The mere enactment of a statute, whatever penalties were attached to the violation of it, was still, however, an insufficient safeguard. The recent investigation had revealed a spirit of disloyalty, where such a spirit had not been expected. The deeper the inquiry had penetrated, the more clearly appeared tokens, if not of conspiracy, yet of excitement, of doubt, of agitation, of alienated feeling, if not of alienated act. All the symptoms were abroad which provide disaffection with its opportunity; and in the natural confusion which attended the revolt from the papacy, the obligations of duty, both political and religious, had become indefinite and contradictory, pointing in all directions, like the magnetic needle in a thunderstorm.

It was thought well, therefore, to vest a power in the crown, of trying the tempers of suspected persons, and examining them upon oath, as to their willingness to maintain the decision of parliament. This measure was a natural corollary of the statute, and depended for its justification on the extent of the danger to which the state was exposed. If a difference of opinion on the legitimacy of the king's children, or of the pope's power in England, was not dangerous, it was unjust to interfere with the natural liberty of speech or thought. If it was dangerous, and if the state had cause for supposing that opinions of the kind might spread in secret so long as no opportunity was offered for detecting their progress, to require the oath was a measure of reasonable self-defence, not permissible only, but in a high degree necessary and right.

Under the impression, then, that the circumstances of the country demanded extraordinary precautions, a commission was appointed, consisting of the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Lord Chancellor, the Duke of Norfolk, and the Duke of Suffolk; and these four, or any three of them, were empowered to administer, at the pleasure of the king, "to all and singular liege subjects of the realm," the following oath:—

"Ye shall swear to bear your faith, truth, and obedience only to the King's Majesty, and to the heirs of his body, according to the limitation and rehearsal within the statute of succession; and not to any other within this realm, or foreign authority, prince, or potentate: and in case any oath be made or hath been made by you to any other person or persons, that then you do repute the same as vain and annihilate: and that to your cunning, wit, and utmost of your power, without guile, fraud, or other undue means, ye shall observe, keep, maintain, and defend this act above specified, and all the whole contents and effects thereof; and all other acts and statutes made since the beginning of this present parliament, in confirmation or for due execution of the same, or of anything therein contained. And thus ye shall do against all manner of persons, of what estate, dignity, degree, or condition soever they be; and in no wise do or attempt, or to your power suffer to be done or attempted, directly or indirectly, any thing or things, privily or apertly, to the let, hindrance, damage, or derogation thereof, by any manner of means, or for any pretence or cause, so help you God and all saints."[702]

With this last resolution the House rose, having sat seventy-five days, and despatched their business swiftly. A week later, the news arrived from Rome that there too all was at length over; that the cause was decided, and decided against the king. The history of the closing catastrophe is as obscure as it is strange, and the account of the manner in which it was brought about is unfortunately incomplete in many important particulars. The outline only can be apprehended, and that very imperfectly.

On the receipt in Paris of the letter in which Henry threatened to organise a Protestant confederacy, Du Bellay, in genuine anxiety for the welfare of Christendom, had volunteered his services for a final effort. Not a moment was to be lost, for the courts of Rome were already busy with the great cause; but the king's evident reluctance to break with the Catholic powers, gave room for hope that something might still be done; and going in person to England, the bishop had induced Henry, at the last extremity, either to entrust him with representative powers, or else to allow him after all to make some kind of concession. I am unable to learn the extent to which Henry yielded, but that an offer was made of some kind is evident from the form of the story.[703] The winter was very cold, but the bishop made his way to Rome with the haste of good will, and arrived in time to stay judgment, which was on the point of being pronounced. It seemed, for the moment, as if he would succeed. He was permitted to make engagements on the part of Henry; and that time might be allowed for communication with England, the pope agreed to delay sentence till the 23rd of March. This bishop's terms were approved by the king, and a courier was sent off with letters of confirmation; Sir Edward Karne and Dr. Revett following leisurely, with a more ample commission. The stone which had been laboriously rolled to the summit of the hill was trembling on the brink, and in a moment might rebound into the plain.

But this was not to be the end. Some accidental cause delayed the courier; the 23rd of March came, and he had not arrived. Du Bellay implored a further respite. The King of England, he said, had waited six years; it was not a great thing for the papal council to wait six days. The cardinals were divided; but the Spanish party were the strongest, and when the votes were taken carried the day. The die was cast, and the pope, in spite of himself, his promises, and his conscience, drove at length upon the rocks to which he had been so long drifting.[704] In deference to the opinion of the majority of the cardinals, he pronounced the original marriage to have been valid, the dispensation by which it was permitted to have been legal; and, as a natural consequence, Henry, King of England, should he fail in obedience to this judgment, was declared to be excommunicate from the fellowship of the church, and to have forfeited the allegiance of his subjects.

Lest the censures should be discredited by a blank discharge, engagements were entered into, that within four months of the promulgation of the sentence, the emperor would invade England, and Henry should be deposed.[705] The imperialists illuminated Rome; cannon were fired; bonfires blazed; and great bodies of men paraded the streets with shouts of "the Empire and Spain."[706] Already, in their eager expectation, England was a second Netherlands, a captured province under the regency of Catherine or Mary.

Two days later, the courier arrived. The pope, at the entreaties of the Bishop of Paris, re-assembled the consistory, to consider whether the steps which had been taken should be undone. They sat debating all night, and the result was nothing. No dependence could be placed on the cardinals, Du Bellay said, for they spoke one way, and voted another.[707]

Thus all was over. In a scene of general helplessness the long drama closed, and, what we call accident, for want of some better word, cut the knot at last over which human incapacity had so vainly laboured. The Bishop of Paris retired from Rome in despair. On his way back, he met the English commissioners at Bologna, and told them that their errand was hopeless, and that they need not proceed. "When we asked him," wrote Sir Edward Karne to the king, "the cause of such hasty process, he made answer that the imperialists at Rome had strengthened themselves in such a manner, that they coacted the said Bishop of Rome to give sentence contrary to his own mind, and the expectation of himself and of the French king. He showed us also that the Lady Princess Dowager sent lately, in the month of March past, letters to the Bishop of Rome, and also to her proctors, whereby the Bishop of Rome was much moved for her part. The imperials, before the sentence was given, promised, in the emperor's behalf, that he would be the executor of the sentence."[708]

This is all which we are able to say of the immediate catastrophe which decided the fate of England, and through England, of the world. The deep impenetrable falsehood of the Roman ecclesiastics prevents us from discovering with what intentions the game of the last few weeks or months had been played; it is sufficient for Englishmen to remember that, whatever may have been the explanation of his conduct, the pope, in the concluding passage of his connection with this country, furnished the most signal justification which was ever given for the revolt from an abused authority. The supreme judge in Christendom had for six years trifled with justice, out of fear of an earthly prince; he concluded these years with uniting the extreme of folly with the extreme of improbity, and pronounced a sentence, willingly or unwillingly, which he had acknowledged to be unjust.

Charity may possibly acquit Clement of conscious duplicity. He was one of those men who waited upon fortune, and waited always without success; who gave his word as the interest of the moment suggested, trusting that it might be convenient to observe it; and who was too long accustomed to break his promises to look with any particular alarm on that contingency. It is possible, also,—for of this Clement was capable—that he knew from the beginning the conclusion to which he would at last be driven; that he had engaged himself with Charles to decide in Catherine's favour as distinctly as he had engaged himself with Francis to decide against her; and that all his tortuous scheming was intended either to weary out the patience of the King of England, or to entangle him in acknowledgments from which he would not be able to extricate himself.

He was mistaken, certainly, in the temper of the English nation; he believed what the friars told him; and trusting to the promises of disaffection, insurrection, invasion—those ignes fatui which for sixty years floated so delusively before the Italian imagination, he imagined, perhaps, that he might trifle with Henry with impunity. This only is impossible, that, if he had seriously intended to fulfil the promises which he had made to the French king, the accidental delay of a courier could have made so large a difference in his determination. It is not possible that, if he had assured himself, as he pretended, that justice was on the side against which he had declared, he would not have availed himself of any pretext to retreat from a position which ought to have been intolerable to him.

The question, however, had ended, "as all things in this world do have their end." The news of the sentence arrived in England at the beginning of April, with an intimation of the engagements which had been entered upon by the imperial ambassador for an invasion. Du Bellay returned to Paris at the same time, to report the failure of his undertaking; and Francis, disappointed, angry, and alarmed, sent the Duke of Guise to London with promises of support if an attempt to invade was really made, and with a warning at the same time to Henry to prepare for danger. Troops were gathering in Flanders; detachments were on their way out of Italy, Germany, and Bohemia, to be followed by three thousand Spaniards, and perhaps many more; and the object avowed for these preparations was wholly incommensurate with their magnitude.[709] For his own sake Francis could not permit a successful invasion of England, unless, indeed, he himself was to take part in it; and therefore, with entire sincerity, he offered his services. The cordial understanding for which Henry had hoped was at an end; but the political confederacy remained, which the interests of the two countries combined for the present to preserve unbroken.

Guise proposed another interview at Calais between the sovereigns. The king for the moment was afraid to leave England,[710] lest the opportunity should be made use of for an insurrection; but prudence taught him, though disappointed in Francis, to make the best of a connection too convenient to be sacrificed. The German league was left in abeyance till the immediate danger was passed, and till the effect of the shock in England itself had been first experienced. He gladly accepted, in lieu of it, an offer that the French fleet should guard the Channel through the summer; and meanwhile, he collected himself resolutely, to abide the issue, whatever the issue was to be.

The Tudor spirit was at length awake in the English sovereign. He had exhausted the resources of patience; he had stooped even to indignity to avoid the conclusion which had come at last. There was nothing left but to meet defiance by defiance, and accept the position to which the pope had driven him. In quiet times occasionally wayward and capricious, Henry, like Elizabeth after him, reserved his noblest nature for the moment of danger, and was ever greatest when peril was most immediate. Woe to those who crossed him now, for the time was grown stern, and to trifle further was to be lost. The suspended act of parliament was made law on the day (it would seem) of the arrival of the sentence. Convocation, which was still sitting, hurried through a declaration that the pope had no more power in England than any other bishop.[711] Five years before, if a heretic had ventured so desperate an opinion, the clergy would have shut their ears and run upon him: now they only contended with each other in precipitate obsequiousness. The houses of the Observants at Canterbury and Greenwich, which had been implicated with the Nun of Kent, were suppressed, and the brethren were scattered among monasteries where they could be under surveillance. The Nun and her friends were sent to execution.[712] The ordnance stores were examined, the repairs of the navy were hastened, and the garrisons were strengthened along the coast. Everywhere the realm armed itself for the struggle, looking well to the joints of its harness and to the temper of its weapons.

The commission appointed under the Statute of Succession opened its sittings to receive the oaths of allegiance. Now, more than ever, was it necessary to try men's dispositions, when the pope had challenged their obedience. In words all went well: the peers swore; bishops, abbots, priors, heads of colleges swore[713] with scarcely an exception,—the nation seemed to unite in an unanimous declaration of freedom. In one quarter only, and that a very painful one, was there refusal. It was found solely among the persons who had been implicated in the late conspiracy. Neither Sir Thomas More nor the Bishop of Rochester could expect that their recent conduct would exempt them from an obligation which the people generally accepted with good will. They had connected themselves, perhaps unintentionally, with a body of confessed traitors. An opportunity was offered them of giving evidence of their loyalty, and escaping from the shadow of distrust. More had been treated leniently; Fisher had been treated far more than leniently. It was both fair and natural that they should be called upon to give proof that their lesson had not been learnt in vain; and, in fact, no other persons, if they had been passed over, could have been called upon to swear, for no other persons had laid themselves open to so just suspicion.

Their conduct so exactly tallied, that they must have agreed beforehand on the course which they would adopt; and in following the details, we need concern ourselves only with the nobler figure.

The commissioners sate at the archbishop's palace at Lambeth; and at the end of April, Sir Thomas More received a summons to appear before them.[714] He was at his house at Chelsea, where for the last two years he had lived in deep retirement, making ready for evil times. Those times at length were come. On the morning on which he was to present himself, he confessed and received the sacrament in Chelsea church; and "whereas," says his great-grandson, "at other times, before he parted from his wife and children, they used to bring him to his boat, and he there kissing them bade them farewell, at this time he suffered none of them to follow him forth of his gate, but pulled the wicket after him, and with a heavy heart he took boat with his son Roper."[715] He was leaving his home for the last time, and he knew it. He sat silent for some minutes, and then, with a sudden start, said, "I thank our Lord, the field is won." Lambeth Palace was crowded with people who had come on the same errand with himself. More was called in early, and found Cromwell present with the four commissioners, and also the Abbot of Westminster. The oath was read to him. It implied that he should keep the statute of succession in all its parts, and he desired to see the statute itself. He read it through, and at once replied that others might do as they pleased; he would blame no one for taking the oath; but for himself it was impossible. He would swear willingly to the part of it which secured the succession to the children of Queen Anne.[716] That was a matter on which parliament was competent to decide, and he had no right to make objections. If he might be allowed to take an oath to this portion of the statute in language of his own, he would do it; but as the words stood, he would "peril his soul" by using them. The Lord Chancellor desired him to re-consider his answer. He retired to the garden, and in his absence others were called in; among them the Bishop of Rochester, who refused in the same terms. More was then recalled. He was asked if he persisted in his resolution; and when he replied that he did, he was requested to state his reasons. He said that he was afraid of increasing the king's displeasure, but if he could be assured that he might explain himself safely he was ready to do so. If his objection could then be answered to his satisfaction, he would swear; in the meantime, he repeated, very explicitly, that he judged no one—he spoke only for himself.

An opening seemed to be offered in these expressions which was caught at by Cranmer's kind-hearted casuistry. If Sir Thomas More could not condemn others for taking the oath, the archbishop said, Sir Thomas More could not be sure that it was sin to take it; while his duty to his king and to the parliament was open and unquestioned.

More hesitated for an instant, but he speedily recovered his firmness. He had considered what he ought to do, he said; his conscience was clear about it, and he could say no more than he had said already. They continued to argue with him, but without effect; he had made up his mind; the victory, as he said, had been won.

Cromwell was deeply affected. In his passionate regret, he exclaimed, that he had rather his only son had lost his head than that More should have refused the oath. No one knew better than Cromwell that intercession would be of no further use; that he could not himself advise the king to give way. The parliament, after grave consideration, had passed a law which they held necessary to secure the peace of the country; and two persons of high rank refused obedience to it, whose example would tell in every English household. Either, therefore, the act was not worth the parchment on which it was written, or the penalties of it must be enforced: no middle way, no compromise, no acquiescent reservations, could in such a case be admitted. The law must have its way.

The recusants were committed for four days to the keeping of the Abbot of Westminster; and the council met to determine on the course to be pursued. Their offence, by the act, was misprision of treason. On the other hand, they had both offered to acknowledge the Princess Elizabeth as the lawful heir to the throne; and the question was raised whether this offer should be accepted. It was equivalent to a demand that the form should be altered, not for them only, but for every man. If persons of their rank and notoriety were permitted to swear with a qualification, the same privilege must be conceded to all. But there was so much anxiety to avoid extremities, and so warm a regard was personally felt for Sir Thomas More, that this objection was not allowed to be fatal. It was thought that possibly an exception might be made, yet kept a secret from the world; and the fact that they had sworn under any form might go far to silence objectors and reconcile the better class of the disaffected.[717] This view was particularly urged by Cranmer, always gentle, hoping, and illogical.[718] But, in fact, secresy was impossible. If More's discretion could have been relied upon, Fisher's babbling tongue would have trumpeted his victory to all the winds. Nor would the government consent to pass censure on its own conduct by evading the question whether the act was or was not just. If it was not just, it ought not to be: maintained at all; if it was just, there must be no respect of persons.

The clauses to which the bishop and the ex-chancellor declined to bind themselves were those which declared illegal the marriage of the king with Catherine, and the marriage legal between the king and Queen Anne. To refuse these was to declare Mary legitimate, to declare Elizabeth illegitimate, and would do more to strengthen Mary's claims than could be undone by a thousand oaths. However large might be More's estimate of the power of parliament, he could have given no clear answer—and far less could Fisher have given a clear answer—if they had been required to say the part which they would take, should the emperor invade the kingdom under the pope's sanction. The emperor would come to execute a sentence which in their consciences they believed to be just; how could they retain their allegiance to Henry, when their convictions must be with the invading army?

What ought to have been done let those say who disapprove of what was actually done. The high character of the prisoners, while it increased the desire, increased the difficulty of sparing them; and to have given way would have been a confession of a doubtful cause, which at such a time would not have been dangerous, but would have been fatal. Anne Boleyn is said to have urged the king to remain peremptory;[719] but the following letter of Cromwell's explains the ultimate resolution of the council in a very reasonable manner. It was written to Cranmer in reply to his arguments for concession.

"My Lord, after mine humble commendation, it may please your Grace to be advertised that I have received your letter, and showed the same to the King's Highness; who, perceiving that your mind and opinion is, that it were good that the Bishop of Rochester and Master More should be sworn to the act of the king's succession, and not to the preamble of the same, thinketh that if their oaths should be taken, it were an occasion to all men to refuse the whole, or at least the like. For, in case they be sworn to the succession, and not to the preamble, it is to be thought that it might be taken not only as a confirmation of the Bishop of Rome's authority, but also as a reprobation of the king's second marriage. Wherefore, to the intent that no such things should be brought into the heads of the people, by the example of the said Bishop of Rochester and Master More, the King's Highness in no wise willeth but that they shall be sworn as well to the preamble as to the act. Wherefore his Grace specially trusteth that ye will in no wise attempt to move him to the contrary; for as his Grace supposeth, that manner of swearing, if it shall be suffered, may be an utter destruction to his whole cause, and also to the effect of the law made for the same."[720]

Thus, therefore, with much regret the council decided—and, in fact, why should they have decided otherwise? They were satisfied that they were right in requiring the oath; and their duty to the English nation obliged them to persevere. They must go their way; and those who thought them wrong must go theirs; and the great God would judge between them. It was a hard thing to suffer for an opinion; but there are times when opinions are as dangerous as acts; and liberty of conscience was a plea which could be urged with a bad grace for men who, while in power, had fed the stake with heretics. They were summoned for a last time, to return the same answer as they had returned before; and nothing remained but to pronounce against them the penalties of the statute, imprisonment at the king's pleasure, and forfeiture. The latter part of the sentence was not enforced. More's family were left in the enjoyment of his property. Fisher's bishoprick was not taken from him. They were sent to the Tower, where for the present we leave them.

Meanwhile, in accordance with the resolution taken in council on the and of December,[721] but which seems to have been suspended till the issue of the trial at Rome was decided, the bishops, who had been examined severally on the nature of the papal authority, and whose answers had been embodied in the last act of parliament, were now required to instruct the clergy throughout their dioceses—and the clergy in turn to instruct the people—in the nature of the changes which had taken place. A bishop was to preach each Sunday at Paul's Cross, on the pope's usurpation. Every secular priest was directed to preach on the same subject week after week, in his parish church. Abbots and priors were to teach their convents; noblemen and gentlemen their families and servants; mayors and aldermen the boroughs. In town and country, in all houses, at all dinner-tables, the conduct of the pope and the causes of the separation from Rome were to be the one subject of conversation; that the whole nation might be informed accurately and faithfully of the grounds on which the government had acted. No wiser method could have been adopted. The imperial agents would be busy under the surface; and the mendicant friars, and all the missionaries of insurrection. The machinery of order was set in force to counteract the machinery of sedition.

Further, every bishop, in addition to the oath of allegiance, had sworn obedience to the king as Supreme Head of the Church;[722] and this was the title under which he was to be spoken of in all churches of the realm. A royal order had been issued, "that all manner of prayers, rubrics, canons of Mass books, and all other books in the churches wherein the Bishop of Rome was named, or his presumptuous and proud pomp and authority preferred, should utterly be abolished, eradicated, and rased out, and his name and memory should be never more, except to his contumely and reproach, remembered; but perpetually be suppressed and obscured."[723]

Nor were these mere idle sounds, like the bellow of unshotted cannon; but words with a sharp, prompt meaning, which the king intended to be obeyed. He had addressed his orders to the clergy, because the clergy were the officials who had possession of the pulpits from which the people were to be taught; but he knew their nature too well to trust them. They were too well schooled in the tricks of reservation; and, for the nonce, it was necessary to reverse the posture of the priest and of his flock, and to set the honest laymen to overlook their pastors.

With the instructions to the bishops circulars went round to the sheriffs of the counties, containing a full account of these instructions, and an appeal to their loyalty to see that the royal orders were obeyed. "We," the king wrote to them, "seeing, esteeming, and reputing you to be of such singular and vehement zeal and affection towards the glory of Almighty God, and of so faithful, loving, and obedient heart towards us, as you will accomplish, with all power, diligence, and labour, whatsoever shall be to the preferment and setting forth of God's word, have thought good, not only to signify unto you by these our letters, the particulars of the charge given by us to the bishops, but also to require and straitly charge you, upon pain of your allegiance, and as ye shall avoid our high indignation and displeasure, [that] at your uttermost peril, laying aside all vain affections, respects, and other carnal considerations, and setting only before your eyes the mirrour of the truth, the glory of God, the dignity of your Sovereign Lord and King, and the great concord and unity, and inestimable profit and utility, that shall by the due execution of the premises ensue to yourselves and to all other faithful and loving subjects, ye make or cause to be made diligent search and wait, whether the said bishops do truly and sincerely, without all manner of cloke, colour, or dissimulation, execute and accomplish our will and commandment, as is aforesaid. And in case ye shall hear that the said bishops, or any other ecclesiastical person, do omit and leave undone any part or parcel of the premises, or else in the execution and setting forth of the same, do coldly and feignedly use any manner of sinister addition, wrong interpretation, or painted colour, then we straitly charge and command you that you do make, undelayedly, and with all speed and diligence, declaration and advertisement to us and to our council of the said default.

"And forasmuch as we upon the singular trust which we have in you, and for the special love which we suppose you bear towards us, and the weal and tranquillity of this our realm, have specially elected and chosen you among so many for this purpose, and have reputed you such men as unto whose wisdom and fidelity we might commit a matter of such great weight and importance: if ye should, contrary to our expectation and trust which we have in you, and against your duty and allegiance towards us, neglect, or omit to do with all your diligence, whatsoever shall be in your power for the due performance of our pleasure to you declared, or halt or stumble at any part or specialty of the same; Be ye assured that we, like a prince of justice, will so extremely punish you for the same, that all the world beside shall take by you example, and beware contrary to their allegiance to disobey the lawful commandment of their Sovereign Lord and Prince.

"Given under our signet, at our Palace of Westminster, the 9th day of June, 1534."[724]

So Henry spoke at last. There was no place any more for nice distinctions and care of tender consciences. The general, when the shot is flying, cannot qualify his orders with dainty periods. Swift command and swift obedience can alone be tolerated; and martial law for those who hesitate.

This chapter has brought many things to a close. Before ending it we will leap over three months, to the termination of the career of the pope who has been so far our companion. Not any more was the distracted Clement to twist his handkerchief, or weep, or flatter, or wildly wave his arms in angry impotence; he was to lie down in his long rest, and vex the world no more. He had lived to set England free—an exploit which, in the face of so persevering an anxiety to escape a separation, required a rare genius and a combination of singular qualities. He had finished his work, and now he was allowed to depart.

In him, infinite insincerity was accompanied with a grace of manner which regained confidence as rapidly as it was forfeited. Desiring sincerely, so far as he could be sincere in anything, to please every one by turns, and reckless of truth to a degree in which he was without a rival in the world, he sought only to escape his difficulties by inactivity, and he trusted to provide himself with a refuge against all contingencies by waiting upon time. Even when at length he was compelled to act, and to act in a distinct direction, his plausibility long enabled him to explain away his conduct; and, honest in the excess of his dishonesty, he wore his falsehood with so easy a grace that it assumed the character of truth. He was false, deceitful, treacherous; yet he had the virtue of not pretending to be virtuous. He was a real man, though but an indifferent one; and we can refuse to no one, however grave his faults, a certain ambiguous sympathy, when in his perplexities he shows us features so truly human in their weakness as those of Clement VII.

* * * * *

NOTES.

[1] Printed in FOXE, vol. iv. p. 659, Townsend's edition.

[2] 24 Hen. VIII. cap. 4.

[3] Bishop Latimer, in a sermon at Paul's Cross, suggested another purpose which this act might answer. One of his audience, writing to the Mayor of Plymouth, after describing the exceedingly disrespectful language in which he spoke of the high church dignitaries, continues, "The king," quoth he, "made a marvellous good act of parliament that certain men should sow every of them two acres of hemp; but it were all too little were it so much more to hang the thieves that be in England."—Suppression of the Monasteries, Camden Society's publications, p. 38.

[4] 32 Hen. VIII. cap. 18.

[5] 25 Hen. VIII. cap. 18.

[6] Antiquities of Hengrave, by Sir T. GAGE.

[7] See especially 2 Hen. VII. capp. 16 and 19.

[8] 24 Hen. VIII. cap. 9.

[9] See especially the 4th of the 5th of Elizabeth.

[10] 10 Ed. III. cap. 3.

[11] Statutes of the Realm, vol. i. (edit. 1817), pp. 227-8.

[12] "The artificers and husbandmen make most account of such meat as they may soonest come by and have it quickliest ready. Their food consisteth principally in beef, and such meat as the butcher selleth, that is to say, mutton, veal, lamb, pork, whereof the one findeth great store in the markets adjoining; besides souse, brawn, bacon, fruit, pies of fruit, fowls of sundry sorts, as the other wanteth it not at home by his own provision, which is at the best hand and commonly least charge. In feasting, this latter sort—I mean the husbandmen—do exceed after their manner, especially at bridals and such odd meetings, where it is incredible to tell what meat is consumed and spent."—HARRISON'S Description of England, p. 282.

The Spanish nobles who came into England with Philip were astonished at the diet which they found among the poor.

"These English," said one of them, "have their houses made of sticks and dirt, but they fare commonly so well as the king."—Ibid. p. 313.

[13] State Papers, Hen. VIII. vol. ii. p. 10.

[14] HALL, p. 646.

[15] 25 Ed. III. cap. I.

[16] Statutes of the Realm, vol. i. p. 199.

[17] 3 Ed. IV. cap. 2.

[18] 10 Hen. VI. cap. 2.

[19] STOW'S Chronicle.

[20] Statutes of Philip and Mary.

[21] From 1565 to 1575 there was a rapid and violent rise in the prices of all kinds of grain. Wheat stood at four and five times its earlier rates; and in 1576, when Harrison wrote, was entirely beyond the reach of the labouring classes. "The poor in some shires," he says, "are enforced to content themselves with rye or barley, yea, and in time of dearth many with bread made either of peas, beans, or oats, or of all together and some acorns among, of which scourge the poorest do soonest taste, sith they are least able to provide themselves of better. I will not say that this extremity is oft so well seen in time of plenty as of dearth, but if I should I could easily bring my trial. For, albeit that there be much more ground eared now almost in every place than hath been of late years, yet such a price of corn continues in each town and market, that the artificer and poor labouring man is not able to reach to it, but is driven to content himself with beans, peas, oats, tares, and lentils."—HARRISON, p. 283. The condition of the labourer was at this period deteriorating rapidly. The causes will be described in the progress of this history.

[22] Chronicle, p.568.

[23] 33 Hen. VIII. cap. II. The change in the prices of such articles commenced in the beginning of the reign of Edward VI., and continued till the close of the century. A discussion upon the subject, written in 1581 by Mr. Edward Stafford, and containing the clearest detailed account of the alteration, is printed in the Harleian Miscellany, vol. ix. p.139, etc.

[24] Leland, Itin., vol. vi. p.17. In large households beef used to be salted in great quantities for winter consumption. The art of fatting cattle in the stall was imperfectly understood, and the loss of substance in the destruction of fibre by salt was less than in the falling off of flesh on the failure of fresh grass. The Northumberland Household Book describes the storing of salted provision for the earl's establishment at Michaelmas; and men now living can remember the array of salting tubs in old-fashioned country houses. So long as pigs, poultry, and other articles of food, however, remained cheap and abundant, the salt diet could not, as Hume imagines, have been carried to an extent injurious to health; and fresh meat, beef as well as mutton, was undoubtedly sold in all markets the whole year round in the reign of Henry VIII., and sold at a uniform price, which it could not have been if there had been so much difficulty in procuring it. Latimer (Letters, p.412), writing to Cromwell on Christmas Eve, 1538, speaks of his winter stock of "beeves" and muttons as a thing of course.

[25] STAFFORD'S Discourse on the State of the Realm. It is to be understood, however, that these rates applied only to articles of ordinary consumption. Capons fatted for the dinners of the London companies were sometimes provided at a shilling apiece. Fresh fish was also extravagantly dear, and when two days a week were observed strictly as fasting days, it becomes a curious question to know how the supply was kept up. The inland counties were dependent entirely on ponds and rivers. London was provided either from the Thames or from the coast of Sussex. An officer of the Fishmongers' Company resided at each of the Cinque Ports whose business it was to buy the fish wholesale from the boats and to forward it on horseback. Three hundred horses were kept for this service at Rye alone. And when an adventurous fisherman, taking advantage of a fair wind, sailed up the Thames with his catch and sold it first hand at London Bridge, the innovation was considered dangerous, and the Mayor of Rye petitioned against it.

Salmon, sturgeon, porpoise, roach, dace, flounders, eels, etc., were caught in considerable quantities in the Thames, below London Bridge, and further up, pike and trout. The fishermen had great nets that stretched all across Limehouse-reach four fathoms deep.

Fresh fish, however, remained the luxury of the rich, and the poor were left to the salt cod, ling, and herring brought in annually by the Iceland fleet.

Fresh herrings sold for five or six a penny in the time of Henry VIII., and were never cheaper. Fresh salmon five and six shillings apiece. Roach, dace, and flounders from two to four shillings a hundred. Pike and barbel varied with their length. The barbel a foot long sold for five-pence, and twopence was added for each additional inch: a pike a foot long sold for sixteen pence, and increased a penny an inch.—Guildhall MSS. Journals 12, 13, 14, 15.

[26] "When the brewer buyeth a quarter of malt for two shillings, then he shall sell a gallon of the best ale for two farthings; when he buyeth a quarter malt for four shillings, the gallon shall be four farthings, and so forth... and that he sell a quart of ale upon his table for a farthing."— Assize of Brewers: from a MS. in Balliol College, Oxford.

By an order of the Lord Mayor and Council of the City of London, in September, 1529, the price of a kilderkin of single beer was fixed at a shilling, the kilderkin of double beer at two shillings; but this included the cask; and the London brewers replied with a remonstrance, saying that the casks were often destroyed or made away with, and that an allowance had to be made for bad debts. "Your beseechers," they said, "have many city debtors, for many of them which have taken much beer into their houses suddenly goeth to the sanctuary, some keep their houses—some purchase the king's protection, and some, when they die, be reckoned poor, and of no value, and many of your said beseechers be for the most part against such debtors remediless and suffer great losses."

They offered to supply then: customers with sixteen gallon casks of single beer for eleven pence, and the same quantity of double beer for a shilling, the cask included. And this offer was accepted.

The corporation, however, returned two years after to their original order. Guildhall Records, MS. Journal 13, pp. 210, 236.

[27] 28 Hen. VIII. cap. 14.

The prices assessed, being a maximum, applied to the best wines of each class. In 1531, the mayor and corporation "did straitly charge and command that all such persons as sold wines by retail within the city and liberties of the same, should from henceforth sell two gallons of the best red wine for eightpence, and not above; the gallon of the best white wine for eightpence, and not above; the pottle, quart, and pint after the same rate, upon pain of imprisonment."

The quality of the wine sold was looked into from time to time, and when found tainted, or unwholesome, "according to the antient customs of the city," the heads of the vessels were broken up, and the wines in them put forth open into the kennels, in example of all other offenders. Guildhall MS. Journals 12 and 13.

[28] Sermons, p.101.

[29] See HARRISON, p. 318. At the beginning of the century farms let for four pounds a year, which in 1576 had been raised to forty, fifty, or a hundred. The price of produce kept pace with the rent. The large farmers prospered; the poor forfeited their tenures.

[30] The wages were fixed at a maximum, showing that labour was scarce, and that its natural tendency was towards a higher rate of remuneration. Persons not possessed of other means of subsistence were punishable if they refused to work at the statutable rate of payment; and a clause in the act of Hen. VIII. directed that where the practice had been to give lower wages, lower wages should be taken. This provision was owing to a difference in the value of money in different parts of England. The price of bread at Stratford, for instance, was permanently twenty-five per cent. below the price in London. (Assize of Bread in England: Balliol MS.) The statute, therefore, may be taken as a guide sufficiently conclusive as to the practical scale. It is of course uncertain how far work was constant. The ascending tendency of wages is an evidence, so far as it goes, in the labourer's favour; and the proportion between the wages of the household farm servant and those of the day labourer, which furnishes a further guide, was much the same as at present. By the same statute of Henry VIII. the common servant of husbandry, who was boarded and lodged at his master's house, received 16s. 8d. a year in money, with 4s. for his clothes; while the wages of the out-door labourer, supposing his work constant, would have been L5 a year. Among ourselves, on an average of different counties, the labourer's wages are L25 to L30 a year, supposing his work constant. The farm servant, unless in the neighbourhood of large towns, receives about L6, or from that to L8.

Where meat and drink was allowed it was calculated at 2d. a day, or 1s. 2d. a week. In the household of the Earl of Northumberland the allowance was 2-1/2d. Here, again, we observe an approach to modern proportions. The estimated cost of the board and lodging of a man servant in an English gentleman's family is now about L25 a year.

[31] Mowers, for instance, were paid 8d. a day.—Privy Purse Expenses of Henry VIII.

[32] In 1581 the agricultural labourer, as he now exists, was only beginning to appear. "There be such in the realm," says Stafford, "as live only by the labour of their hands and the profit which they can make upon the commons."—STAFFORD'S Discourse. This novel class had been called into being by the general raising of rents, and the wholesale evictions of the smaller tenantry which followed the Reformation. The progress of the causes which led to the change can be traced from the beginning of the century. Harrison says he knew old men who, comparing things present with things past, spoke of two things grown to be very grievous—to wit, "the enhancing of rents, and the daily oppression of copyholders, whose lords seek to bring their poor tenants almost into plain servitude and misery, daily devising new means, and seeking up all the old, how to cut them shorter and shorter; doubling, trebling, and now and then seven times increasing their fines; driving them also for every trifle to lose and forfeit their tenures, by whom the greatest part of the realm doth stand and is maintained, to the end they may fleece them yet more: which is a lamentable hearing."—Description of England, p.318.

[33] HALL, p. 581. Nor was the act in fact observed even in London itself, or towards workmen employed by the Government. In 1538, the Corporation of London, "for certain reasonable and necessary considerations," assessed the wages of common labourers at 7d. and 8d. the day, classing them with carpenters and masons.—Guildhall MSS. Journal 14, fol. 10. Labourers employed on Government works in the reign of Hen. VIII. never received less than 6d. a day, and frequently more.—Chronicle of Calais, p. 197, etc. Sixpence a day is the usual sum entered as the wages of a day's labour in the innumerable lists of accounts in the Record Office. And 6d. a day again was the lowest pay of the common soldier, not only on exceptional service in the field, but when regularly employed in garrison duty. Those who doubt whether this was really the practice, may easily satisfy themselves by referring to the accounts of the expenses of Berwick, or of Dover, Deal, or Walmer Castles, to be found in the Record Office in great numbers. The daily wages of the soldier are among the very best criteria for determining the average value of the unskilled labourer's work. No government gives higher wages than it is compelled to give by the market rate.

[34] The wages of the day labourer in London, under this act of Elizabeth, were fixed at 9d. the day, and this, after the restoration of the depreciated currency.—Guildhall MSS. Journal 18, fol. 157, etc.

[35] 4 Hen. VII. cap. 16. By the same parliament these provisions were extended to the rest of England. 4 Hen. VII. cap. 19.

[36] HALL, p. 863.

[37] 27 Hen. VIII. cap. 22.

[38] There is a cause of difficulty "peculiar to England, the increase of pasture, by which sheep may be now said to devour men and unpeople not only villages but towns. For wherever it is found that the sheep yield a softer and richer wool than ordinary, there the nobility and gentry, and even those holy men the abbots, not contented with the old rents which their farms yielded, nor thinking it enough that they, living at their ease, do no good to the public, resolve to do it hurt instead of good. They stop the course of agriculture.... One shepherd can look after a flock which will stock an extent of ground that would require many hands if it were ploughed and reaped. And this likewise in many places raises the price of corn. The price of wool is also risen ... since, though sheep cannot be called a monopoly, because they are not engrossed by one person; yet they are in so few hands, and these are so rich, that as they are not prest to sell them sooner than they have a mind to it, so they never do it till they have raised the price as high as possible."—Sir THOMAS MORE'S Utopia, Burnet's Translation, pp. 17-19.

[39] I find scattered among the State Papers many loose memoranda, apparently of privy councillors, written on the backs of letters, or on such loose scraps as might be at hand. The following fragment on the present subject is curious. I do not recognise the hand:—

"Mem. That an act may be made that merchants shall employ their goods continually in the traffic of merchandise, and not in the purchasing of lands; and that craftsmen, also, shall continually use their crafts in cities and towns, and not leave the same and take farms in the country; and that no merchant shall hereafter purchase above L40 lands by the year."—Cotton MS. Titus, b. i. 160.

[40] When the enclosing system was carried on with greatest activity and provoked insurrection. In expressing a sympathy with the social policy of the Tudor government, I have exposed myself to a charge of opposing the received and ascertained conclusions of political economy. I disclaim entirely an intention so foolish; but I believe that the science of political economy came into being with the state of things to which alone it is applicable. It ought to be evident that principles which answer admirably when a manufacturing system capable of indefinite expansion multiplies employment at home—when the soil of England is but a fraction of its empire, and the sea is a highway to emigration—would have produced far different effects, in a condition of things which habit had petrified into form, when manufactures could not provide work for one additional hand, when the first colony was yet unthought of, and where those who were thrown out of the occupation to which they had been bred could find no other. The tenants evicted, the labourers thrown out of employ, when the tillage lands were converted into pastures, had scarcely an alternative offered them except to beg, to rob, or to starve.

[41] Lansdowne MS. No. I. fol. 26.

[42] GIUSTINIANI'S Letters from the Court of Henry VIII.

[43] Ibid.

[44] 22 Hen. VIII. cap. 18.

[45] Under Hen. VI. the household expenses were L23,000 a year—Cf. Proceedings and Ordinances of the Privy Council, vol. vi. p. 35. The particulars of the expenses of the household of Hen. VIII. are in an MS. in the Rolls House. They cover the entire outlay except the personal expenditure of the king, and the sum total amounts to L14,365 10s. 7d. This would leave above L5000 a year for the privy purse, not, perhaps, sufficient to cover Henry's gambling extravagances in his early life. Curious particulars of his excesses in this matter will be found in a publication wrongly called The Privy Purse Expenses of Henry the Eighth. It is a diary of general payments, as much for purposes of state as for the king himself. The high play was confined for the most part to Christmas or other times of festivity, when the statutes against unlawful games were dispensed with for all classes.

[46] 18 Hen. VI. cap. 11.

[47] 4 Hen. VII. cap. 12.

[48] During the quarter sessions time they were allowed 4s. a day.—Ric. II. xii. 10.

[49] The rudeness of the furniture in English country houses has been dwelt upon with much emphasis by Hume and others. An authentic inventory of the goods and chattels in a parsonage in Kent proves that there has been much exaggeration in this matter. It is from an MS. in the Rolls House.

The Inventory of the Goods and Catales of Richd. Master, Clerk, Parson of Aldington, being in his Parsonage on the 20th Day of April, in the 25th Year of the Reign of our Sovereign Lord King Henry VIII.

Plate Silver spoons, twelve.

In the Hall Two tables and two forms. Item, a painted cloth hanging at the upper part of the hall. Item, a green banker hung on the bench in the hall. Item, a laver of laten.

In the Parlour A hanging of old red and green saye. Item, a banker of woven carpet of divers colours. Item, two cushions. Item, one table, two forms, one cupboard, one chair. Item, two painted pictures and a picture of the names of kings of England pinned on the said hanging.

In the Chamber on the North Side of the said Parlour A painted hanging. Item, a bedstedyll with a feather bed, one bolster, two pillows, one blanket, one roulett of rough tapestry, a testner of green and red saye. Item, two forms. Item, one jack to set a basin on.

In the Chamber over the Parlour Two bedsteads. Item, another testner of painted cloth. Item, a painted cloth. Item, two forms.

At the Stairs' Hed beside the Parson's Bedchamber One table, two trestylls, four beehives.

In the Parson's Lodging-chamber A bedstedyll and a feather bed, two blankets, one payr of sheets, one coverlet of tapestry lined with canvas, one bolster, one pillow with a pillocote. Item, one gown of violet cloth lined with red saye. Item, a gown of black cloth, furred with lamb. Item, two hoods of violet cloth, whereof one is lined with green sarsenet. Item, one jerkyn of tawny camlet. Item, a jerkyn of cloth furred with white. Item, a jacket of cloth furred. Item, a sheet to put in cloth. Item, one press. Item, a leather mail. Item, one table, two forms, four chairs, two trestylls. Item, a tester of painted cloth. Item, a pair of hangings of green saye, with two pictures thereupon. Item, one cupboard, two chests. Item, a little flock bed, with a bolster and a coverlet. Item, one cushion, one mantell, one towel, and, by estimation, a pound of wax candles. Item, Greek books covered with boards, 42. Item, small books covered with boards, 33. Item, books covered with leather and parchment, 38.

In the said Chest in the said Chamber Three pieces of red saye and green. Item, one tyke for a bolster, two tykes for pillows. Item, a typpett of cloth. Item, diaper napkins, 4, diaper towels, 2. Item, four pairs of sheets, and one shete, two tablecloths.

In the other Chest in the same Chamber One typpett of sarsenett. Item, two cotes belonging to the crosse of Underbill, whereupon hang thirty-three pieces of money, rings, and other things, and three crystal stones closed in silver.

In the Study Two old boxes, a wicker hamper full of papers.

In the Chamber behind the Chimney One seam and a half of old malt. Item, a trap for rats. Item, a board of three yards length.

In the Chamber next adjoining westwards One bedstedyll, one flock bed, one bolster. One form, two shelf boards, one little table, two trestylls, two awgyes, one nett, called a stalker, a well rope, five quarters of hemp.

In the Buttery Three basins of pewter, five candlesticks, one ewer of lateen, one chafing dish, two platters, one dish, one salter, three podingers [? porringer], a saltseller of pewter, seven kilderkyns, three keelers, one form, five shelves, one byn, one table, one glasse bottell.

In the Priest's Chamber One bedstedyll, one feather bed, two forms, one press.

In the Woman's Keeping Two tablecloths, two pairs of sheets.

In the Servant's Chamber One painted hanging, a bedstedyll, one feather bed, a press, and a shelf.

In the Kitchen Eight bacon flitches, a little brewing lead, three brass pots, three kettles, one posnett, one frying-pan, a dripping-pan, a great pan, two trivetts, a chopping knife, a skimmer, one fire rake, a pothanger, one pothooke, one andiron, three spits, one gridiron, one firepan, a coal rake of iron, two bolts [? butts], three wooden platters, six boldishes, three forms, two stools, seven platters, two pewter dishes, four saucers, a covering of a saltseller, a podynger, seven tubbs, a caldron, two syffs, a capon cope, a mustard quern, a ladder, two pails, one beehive.

In the Mill-house Seven butts, two cheeses, an old sheet, an old brass pan, three podyngers, a pewter dish.

In the Boulting-house One brass pan, one quern, a boulting hutch, a boulting tub, three little tubbys, two keelers, a tolvett, two boulters, one tonnell.

In the Larder One sieve, one bacon trough, a cheese press, one little tub, eight shelves, one graper for a well.

Wood Of tall wood ten load, of ash wood a load and a half.

Poultry Nine hens, eight capons, one cock, sixteen young chickens, three old geese, seventeen goslings, four ducks.

Cattle Five young hoggs, two red kyne, one red heifer two years old, one bay gelding lame of spavins, one old grey mare having a mare colt.

In the Entries Two tubbs, one trough, one ring to bear water and towel, a chest to keep cornes.

In the same House Five seams of lime.

In the Woman's Chamber One bedstedyll of hempen yarn, by estimation 20 lbs.

Without the House Of tyles, ——, of bricks, ——, seven planks, three rafters, one ladder.

In the Gate-house One form, a leather sack, three bushels of wheat.

In the Still beside the Gate Two old road saddles, one bridle, a horse-cloth.

In the Barn next the Gate Of wheat unthrashed, by estimation, thirty quarters, of barley unthrashed, by estimation, five quarters.

In the Cartlage One weene with two whyles, one dung-cart without whyles, two shod-whyles, two yokes, one sledge.

In the Barn next the Church Of oats unthrashed, by estimation, one quarter.

In the Garden-house Of oats, by estimation, three seams four bushels.

In the Court Two racks, one ladder.

[50] Two hundred poor were fed daily at the house of Tomas Cromwell. This fact is perfectly authenticated. Stowe the historian, who did not like Cromwell, lived in an adjoining house, and reports it as an eye witness.—See STOWE'S Survey of London.

[51] HARRISON'S Description of Britain.

[52] The Earl and Countess of Northumberland breakfasted together alone at seven. The meal consisted of a quart of ale, a quart of wine, and a chine of beef: a loaf of bread is not mentioned, but we hope it may be presumed. On fast days the beef was exchanged for a dish of sprats or herrings, fresh or salt.—Northumberland Household Book, quoted by Hume.

[53] Some notice of the style of living sometimes witnessed in England in the old times may be gathered from the details of a feast given at the installation of George Neville, brother of Warwick the King Maker, when made Archbishop of York.

The number of persons present including servants was about 3500.

The provisions were as follow—

Wheat, 300 quarters. Ale, 300 tuns. Wine, 104 tuns. Ipocras, 1 pipe. Oxen, 80. Wild bulls, 6. Muttons, 1004. Veal, 300. Porkers, 300. Geese, 3000. Capons, 2300. Pigs, 2000. Peacocks, 100. Cranes, 200. Kids, 200. Chickens, 2000. Pigeons, 4000. Conies, 4000. Bitterns, 204. Mallards and teals, 4000. Heronshaws, 4000. Fesants, 200. Partridges, 500. Woodcocks, 400. Plovers, 400. Curlews, 100. Quails, 100. Egrets, 1000 Rees, 200. Harts, bucks, and roes, 400 and odd. Pasties of venison, cold, 4000. Pasties of venison, hot, 1506. Dishes of jelly, pasted, 1000. Plain dishes of jelly, 4000. Cold tarts, baken, 4000. Cold custards, 4000. Custards, hot, 2000. Pikes, 300. Breams, 300. Seals, 8. Porpoises, 4.

[54] LATIMER'S Sermons, p. 64.

[55] Statutes of the Realm, 1 Ed. VI. cap. 12.

[56] HOOKER'S Life of Sir Peter Carew.

[57] In a subsequent letter he is described as learning French, etymology, casting of accounts, playing at weapons, and other such exercises.—ELLIS, third series, vol. i. p. 342-3.

[58] It has been objected that inasmuch as the Statute Book gives evidence of extensive practices of adulteration, the guild system was useless, nay, it has been even said that it was the cause of the evil. Cessante causa cessat effectus;—when the companies lost their authority, the adulteration ought to have ceased, which in the face of recent exposures will be scarcely maintained. It would be as reasonable to say that the police are useless because we have still burglars and pickpockets among us.

[59] Throughout the old legislation, morality went along with politics and economics, and formed the life and spirit of them. The fruiterers in the streets were prohibited from selling plums and apples, because the apprentices played dice with them for their wares, or because the temptation induced children and servants to steal money to buy. When Parliament came to be held regularly in London, an order of Council fixed the rates which the hotel-keeper might charge for dinners. Messes were served for four at twopence per head; the bill of fare providing bread, fish, salt and fresh, two courses of meat, ale, with fire and candles. And the care of the Government did not cease with their meals, and in an anxiety that neither the burgesses nor their servants should be led into sin, stringent orders were issued against street-walkers coming near their quarters.—Guildhall MSS. Journals 12 and 15.

The sanitary regulations for the city are peculiarly interesting. The scavengers, constables and officers of the wards were ordered, "on pain of death," to see all streets and yards kept clear of dung and rubbish and all other filthy and corrupt things. Carts went round every Monday, Wednesday, and Saturday, to carry off the litter from the houses, and on each of those days twelve buckets of water were drawn for "every person," and used in cleaning their rooms and passages.

Particular pains were taken to keep the Thames clean, and at the mouth of every sewer or watercourse there was a strong iron grating two feet deep.—Guildhall MSS. Journal 15.

[60] And not in England alone, but throughout Europe.

[61] 27 Hen. VIII. cap. 25.

[62] Ibid.

[63] Ibid.

[64] 22 Hen. VIII. cap. 4; 28 Hen. VIII. cap. 5.

[65] Statut. Winton. 13 Edw. I. cap. 6.

[66] 12 Rich. II. cap. 6: 11 Hen. IV. cap. 4.

[67] ELLIS'S Original Letters, first series, vol. i. p. 226.

[68] It has been stated again and again that the policy of Henry the Eighth was to make the crown despotic by destroying the remnants of the feudal power of the nobility. How is such a theory to be reconciled with statutes the only object of which was the arming and training of the country population, whose natural leaders were the peers, knights, and gentlemen? We have heard too much of this random declamation.

[69] 33 Hen. VIII. cap. 9.

[70] From my experience of modern archery I found difficulty in believing that these figures were accurately given. Few living men could send the lightest arrow 220 yards, even with the greatest elevation, and for effective use it must be delivered nearly point blank. A passage in HOLINSHED'S Description of Britain, however, prevents me from doubting that the words of the statute are correct. In his own time, he says that the strength of the English archers had so notoriously declined that the French soldiers were in the habit of disrespectfully turning their backs, at long range, "bidding them shoot," whereas, says Holinshed, "had the archers been what they were wont to be, these fellows would have had their breeches nailed unto their buttocks." In an order for bowstaves, in the reign of Henry the Eighth, I find this direction: "Each bowstave ought to be three fingers thick and squared, and seven feet long: to be got up well polished and without knots."—Butler to Bullinger: Zurich Letters.

[71] Page 735, quarto edition.

[72] The Personages, Dresses, and Properties of a Mystery Play, acted at Greenwich, by command of Henry VIII. Rolls House MS.

[73] Hall says "collar of the garter of St. Michael," which, however, I venture to correct.

[74] Rich. II. 12, cap. 7, 8, 9; Rich. II. 15, cap. 6.

[75] Lansdowne MSS. 1, fol. 26.

[76] Injunctions to the Monasteries: BURNET'S Collect. pp. 77-8.

[77] Letter of Thomas Dorset to the Mayor of Plymouth: Suppression of the Monasteries, p. 36.

[78] "Divers of your noble predecessors, kings of this realm, have given lands to monasteries, to give a certain sum of money yearly to the poor people, whereof for the ancienty of the time they never give one penny. Wherefore, if your Grace will build to your poor bedemen a sure hospital that shall never fail, take from them these things.... Tie the holy idle thieves to the cart to be whipped, naked, till they fall to labour, that they, by their importunate begging take not away the alms that the good charitable people would give unto us sore, impotent, miserable people, your bedemen."—FISH'S Supplication: FOXE, vol. iv. p. 664.

[79] 27 Hen. VIII. cap. 25.

[80] Roads, harbours, embankments, fortifications at Dover and at Berwick, etc.—STRYPE's Memorials, vol. 1. p. 326 and 419.

[81] It is to be remembered that the criminal law was checked on one side by the sanctuary system, on the other by the practice of benefit of clergy. Habit was too strong for legislation, and these privileges continued to protect criminals long after they were abolished by statute. There is abundant evidence that the execution of justice was as lax in practice as it was severe in theory.

[82] 27 Ed. III. stat. 1; 38 Ed. III. stat. 2; 16 Rich. cap. 5.

[83] 25 Ed. III. stat. 4; stat. 5, cap. 22; 13 Rich. II. stat. 2, cap. 2; 2 Hen. IV. cap. 3; 9 Hen. IV. cap. 8.

[84] See p. 42.

[85] Lansdowne MS. 1, fol. 26; STOW'S Chron. ed. 1630, p. 338.

[86] 2 Hen. IV. cap. 3; 9 Hen. IV. cap. 8.

[87] 2 Hen. IV. cap. 15.

[88] Hen. VII. cap. 4. Among the miscellaneous publications of the Record Commission, there is a complaint presented during this reign, by the gentlemen and the farmers of Carnarvonshire, accusing the clergy of systematic seduction of their wives and daughters.

[89] Hen. IV. cap. 15.

[90] MORTON'S Register, MS. Lambeth. See vol. ii. cap. 10, of the second edition of this work for the results of Morton's investigation.

[91] MORTON'S Register; and see WILKINS'S Concilia, vol. iii. pp. 618-621.

[92] Quibus Dominus intimavit qualis infamia super illos in dicta civitate crescit quod complures eorundem tabernas pandoxatorias, sive caupones indies exerceant ibidem expectando fere per totum diem. Quare Dominus consuluit et monuit eosdem quod in posterum talia dimittant, et quod dimittant suos longos crines et induantur togis non per totum apertis.

[93] The expression is remarkable. They were not to dwell on the offences of their brethren coram laicis qui semper clericis sunt infesti.—WILKINS, vol. iii. p. 618.

[94] Johannes permissione divina Cantuar. episcop. totius Angliae primas cum in praesenti convocatione pie et salubriter consideratum fuit quod nonnulli sacerdotes et alii clerici ejusdem nostrae provinciae in sacris ordinibus constituti honestatem clericalem in tantum abjecerint ac in coma tonsuraque et superindumentis suis quae in anteriori sui parte totaliter aperta existere dignoscuntur, sic sunt dissoluti et adeo insolescant quod inter eos et alios laicos et saeculares viros nulla vel modica comae vel habituum sive vestimentorum distinctio esse videatur quo fiet in brevi ut a multis verisimiliter formidatur quod sicut populus ita et sacerdos erit, et nisi celeriori remedio tantae lasciviae ecclesiasticarum personarum quanto ocyus obviemus et clericorum mores hujusmodi maturius compescamus, Ecclesia Anglicana quae superioribus diebus vita fama et compositis moribus floruisse dignoscitur nostris temporibus quod Deus avertat, praecipitanter ruet;

Desiring, therefore, to find some remedy for these disorders, lest the blood of those committed to him should be required at his hands, the archbishop decrees and ordains,—

Ne aliquis sacerdos vel clericus in sacris ordinibus constitutus togam gerat nisi clausam a parte anteriori et non totaliter apertam neque utatur ense nec sica nec zona aut marcipio deaurato vel auri ornatum habente. Incedent etiam omnes et singuli presbyteri et clerici ejusdem nostrae provinciae coronas et tonsuras gerentes aures patentes ostendendo juxta canonicas sanctiones.—WILKINS, vol. iii. p. 619.

[95] See WARHAM'S Register, MS. Lambeth.

[96] 21 Hen. VIII. cap. 13.

[97] ROY'S Satire against the Clergy, written about 1528, is so plain-spoken, and goes so directly to the point of the matter, that it is difficult to find a presentable extract. The following lines on the bishops are among the most moderate in the poem:—

"What are the bishops divines— Yea, they can best skill of wines Better than of divinity; Lawyers are they of experience, And in cases against conscience They are parfet by practice. To forge excommunications, For tythes and decimations Is their continual exercise. As for preaching they take no care, They would rather see a course at a hare; Rather than to make a sermon To follow the chase of wild deer, Passing the time with jolly cheer. Among them all is common To play at the cards and dice; Some of them are nothing nice Both at hazard and momchance; They drink in golden bowls The blood of poor simple souls Perishing for lack of sustenance. Their hungry cures they never teach, Nor will suffer none other to preach," etc.

[98] LATIMER'S Sermons, pp. 70, 71.

[99] A peculiarly hateful form of clerical impost, the priests claiming the last dress worn in life by persons brought to them for burial.

[100] Fitz James to Wolsey, FOXE, vol. iv. p. 196.

[101] Supplication of the Beggars; FOXE, vol. iv. p. 661. The glimpses into the condition of the monasteries which had been obtained in the imperfect visitation of Morton, bear out the pamphleteer too completely. See chapter x. of this work, second edition.

[102] FOXE, vol. iv. p. 658.

[103] 13 Ric. II. stat. ii. c. 2; 2 Hen. IV. c. 3; 9 Hen. IV. c. 8. Lingard is mistaken in saying that the Crown had power to dispense with these statutes. A dispensing power was indeed granted by the 12th of the 7th of Ric. II. But by the 2nd of the 13th of the same reign, the king is expressly and by name placed under the same prohibitions as all other persons.

[104] HALL, p. 784.

[105] 25 Hen. VIII. c. 22.

[106] 28 Hen. VIII. c. 24. Speech of Sir Ralph Sadler in parliament, Sadler Papers, vol. iii. p. 323.

[107] Nor was the theory distinctly admitted, or the claim of the house of York would have been unquestionable.

[108] 25 Hen. VIII. c. 22, Draft of the Dispensation to be granted to Henry VIII. Rolls House MS. It has been asserted by a writer in the Tablet that there is no instance in the whole of English history where the ambiguity of the marriage law led to a dispute of title. This was not the opinion of those who remembered the wars of the fifteenth century. "Recens in quorundam vestrorum animis adhuc est illius cruenti temporis memoria," said Henry VIII. in a speech in council, "quod a Ricardo tertio cum avi nostri materni Edwardi quarti statum in controversiam vocasset ejusque heredes regno atque vita privasset illatum est."-WILKINS'S Concilia, vol. iii. p. 714. Richard claimed the crown on the ground that a precontract rendered his brother's marriage invalid, and Henry VII. tacitly allowed the same doubt to continue. The language of the 22nd of the 25th of Hen. VIII. is so clear as to require no additional elucidation; but another distinct evidence of the belief of the time upon the subject is in one of the papers laid before Pope Clement.

"Constat, in ipso regno quam plurima gravissima bella saepe exorta, confingentes ex justis et legitimis nuptiis quorundam Angliae regum procreatos illegitimos fore propter aliquod consangunitatis vel affinitatis confictum impedimentum et propterea inhabiles esse ad regni successionem."—Rolls House MS.; WILKINS'S Concilia, vol. iii. p. 707.

[109] 28 Hen. VIII. c. 24.

[110] Appendix 2 to the Third Report of the Deputy-Keeper of the Public Records, p. 241.

[111] Sadler Papers, vol. iii. p. 323.

[112] 28 Hen. VIII. c. 24.

[113] Four Years at the Court of Henry the Eighth, vol. ii. pp. 315-16.

[114] Sir Charles Brandon, created Duke of Suffolk, and married to Mary Tudor, widow of Louis XII.

[115] 28 Hen. VIII. c. 24.

[116] The treaty was in progress from Dec. 24, 1526, to March 2, 1527 [LORD HERBERT, pp. 80, 81], and during this time the difficulty was raised. The earliest intimation which I find of an intended divorce was in June, 1527, at which time Wolsey was privately consulting the bishops.—State Papers vol. i. p. 189.

[117] It was for some time delayed; and the papal agent was instructed to inform Ferdinand that a marriage which was at variance a jure et laudabilibus moribus could not be permitted nisi maturo consilio et necessitatis causa.—Minute of a brief of Julius the Second, dated March 13, 1504, Rolls House MS.

[118] LORD HERBERT, p. 114.

[119] LORD HERBERT, p. 117, Kennett's edition. The act itself is printed in BURNET'S Collectanea, vol. iv. (Nares' edition) pp. 5, 6. It is dated June 27, 1505. Dr. Lingard endeavours to explain away the renunciation as a form. The language of Moryson, however, leaves no doubt either of its causes or its meaning. "Non multo post sponsalia contrahuntur," he says, "Henrico plus minus tredecim annos jam nato. Sed rerum non recte inceptarum successus infelicior homines non prorsus oscitantes plerumque docet quid recte gestum quid perperam, quid factum superi volunt quid infectum. Nimirum Henricus Septimus nulla aegritudinis prospecta causa repente in deteriorem valetudinem prolapsus est, nec unquam potuit affectum corpus pristinum statum recuperare. Uxor in aliud ex alio malum regina omnium laudatissimia non multo post morbo periit. Quid mirum si Rex tot irati numinis indiciis admonitus coeperit cogitare rem male illis succedere qui vellent hoc nomine cum Dei legibus litem instituere ut diutius cum homine amicitiam gerere possent. Quid deinceps egit? Quid aliud quam quod decuit Christianissimum regem? Filium ad se accersiri jubet, accersitur. Adest, adsunt et multi nobilissimi homines. Rex filium regno natum hortatur ut secum una cum doctissimis ac optimis viris cogitavit nefarium esse putare leges Dei leges Dei non esse cum papa volet. Non ita longa oratione usus filium patri obsequentissimum a sententia nullo negotio abduxit. Sponsalia contracta infirmantur, pontificiaeque auctoritatis beneficio palam renunciatum est. Adest publicus tabellio—fit instrumentum. Rerum gestarum testes rogati sigilla apponunt. Postremo filius patri fidem se illam uxorem nunquam ducturum."—Apomaxis RICARDI MORYSINI. Printed by Berthelet, 1537.

[120] See LINGARD, sixth edition, vol. iv. p. 164.

[121] HALL, p. 507.

[122] He married Catherine, June 3, 1509. Early in the spring of 1510 she miscarried.—Four Years at the Court of Henry VIII. vol. i. p. 83.

Jan. 1, 1511. A prince was born, who died Feb. 22.—HALL.

Nov. 1513. Another prince was born, who died immediately.—LINGARD, vol. iv, p. 290.

Dec. 1514. Badoer, the Venetian ambassador, wrote that the queen had been delivered of a still-born male child, to the great grief of the whole nation.

May 3, 1515. The queen was supposed to be pregnant. If the supposition was right, she must have miscarried.—Four Years at the Court of Henry VIII. vol. i. p. 81.

Feb. 18, 1516. The Princess Mary was born.

July 3, 1518. "The Queen declared herself quick with child." (Pace to Wolsey: State Papers, vol. i. p. 2,) and again miscarried.

These misfortunes we are able to trace accidentally through casual letters, and it is probable that these were not all. Henry's own words upon the subject are very striking:—

"All such issue male as I have received of the queen died incontinent after they were born, so that I doubt the punishment of God in that behalf. Thus being troubled in waves of a scrupulous conscience, and partly in despair of any issue male by her, it drove me at last to consider the estate of this realm, and the danger it stood in for lack of issue male to succeed me in this imperial dignity."—CAVENDISH, p. 220.

[123] "If a man shall take his brother's wife it is an unclean thing. He hath uncovered his brother's nakedness. They shall be childless."—Leviticus xx. 21. It ought to be remembered, that if the present law of England be right, the party in favour of the divorce was right.

[124] Letters of the Bishop of Bayonne, LEGRAND, vol. iii.

[125] Legates to the Pope, printed in BURNET'S Collectanea, p. 40.

[126] State Papers, vol. vii. p. 117.

[127] Letters of the Bishop of Bayonne, LEGRAND, vol. iii.; HALL, 669.

[128] They were shut up in the Castle of St. Angelo.

[129] State Papers, vol. vii. pp. 18, 19.

[130] The fullest account of Wolsey's intentions on church reform will be found in a letter addressed to him by Fox, the old blind Bishop of Winchester, in 1528. The letter is printed in STRYPE'S Memorials Eccles. vol. i. Appendix 10.

[131] Letters of the Bishop of Bayonne, LEGRAND, vol. iii. It is not uncommon to find splendid imaginations of this kind haunting statesmen of the 16th century; and the recapture of Constantinople always formed a feature in the picture. A Plan for the Reformation of Ireland, drawn up in 1515, contains the following curious passage: "The prophecy is, that the King of England shall put this land of Ireland into such order that the wars of the land, whereof groweth the vices of the same, shall cease for ever; and after that God shall give such grace and fortune to the same king that he shall with the army of England and of Ireland subdue the realm of France to his obeysance for ever, and shall rescue the Greeks, and recover the great city of Constantinople, and shall vanquish the Turks and win the Holy Cross and the Holy Land, and shall die Emperor of Rome, and eternal blisse shall be his end."—State Papers, vol. ii. pp. 30, 31.

[132] Knight to Henry: State Papers, vol. vii. pp. 2, 3.

[133] Wolsey to Cassalis: Ibid. p. 26.

[134] The dispensing power of the popes was not formally limited. According to the Roman lawyers, a faculty lay with them of granting extraordinary dispensations in cases where dispensations would not be usually admissible—which faculty was to be used, however, dummodo causa cogat urgentissima ne regnum aliquod funditus pereat; the pope's business being to decide on the question of urgency.—Sir Gregory Cassalis to Henry VIII., Dec. 26, 1532. Rolls House MS.

[135] Knight and Cassalis to Wolsey: BURNET'S Collect. p. 12.

[136] STRYPE'S Memorials, vol. i., Appendix p. 66.

[137] Sir F. Bryan and Peter Vannes to Henry; State Papers, vol. vii. p. 144.

[138] STRYPE'S Memorials, Appendix, vol. i. p. 100.

[139] Ibid. Appendix, vol. i. pp. 105-6; BURNET'S Collectanea, p. 13.

[140] Wolsey to the Pope, BURNET'S Collectanea, p. 16: Vereor quod tamen nequeo tacere, ne Regia Majestas, humano divinoque jure quod habet ex omni Christianitate suis his actionibus adjunctum freta, postquam viderit sedis Apostolicae gratiam et Christi in terris Vicarii clementiam desperatam Caesaris intuitu, in cujus manu neutiquam est tam sanctos conatus reprimere, ea tunc moliatur, ea suae causae perquirat remedia, quae non solum huic Regno sed etiam aliis Christianis principibus occasionem subministrarent sedis Apostolicae auctoritatem et jurisdictionem imminuendi et vilipendendi.

[141] BURNET'S Collectanea, p. 20. Wolsey to John Cassalis: "If his Holyness, which God forbid, shall shew himself unwilling to listen to the king's demands, to me assuredly it will be but grief to live longer, for the innumerable evils which I foresee will then follow. One only sure remedy remains to prevent the worst calamities. If that be neglected, there is nothing before us but universal and inevitable ruin."

[142] Gardiner and Fox to Wolsey; STRYPE'S Memorials, vol. i. Appendix, p. 92.

[143] His Holiness being yet in captivity, as he esteemed himself to be, so long as the Almayns and Spaniards continue in Italy, he thought if he should grant this commission that he should have the emperour his perpetual enemy without any hope of reconciliation. Notwithstanding he was content rather to put himself in evident ruin, and utter undoing, than the king or your Grace shall suspect any point of ingratitude in him; heartily desiring with sighs and tears that the king and your Grace which have been always fast and good to him, will not now suddenly precipitate him for ever: which should be done if immediately on receiving the commission your Grace should begin process. He intendeth to save all upright thus. If M. de Lautrec would set forwards, which he saith daily that he will do, but yet he doth not, at his coming the Pope's Holiness may have good colour to say, "He was required of the commission by the ambassador of England, and denying the same, he was, eftsoons, required by M. de Lautrec to grant the said commission, inasmuch as it was but a letter of justice." And by this colour he would cover the matter so that it might appear unto the emperour that the pope did it not as he that would gladly do displeasure unto the emperour, but as an indifferent judge, that could not nor might deny justice, specially being required by such personages; and immediately he would despatch a commission bearing date after the time that M. de Lautrec had been with him or was nigh unto him. The pope most instantly beseecheth your Grace to be a mean that the King's Highness may accept this in a good part, and that he will take patience for this little time, which, as it is supposed, will be but short.—Knight to Wolsey and the King, Jan. 1, 1527-8: BURNET Collections, 12, 13.

[144] Such at least was the ultimate conclusion of a curious discussion. When the French herald declared war, the English herald accompanied him into the emperor's presence, and when his companion had concluded, followed up his words with an intimation that unless the French demands were complied with, England would unite to enforce them. The Emperor replied to Francis with defiance. To the English herald he expressed a hope that peace on that side would still be maintained. For the moment the two countries were uncertain whether they were at war or not. The Spanish ambassador in London did not know, and the court could not tell him. The English ambassador in Spain did not leave his post, but he was placed under surveillance. An embargo on Spanish and English property was laid respectively in the ports of the two kingdoms; and the merchants and residents were placed under arrest. Alarmed by the outcry in London, the king hastily concluded a truce with the Regent of the Netherlands, the language of which implied a state of war; but when peace was concluded between France and Spain, England appeared only as a contracting party, not as a principal, and in 1542 it was decided that the antecedent treaties between England and the empire continued in force.—See LORD HERBERT; HOLINSHED; State Papers, vols. vii. viii. and ix.; with the treaties in RYMER, vol. vi. part 2.

[145] Gardiner to the King: BURNET'S Collectanea, p. 426.

[146] Duke of Suffolk to Henry the Eighth: State Papers, vol. vii, p. 183.

[147] Duke of Suffolk to Henry VIII.: State Papers, vol. vii. p. 183.

[148] HALL, p. 744.

[149] When the clothiers of Essex, Kent, Wiltshire, Suffolk, and other shires which are clothmaking, brought cloths to London to be sold, as they were wont, few merchants or none bought any cloth at all. When the clothiers lacked sale, then they put from them their spinners, carders, tuckers, and such others that lived by clothworking, which caused the people greatly to murmur, and specially in Suffolk, for if the Duke of Norfolk had not wisely appeased them, no doubt but they had fallen to some rioting. When the king's council was advertised of the inconvenience, the cardinal sent for a great number of the merchants of London, and to them said, "Sirs, the king is informed that you use not yourselves like merchants, but like graziers and artificers; for where the clothiers do daily bring cloths to the market for your ease, to their great cost, and then be ready to sell them, you of your wilfulness will not buy them, as you have been accustomed to do. What manner of men be you?" said the cardinal. "I tell you that the king straitly commandeth you to buy their cloths as beforetime you have been accustomed to do, upon pain of his high displeasure."—HALL, p. 746.

[150] LEGRAND, vol. iii. p. 157. By manners and customs he was referring clearly to his intended reformation of the church. See the letter of Fox, Bishop of Winchester (STRYPE'S Memorials, vol. ii. p. 25), in which Wolsey's intentions are dwelt upon at length.

[151] Ibid. pp. 136, 7.

[152] State Papers, vol. vii. pp. 96, 7.

[153] Wolsey to Cassalis: Ibid. p. 100.

[154] State Papers, vol. vii. pp. 106, 7

[155] Ibid. p. 113.

[156] Ibid. vii. p. 113.

[157] Take the veil.

[158] Instruction to the Ambassadours at Rome: State Papers, vol. vii. p. 136.

[159] Letters of the Bishop of Bayanne, LEGRAND, vol. iii.

[160] LEGRAND, vol. iii. 231.

[161] Instrucion para Gonzalo Fernandez que se envoie a Ireland al Conde de Desmond, 1529.—MS. Archives at Brussels.—The Pilgrim, note 1, p. 169.

[162] Henrici regis octavi de repudianda domina Catherina oratio Idibus Novembris habita 1528.

Veneranda et chara nobis praesulum procerum atque consiliariorum cohors quos communis reipublicae atque regni nostri administrandi cura conjunxit. Haud vos latet divina nos Providentia viginti jam ferme annis hanc nostram patriam tanta felicitate rexisse ut in illa ab hostilibus incursionibus tuta semper interea fuerit et nos in his bellis quae suscepimus victores semper evasimus; et quanquam in eo gloriari jure possumus majorem tranquillitatem opes et honores prioribus huc usque ductis socculis, nunquam subditis a majoribus parentibusque nostris Anglia regibus quam a nobis provenisse, tamen quando cum hac gloria in mentem una venit ac concurrit mortis cogitatio, veremur ne nobis sine prole legitima decedentibus majorem ex morte nostra patiamini calamitatem quam ex vita fructum ac emolumentum percepistis. Recens enim in quorundam vestrorum animis adhuc est illius cruenti temporis memoria quod a Ricardo tertio cum avi nostri materni Edwardi Quarti statum in controversiam vocasset ejusque heredes regno atque vita privasset illatum est. Tum ex historiis notae sunt illae dirae strages quae a clarissimis Angliae gentibus Eboracensi atque Lancastrensi, dum inter se de regno et imperio multis aevis contenderent, populo evenerunt. Ac illae ex justis nuptiis inter Henricum Septimum et dominam Elizabetham clarissimos nostros parentes contractis in nobis inde legitima nata sobole sopitae tandem desierunt. Si vero quod absit, regalis ex nostris nuptiis stirps quae jure deinceps regnare possit non nascatur, hoc regnum civilibus atque intestinis se versabit tumultibus aut in exterorum dominationem atque potestatem veniet. Nam quanquam forma atque venustate singulari, quae magno nobis solatio fuit filiam Dominam Mariam ex nobilissima foemina Domina Catherina procreavimus, tamen a piis atque eruditis theologis nuper accepimus quia eam quae Arturi fratris nostri conjux ante fuerat uxorem duximus nostras nuptias jure divino esse vetitas, partumque inde editum non posse censeri legitimum. Id quod eo vehementius nos angit et excruciat, quod cum superiori anno legatos ad conciliandas inter Aureliensem ducem et filiam nostram Mariam nuptias ad Franciscum Gallorum regem misissemus a quodam ejus consiliario responsum est, "antequam de hujusmodi nuptiis agatum inquirendum esse prius an Maria fuerit filia nostra legitima; constat enim 'inquit,' quod exdomina Catherina fratris sui vidua cujusmodi nuptiae jure divino interdictae sunt suscepta est." Quae oratio quanto metu ac horrore animum nostrum turbaverit quia res ipsa aeternae tam animi quam corporis salutis periculum in se continet, et quam perplexis cogitationibus conscientiam occupat, vos quibus et capitis aut fortunae ac multo magis animarum jactura immineret, remedium nisi adhibere velitis, ignorare non posse arbitror. Haec una res—quod Deo teste et in Regis oraculo affirmamus—nos impulit ut per legatos doctissimorum per totum orbem Christianum theologorum sententias exquireremus et Romani Pontificis legatum verum atque aequum judicium de tanta causa laturum ut tranquilla deinceps et interga conscientia in conjugio licito vivere possimus accerseremus. In quo si ex sacris litteris hoc quo viginti jam fere annis gavisi sumus matrimonium jure divino permissum esse manifeste liquidoque constabit, non modo ob conscientiae tranquillitatem, verum etiam ob amabiles mores virtutesque quibus regina praedita et ornata est, nihil optatius nihilque jucundius accidere nobis potest. Nam praeterquam quod regali atque nobili genere prognata est, tanta praeterea comitate et obsequio conjugali tum caeteris animi morumque ornamentis quae nobilitatem illustrant omnes foeminas his viginti annis sic mihi anteire visa est ut si a conjugio liber essem ac solutus, si jure divino liceret, hanc solam prae caeteris foeminis stabili mihi jure ac foedere matrimoniali conjungerem. Si vero in hoc judicio matrimonium nostrum jure divino prohibitum, ideoque ab initio nullum irritumque fuisse pronuncietur, infelix hic meus casus multis lacrimis lugendus ac deplorandus erit. Non modo quod a tam illustris et amabilis mulieris consuetudine et consortio divertendum sit, sed multo magis quod specie ad similitudinem veri conjugii decepti in amplexibus plusquam fornicariis tam multos annos trivimus nulla legitima prognata nobis sobole quae nobis mortuis hujus inclyti regni hereditatem capessat.

Hae nostrae curae istaeque solicitudines sunt quae mentem atque conscientiam nostram dies noctesque torquent et excurciant, quibus auferendis et profligandis remedium ex hac legatione et judicio opportunum quaerimus. Ideoque vos quorum virtuti atque fidei multum attribuimus rogamus ut certum atque genuinum nostrum de hac re sensum quem ex nostro sermone percepistis populo declaretis: eumque excitetis ut nobiscum una oraret ut ad conscientiae nostrae pacem atque tranquillitatem in hoc judicio veritas multis jam annis tenebris involuta tandem patefiat. —WILKINS'S Concilia, vol. iii. p. 714.

[163] HALL, Letters of the Bishop of Bayonne, LEGRAND, vol. iii.

[164] LEGRAND, vol. iii.

[165] Ibid. vol. iii. pp. 232, 3.

[166] State Papers, vol. vii. p. 120; Ibid. p. 186.

[167] BURNET'S Collectanea, p. 41.

[168] State Papers, vol. vii. p. 193.

[169] The Emperor could as little trust Clement as the English, and to the last moment could not tell how he would act.

"Il me semble," wrote Inigo di Mendoza to Charles on the 17th of June, 1529,—"il me semble que Sa Saintete differe autant qu'il peut ce qu' auparavant il avoit promis, et je crains qu'il n'ait ordonne aux legatz ce qui jusques a present avoit reste en suspens qu'ils procedent par la premiere commission. Ce qui faisant votre Majeste peut tenir la Reine autant que condamne."—MS. Archives at Brussels.

The sort of influence to which the See of Rome was amenable appears in another letter to the Emperor, written from Rome itself on the 4th of October. The Pope and cardinals, it is to be remembered, were claiming to be considered the supreme court of appeal in Christendom.

"Si je ne m'abuse tous ou la pluspart du Saint College sont plus affectionnez a vostre dite Majeste que a autre Prince Chrestien: de vous escrire, Sire, particulierement toutes leurs responses seroit chose trop longue. Tant y a que elles sont telles que votre Majeste a raison doubt grandement se contenter d'icelles.