Chapter II: On the English Church Under Henry Viii., Edward Vi., and Mary (2)

4. Auricular confession, as commonly called, or the private and special confession of sins to a priest for the purpose of obtaining his absolution, an imperative duty in the church of Rome, and preserved as such in the statute of the six articles, and in the religious codes published by Henry VIII., was left to each man's discretion in the new order; a judicious temperament, which the reformers would have done well to adopt in some other points. And thus, while it has never been condemned in our church, it went without dispute into complete neglect. Those who desire to augment the influence of the clergy regret, of course, its discontinuance; and some may conceive that it would serve either for wholesome restraint, or useful admonition. It is very difficult, or perhaps beyond the reach of any human being, to determine absolutely how far these benefits, which cannot be reasonably denied to result in some instances from the rite of confession, outweigh the mischiefs connected with it. There seems to be something in the Roman catholic discipline (and I know nothing else so likely) which keeps the balance, as it were, of moral influence pretty even between the two religions, and compensates for the ignorance and superstition which the elder preserves: for I am not sure that the protestant system in the present age has any very sensible advantage in this respect; or that in countries where the comparison can fairly be made, as in Germany or Switzerland, there is more honesty in one sex, or more chastity in the other, when they belong to the reformed churches. Yet, on the other hand, the practice of confession is at the best of very doubtful utility, when considered in its full extent and general bearings. The ordinary confessor, listening mechanically to hundreds of penitents, can hardly preserve much authority over most of them. But in proportion as his attention is directed to the secrets of conscience, his influence may become dangerous; men grow accustomed to the control of one perhaps more feeble and guilty than themselves, but over whose frailties they exercise no reciprocal command! and, if the confessors of kings have been sometimes terrible to nations, their ascendency is probably not less mischievous, in proportion to its extent, within the sphere of domestic life. In a political light, and with the object of lessening the weight of the ecclesiastical order in temporal affairs, there cannot be the least hesitation as to the expediency of discontinuing the usage.[122]

5. It has very rarely been the custom of theologians to measure the importance of orthodox opinions by their effect on the lives and hearts of those who adopt them; nor was this predilection for speculative above practical doctrines ever more evident than in the leading controversy of the sixteenth century, that respecting the Lord's supper. No errors on this point could have had any influence on men's moral conduct, nor indeed much on the general nature of their faith; yet it was selected as the test of heresy; and most, if not all, of those who suffered death upon that charge, whether in England or on the Continent, were convicted of denying the corporal presence in the sense of the Roman church. It had been well if the reformers had learned, by abhorring her persecution, not to practise it in a somewhat less degree upon each other, or by exposing the absurdities of transubstantiation, not to contend for equal nonsense of their own. Four principal theories, to say nothing of subordinate varieties, divided Europe at the accession of Edward VI. about the sacrament of the eucharist. The church of Rome would not depart a single letter from transubstantiation, or the change, at the moment of consecration, of the substances of bread and wine into those of Christ's body and blood; the accidents, in school language, or sensible qualities of the former remaining, or becoming inherent in the new substance. This doctrine does not, as vulgarly supposed, contradict the evidence of our senses; since our senses can report nothing as to the unknown being, which the schoolmen denominated substance, and which alone was the subject of this conversion. But metaphysicians of later ages might enquire whether material substances, abstractedly considered, exist at all, or, if they exist, whether they can have any specific distinction except their sensible qualities. This, perhaps, did not suggest itself in the sixteenth century; but it was strongly objected that the simultaneous existence of a body in many places, which the Romish doctrine implied, was inconceivable, and even contradictory. Luther, partly, as it seems, out of his determination to multiply differences with the church, invented a theory somewhat different, usually called consubstantiation, which was adopted in the confession of Augsburgh, and to which, at least down to the end of the seventeenth century, the divines of that communion were much attached. They imagined the two substances to be united in the sacramental elements, so that they might be termed bread and wine, or the body and blood, with equal propriety.[123] But it must be obvious that there is merely a scholastic distinction between this doctrine and that of Rome; though, when it suited the Lutherans to magnify, rather than dissemble, their deviations from the mother church, it was raised into an important difference. A simpler and more rational explication occurred to Zuingle and Oecolampadius, from whom the Helvetian Protestants imbibed their faith. Rejecting every notion of a real presence, and divesting the institution of all its mystery, they saw only figurative symbols in the elements which Christ had appointed as a commemoration of his death. But this novel opinion excited as much indignation in Luther as in the Romanists. It was indeed a rock on which the Reformation was nearly shipwrecked; since the violent contests which it occasioned, and the narrow intolerance which one side at least displayed throughout the controversy, not only weakened on several occasions the temporal power of the protestant churches, but disgusted many of those who might have inclined towards espousing their sentiments. Besides these three hypotheses, a fourth was promulgated by Martin Bucer of Strasburgh, a man of much acuteness, but prone to metaphysical subtlety, and not, it is said, of a very ingenuous character. His theory upon the sacrament of the Lord's supper, after having been adopted with little variation by Calvin, was finally received into some of the offices of the English church. If the Roman and Lutheran doctrines teemed with unmasked absurdity, this middle system (if indeed it is to be considered as a genuine opinion, and not rather a politic device),[124] had no advantage but in the disguise of unmeaning terms; while it had the peculiar infelicity of departing as much from the literal sense of the words of institution, wherein the former triumphed, as the Zuinglian interpretation itself. It is not easy to state in language tolerably perspicuous this obsolete metaphysical theology. But Bucer, as I apprehend, though his expressions are unusually confused, did not acknowledge a local presence of Christ's body and blood in the elements after consecration--so far concurring with the Helvetians; while he contended that they were really, and without figure, received by the worthy communicant through faith, so as to preserve the belief of a mysterious union, and of what was sometimes called a real presence. It can hardly fail to strike every unprejudiced reader that a material substance can only in a very figurative sense be said to be received through faith; that there can be no real presence of such a body, consistently with the proper use of language, but by its local occupation of space; and that, as the Romish tenet of transubstantiation is rather the best, so this of the Calvinists is the worst imagined of the three that have been opposed to the simplicity of the Helvetic explanation. Bucer himself came to England early in the reign of Edward, and had a considerable share in advising the measures of reformation. But Peter Martyr, a disciple of the Swiss school, had also no small influence. In the forty-two articles set forth by authority, the real or corporeal presence, using these words as synonymous, is explicitly denied. This clause was omitted on the revision of the articles under Elizabeth.[125]

6. These various innovations were exceedingly inimical to the influence and interests of the priesthood. But that order obtained a sort of compensation in being released from its obligation to celibacy. This obligation, though unwarranted by Scripture, rested on a most ancient and universal rule of discipline; for though the Greek and Eastern churches have always permitted the ordination of married persons, yet they do not allow those already ordained to take wives. No very good reason, however, could be given for this distinction; and the constrained celibacy of the Latin clergy had given rise to mischiefs, of which their general practice of retaining concubines might be reckoned among the smallest.[126] The German Protestants soon rejected this burden, and encouraged regular as well as secular priests to marry. Cranmer had himself taken a wife in Germany, whom Henry's law of the six articles, one of which made the marriage of priests felony, compelled him to send away. In the reign of Edward this was justly reckoned an indispensable part of the new Reformation. But the bill for that purpose passed the Lords with some little difficulty, nine bishops and four peers dissenting; and its preamble cast such an imputation on the practice it allowed, treating the marriage of priests as ignominious and a tolerated evil, that another act was thought necessary a few years afterwards, when the Reformation was better established, to vindicate this right of the protestant church.[127] A great number of the clergy availed themselves of their liberty; which may probably have had as extensive an effect in conciliating the ecclesiastical profession, as the suppression of monasteries had in rendering the gentry favourable to the new order of religion.

_Opposition made by part of the nation._--But great as was the number of those whom conviction or self-interest enlisted under the protestant banner, it appears plain that the Reformation moved on with too precipitate a step for the majority. The new doctrines prevailed in London, in many large towns, and in the eastern counties. But in the north and west of England, the body of the people were strictly Catholics. The clergy, though not very scrupulous about conforming to the innovations, were generally averse to most of them.[128] And, in spite of the church lands, I imagine that most of the nobility, if not the gentry, inclined to the same persuasion; not a few peers having sometimes dissented from the bills passed on the subject of religion in this reign, while no sort of disagreement appears in the upper house during that of Mary. In the western insurrection of 1549, which partly originated in the alleged grievance of enclosures, many of the demands made by the rebels go to the entire re-establishment of popery. Those of the Norfolk insurgents in the same year, whose political complaints were the same, do not, as far as I perceive, show any such tendency. But an historian, whose bias was certainly not unfavourable to protestantism, confesses that all endeavours were too weak to overcome the aversion of the people towards reformation, and even intimates that German troops were sent for from Calais on account of the bigotry with which the bulk of the nation adhered to the old superstition.[129] This is somewhat a humiliating admission, that the protestant faith was imposed upon our ancestors by a foreign army. And as the reformers, though still the fewer, were undeniably a great and increasing party, it may be natural to enquire, whether a regard to policy as well as equitable considerations should not have repressed still more, as it did in some measure, the zeal of Cranmer and Somerset? It might be asked, whether, in the acknowledged co-existence of two religions, some preference were not fairly claimed for the creed, which all had once held, and which the greater part yet retained; whether it were becoming that the counsellors of an infant king should use such violence in breaking up the ecclesiastical constitution; whether it were to be expected that a free-spirited people should see their consciences thus transferred by proclamation, and all that they had learned to venerate not only torn away from them, but exposed to what they must reckon blasphemous contumely and profanation? The demolition of shrines and images, far unlike the speculative disputes of theologians, was an overt insult on every catholic heart. Still more were they exasperated at the ribaldry which vulgar Protestants uttered against their most sacred mystery. It was found necessary in the very first act of the first protestant parliament, to denounce penalties against such as spoke irreverently of the sacrament, an indecency not unusual with those who held the Zuinglian opinion in that age of coarse pleasantry and unmixed invective.[130] Nor could the people repose much confidence in the judgment and sincerity of their governors, whom they had seen submitting without outward repugnance to Henry's various schemes of religion, and whom they saw every day enriching themselves with the plunder of the church they affected to reform. There was a sort of endowed colleges or fraternities, called chantries, consisting of secular priests, whose duty was to say daily masses for the founders. These were abolished and given to the king by acts of parliament in the last year of Henry, and the first of Edward. It was intimated in the preamble of the latter statute that their revenues should be converted to the erection of schools, the augmentation of the universities, and the sustenance of the indigent.[131] But this was entirely neglected, and the estates fell into the hands of the courtiers. Nor did they content themselves with this escheated wealth of the church. Almost every bishopric was spoiled by their ravenous power in this reign, either through mere alienations, or long leases, or unequal exchanges. Exeter and Llandaff from being among the richest sees, fell into the class of the poorest. Lichfield lost the chief part of its lands to raise an estate for Lord Paget. London, Winchester, and even Canterbury, suffered considerably. The Duke of Somerset was much beloved; yet he had given no unjust offence by pulling down some churches in order to erect Somerset House with the materials. He had even projected the demolition of Westminster Abbey; but the chapter averted this outrageous piece of rapacity, sufficient of itself to characterise that age, by the usual method, a grant of some of their estates.[132]

Tolerance in religion, it is well known, so unanimously admitted (at least verbally) even by theologians in the present century, was seldom considered as practicable, much less as a matter of right, during the period of the Reformation. The difference in this respect between the Catholics and Protestants was only in degree, and in degree there was much less difference than we are apt to believe. Persecution is the deadly original sin of the reformed churches; that which cools every honest man's zeal for their cause, in proportion as his reading becomes more extensive. The Lutheran princes and cities in Germany constantly refused to tolerate the use of the mass as an idolatrous service;[133] and this name of idolatry, though adopted in retaliation for that of heresy, answered the same end as the other, of exciting animosity and uncharitableness. The Roman worship was equally proscribed in England. Many persons were sent to prison for hearing mass and similar offences.[134] The Princess Mary supplicated in vain to have the exercise of her own religion at home; and Charles V. several times interceded in her behalf; but though Cranmer and Ridley, as well as the council, would have consented to this indulgence, the young king, whose education had unhappily infused a good deal of bigotry into his mind, could not be prevailed upon to connive at such idolatry.[135] Yet in one memorable instance he had shown a milder spirit, struggling against Cranmer to save a fanatical woman from the punishment of heresy. This is a stain upon Cranmer's memory which nothing but his own death could have lightened. In men hardly escaped from a similar peril, in men who had nothing to plead but the right of private judgment, in men who had defied the prescriptive authority of past ages and of established power, the crime of persecution assumes a far deeper hue, and is capable of far less extenuation, than in a Roman inquisitor. Thus the death of Servetus has weighed down the name and memory of Calvin. And though Cranmer was incapable of the rancorous malignity of the Genevan lawgiver, yet I regret to say that there is a peculiar circumstance of aggravation in his pursuing to death this woman, Joan Boucher, and a Dutchman that had been convicted of Arianism. It is said that he had been accessary in the preceding reign to the condemnation of Lambert, and perhaps some others, for opinions concerning the Lord's supper which he had himself afterwards embraced.[136] Such an evidence of the fallibility of human judgment, such an example that persecutions for heresy, how conscientiously soever managed, are liable to end in shedding the blood of those who maintain truth, should have taught him, above all men, a scrupulous repugnance to carry into effect those sanguinary laws. Compared with these executions for heresy, the imprisonment and deprivation of Gardiner and Bonner appear but measures of ordinary severity towards political adversaries under the pretext of religion; yet are they wholly unjustifiable, particularly in the former instance; and if the subsequent retaliation of those bad men was beyond all proportion excessive, we should remember that such is the natural consequence of tyrannical aggressions.[137]

_Cranmer._--The person most conspicuous, though Ridley was perhaps the most learned divine, in moulding the faith and discipline of the English church, which has not been very materially altered since his time, was Archbishop Cranmer.[138] Few men, about whose conduct there is so little room for controversy upon facts, have been represented in more opposite lights. We know the favouring colours of protestant writers; but turn to the bitter invective of Bossuet; and the patriarch of our reformed church stands forth as the most abandoned of time-serving hypocrites. No political factions affect the impartiality of men's judgment so grossly, or so permanently, as religious heats. Doubtless, if we should reverse the picture, and imagine the end and scope of Cranmer's labour to have been the establishment of the Roman catholic religion in a protestant country, the estimate formed of his behaviour would be somewhat less favourable than it is at present. If, casting away all prejudice on either side, we weigh the character of this prelate in an equal balance, he will appear far indeed removed from the turpitude imputed to him by his enemies, yet not entitled to any extraordinary veneration. Though it is most eminently true of Cranmer that his faults were always the effect of circumstances, and not of intention; yet this palliating consideration is rather weakened when we recollect that he consented to place himself in a station where those circumstances occurred. At the time of Cranmer's elevation to the see of Canterbury, Henry, though on the point of separating for ever from Rome, had not absolutely determined upon so strong a measure; and his policy required that the new archbishop should solicit the usual bulls from the pope, and take the oath of canonical obedience to him. Cranmer, already a rebel from that dominion in his heart, had recourse to the disingenuous shift of a protest, before his consecration, that "he did not intend to restrain himself thereby from anything to which he was bound by his duty to God or the king, or from taking part in any reformation of the English church which he might judge to be required."[139] This first deviation from integrity, as is almost always the case, drew after it many others; and began that discreditable course of temporising, and undue compliance, to which he was reduced for the rest of Henry's reign. Cranmer's abilities were not perhaps of a high order, or at least they were unsuited to public affairs; but his principal defect was in that firmness by which men of more ordinary talents may ensure respect. Nothing could be weaker than his conduct in the usurpation of Lady Jane, which he might better have boldly sustained, like Ridley, as a step necessary for the conservation of protestantism, than given into against his conscience, overpowered by the importunities of a misguided boy. Had the malignity of his enemies been directed rather against his reputation than his life, had he been permitted to survive his shame, as a prisoner in the Tower, it must have seemed a more arduous task to defend the memory of Cranmer; but his fame has brightened in the fire that consumed him.[140]

_Cranmer's moderation in introducing changes not acceptable to the zealots._--Those who, with the habits of thinking that prevail in our times, cast back their eyes on the reign of Edward VI. will generally be disposed to censure the precipitancy, and still more the exclusive spirit, of our principal reformers. But relatively to the course that things had taken in Germany, and to the feverish zeal of that age, the moderation of Cranmer and Ridley, the only ecclesiastics who took a prominent share in these measures, was very conspicuous; and tended above everything to place the Anglican church in that middle position which it has always preserved, between the Roman hierarchy and that of other protestant denominations. It is manifest from the history of the Reformation in Germany, that its predisposing cause was the covetous and arrogant character of the superior ecclesiastics, founded upon vast temporal authority; a yoke long borne with impatience, and which the unanimous adherence of the prelates to Rome in the period of separation gave the Lutheran princes a good excuse for entirely throwing off. Some of the more temperate reformers, as Melancthon, would have admitted a limited jurisdiction of the episcopacy: but in general the destruction of that order, such as it then existed, may be deemed as fundamental a principle of the new discipline, as any theological point could be of the new doctrine. But, besides that the subjection of ecclesiastical to civil tribunals, and possibly other causes, had rendered the superior clergy in England less obnoxious than in Germany, there was this important difference between the two countries, that several bishops from zealous conviction, many more from pliability to self-interest, had gone along with the new-modelling of the English church by Henry and Edward; so that it was perfectly easy to keep up that form of government, in the regular succession which had usually been deemed essential; though the foreign reformers had neither the wish, nor possibly the means, to preserve it. Cranmer himself, indeed, during the reign of Henry, had bent, as usual, to the king's despotic humour; and favoured a novel theory of ecclesiastical authority, which resolved all its spiritual as well as temporal powers into the royal supremacy. Accordingly, at the accession of Edward, he himself, and several other bishops, took out commissions to hold their sees during pleasure.[141] But when the necessity of compliance had passed by, they showed a disposition not only to oppose the continual spoliations of church property, but to maintain the jurisdiction which the canon law had conferred upon them.[142] And though, as this papal code did not appear very well adapted to a protestant church, a new scheme of ecclesiastical laws was drawn up, which the king's death rendered abortive, this was rather calculated to strengthen the hands of the spiritual courts than to withdraw any matter from their cognisance.[143]

The policy, or it may be the prejudices, of Cranmer induced him also to retain in the church a few ceremonial usages, which the Helvetic, though not the Lutheran, reformers had swept away; such as the copes and rochets of bishops, and the surplice of officiating priests. It should seem inconceivable that any one could object to these vestments, considered in themselves; far more, if they could answer in the slightest degree the end of conciliating a reluctant people. But this motive unfortunately was often disregarded in that age; and indeed in all ages an abhorrence of concession and compromise is a never-failing characteristic of religious factions. The foreign reformers then in England, two of whom, Bucer and Peter Martyr, enjoyed a deserved reputation, expressed their dissatisfaction at seeing these habits retained, and complained, in general, of the backwardness of the English reformation. Calvin and Bullinger wrote from Switzerland in the same strain.[144] Nor was this sentiment by any means confined to strangers. Hooper, an eminent divine, having been elected Bishop of Gloucester, refused to be consecrated in the usual dress. It marks, almost ludicrously, the spirit of those times, that, instead of permitting him to decline the station, the council sent him to prison for some time, until by some mutual concessions the business was adjusted.[145] These events it would hardly be worth while to notice in such a work as the present, if they had not been the prologue to a long and serious drama.

_Persecution under Mary._--It is certain that the re-establishment of popery on Mary's accession must have been acceptable to a large part, or perhaps to the majority, of the nation. There is reason however to believe that the reformed doctrine had made a real progress in the few years of her brother's reign. The counties of Norfolk and Suffolk, which placed Mary on the throne as the lawful heir, were chiefly protestant, and experienced from her the usual gratitude and good faith of a bigot.[146] Noailles bears witness, in many of his despatches, to the unwillingness which great numbers of the people displayed to endure the restoration of popery, and to the queen's excessive unpopularity, even before her marriage with Philip had been resolved upon.[147] As for the higher classes, they partook far less than their inferiors in the religious zeal of that age. Henry, Edward, Mary, Elizabeth, found almost an equal compliance with their varying schemes of faith. Yet the larger proportion of the nobility and gentry appear to have preferred the catholic religion. Several peers opposed the bills for reformation under Edward; and others, who had gone along with the current, became active counsellors of Mary. Not a few persons of family emigrated in the latter reign; but, with the exception of the second Earl of Bedford, who suffered a short imprisonment on account of religion, the protestant martyrology contains no confessor of superior rank.[148] The same accommodating spirit characterised, upon the whole, the clergy; and would have been far more general, if a considerable number had not availed themselves of the permission to marry granted by Edward; which led to their expulsion from their cures on his sister's coming to the throne.[149] Yet it was not the temper of Mary's parliaments, whatever pains had been taken about their election, to second her bigotry in surrendering the temporal fruits of their recent schism. The bill for restoring first fruits and impropriations in the queen's hands to the church passed not without difficulty; and it was found impossible to obtain a repeal of the Act of Supremacy without the pope's explicit confirmation of the abbey lands to their new proprietors. Even this confirmation, though made through the legate Cardinal Pole, by virtue of a full commission, left not unreasonably an apprehension that, on some better opportunity, the imprescriptible nature of church property might be urged against the possessors.[150] With these selfish considerations others of a more generous nature conspired to render the old religion more obnoxious than it had been at the queen's accession. Her marriage with Philip, his encroaching disposition, the arbitrary turn of his counsels, the insolence imputed to the Spaniards who accompanied him, the unfortunate loss of Calais through that alliance, while it thoroughly alienated the kingdom from Mary, created a prejudice against the religion which the Spanish court so steadily favoured.[151] So violent indeed was the hatred conceived by the English nation against Spain during the short period of Philip's marriage with their queen, that it diverted the old channel of public feelings, and almost put an end to that dislike and jealousy of France which had so long existed. For at least a century after this time we rarely find in popular writers any expression of hostility towards that country; though their national manners, so remote from our own, are not unfrequently the object of ridicule. The prejudices of the populace, as much as the policy of our counsellors, were far more directed against Spain.

_Its effect rather favourable to protestantism._--But what had the greatest efficacy in disgusting the English with Mary's system of faith, was the cruelty by which it was accompanied. Though the privy council were in fact continually urging the bishops forward in this prosecution,[152] the latter bore the chief blame, and the abhorrence entertained for them naturally extended to the doctrine they professed. A sort of instinctive reasoning told the people, what the learned on neither side had been able to discover, that the truth of a religion begins to be very suspicious, when it stands in need of prisons and scaffolds to eke out its evidences. And as the English were constitutionally humane, and not hardened by continually witnessing the infliction of barbarous punishments, there arose a sympathy for men suffering torments with such meekness and patience, which the populace of some other nations were perhaps less apt to display, especially in executions on the score of heresy.[153] The theologian indeed and the philosopher may concur in deriding the notion that either sincerity or moral rectitude can be the test of truth; yet among the various species of authority to which recourse had been had to supersede or to supply the deficiencies of argument, I know not whether any be more reasonable, and none certainly is so congenial to unsophisticated minds. Many are said to have become protestants under Mary, who, at her coming to the throne, had retained the contrary persuasion.[154] And the strongest proof of this may be drawn from the acquiescence of the great body of the kingdom in the re-establishment of protestantism by Elizabeth, when compared with the seditions and discontent on that account under Edward. The course which this famous princess steered in ecclesiastical concerns, during her long reign, will form the subject of the two ensuing chapters.

FOOTNOTES:

[83] Burnet. Reeves's _History of the Law_, iv. p. 308. The contemporary authority is Keilwey's Reports. Collier disbelieves the murder of Hun on the authority of Sir Thomas More; but he was surely a prejudiced apologist of the clergy, and this historian is hardly less so. An entry on the journals, 7 H. 8, drawn of course by some ecclesiastic, particularly complains of Standish as the author of periculosissimae seditiones inter clericam et secularem potestatem.

[84] Burnet is confident that the answer to Luther was not written by Henry (vol. iii. 171), and others have been of the same opinion. The king, however, in his answer to Luther's apologetical letter, where this was insinuated, declares it to be his own. From Henry's general character and proneness to theological disputation, it may be inferred that he had at least a considerable share in the work, though probably with the assistance of some who had more command of the Latin language. Burnet mentions in another place, that he had seen a copy of the _Necessary Erudition of a Christian Man_, full of interlineations by the king.

[85] Epist. Lutheri ad Henricum regem missa, etc. Lond. 1526. The letter bears date at Wittenberg, September 1, 1525. It had no relation, therefore, to Henry's quarrel with the Pope, though probably Luther imagined that the king was becoming more favourably disposed. After saying that he had written against the king "stultus ac praeceps," which was true, he adds, "invitantibus iis qui majestati tuae parum favebant," which was surely a pretence; since who, at Wittenberg, in 1521, could have any motive to wish that Henry should be so scurrilously treated? He then bursts out into the most absurd attack on Wolsey; "illud monstrum et publicum odium Dei et hominum, Cardinalis Eboracensis, pestis illa regni tui." This was a singular style to adopt in writing to a king, whom he affected to propitiate; Wolsey being nearer than any man to Henry's heart. Thence, relapsing into his tone of abasement, he says, "ita ut vehementer nunc pudefactus, metuam oculos coram majestate tua levare, qui passus sim levitate ista me moveri in talem tantumque regem per malignos istos operarios; praesertim cum sim foex et vermis, quem solo contemptu oportuit victum aut neglectum esse," etc. Among the many strange things which Luther said and wrote, I know not one more extravagant than this letter, which almost justifies the supposition that there was a vein of insanity in his very remarkable character.

[86] Collier, vol. ii. Appendix, No. 2. In the _Hardwicke Papers_, i. 13, we have an account of the ceremonial of the first marriage of Henry with Catherine in 1503. It is remarkable that a person was appointed to object publicly in Latin to the marriage, as unlawful, for reasons he should there exhibit; "whereunto Mr. Doctor Barnes shall reply, and declare solemnly, also in Latin, the said marriage to be good and effectual in the law of Christ's church, by virtue of a dispensation, which he shall have then to be openly read." There seems to be something in this of the tortuous policy of Henry VII.; but it shows that the marriage had given offence to scrupulous minds.

[87] See Burnet, Lingard, Turner, and the letters lately printed in State Papers, temp. Henry VIII. pp. 194, 196.

[88] Burnet wishes to disprove the bribery of these foreign doctors. But there are strong presumptions that some opinions were got by money (Collier, ii. 58); and the greatest difficulty was found, where corruption perhaps had least influence, in the Sorbonne. Burnet himself proves that some of the cardinals were bribed by the king's ambassador, both in 1528 and 1532. Vol. i. Append. pp. 30, 110. See, too, Strype, i. Append. No. 40.

The same writer will not allow that Henry menaced the university of Oxford in case of non-compliance; yet there are three letters of his to them, a tenth part of which, considering the nature of the writer, was enough to terrify his readers. Vol. iii. Append. p. 25. These probably Burnet did not know when he published his first volume.

[89] The king's marriage is related by the earlier historians to have taken place November 14, 1532. Burnet however is convinced by a letter of Cranmer, who, he says, could not be mistaken, though he was not apprised of the fact till some time afterwards, that it was not solemnised till about the 25th of January (vol. iii. p. 70). This letter has since been published in the _Archaeologia_, vol. xviii., and in Ellis's _Letters_, ii. 34. Elizabeth was born September 7, 1533; for though Burnet, on the authority, he says, of Cranmer, places her birth on September 14, the former date is decisively confirmed by letters in Harl. MSS. 283, 22, and 787, 1 (both set down incorrectly in the catalogue). If a late historian therefore had contented himself with commenting on these dates and the clandestine nature of the marriage, he would not have gone beyond the limits of that character of an advocate for one party which he has chosen to assume. It may not be unlikely, though by no means evident, that Anne's prudence, though, as Fuller says of her, "she was cunning in her chastity," was surprised at the end of this long courtship. I think a prurient curiosity about such obsolete scandal very unworthy of history. But when this author asserts Henry to have cohabited with her for three years, and repeatedly calls her his mistress, when he attributes Henry's patience with the pope's chicanery to "the infecundity of Anne," and all this on no other authority than a letter of the French ambassador, which amounts hardly to evidence of a transient rumour, we cannot but complain of a great deficiency in historical candour.

[90] The principal authority on the story of Henry's divorce from Catherine is Burnet, in the first and third volumes of his _History of the Reformation_; the latter correcting the former from additional documents. Strype, in his _Ecclesiastical Memorials_, adds some particulars not contained in Burnet, especially as to the negotiations with the pope in 1528; and a very little may be gleaned from Collier, Carte, and other writers. There are few parts of history, on the whole, that have been better elucidated. One exception perhaps may yet be made. The beautiful and affecting story of Catherine's behaviour before the legates at Dunstable is told by Cavendish and Hall, from whom later historians have copied it. Burnet, however, in his third volume, p. 46, disputes its truth, and on what should seem conclusive authority, that of the original register, whence it appears that the queen never came into court but once, June 18, 1529, to read a paper protesting against the jurisdiction, and that the king never entered it. Carte accordingly treated the story as a fabrication. Hume of course did not choose to omit so interesting a circumstance; but Dr. Lingard has pointed out a letter of the king, which Burnet himself had printed, vol. i. Append. 78, mentioning the queen's presence as well as his own, on June 21, and greatly corroborating the popular account. To say the truth, there is no small difficulty in choosing between two authorities so considerable, if they cannot be reconciled, which seems impossible: but, upon the whole, the preference is due to Henry's letter, dated June 23, as he could not be mistaken, and had no motive to misstate.

This is not altogether immaterial; for Catherine's appeal to Henry, de integritate corporis usque ad secundas nuptias servata, without reply on his part, is an important circumstance as to that part of the question. It is however certain, that, whether on this occasion or not, she did constantly declare this; and the evidence adduced to prove the contrary is very defective, especially as opposed to the assertion of so virtuous a woman. Dr. Lingard says that all the favourable answers which the king obtained from foreign universities went upon the supposition that the former marriage had been consummated, and were of no avail unless that could be proved. See a letter of Wolsey to the king, July 1, 1527, printed in State Papers, temp. Henry VIII. p. 194; whence it appears that the queen had been consistent in her denial.

[91] Stat. 21, Hen. 8, cc. 5, 6; Strype, i. 73; Burnet, 83. It cost a thousand marks to prove Sir William Compton's will in 1528. These exactions had been much augmented by Wolsey, who interfered, as legate, with the prerogative court.

[92] It is hard to say what were More's original sentiments about the divorce. In a letter to Cromwell (Strype, i. 183, and App. No. 48; Burnet, App. p. 280) he speaks of himself as always doubtful. But, if his disposition had not been rather favourable to the king, would he have been offered, or have accepted, the great seal? We do not indeed find his name in the letter of remonstrance to the pope, signed by the nobility and chief commoners in 1530, which Wolsey, though then in disgrace, very willingly subscribed. But in March, 1531, he went down to the House of Commons, attended by several lords, to declare the king's scruples about his marriage, and to lay before them the opinions of universities. In this he perhaps thought himself acting ministerially. But there can be no doubt that he always considered the divorce as a matter wholly of the pope's competence, and which no other party could take out of his hands, though he had gone along cheerfully, as Burnet says, with the prosecution against the clergy, and wished to cut off the illegal jurisdiction of the Roman see. The king did not look upon him as hostile; for even so late as 1532, Dr. Bennet, the envoy at Rome, proposed to the pope that the cause should be tried by four commissioners, of whom the king should name one, either Sir Thomas More or Stokesly, Bishop of London. Burnet, i. 126.

[93] Dr. Lingard has pointed out, as Burnet had done less distinctly, that the bill abrogating the papal supremacy was brought into the Commons in the beginning of March, and received the royal assent on the 30th; whereas the determination of the conclave at Rome against the divorce was on the 23rd; so that the latter could not have been the cause of this final rupture. Clement VII. might have been outwitted in his turn by the king, if, after pronouncing a decree in favour of the divorce, he had found it too late to regain his jurisdiction in England. On the other hand, so flexible were the parliaments of this reign, that, if Henry had made terms with the pope, the supremacy might have revived again as easily as it had been extinguished.

[94] Burnet, iii. 44; and App. 24.

[95] Conf. Burnet, i. 94, and App. No. 35; Strype, i. 230; Sleidan, _Hist. de la Reformation_ (par Courayer), l. 10. The notions of these divines, as here stated, are not very consistent or intelligible. The Swiss reformers were in favour of the divorce, though they advised that the Princess Mary should not be declared illegitimate. Luther seems to have inclined towards compromising the difference by the marriage of a secondary wife. Lingard, p. 172. Melancthon, this writer says, was of the same opinion. Burnet indeed denies this; but it is rendered not improbable by the well-authenticated fact that these divines, together with Bucer, signed a permission to the landgrave of Hesse to take a wife or concubine, on account of the drunkenness and disagreeable person of his landgravine. Bossuet, _Hist. des Var. des Egl. Protest_. vol. i., where the instrument is published. Clement VII., however, recommended the king to marry immediately, and then prosecute his suit for a divorce, which it would be easier for him to obtain in such circumstances. This was as early as January, 1528 (Burnet, i., App. p. 27). But at a much later period, September 1530, he expressly suggested the expedient of allowing the king to retain two wives. Though the letter of Cassali, the king's ambassador at Rome, containing this proposition, was not found by Burnet, it is quoted at length by an author of unquestionable veracity, Lord Herbert. Henry had himself, at one time, favoured this scheme, according to Burnet, who does not, however, produce any authority for the instructions to that effect said to have been given to Brian and Vannes, despatched to Rome at the end of 1528. But at the time when the pope made this proposal, the king had become exasperated against Catherine, and little inclined to treat either her or the holy see with any respect.

[96] Strype, i. 151 _et alibi_.

[97] Strype, _passim_. Tunstal, Gardiner, and Bonner wrote in favour of the royal supremacy; all of them, no doubt, insincerely. The first of these has escaped severe censure by the mildness of his general character, but was full as much a temporiser as Cranmer. But the history of this period has been written with such undisguised partiality by Burnet and Strype on the one hand, and lately by Dr. Lingard on the other, that it is almost amusing to find the most opposite conclusions and general results from nearly the same premises. Collier, though with many prejudices of his own, is, all things considered, the fairest of our ecclesiastical writers as to this reign.

[98] Burnet, 188. For the methods by which the regulars acquired wealth, fair and unfair, I may be allowed to refer to the _View of the Middle Ages_, ch. 7, or rather to the sources from which the sketch there given was derived.

[99] Harmer's _Specimens of Errors in Burnet_.

[100] Strype, i. Append. 19.

[101] Burnet; Strype. Wolsey alleged as the ground for this suppression, the great wickedness that prevailed therein. Strype says the number is twenty; but Collier, ii. 19, reckons them at forty.

[102] Collier, though not implicitly to be trusted, tells some hard truths, and charges Cromwell with receiving bribes from several abbeys, in order to spare them. P. 159. This is repeated by Lingard, on the authority of some Cottonian manuscripts. Even Burnet speaks of the violent proceedings of a Doctor Loudon towards the monasteries. This man was of infamous character, and became afterwards a conspirator against Cranmer, and a persecutor of protestants.

[103] Burnet, 190; Strype, i. ch. 35, see especially p. 257; Ellis's _Letters_, ii. 71. We should be on our guard against the Romanising high-church men, such as Collier, and the whole class of antiquaries, Wood, Hearne, Drake, Browne, Willis, etc., etc., who are, with hardly an exception, partial to the monastic orders, and sometimes scarce keep on the mask of protestantism. No one fact can be better supported by current opinion, and that general testimony which carries conviction, than the relaxed and vicious state of those foundations for many ages before their fall. Ecclesiastical writers had not then learned, as they have since, the trick of suppressing what might excite odium against their church, but speak out boldly and bitterly. Thus we find in Wilkins, iii. 630, a bull of Innocent VIII. for the reform of monasteries in England, charging many of them with dissoluteness of life. And this is followed by a severe monition from Archbishop Morton to the abbot of St. Alban's, imputing all kinds of scandalous vices to him and his monks. Those who reject at once the reports of Henry's visitors will do well to consider this. See also Fosbrooke's _British Monachism, passim_.

[104] The preamble of 27 H. 8, c. 28, which gives the smaller monasteries to the king, after reciting that "manifest sin, vicious, carnal, and abominable living, is daily used and committed commonly in such little and small abbeys, priories, and other religious houses of monks, canons, and nuns, where the congregation of such religious persons is under the number of twelve persons," bestows praise on many of the greater foundations, and certainly does not intimate that their fate was so near at hand. Nor is any misconduct alleged or insinuated against the greater monasteries in the act 31 H. 8, c. 13, that abolishes them; which is rather more remarkable, as in some instances the religious had been induced to confess their evil lives and ill deserts. Burnet, 236.

[105] _Id. ibid._ and Append. p. 151; Collier, 167. The pensions to the superiors of the dissolved greater monasteries, says a writer not likely to spare Henry's government, appear to have varied from L266 to L6 per annum. The priors of cells received generally L13. A few, whose services had merited the distinction, obtained L20. To the other monks were allotted pensions of six, four, or two pounds, with a small sum to each at his departure, to provide for his immediate wants. The pensions to nuns averaged about L4. Lingard, vi. 341. He admits that these were ten times their present value in money; and surely they were not unreasonably small. Compare them with those, generally and justly thought munificent, which this country bestows on her veterans of Chelsea and Greenwich. The monks had no right to expect more than the means of that hard fare to which they ought by their rules to have been confined in the convents. The whole revenues were not to be shared among them as private property. It cannot of course be denied that the compulsory change of life was to many a severe and an unmerited hardship; but no great revolution, and the Reformation as little as any, could be achieved without much private suffering.

[106] The abbots sat till the end of the first session of Henry's sixth parliament, the act extinguishing them not having passed till the last day. In the next session they do not appear, the writ of summons not being supposed to give them personal seats. There are indeed so many parallel instances among spiritual lords, and the principle is so obvious, that it would not be worth noticing, but for a strange doubt said to be thrown out by some legal authorities, near the beginning of George III.'s reign, in the case of Pearce, Bishop of Rochester, whether, after resigning his see, he would not retain his seat as a lord of parliament; in consequence of which his resignation was not accepted.

[107] Burnet, i. Append. 96.

[108] P. 268. Dr. Lingard, on the authority of Nasmith's edition of Tanner's _Notitia Monastica_, puts the annual revenue of all the monastic houses at L142,914. This would only be one-twentieth part of the rental of the kingdom, if Hume were right in estimating that at three millions. But this is certainly by much too high. The author of Harmer's _Observations on Burnet_, as I have mentioned above, says the monks will be found not to have possessed above one-fifth of the kingdom, and in value, by reason of their long leases, not one-tenth. But on this supposition, the crown's gain was enormous.

According to a valuation in Speed's _Catalogue of Religious Houses, apud_ Collier, Append. p. 34, sixteen mitred abbots had revenues above L1000 per annum. St. Peter's, Westminster, was the richest, and valued at L3977, Glastonbury at L3508, St. Alban's at L2510, etc.

[109] An act entitling the queen to take into her hands, on the avoidance of any bishopric, so much of the lands belonging to it as should be equal in value to the impropriate rectories, etc., within the same, belonging to the crown, and to give the latter in exchange, was made (1 Eliz. c. 19). This bill passed on a division in the Commons by 104 to 90, and was ill taken by some of the bishops, who saw themselves reduced to live on the lawful subsistence of the parochial clergy. Strype's _Annals_, i. 68, 97.

[110] Burnet, 268, 339. In Strype, i. 211, we have a paper drawn up by Cromwell for the king's inspection, setting forth what might be done with the revenues of the lesser monasteries. Among a few other particulars are the following: "His grace may furnish 200 gentlemen to attend on his person; every one of them to have 100 marks yearly--20,000 marks. His highness may assign to the yearly reparation of highways in sundry parts, or the doing of other good deeds for the commonwealth, 5000 marks." In such scant proportion did the claims of public utility come after those of selfish pomp, or rather perhaps, looking more attentively, of cunning corruption.

[111] Burnet, i. 223.

[112] It is a favourite theory with many who regret the absolute secularisation of conventual estates, that they might have been rendered useful to learning and religion by being bestowed on chapters and colleges. Thomas Whitaker has sketched a pretty scheme for the abbey of Whalley, wherein, besides certain opulent prebendaries, he would provide for schoolmasters and physicians. I suppose this is considered an adherence to the donor's intention, and no sort of violation of property; somewhat on the principle called _cy pres_, adopted by the court of chancery in cases of charitable bequests; according to which, that tribunal, if it holds the testator's intention unfit to be executed, carries the bequest into effect by doing what it presumes to come next in his wishes, though sometimes very far from them. It might be difficult indeed to prove that a Norman baron, who, not quite easy about his future prospects, took comfort in his last hours from the anticipation of daily masses for his soul, would have been better satisfied that his lands should maintain a grammar-school, than that they should escheat to the crown. But to waive this, and to revert to the principle of public utility, it may possibly be true that, in one instance, such as Whalley, a more beneficial disposition could have been made in favour of a college than by granting away the lands. But the question is, whether all, or even a great part, of the monastic estates could have been kept in mortmain with advantage. We may easily argue that the Derwentwater property, applied as it has been, has done the state more service, than if it had gone to maintain a race of Ratcliffes, and been squandered at White's or Newmarket. But does it follow that the kingdom would be the more prosperous, if all the estates of the peerage were diverted to similar endowments? And can we seriously believe that, if such a plan had been adopted at the suppression of monasteries, either religion or learning would have been the better for such an inundation of prebendaries and schoolmasters?

[113] The first act for the relief of the impotent poor passed in 1535 (27 H. 8, c. 25). By this statute no alms were allowed to be given to beggars, on pain of forfeiting ten times the value; but a collection was to be made in every parish. The compulsory contributions, properly speaking, began in 1572 (14 Eliz. c. 5). But by an earlier statute (1 Edward 6, c. 3), the bishop was empowered to proceed in his court against such as should refuse to contribute, or dissuade others from doing so.