ardently wished for by Henry, and was now become so necessary, in order to prevent disputes with regard to the succession, after the acts declaring the two princesses illegitimate, that the king's affliction was drowned in his joy, and he expressed great satisfaction on the occasion. The prince, not six days old, was created prince of Wales, duke of Cornwall, and earl of Chester. Sir Edward Seymour, the queen's brother, formerly made Lord Beauchamp, was raised to the dignity of earl of Hertford. Sir William Fitz-Williams, high admiral, was created earl of Southampton; Sir William Paulet, Lord St. John; Sir John Russel, Lord Russel.

{1538.} The suppression of the rebellion and the birth of a son, as they confirmed Henry's authority at home, increased his consideration among foreign princes, and made his alliance be courted by all parties. He maintained, however, a neutrality in the wars which were carried on with various success, and without any decisive event, between Charles and Francis; and though inclined more to favor the latter, he determined not to incur, without necessity, either hazard or expense on his account. A truce concluded about this time between these potentates, and afterwards prolonged for ten years, freed him from all anxiety on account of his ally, and reestablished the tranquillity of Europe.

Henry continued desirous of cementing a union with the German Protestants; and for that purpose he sent Christopher Mount to a congress which they held at Brunswick; but that minister made no great progress in his negotiation. The princes wished to know what were the articles in their confession which Henry disliked; and they sent new ambassadors to him, who had orders both to negotiate and to dispute. They endeavored to convince the king, that he was guilty of a mistake in administering the eucharist in one kind only, in allowing private masses, and in requiring the celibacy of the clergy.[*]

* Collier, vol. ii. p. 145, from the Cott. Lib. Cleopatra, E. 5, fol 173.

Henry would by no means acknowledge any error in these particulars; and was displeased that they should pretend to prescribe rules to so great a monarch and theologian. He found arguments and syllogisms enough to defend his cause; and he dismissed the ambassadors without coming to any conclusion. Jealous, also, lest his own subjects should become such theologians as to question his tenets, he used great precaution in publishing that translation of the Scripture which was finished this year. He would only allow a copy of it to be deposited in some parish churches, where it was fixed by a chain: and he took care to inform the people by proclamation, "that this indulgence was not the effect of his duty, but of his goodness and his liberality to them: who therefore should use it moderately, for the increase of virtue, not of strife: and he ordered that no man should read the Bible aloud, so as to disturb the priest while he sang mass, nor presume to expound doubtful places without advice from the learned." In this measure, as in the rest, he still halted half way between the Catholics and the Protestants.

There was only one particular in which Henry was quite decisive; because he was there impelled by his avarice, or, more properly-speaking, his rapacity, the consequence of his profusion: this measure was the entire destruction of the monasteries. The present opportunity seemed favorable for that great enterprise, while the suppression of the late rebellion fortified and increased the royal authority; and as some of the abbots were suspected of having encouraged the insurrection, and of corresponding with the rebels, the king's resentment was further incited by that motive. Anew visitation was appointed of all the monasteries in England; and a pretence only being wanted for their suppression, it was easy for a prince, possessed of such unlimited power, and seconding the present humor of a great part of the nation, to find or feign one. The abbots and monks knew the danger to which they were exposed; and having learned by the example of the lesser monasteries that nothing could withstand the king's will, they were most of them induced, in expectation of better treatment, to make a voluntary resignation of their houses. Where promises failed of effect, menaces and even extreme violence were employed; and as several of the abbots, since the breach with Rome, had been named by the court with a view to this event, the king's intentions were the more easily effected. Some, also, having secretly embraced the doctrine of the reformation, were glad to be freed from their vows; and on the whole, the design was conducted with such success, than in less than two years the king had got possession of all the monastic revenues.

In several places, particularly the county of Oxford, great interest was made to preserve some convents of women, who, as they lived in the most irreproachable manner, justly merited, it was thought, that their houses should be saved from the general destruction.[*]

* Burnet, vol. i. p. 328.

There appeared, also, great difference between the case of nuns and that of friars; and the one institution might be laudable, while the other was exposed to much blame. The males of all ranks, if endowed with industry might be of service to the public; and none of them could want employment suited to his station and capacity. But a woman of family who failed of a settlement in the married state,—an accident to which such persons were more liable than women of lower station,—had really no rank which she properly filled; and a convent was a retreat both honorable and agreeable, from the inutility, and often want, which attended her situation. But the king was determined to abolish monasteries of every denomination; and probably thought that these ancient establishments would be the sooner forgotten, if no remains of them of any kind were allowed to subsist in the kingdom.

The better to reconcile the people to this great innovation, stories were propagated of the detestable lives of the friars in many of the convents; and great care was taken to defame those whom the court had determined to ruin. The relics also and other superstitions, which had so long been the object of the people's veneration, were exposed to their ridicule; and the religious spirit, now less bent on exterior observances and sensible objects, was encouraged in this new direction. It is needless to be prolix in an enumeration of particulars: Protestant historians mention on this occasion, with great triumph, the sacred repositories of convents; the parings of St. Edmond's toes; some of the coals that roasted St. Laurence; the girdle of the Virgin shown in eleven several places; two or three heads of St. Ursula; the felt of St Thomas of Lancaster, an infallible cure for the headache; part of St. Thomas of Canterbury's shirt, much reverenced by big-bellied women; some relics, an excellent preventive against rain; others, a remedy to weeds in corn. But such fooleries, as they are to be found in all ages and nations, and even took place during the most refined periods of antiquity, form no particular or violent reproach to the Catholic religion.

There were also discovered, or said to be discovered, in the monasteries some impostures of a more artificial nature. At Hales, in the county of Glocester, there had been shown, during several ages, the blood of Christ, brought from Jerusalem; and it is easy to imagine the veneration with which such a relic was regarded. A miraculous circumstance also attended this miraculous relic; the sacred blood was not visible to any one in mortal sin, even when set before him; and till he had performed good works sufficient for his absolution, it would not deign to discover itself to him. At the dissolution of the monastery, the whole contrivance was detected. Two of the monks, who were let into the secret, had taken the blood of a duck, which they renewed every week: they put it in a phial, one side of which consisted of thin and transparent crystal, the other of thick and opaque. When any rich pilgrim arrived, they were sure to show him the dark side of the phial, till masses and offerings had expiated his offences and then, finding his money, or patience, or faith, nearly exhausted, they made him happy by turning the phial.[*]

A miraculous crucifix had been kept at Boxley, in Kent, and bore the appellation of the "rood of grace." The lips, and eyes, and head of the image moved on the approach of its votaries. Hilsey, bishop of Rochester, broke the crucifix at St. Paul's Cross, and showed to the whole people the springs and wheels by which it had been secretly moved. A great wooden idol, revered in Wales, called Darvel Gatherin, was also brought to London, and cut in pieces; and by a cruel refinement in vengeance, it was employed as fuel to burn friar Forest,[**] who was punished for denying the supremacy, and for some pretended heresies. A finger of St. Andrew, covered with a thin plate of silver, had been pawned by a convent for a debt of forty pounds; but as the king's commissioners refused to pay the debt, people made themselves merry with the poor creditor on account of his pledge.

* Herbert, p. 431, 432. Stowe, p. 575.

** Goodwin's Annals. Stowe, p. 575. Herbert. Baker, p. 286.

But of all the instruments of ancient superstition, no one was so zealously destroyed as the shrine of Thomas a Becket, commonly called St. Thomas of Canterbury. This saint owed his canonization to the zealous defence which he had made for clerical privileges; and on that account also the monks had extremely encouraged the devotion of pilgrimages towards his tomb, and numberless were the miracles which they pretended his relics wrought in favor of his devout votaries. They raised his body once a year; and the day on which this ceremony was performed, which was called the day of his translation, was a general holiday: every fiftieth year there was celebrated a jubilee to his honor, which lasted fifteen days: plenary indulgences were then granted to all that visited his tomb; and a hundred thousand pilgrims have been registered at a time in Canterbury. The devotion towards him had quite effaced in that place the adoration of the Deity; nay, even that of the Virgin. At God's altar, for instance, there were offered in one year three pounds two shillings and sixpence; at the Virgin's, sixty-three pounds five shillings and sixpence; at St. Thomas's, eight hundred and thirty-two pounds twelve shillings and threepence. But next year the disproportion was still greater; there was not a penny offered at God's altar; the Virgin's gained only four pounds one shilling and eight pence; but St. Thomas had got for his share nine hundred and fifty-four pounds six shillings and threepence.[*] Lewis VII. of France had made a pilgrimage to this miraculous tomb, and had bestowed on the shrine a jewel, esteemed the richest in Christendom. It is evident how obnoxious to Henry a saint of this character must appear, and how contrary to all his projects for degrading the authority of the court of Rome. He not only pillaged the rich shrine dedicated to St. Thomas; he made the saint himself be cited to appear in court, and be tried and condemned as a traitor: he ordered his name to be struck out of the calendar; the office for his festival to be expunged from all breviaries; his bones to be burned, and the ashes to be thrown in the air.

On the whole, the king at different times suppressed six hundred and forty-five monasteries; of which twenty-eight had abbots that enjoyed a seat in parliament. Ninety colleges were demolished in several counties; two thousand three hundred and seventy-four chantries and free chapels; a hundred and ten hospitals. The whole revenue of these establishments amounted to one hundred and sixty-one thousand one hundred pounds.[**] It is worthy of observation, that all the lands and possessions and revenue of England had, a little before this period, been rated at four millions a year; so that the revenues of the monks, even comprehending the lesser monasteries, did not exceed the twentieth part of the national income; a sum vastly inferior to what is commonly apprehended. The lands belonging to the convents were usually let at very low rent; and the farmers, who regarded themselves as a species of proprietors, took always care to renew their leases before they expired.[***] [13]

* Burnet, vol. i. p. 244.

** Lord Herbert. Camden. Speed.

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

Great murmurs were every where excited on account of these violences; and men much questioned whether priors and monks, who were only trustees or tenants for life, could, by any deed, however voluntary, transfer to the king the entire property of their estates, In order to reconcile the people to such mighty innovations, they were told that the king would never thenceforth have occasion to levy taxes, but would be able, from the abbey lands alone, to bear, during war as well as peace, the whole charges of government.[*] While such topics were employed to appease the populace, Henry took an effectual method of interesting the nobility and gentry in the success of his measures:[**] he either made a gift of the revenues of convents to his favorites and courtiers, or sold them at low prices, or exchanged them for other lands on very disadvantageous terms. He was so profuse in these liberalities, that he is said to have given a woman the whole revenue of a convent, as a reward for making a pudding which happened to gratify his palate.[***] He also settled pensions on the abbots and priors, proportioned to their former revenues or to their merits; and gave each monk a yearly pension of eight marks: he erected six new bishoprics, Westminster, Oxford, Peterborough, Bristol, Chester, and Glocester; of which five subsist at this day: and by all these means of expense and dissipation, the profit which the king reaped by the seizure of church lands fell much short of vulgar opinion. As the ruin of convents had been foreseen some years before it happened, the monks had taken care to secrete most of their stock, furniture, and plate; so that the spoils of the great monasteries bore not, in these respects, any proportion to those of the lesser.

* Coke's 4th Inst. fol. 44.

** Dugdale's Warwickshire, p. 800.

*** Fuller.

Besides the lands possessed by the monasteries, the regular clergy enjoyed a considerable part of the benefices of England, and of the tithes annexed to them; and these were also at this time transferred to the crown, and by that means passed into the hands of laymen; an abuse which many zealous churchmen regarded as the most criminal sacrilege. The monks were formerly much at their ease in England, and enjoyed revenues which exceeded the regular and stated expense of the house. We read of the abbey of Chertsey, in Surrey, which possessed seven hundred and forty-four pounds a year, though it contained only fourteen monks: that of Furnese, in the county of Lincoln, was valued at nine hundred and sixty pounds a year, and contained but thirty.[*] In order to dissipate their revenues, and support popularity, the monks lived in a hospitable manner; and besides the poor maintained from their offals, there were many decayed gentlemen who passed their lives in travelling from convent to convent, and were entirely subsisted at the tables of the friars. By this hospitality, as much as by their own inactivity, did the convents prove nurseries of idleness; but the king, not to give offence by too sudden an innovation, bound the new proprietors of abbey lands to support the ancient hospitality. But this engagement was fulfilled in very few places, and for a very short time.

* Burnet, vol. i p. 237.

It is easy to imagine the indignation with which the intelligence of all these acts of violence was received at Rome; and how much the ecclesiastics of that court, who had so long kept the world in subjection by high-sounding epithets and by holy execrations, would now vent their rhetoric against the character and conduct of Henry. The pope was at last incited to publish the bull which had been passed against that monarch; and in a public manner he delivered over his soul to the devil, and his dominions to the first invader. Libels were dispersed, in which he was anew compared to the most furious persecutors in antiquity; and the preference was now given to their side: he had declared war with the dead, whom the pagans themselves respected; was at open hostility with Heaven; and had engaged in professed enmity with the whole host of saints and angels. Above all, he was often reproached with his resemblance to the emperor Julian, whom, it was said, he imitated in his apostasy and learning, though he fell short of him in morals. Henry could distinguish in some of these libels the style and animosity of his kinsman Pole; and he was thence incited to vent his rage, by every possible expedient, on that famous cardinal.

Reginald de la Pole, or Reginald Pole, was descended from the royal family, being fourth son of the countess of Salisbury, daughter of the duke of Clarence. He gave in early youth indications of that fine genius and generous disposition by which, during his whole life, he was so much distinguished and Henry, having conceived great friendship for him, intended to raise him to the highest ecclesiastical dignities; and, as a pledge of future favors, he conferred on him the deanery of Exeter,[*] the better to support him in his education. Pole was carrying on his studies in the university of Paris at the time when the king solicited the suffrages of that learned body in favor of his divorce; but though applied to by the English agent, he declined taking any part in the affair. Henry bore this neglect with more temper than was natural to him; and he appeared unwilling, on that account, to renounce all friendship with a person whose virtues and talents, he hoped, would prove useful as well as ornamental to his court and kingdom. He allowed him still to possess his deanery, and gave him permission to finish his studies at Padua: he even paid him some court, in order to bring him into his measures; and wrote to him, while in that university, desiring him to give his opinion freely with regard to the late measures taken in England for abolishing the papal authority. Pole had now contracted an intimate friendship with all persons eminent for dignity or merit in Italy—Sadolet, Bembo, and other revivers of true taste and learning; and he was moved by these connections, as well as by religious zeal, to forget, in some respect, the duty which he owed to Henry, his benefactor and his sovereign. He replied by writing a treatise of the Unity of the Church, in which he inveighed against the king's supremacy, his divorce, his second marriage; and he even exhorted the emperor to revenge on him the injury done to the imperial family and to the Catholic cause. Henry, though provoked beyond measure at this outrage, dissembled his resentment; and he sent a message to Pole, desiring him to return to England, in order to explain certain passages in his book which he found somewhat obscure and difficult. Pole was on his guard against this insidious invitation; and was determined to remain in Italy, where he was universally beloved.

The pope and emperor thought themselves obliged to provide for a man of Pole's eminence and dignity, who, in support of their cause, had sacrificed all his pretensions to fortune in his own country. He was created a cardinal; and though he took not higher orders than those of a deacon, he was sent legate into Flanders about the year 1536.[**]

* Goodwin's Annals

** Herbert.

Henry was sensible that Pole's chief intention in choosing that employment, was to foment the mutinous disposition of the English Catholics; and he therefore remonstrated in so vigorous a manner with the queen of Hungary, regent of the Low Countries, that she dismissed the legate, without allowing him to exercise his functions. The enmity which he bore to Pole was now as open as it was violent; and the cardinal, on his part, kept no further measures in his intrigues against Henry. He is even suspected of having aspired to the crown, by means of a marriage with the lady Mary; and the king was every day more alarmed by informations which he received of the correspondence maintained in England by that fugitive. Courtney, marquis of Exeter, had entered into a conspiracy with him; Sir Edward Nevil, brother to the lord Abergavenny; Sir Nicholas Carew, master of horse, and knight of the garter; Henry de la Pole, Lord Montacute, and Sir Geoffrey de la Pole, brothers to the cardinal. These persons were indicted, and tried, and convicted, before Lord Audley, who presided in the trial as high steward; they were all executed, except Sir Geoffrey de la Pole, who was pardoned; and he owed this grace to his having first carried to the king secret intelligence of the conspiracy. We know little concerning the justice or iniquity of the sentence pronounced against these men: we only know, that the condemnation of a man who was at that time prosecuted by the court, forms no presumption of his guilt; though, as no historian of credit mentions in the present case any complaint occasioned by these trials, we may presume that sufficient evidence was produced against the marquis of Exeter and his associates.[*]

* Herbert in Kennet, p. 216.



CHAPTER XXXII.



HENRY VIII.

{1538.} THE rough hand of Henry seemed well adapted for rending asunder those bands by which the ancient superstition had fastened itself on the kingdom; and though, after renouncing the pope's supremacy and suppressing monasteries, most of the political ends of reformation were already attained, few people expected that he would stop at those innovations. The spirit of opposition, it was thought, would carry him to the utmost extremities against the church of Rome; and lead him to declare war against the whole doctrine and worship, as well as discipline, of that mighty hierarchy. He had formerly appealed from the pope to a general council; but now, when a general council was summoned to meet at Mantua, he previously renounced all submission to it, as summoned by the pope, and lying entirely under subjection to that spiritual usurper. He engaged his clergy to make a declaration to the like purpose; and he had prescribed to them many other deviations from ancient tenets and practices. Cranmner took advantage of every opportunity to carry him on in this course; and while Queen Jane lived, who favored the reformers, he had, by means of her insinuation and address, been successful in his endeavors. After her death, Gardiner, who was returned from his embassy to France, kept the king more in suspense; and by feigning an unlimited submission to his will, was frequently able to guide him to his own purposes. Fox, bishop of Hereford, had supported Cranmer in his schemes for a more thorough reformation; but his death had made way for the promotion of Bonner, who, though he had hitherto seemed a furious enemy to the court of Rome, was determined to sacrifice every thing to present interest, and had joined the confederacy of Gardiner and the partisans of the old religion. Gardiner himself, it was believed, had secretly entered into measures with the pope, and even with the emperor; and in concert with these powers, he endeavored to preserve, as much as possible, the ancient faith and worship.

Henry was so much governed by passion, that nothing could have retarded his animosity and opposition against Rome, but some other passion, which stopped his career, and raised him new objects of animosity. Though he had gradually, since the commencement of his scruples with regard to his first marriage, been changing the tenets of that theological system in which he had been educated, he was no less positive and dogmatical in the few articles which remained to him, than if the whole fabric had continued entire and unshaken. And though he stood alone in his opinion, the flattery of courtiers had so inflamed his tyrannical arrogance, that he thought himself entitled to regulate, by his own particular standard, the religious faith of the whole nation. The point on which he chiefly rested his orthodoxy happened to be the real presence; that very doctrine, in which, among the numberless victories of superstition over common sense, her triumph is the most signal and egregious. All departure from this principle he held to be heretical and detestable; and nothing, he thought, would be more honorable for him, than, while he broke off all connections with the Roman pontiff, to maintain, in this essential article, the purity of the Catholic faith.

There was one Lambert,[*] a schoolmaster in London, who had been questioned and confined for unsound opinions by Archbishop Warham; but upon the death of that prelate, and the change of counsels at court, he had been released. Not terrified with the danger which he had incurred, he still continued to promulgate his tenets; and having heard Dr. Taylor afterwards bishop of Lincoln, defend in a sermon the corporal presence, he could not forbear expressing to Taylor his dissent from that doctrine; and he drew up his objections under ten several heads. Taylor communicated the paper to Dr. Barnes, who happened to be a Lutheran, and who maintained that though the substance of bread and wine remained, in the sacrament, yet the real body and blood of Christ were there also, and were, in a certain mysterious manner, incorporated with the material elements.

* Fox, vol. ii. p. 396.

By the present laws and practice Barnes was no less exposed to the stake than Lambert; yet such was the persecuting rage which prevailed, that he determined to bring this man to condign punishment; because of their common departure from the ancient faith, he had dared to go one step farther than himself. He engaged Taylor to accuse Lambert before Cranmer and Latimer, who, whatever their private opinion might be on these points, were obliged to conform themselves to the standard of orthodoxy established by Henry. When Lambert was cited before these prelates, they endeavored to bend him to a recantation; and they were surprised when, instead of complying, he ventured to appeal to the king.

The king, not displeased with an opportunity where he could at once exert his supremacy and display his learning, accepted the appeal; and resolved to mix, in a very unfair manner, the magistrate with the disputant. Public notice was given that he intended to enter the lists with the schoolmaster: scaffolds were erected in Westminster Hall, for the accommodation of the audience: Henry appeared on his throne accompanied with all the ensigns of majesty: the prelates were placed on his right hand: the temporal peers on his left. The judges and most eminent lawyers had a place assigned them behind the bishops; the courtiers of greatest distinction behind the peers; and in the midst of this splendid assembly was produced the unhappy Lambert, who was required to defend his opinions against his royal antagonist.[*]

The bishop of Chichester opened the conference, by saying, that Lambert, being charged with heretical pravity, had appealed from his bishop to the king; as if he expected more favor from this application, and as if the king could ever be induced to protect a heretic: that though his majesty had thrown off the usurpations of the see of Rome; had disincorporated some idle monks, who lived like drones in a beehive, had abolished the idolatrous worship of images; had published the Bible in English, for the instruction of all his subjects; and had made some lesser alterations, which every one must approve of; yet was he determined to maintain the purity of the Catholic faith, and to punish with the utmost severity all departure from it; and that he had taken the present opportunity, before so learned and grave an audience, of convincing Lambert of his errors; but if he still continued obstinate in them, he must expect the most condign punishment,[**]

* Fox, vol. ii. p. 426

** Goodwin's Annals

After this preamble, which was not very encouraging, the king asked Lambert, with a stern countenance, what his opinion was of Christ's corporal presence in the sacrament of the altar; and when Lambert began his reply with some compliment to his majesty, he rejected the praise with disdain and indignation. He afterwards pressed Lambert with arguments drawn from Scripture and the schoolmen: the audience applauded the force of his reasoning, and the extent of his erudition: Cranmer seconded his proofs by some new topics. Gardiner entered the lists as a support to Cranmner: Tonstal took up the argument after Gardiner: Stokesley brought fresh aid to Tonstal; six bishops more appeared successively in the field after Stokesley. And the disputation, if it deserve the name, was prolonged for five hours; till Lambert, fatigued, confounded, browbeaten, and abashed, was at last reduced to silence. The king, then returning to the charge, asked him whether he were convinced; and he proposed, as a concluding argument, this interesting question: Whether he were resolved to live or to die? Lambert, who possessed that courage which consists in obstinacy, replied, that he cast himself wholly on his majesty's clemency: the king told him that he would be no protector of heretics; and, therefore, if that were his final answer, he must expect to be committed to the flames Cromwell, as vicegerent, pronounced the sentence against him.[*] [14]

Lambert, whose vanity had probably incited him the more to persevere on account of the greatness of this public appearance, was not daunted by the terrors of the punishment to which he was condemned. His executioners took care to make the sufferings of a man who had personally opposed the king as cruel as possible: he was burned at a slow fire; his legs and thighs were consumed to the stumps; and when there appeared no end of his torments, some of the guards, more merciful than the rest, lifted him on their halberts and threw him into the flames, where he was consumed. While they were employed in this friendly office, he cried aloud several times, "None but Christ, none but Christ!" and these words were in his mouth when he expired.[**]

Some few days before this execution, four Dutch Anabaptists, three men and a woman, had fagots tied to their backs at Paul's Cross, and were burned in that manner. Andaman and a woman of the same sect and country were burned in Smithfield.[***]

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

** Fox's Acts and Monuments, p. 427. Burnet.

*** Stow, p. 556.

{1539.} It was the unhappy fate of the English during this age, that, when they labored under any grievance, they had not the satisfaction of expecting redress from parliament on the contrary, they had reason to dread each meeting of that assembly, and were then sure of having tyranny converted into law, and aggravated, perhaps, with some circumstance which the arbitrary prince and his ministers had not hitherto devised, or did not think proper of themselves to carry into execution. This abject servility never appeared more conspicuously than in a new parliament which the king now assembled, and which, if he had been so pleased, might have been the last that ever sat in England. But he found them too useful instruments of dominion ever to entertain thoughts of giving them a total exclusion.

The chancellor opened the parliament by informing the house of lords, that it was his majesty's earnest desire to extirpate from his kingdom all diversity of opinion in matters of religion; and as this undertaking was, he owned, important and arduous, he desired them to choose a committee from among themselves, who might draw up certain articles of faith; and communicate them afterwards to the parliament. The lords named the vicar-general, Cromwell, now created peer, the archbishops of Canterbury and York, the bishops of Durham, Carlisle, Worcester, Bath and Wells, Bangor, and Ely. The house might have seen what a hopeful task they had undertaken: this small committee itself was agitated with such diversity of opinion, that it could come to no conclusion. The duke of Norfolk then moved in the house, that, since there were no hopes of having a report from the committee, the articles of faith intended to be established should be reduced to six; and a new committee be appointed to draw an act with regard to them. As this peer was understood to speak the sense of the king, his motion was immediately complied with; and, after a short prorogation, the bill of the "six articles," or the bloody bill, as the Protestants justly termed it, was introduced, and having passed the two houses, received the royal assent.

In this law the doctrine of the real presence was established, the communion in one kind, the perpetual obligation of vows of chastity, the utility of private masses, the celibacy of the clergy, and the necessity of auricular confession. The denial of the first article, with regard to the real presence, subjected the person to death by fire, and to the same forfeiture as in cases of treason; and admitted not the privilege of abjuring: an unheard-of severity, and unknown to the inquisition itself The denial of any of the other five articles, even though recanted, was punishable by the forfeiture of goods and chattels, and imprisonment during the king's pleasure: an obstinate adherence to error, or a relapse, was adjudged to be felony, and punishable with death. The marriage of priests was subjected to the same punishment. Their commerce with women was, on the first offence, forfeiture and imprisonment; on the second, death. The abstaining from confession, and from receiving the eucharist at the accustomed times, subjected the person to fine, and to imprisonment during the king's pleasure; and if the criminal persevered after conviction, he was punishable by death and forfeiture, as in cases of felony.[*] Commissioners were to be appointed by the king for inquiring into these heresies and irregular practices; and the criminals were to be tried by a jury.

The king in framing this law laid his oppressive hand on both parties; and even the Catholics had reason to complain, that the friars and nuns, though dismissed their convent, should be capriciously restrained to the practice of celibacy:[**] [15] but as the Protestants were chiefly exposed to the severity of the statute, the misery of adversaries, according to the usual maxims of party, was regarded by the adherents to the ancient religion as their own prosperity and triumph. Cranmer had the courage to oppose this bill in the house; and though the king desired him to absent himself, he could not be prevailed on to give this proof of compliance.[***] Henry was accustomed to Cranmer's freedom and sincerity; and being convinced of the general rectitude of his intentions, gave him an unusual indulgence in this particular, and never allowed even a whisper against him. That prelate, however, was now obliged, in obedience to the statute, to dismiss his wife, the niece of Osiander, a famous divine of Nuremburg,[****] and Henry, satisfied with this proof of submission, showed him his former countenance and favor. Latimer and Shaxton threw up their bishoprics on account of the law, and were committed to prison.

* 31 Henry VIII. c. 14. Herbert in Kenuet, p. 219.

** See note O, at the 3 end of the volume.

*** Burnet, vol. i. p. 249, 270. Fox, vol. ii. p. 1037.

**** Herbert in Kennet, p. 219.

The parliament, having thus resigned all their religious liberties, proceeded to an entire surrender of their civil; and without scruple or deliberation they made, by one act, a total subversion of the English constitution. They gave to the king's proclamation the same force as to a statute enacted by parliament; and to render the matter worse, if possible, they framed this law, as if it were only declaratory, and were intended to explain the natural extent of royal authority. The preamble contains, that the king had formerly set forth several proclamations which froward persons had wilfully contemned, not considering what a king, by his royal power, may do; that this license might encourage offenders not only to disobey the laws of Almighty God, but also to dishonor the king's most royal majesty, "who may full ill bear it;" that sudden emergencies often occur, which require speedy remedies, and cannot await the slow assembling and deliberations of parliament; and that, though the king was empowered by his authority, derived from God, to consult the public good on these occasions, yet the opposition of refractory subjects might push him to extremity and violence: for these reasons the parliament, that they might remove all occasion of doubt, ascertained by a statute this prerogative of the crown and enabled his majesty, with the advice of his council, to set forth proclamations enjoining obedience under whatever pains and penalties he should think proper; and these proclamations were to have the force of perpetual laws.[*]

* 31 Henry VIII. c. 8.

What proves either a stupid or a wilful blindness in the parliament, is, that they pretended, even after this statute, to maintain some limitations in the government; and they enacted, that no proclamation should deprive any person of his lawful possessions, liberties, inheritances, privileges, franchises; nor yet infringe any common law or laudable custom of the realm. They did not consider, that no penalty could be inflicted on the disobeying of proclamations, without invading some liberty or property of the subject; and that the power of enacting new laws, joined to the dispensing power then exercised by the crown, amounted to a full legislative authority. It is true, the kings of England had always been accustomed from their own authority to issue proclamations, and to exact obedience to them; and this prerogative was, no doubt, a strong symptom of absolute government: but still there was a difference between a power which was exercised on a particular emergence, and which must be justified by the present expedience or necessity, and an authority conferred by a positive statute, which could no longer admit of control or limitation.

Could any act be more opposite to the spirit of liberty than this law, it would have been another of the same parliament. They passed an act of attainder, not only against the marquis of Exeter, the lords Montacute, Darcy, Hussey, and others, who had been legally tried and condemned, but also against some persons of the highest quality, who had never been accused, or examined, or convicted. The violent hatred which Henry bore to Cardinal Pole had extended itself to all his friends and relations; and his mother in particular, the countess of Salisbury, had on that account become extremely obnoxious to him. She was also accused of having employed her authority with her tenants, to hinder them from reading the new translation of the Bible; of having procured bulls from Rome, which, it is said, had been seen at Coudray, her country seat; and of having kept a correspondence with her son, the cardinal; but Henry found, either that these offences could not be proved, or that they would not by law be subjected to such severe punishments as he desired to inflict upon her. He resolved, therefore, to proceed in a more summary and more tyrannical manner; and for that purpose he sent Cromwell, who was but too obsequious to his will, to ask the judges, whether the parliament could attaint a person who was forthcoming, without giving him any trial, or citing him to appear before them?[*] The judges replied, that it was a dangerous question; and that the high court of parliament ought to give the example to inferior courts, of proceeding according to justice; no inferior court could act in that arbitrary manner, and they thought that the parliament never would. Being pressed to give a more explicit answer, they replied, that if a person were attainted in that manner, the attainder could never afterwards be brought in question, but must remain good in law. Henry learned by this decision, that such a method of proceeding, though directly contrary to all the principles of equity, was yet practicable; and this being all he was anxious to know, he resolved to employ it against the countess of Salisbury.

* Coke's 4th Inst. p. 37, 38.

Cromwell showed to the house of peers a banner, on which were embroidered the five wounds of Christ, the symbol chosen by the northern rebels; and this banner he affirmed, was found in the countess's house.[*] No other proof seems to have been produced in order to ascertain her guilt: the parliament, without further inquiry, passed a bill of attainder against her; and they involved in the same bill, without any better proof, as far as appears, Gertrude marchioness of Exeter, Sir Adrian Fortescue, and Sir Thomas Dingley. These two gentlemen were executed; the marchioness was pardoned and survived the king; the countess received a reprieve.

The only beneficial act passed this session, was that by which the parliament confirmed the surrender of the monasteries; yet even this act contains much falsehood, much tyranny, and, were it not that all private rights must submit to public interest, much injustice and iniquity. The scheme of engaging the abbots to surrender their monasteries had been conducted, as may easily be imagined, with many invidious circumstances: arts of all kinds had been employed; every motive that could work on the frailty of human nature had been set before them; and it was with great difficulty that these dignified conventuals were brought to make a concession, which most of them regarded as destructive of their interests, as well as sacrilegious and criminal in itself.[**] Three abbots had shown more constancy than the rest, the abbots of Colchester, Reading, and Glastenbury; and in order to punish them for their opposition, and make them an example to others, means had been found to convict them of treason, they had perished by the hands of the executioner, and the revenue of the convents had been forfeited.[***] Besides, though none of these violences had taken place, the king knew that a surrender made by men who were only tenants for life, would not bear examination; and he was therefore resolved to make all sure by his usual expedient, an act of parliament. In the preamble to this act, the parliament asserts, that all the surrenders made by the abbots had been "without constraint, of their own accord, and according to due course of common law." And in consequence, the two houses confirm the surrenders, and secure the property of the abbey lands to the king and his successors forever.[****] It is remarkable, that all the mitred abbots still sat in the house of peers, and that none of them made any protests against this injurious statute.

* Rymer, vol. xiv. p. 652.

** Collier, vol. ii. p. 158 et see

*** 31 Henry VIII. c. 10.

**** 31 Henry VIII. c. 13.

In this session, the rank of all the great officers of state was fixed: Cromwell, as vicegerent, had the precedency assigned him above all of them. It was thought singular, that a blacksmith's son, for he was no other, should have place next the royal family; and that a man possessed of no manner of literature should be set at the head of the church.

As soon as the act of the six articles had passed, the Catholics were extremely vigilant in informing against offenders; and no less than five hundred persons were in a little time thrown into prison. But Cromwell, who had not had interest enough to prevent that act, was able for the present to elude its execution. Seconded by the duke of Suffolk and Chancellor Audley, as well as by Cranmer, he remonstrated against the cruelty of punishing so many delinquents; and he obtained permission to set them at liberty. The uncertainty of the king's humor gave each party an opportunity of triumphing in its turn. No sooner had Henry passed this law, which seemed to inflict so deep a wound on the reformers, than he granted a general permission for every one to have the new translation of the Bible in his family; a concession regarded by that party as an important victory.

But as Henry was observed to be much governed by his wives while he retained his fondness for them, the final prevalence of either party seemed much to depend on the choice of the future queen. Immediately after the death of Jane Seymour, the most beloved of all his wives, he began to think of a new marriage. He first cast his eye towards the duchess dowager of Milan, niece to the emperor; and he made proposals for that alliance. But meeting with difficulties, he was carried by his friendship for Francis rather to think of a French princess. He demanded the duchess dowager of Longueville, daughter of the duke of Guise, a prince of the house of Lorraine; but Francis told him, that the lady was already betrothed to the king of Scotland. The king, however, would not take a refusal: he had set his heart extremely on the match: the information which he had received of the duchess's accomplishments and beauty, had prepossessed him in her favor; and having privately sent over Meautys to examine her person, and get certain intelligence of her conduct, the accounts which that agent brought him served further to inflame his desires. He learned that she was big made; and he thought her on that account the more proper match for him who was now become somewhat corpulent. The pleasure, too, of mortifying his nephew, whom he did not love, was a further incitement to his prosecution of this match; and he insisted that Francis should give him the preference to the king of Scots. But Francis, though sensible that the alliance of England was of much greater importance to his interests, would not affront his friend and ally; and to prevent further solicitation, he immediately sent the princess to Scotland. Not to shock, however, Henry's humor, Francis made him an offer of Mary of Bourbon, daughter of the duke of Vendome; but as the king was informed that James had formerly rejected this princess he would not hear any further of such a proposal. The French monarch then offered him the choice of the two younger sisters of the queen of Scots; and he assured him, that they were nowise inferior either in merit or size to their elder sister, and that one of them was even superior in beauty. The king was as scrupulous with regard to the person of his wives, as if his heart had been really susceptible of a delicate passion; and he was unwilling to trust any relations, or even pictures, with regard to this important particular. He proposed to Francis, that they should have a conference at Calais on pretence of business; and that this monarch should bring along with him the two princesses of Guise, together with the finest ladies of quality in France, that he might make a choice among them. But the gallant spirit of Francis was shocked with the proposal: he was impressed with too much regard, he said, for the fair sex, to carry ladies of the first quality like geldings to a market, there to be chosen or rejected by the humor of the purchaser.[*] Henry would hearken to none of these niceties, but still insisted on his proposal; which, however, notwithstanding Francis's earnest desire of obliging him, was finally rejected.

* Le Grand, vol. iii. p. 638

The king then began to turn his thoughts towards a German alliance; and as the princes of the Smalcaldic league were extremely disgusted with the emperor on account of his persecuting their religion, he hoped, by matching himself into one of their families, to renew a connection which he regarded as so advantageous to him. Cromwell joyfully seconded this intention; and proposed to him Anne of Cleves, whose father, the duke of that name, had great interest among the Lutheran princes, and whose sister, Sibylla, was married to the elector of Saxony, the head of the Protestant league. A flattering picture of the princess, by Hans Holben, determined Henry to apply to her father; and after some negotiation, the marriage, notwithstanding the opposition of the elector of Saxony was at last concluded; and Anne was sent over to England. The king, impatient to be satisfied with regard to the person of his bride, came privately to Rochester and got a sight of her. He found her big, indeed, and tall as he could wish; but utterly destitute both of beauty and grace; very unlike the pictures and representations which he had received: he swore she was a great Flanders mare; and declared that he never could possibly bear her any affection. The matter was worse when he found that she could speak no language but Dutch, of which he was entirely ignorant; and that the charms of her conversation were not likely to compensate for the homeliness of her person. He returned to Greenwich very melancholy; and he much lamented his hard fate to Cromwell, as well as to Lord Russel, Sir Anthony Brown, and Sir Anthony Denny. This last gentleman, in order to give him comfort, told him, that his misfortune was common to him with all kings, who could not, like private persons, choose for themselves, but must receive their wives from the judgment and fancy of others.

It was the subject of debate among the king's counsellors, whether the marriage could not yet be dissolved, and the princess be sent back to her own country. Henry's situation seemed at that time very critical. After the ten years' truce concluded between the emperor and the king of France, a good understanding was thought to have taken place between these rival monarchs; and such marks of union appeared, as gave great jealousy to the court of England. The emperor, who knew the generous nature of Francis, even put a confidence in him which is rare to that degree among great princes. An insurrection had been raised in the Low Countries by the inhabitants of Ghent, and seemed to threaten the most dangerous consequences. Charles, who resided at that time in Spain, resolved to go in person to Flanders, in order to appease those disorders; but he found great difficulties in choosing the manner of his passing thither. The road by Italy and Germany was tedious: the voyage through the channel dangerous, by reason of the English naval power: he asked Francis's permission to pass through his dominions; and he entrusted himself into the hands of a rival, whom he had so mortally offended. The French monarch received him at Paris with great magnificence and courtesy; and though prompted both by revenge and interest, as well as by the advice of his mistress and favorites, to make advantage of the present opportunity, he conducted the emperor safely out of his dominions and would not so much as speak to him of business during his abode in France, lest his demands should bear the air of violence upon his royal guest.

Henry, who was informed of all these particulars, believed that an entire and cordial union had taken place between these princes; and that their religious zeal might prompt them to fall with combined arms upon England.[*] An alliance with the German princes seemed now more than ever requisite for his interest and safety; and he knew that if he sent back the princess of Cleves, such an affront would be highly resented by her friends and family.

* Stowe, p. 579.

{1540.} He was therefore resolved, notwithstanding his aversion to her, to complete the marriage; and he told Cromwell, that, since matters had gone so far, he must put his neck into the yoke. Cromwell, who knew how much his own interests were concerned in this affair, was very anxious to learn from the king, next morning after the marriage, whether he now liked his spouse any better. The king told him, that he hated her worse than ever; and that her person was more disgusting on a near approach; he was resolved never to meddle with her: and even suspected her not to be a true maid: a point about which he entertained an extreme delicacy. He continued, however, to be civil to Anne; he even seemed to repose his usual confidence in Cromwell; but though he exerted this command over himself, a discontent lay lurking in his breast, and was ready to burst out on the first opportunity.

A session of parliament was held; and none of the abbots were now allowed a place in the house of peers. The king, by the mouth of the chancellor, complained to the parliament of the great diversity of religions which still prevailed among his subjects; a grievance, he affirmed, which ought the less to be endured, because the Scriptures were now published in English, and ought universally to be the standard of belief to all mankind. But he had appointed, he said, some bishops and divines to draw up a list of tenets to which his people were to assent; and he was determined, that Christ, the doctrine of Christ, and the truth, should have the victory. The king seems to have expected more effect in ascertaining truth from this new book of his doctors, than had ensued from the publication of the Scriptures. Cromwell, as vicar-general, made also in the king's name a speech to the upper house; and the peers, in return, bestowed great flattery on him, and in particular said, that he was worthy, by his desert, to be vicar-general of the universe. That minister seemed to be no less in his master's good graces: he received, soon after the sitting of the parliament, the title of earl of Essex, and was installed knight of the garter.

There remained only one religious order in England; the knights of St. John of Jerusalem, or the knights of Malta, as they are commonly called. This order, partly ecclesiastical, partly military, had by their valor done great service to Christendom; and had very much retarded, at Jerusalem, Rhodes, and Malta, the rapid progress of the barbarians. During the general surrender of the religious houses in England, they had exerted their spirit, and had obstinately refused to yield up their revenues to the king; and Henry, who would endure no society that professed obedience to the pope, was obliged to have recourse to parliament for the dissolution of this order. Their revenues were large; and formed an addition nowise contemptible to the many acquisitions which the king had already made. But he had very ill husbanded the great revenue acquired by the plunder of the church: his profuse generosity dissipated faster than his rapacity could supply; and the parliament was surprised this session to find a demand made upon them of four tenths, and a subsidy of one shilling in the pound during two years: so ill were the public expectations answered, that the crown was never more to require any supply from the people. The commons, though lavish of their liberty, and of the blood of their fellow-subjects, were extremely frugal of their money; and it was not without difficulty so small a grant could be obtained by this absolute and dreaded monarch. The convocation gave the king four shillings in the pound to be levied in two years. The pretext for these grants was, the great expense which Henry had undergone for the defence of the realm, in building forts along the seacoast, and in equipping a navy. As he had at present no ally on the continent in whom he reposed much confidence, he relied only on his domestic strength, and was on that account obliged to be more expensive in his preparations against the danger of an invasion.

The king's favor to Cromwell and his acquiescence in the marriage with Anne of Cleves, were both of them deceitful appearances: his aversion to the queen secretly increased every day; and having at last broken all restraint, it prompted him at once to seek the dissolution of a marriage so odious to him, and to involve his minister in ruin, who had been the innocent author of it. The fall of Cromwell was hastened by other causes. All the nobility hated a man who, being of such low extraction, had not only mounted above them by his station of vicar-general, but had engrossed many of the other considerable offices of the crown: besides enjoying that commission, which gave him a high and almost absolute authority over the clergy, and even over the laity, he was privy seal, chamberlain, and master of the wards: he had also obtained the order of the garter, a dignity which had ever been conferred only on men of illustrious families, and which seemed to be profaned by its being communicated to so mean a person. The people were averse to him, as the supposed author of the violence on the monasteries; establishments which were still revered and beloved by the commonalty. The Catholics regarded him as the concealed enemy of their religion: the Protestants, observing his exterior concurrence with all the persecutions exercised against them, were inclined to bear him as little favor; and reproached him with the timidity, if not treachery, of his conduct. And the king, who found that great clamors had on all hands arisen against the administration, was not displeased to throw on Cromwell the load of public hatred; and he hoped, by making so easy a sacrifice, to regain the affections of his subjects.

But there was another cause which suddenly set all these motives in action, and brought about an unexpected revolution in the ministry. The king had fixed his affection on Catharine Howard, niece to the duke of Norfolk; and being determined to gratify this new passion, he could find no expedient, but by procuring a divorce from his present consort, to raise Catharine to his bed and throne. The duke, who had long been engaged in enmity with Cromwell, made the same use of her insinuations to ruin this minister, that he had formerly done of Anne Boleyn's against Wolsey; and when all engines were prepared, he obtained a commission from the king to arrest Cromwell at the council table, on an accusation of high treason, and to commit him to the Tower. Immediately after a bill of attainder was framed against him; and the house of peers thought proper, without trial, examination, or evidence, to condemn to death a man, whom a few days before they had declared worthy to be vicar-general of the universe. The house of commons passed the bill, though not without some opposition. Cromwell was accused of heresy and treason: but the proofs of his treasonable practices are utterly improbable, and even absolutely ridiculous.[*] The only circumstance of his conduct by which he seems to have merited this fate, was his being the instrument of the king's tyranny in conducting like iniquitous bills, in the preceding session, against the countess of Salisbury and others.

Cromwell endeavored to soften the king by the most humble supplications; but all to no purpose: it was not the practice of that prince to ruin his ministers and favorites by halves; and though the unhappy prisoner once wrote to him in so moving a strain as even to draw tears from his eyes, he hardened himself against all movements of pity, and refused his pardon. The conclusion of Cromwell's letter ran in these words: "I, a most woful prisoner, am ready to submit to death when it shall please God and your majesty; and yet the frail flesh incites me to call to your grace for mercy and pardon of mine offences. Written at the Tower, with the heavy heart and trembling hand of your highness's most miserable prisoner and poor slave, Thomas Cromwell." And a little below, "Most gracious prince, I cry for mercy, mercy, mercy."[**]

* Burnet, vol. i. p. 278.

** Burnet, vol. i. p. 281, 282.

When brought to the place of execution, he avoided all earnest protestations of his innocence, and all complaints against the sentence pronounced upon him. He knew that Henry would resent on his son those symptoms of opposition to his will, and that his death alone would not terminate that monarch's vengeance. He was a man of prudence, industry, and abilities; worthy of a better master and of a better fate. Though raised to the summit of power from a low origin, he betrayed no insolence or contempt towards his inferiors; and was careful to remember all the obligations which, during his more humble fortune, he had owed to any one. He had served as a private sentinel in the Italian wars; when he received some good offices from a Lucquese merchant, who had entirely forgotten his person, as well as the service which he had rendered him. Cromwell, in his grandeur, happened at London to cast his eye on his benefactor, now reduced to poverty by misfortunes. He immediately sent for him, reminded him of their ancient friendship, and by his grateful assistance reinstated him in his former prosperity and opulence.[*]

The measures for divorcing Henry from Anne of Cleves were carried on at the same time with the bill of attainder against Cromwell. The house of peers, in conjunction with the commons, applied to the king by petition, desiring that he would allow his marriage to be examined; and orders were immediately given to lay the matter before the convocation. Anne had formerly been contracted by her father to the duke of Lorraine, but she, as well as the duke, were at that time under age, and the contract had been afterwards annulled by consent of both parties.

The king, however, pleaded this precontract as a ground of divorce; and he added two reasons more, which may seem a little extraordinary; that, when he espoused Anne he had not inwardly given his consent, and that he had not thought proper to consummate the marriage. The convocation was satisfied with these reasons, and solemnly annulled the marriage between the king and queen: the parliament ratified the decision of the clergy;[**] [16] and the sentence was soon after notified to the princess.

Anne was blest with a happy insensibility of temper, ever in the points which the most nearly affect her sex; and the king's aversion towards her, as well as his prosecution of the divorce, had never given her the least uneasiness. She willingly hearkened to terms of accommodation with him; and when he offered to adopt her as his sister, to give her place next the queen and his own daughter, and to make a settlement of three thousand pounds a year upon her; she accepted of the conditions, and gave her consent to the divorce.[***] She even wrote to her brother, (for her father was now dead,) that she had been very well used in England, and desired him to live on good terms with the king. The only instance of pride which she betrayed was, that she refused to return to her own country after the affront which she had received; and she lived and died in England.

* Burnet, vol. i. p. 172.

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

*** Herbert, p. 458 459.

Notwithstanding Anne's moderation, this incident produced a great coldness between the king and the German princes; but as the situation of Europe was now much altered, Henry was the more indifferent about their resentment. The close intimacy which had taken place between Francis and Charles had subsisted during a very short time: the dissimilarity of their characters soon renewed, with greater violence than ever, their former jealousy and hatred. While Charles remained at Paris, Francis had been imprudently engaged, by his open temper, and by that satisfaction which a noble mind naturally feels in performing generous actions, to make in confidence some dangerous discoveries to that interested monarch; and having now lost all suspicion of his rival, he hoped that the emperor and he, supporting each other, might neglect every other alliance. He not only communicated to his guest the state of his negotiations with Sultan Solyman and the Venetians; he also laid open the solicitations which he had received from the court of England to enter into a confederacy against him.[*] Charles had no sooner reached his own dominions, than he showed himself unworthy of the friendly reception which he had met with. He absolutely refused to fulfil his promise, and put the duke of Orleans in possession of the Milanese; he informed Solyman and the senate of Venice of the treatment which they had received from their ally; and he took care that Henry should not be ignorant how readily Francis had abandoned his ancient friend, to whom he owed such important obligations, and had sacrificed him to a new confederate: he even poisoned and misrepresented many things which the unsuspecting heart of the French monarch had disclosed to him. Had Henry possessed true judgment and generosity, this incident alone had been sufficient to guide him in the choice of his ally. But his domineering pride carried him immediately to renounce the friendship of Francis, who had so unexpectedly given the preference to the emperor; and as Charles invited him to a renewal of ancient amity, he willingly accepted of the offer; and thinking himself secure in this alliance, he neglected the friendship both of France and of the German princes.

* Pere Daniel. Du Tillet.

The new turn which Henry had taken with regard to foreign affairs was extremely agreeable to his Catholic subjects; and as it had perhaps contributed, among other reasons, to the ruin of Cromwell, it made them entertain hopes of a final prevalence over their antagonists. The marriage of the king with Catharine Howard, which followed soon after his divorce from Anne of Cleves, was also regarded as a favorable incident to their party; and the subsequent events corresponded to their expectations. The king's councils being now directed by Norfolk and Gardiner, a furious persecution commenced against the Protestants; and the law of the six articles was executed with rigor. Dr. Barnes, who had been the cause of Lambert's execution, felt, in his turn, the severity of the persecuting spirit; and, by a bill which passed in parliament, he was, without trial, condemned to the flames, together with Jerome and Gerrard. He discussed theological questions even at the stake; and as the dispute between him and the sheriff turned upon the invocation of saints, he said, that he doubted whether the saints could pray for us; but if they could, he hoped in half an hour to be praying for the sheriff and all the spectators. He next entreated the sheriff to carry to the king his dying request, which he fondly imagined would have authority with that monarch who had sent him to the stake. The purport of his request was, that Henry, besides repressing superstitious ceremonies, should be extremely vigilant in preventing fornication and common swearing.[*]