Chapter XV: The Exeter Conspiracy (1)

Those who believe that human actions obey the laws of natural causation, might find their philosophy confirmed by the conduct of the great powers of Europe during the early years of the Reformation. With a regularity uniform as that on which we calculate in the application of mechanical forces, the same combinations were attended with identical effects; and given the relations between France and Spain, between Spain and Germany, between England and either of the three, the political situation of all Western Christendom could be estimated with as much certainty as the figure and dimensions of a triangle from the length of one of its sides and the inclinations of two of its angles. When England was making advances towards the Lutherans, we are sure that France and Spain were in conjunction under the Papacy, and were menacing the Reformation. When such advances had been pushed forward into prominence, and there was a likelihood of a Protestant league, the Emperor was compelled to neutralize the danger by concessions to the German Diet, or by an affectation of a desire for a reconciliation with Henry, to which Henry was always ready to listen. Then Henry would look coldly on the Protestants, and the Protestants on him. Then Charles could afford again to lay the curb on Francis. Then Francis would again storm and threaten, till passion broke into war. War brought its usual consequences of mutual injury, disaster, and exhaustion; and then the Pope would interfere, and peace would follow, and the same round would repeat itself. Statesmen and kings made, as they imagined, their fine strokes of policy. A wisdom other than theirs condemned them to tread again and again the same ineffectual circle.

But while fact and necessity were thus inexorable, imagination remained uncontrolled; and efforts were made of all kinds, and on all sides, to find openings of escape. The Emperor had boasted, in 1528, that he would rid himself of the English difficulty by a revolution which should dethrone Henry. The experiment had been tried with no success hitherto, and with indifferent prospects for the future. Revolution failing, he believed that he might reconvert England to the Papacy; while both Henry and the Germans on their side had not ceased to hope that they might convert the Emperor to the Reformation. The perspective of Europe varied with the point of view of the various parties. The picture was arranged by prejudice, and coloured by inclination.

[Sidenote: The Spanish ambassador compromised in the insurrection is withdrawn. June.]

The overtures to England which Charles had commenced on the death of Catherine, had been checked by Henry's haughty answer; and Charles had replied by an indirect countenance, through his ambassador, to Pole,[326] and to Lord Darcy. But the motives which had led to these overtures remained to invite their renewal; the insurrection was for the present prostrate, and the emperor therefore withdrew his first step, and disowned his compromised minister in London. In June, 1537, Diego de Mendoza arrived at the English court, with a commission to express in more emphatic terms the earnest wish of the court of Spain for the renewal of the old alliance.

[Sidenote: Sir Thomas Wyatt goes on a extraordinary mission into Spain.]

[Sidenote: Henry desires to forget the past and renew his friendship with the Emperor;]

[Sidenote: Subject to certain conditions.]

The king had done enough for the protection of his dignity; prudence now recommended him to believe in Charles's sincerity. A solid understanding with Flanders was the best passport to the hearts of large portions of his subjects, whose interests were connected with the wool trade: he was himself ardently anxious to resume his place in the fraternity of European sovereigns. Mendoza was graciously received. Sir Thomas Wyatt was despatched into Spain with a corresponding mission; and Wyatt's instructions were couched in language which showed that, although the English government were under no delusion as to Charles's late proceedings, they were ready to close their eyes to objects which they did not wish to see. The proposals for a reconciliation which had been made by the late ambassadors had appeared so feeble, Wyatt was to say, as to seem rather a device of policy to prevent the King of England from allying himself with France, than as intended in sincerity; M. de Mendoza, however, had removed all such unpleasant impressions; and although, if the Emperor would consider the past differences between the two courts impartially, he must feel that the fault rested with himself, yet the English government, on their side, were ready to set aside all painful recollections.[327] There were persons, indeed, who affirmed that the Emperor was still trifling, that Mendoza was playing a game, and that, in "heart, deed, and words," the Spanish court were "doing all they could to his Majesty's dishonour."[328] Nay, even individuals could be found who boasted themselves to have refused some honest offers because they were "knit with vile and filthy conditions towards his Majesty."[329] The king, however, set aside these rumours, as either without foundation, or as belonging to the past rather than the present. He required only, as a condition or renewed friendship, that if the Pope found the means of attacking England, Charles should bind himself to be no party to such an enterprise, but should oppose it "to the uttermost of his power."[330] In return, the Emperor might perhaps require that the Lady Mary should "be restored to her rank as princess." Some difficulty no doubt continued, and must continue, on this point. But it was a difficulty rather in form than in substance. The king desired that his daughter might be trusted to his honour: she might expect much from his generosity, if he was not pressed to definite promises. Meanwhile, she herself had submitted without reserve; she had entreated pardon for her past disobedience, and accepted her position as illegitimate.[331] It was likely that she would retain her place in the line of succession. Should the king die without legitimate children, she would, in all probability, be his heir.

In confirmation of this language, Mary added a letter to the commission, in which, with her own hand, she assured the Emperor that she was satisfied, entreating him to "repent," as she had herself repented; and "to take of her the tenour."[332]

[Sidenote: The religious differences will not be composed,]

Thus instructed, Wyatt proceeded to Spain; and his reception was, on the whole, auspicious. On both sides, indeed, the hope of agreement on points of religion disappeared with the first words upon the subject. Mendoza offered in London the Emperor's mediation with the Pope. He received for answer that he might spare his labour. "The disposition of the King's Highness was immutably against the said Bishop."[333] The Emperor in his opening interview spoke to Wyatt of the sickness of England, from which he trusted it would soon be recovered. Wyatt replied that England was conscious only of having cast off a chronic sickness which had lasted too long.

[Sidenote: But the Emperor will leave them to those whom they concern.]

On the other hand, Charles, with equal resolution, declined a theological discussion, to which Henry had challenged him. "If your Majesty," wrote Wyatt, "would hearken to the reconciling with the Bishop of Rome, he would be glad to travel in it. But if not, yet he will go through with you, and will continue ever in that mind, the same not withstanding. And like as he is not lettred, so will he not charge your Majesty with the argument of the Bishop's state, but leave it alone to them that it toucheth."[334]

On these terms, apparently satisfactory, the _entente cordiale_ was restored between England and Spain. It was threatened by a cloud in November, when a truce[335] was concluded between Charles and Francis; but the light suspicion was dispelled by assurances that if the truce was followed by a peace, "the King of England should be in the same as a principal contrahent;" "that nothing should be therein concluded which might redound to his dishonour or miscontentment."[336] The alliance promised stability: by skilful management it might be even more strongly cemented.

[Sidenote: December 23. Various ladies suggested as successors to Jane Seymour.]

[Sidenote: Christina Duchess of Milan.]

[Sidenote: Objection and advantage in this connexion.]

[Sidenote: January 22.]

[Sidenote: The Emperor accepts the proposal, and adds to it.]

[Sidenote: February 22.]

The English council were now busily engaged in selecting a successor for Jane Seymour. Mendoza, in the name of the Emperor, proposed the Infanta of Portugal. "The offer was thankfully taken,"[337] but was for some cause unwelcome, and died in its first mention. Cromwell had thrown out feelers in the various European courts. Madame de Longueville was thought of,[338] if she was not already destined for another throne.[339] Hutton, the English agent in Flanders, recommended several ladies as more or less desirable: a daughter of the Lord of Brederode, the Countess of Egmont, Anne of Cleves (of the latter, however, adding, that she was said to be plain), and finally, and with especial emphasis, Christina of Denmark, the young relict of the Duke of Milan, and the niece of the Emperor. The duchess was tall, handsome, and though a widow, not more than sixteen.[340] The alliance would be honourable in itself: it would be a link reconnecting England with the Empire; and, more important still, Charles in his consent would condone before the world the affront of the divorce of Catherine. One obstacle only presented itself, which, with skilful management, might perhaps prove a fresh recommendation. In the eyes of all persons of the Roman communion the marriage with Catherine was of course considered valid, and the lady stood towards her aunt's husband within the degrees of affinity in which marriage was unlawful without a dispensation from the Pope. This certainly was a difficulty; but it was possible that Charles's anxiety for the connexion might induce him to break the knot, and break with the Papacy. On the Duchess of Milan, therefore, the choice of the English government rested; and in January Sir Thomas Wyatt was directed to suggest to the Emperor, as of his own motion, that his niece would be a fit wife for the king.[341] The hint was caught at with gracious eagerness. Mendoza instantly received instructions to make the proposal in form, and, as if this single union was insufficient, to desire at the same time that Henry would bestow the Lady Mary on Don Louis of Portugal. Henry acquiesced, and, seeing Charles so forward, added to his acquiescence the yet further suggestion that the Prince of Wales should be betrothed to the Emperor's daughter, and Elizabeth to one of the many sons of the King of the Romans.[342] Both princes appeared to be overflowing with cordiality. Charles repeated his promises, that when peace was concluded with France, the King of England should be a contracting party. The Queen Regent wrote to Cromwell, thanking him for his zeal in forwarding the Emperor's interests with his master.[343] The Duchess of Milan sate for her picture to Holbein for Henry's cabinet,[344] and professed for herself that she was wholly at her uncle's disposal.[345] Commissioners had only to be appointed to draw the marriage treaty, and all might at once be arranged. The dispensation so far had not been mentioned. Mendoza, indeed, had again pressed Henry to accept the Emperor's good offices at the Vatican; but he had been met with a refusal so absolute as to forbid the further mooting of the question; and the negotiations for these several alliances being continued as amicably as before, the king flattered himself that the difficulty was waived, or else would be privately disposed of.

[Sidenote: March. Warnings are sent from France that the Emperor is insincere.]

Either the Emperor's true intentions were better known in Paris than in London, or Francis was alarmed at the rapid friendship, and desired to chill down its temperature. While gracious messages and compliments were passing between England and Spain and Flanders, the Bishop of Tarbes was sent over with an offer on the part of the French to make Henry sole mediator in the peace, and with a promise that, in the matter of the general council, and in all other things, Francis would be "his good brother and most entire friend." The Emperor, the bishop asserted on his own knowledge, was playing a part of mere duplicity. Whatever he said, or whatever others said for him, he had determined that England should not be comprehended in the treaty. The king would be left out--dropped out--in some way or other got rid of--when his friendship ceased to be of moment; and so he would find to his cost.

[Sidenote: Henry, however, will confide in the Emperor's honor,]

[Sidenote: But desires Charles to commit himself in writing.]

The warning might have been well meant, the offer might have been sincere, but the experience was too recent of the elastic character of French promises. Henry refused to believe that Charles was deceiving him; he replied with a declaration of his full confidence in the Emperor's honour, and declined with cold courtesy the counter-advances of his rival. Yet he was less satisfied than he desired to appear. He sent to Sir T. Wyatt an account of the Bishop of Tarbes's expressions, desiring him to acquaint the Emperor with their nature, and with the answer which he had returned; but hinting at the same time, that although the general language of the Flemish and Spanish courts was as warm as he could desire, yet so far it amounted only to words. The proposal to constitute him sole mediator in the peace was an advance upon the furthest positive step towards him which had been taken by Charles, and he requested a direct engagement in writing, both as to his comprehension in the intended treaty, and on the equally important subject alluded to by the bishop, of the approaching council.[346]

[Sidenote: April 5. The commissioners meet in April to arrange the marriages, and separate ineffectually.]

Meanwhile the marriages, if once they were completed, would be a security for good faith in other matters; and on this point no difficulties were interposed till the middle of the spring. The amount of dotes and dowries, with the securities for their payment, the conditions under which Mary was to succeed to the crown, and other legal details, were elaborately discussed. At length, when the substance seemed all to be determined, and the form only to remain, the first official conference was opened on the 5th of April, with the Spanish commissioners, who, as was supposed, had come to London for that single and special purpose. The card castle so carefully raised crumbled into instant ruins--the solid ground was unsubstantial air. The commissioners had no commission: they would agree to nothing, arrange nothing, promise nothing. "I never heard so many gay words, and saw so little effect ensue of the same," wrote Cromwell in the passion of his disappointment; "I begin to perceive that there is scarce any good faith in this world."

[Sidenote: Preparations for the pacification of Nice.]

Henry's eyes were opening, but opening slowly and reluctantly. Though irritated for the moment, he listened readily to the excuses with which Charles was profusely ready; and if Charles had not been intentionally treacherous, he reaped the full advantage of the most elaborate deception. In the same month it was arranged between the courts of France and Spain that the truce should, if possible, become a peace. The place of mediator, which Henry had rejected at the hands of France, had been offered to and accepted by the Pope, and the consequences foretold by the Bishop of Tarbes were now obviously imminent. Paul had succeeded at last, it seemed, in his great object--the two Catholic powers were about to be united. The effect of this reconciliation, brought about by such means, would be followed in all likelihood by a renewal of the project for an attack on the Reformation, and on all its supporters. Nice was chosen for the scene of the great event of pacification, which was to take place in June. The two sovereigns were to be present in person; the Pope would meet them, and sanctify the reconciliation with his blessing.

The Emperor continued, notwithstanding the change of circumstances, to use the same language of friendship towards Henry, and professed to be as anxious as ever for the maintenance of his connexion with England. Wyatt himself partially, but not entirely, distrusted him, until his conduct no longer admitted any construction but the worst.

[Sidenote: June. Congress of Nice.]

[Sidenote: A ten years' truce is concluded between France and Spain. Henry's name is not mentioned.]

The affair at Nice was the central incident of the summer. Wyatt went thither in Charles's train. Paul came accompanied by Pole. Many English were present belonging to both parties: royal emissaries as spies--passionate Catholic exiles, flushed with hope and triumph. We see them, indistinctly, winding into one another's confidence--"practising" to worm out secrets--treachery undermined by greater treachery; and, at last, expectations but half gratified, a victory left but half gained. The two princes refused to see each other. They communicated only through the Pope. In the end, terms of actual peace could not be agreed upon. The conferences closed with the signature of a general truce, to last for ten years. One marked consolation only the Pope obtained. Notwithstanding the many promises, Henry's name was not so much as mentioned by the Emperor. He was left out, as Wyatt expressed it, "at the cart's tail." Against him the Pope remained free to intrigue and the princes free to act, could Pole or his master prevail upon them. The secret history of the proceedings cannot be traced in this place, if indeed the materials exist which allow them to be traced satisfactorily. With infinite comfort, however, in the midst of the diplomatic trickeries, we discover one little island of genuine life on which to rest for a few moments,--a group, distinctly visible, of English flesh and blood existences.

Henry, unable, even after the Nice meeting had been agreed upon, to relinquish his hopes of inducing other princes to imitate his policy towards Rome, was determined, notwithstanding avowals of reluctance on the part of Charles, that his arguments should have a hearing; and, as the instrument of persuasion, he had selected the facile and voluble Dr. Bonner. Charles was on his way to the congress when the appointment was resolved upon.

[Sidenote: Mission of Dr. Bonner to convert the Emperor. The Emperor will not argue with him,]

[Sidenote: And Dr. Bonner becomes Wyatt's guest.]

Bonner crossed France to meet him; but the Emperor, either distrustful of his ability to cope with so skilful a polemic, or too busy to be trifled with, declined resolutely to have anything to do with him. Bonner was thus thrown upon Wyatt's hospitality, and was received by him at Villa Franca, where, for convenience and economy, the English embassy had secured apartments remote from the heat and crowd in Nice itself. Sir John Mason, Mr. Blage, and other friends of the ambassadors, were of the party. The future Bishop of London, it seems, though accepted as their guest, was not admitted to their intimacy; and, being set aside in his own special functions, he determined to console himself in a solid and substantial manner for the slight which had been cast upon him. In an evil hour for himself, three years after, he tried to revenge himself on Wyatt's coldness by accusations of loose living, and other calumnies. Wyatt, after briefly disposing of the charges against his own actions, retorted with a sketch of Bonner's.

[Sidenote: How the future Bishop of London amused himself at Nice.]

"Come, now, my Lord of London," he said, "what is my abominable and vicious living? Do ye know it, or have ye heard it? I grant I do not profess chastity--but yet I use not abomination. If ye know it, tell with whom and when. If ye heard it, who is your author? Have you seen me have any harlot in my house while you were in my company? Did you ever see a woman so much as dine or sup at my table? None but, for your pleasure, the woman that was in the galley--which, I assure you, may be well seen--for, before you came, neither she nor any other woman came above the mast; but because the gentlemen took pleasure to see you entertain her, therefore they made her dine and sup with you. And they liked well your looks--your carving to Madonna--your drinking to her--and your playing under the table. Ask Mason--ask Blage--ask Wolf that was my steward. They can tell how the gentlemen marked it and talked of it. It was play to them, the keeping your bottles, that no man might drink of them but yourself, and that the little fat priest was a jolly morsel for the signora. This was their talk. It was not my device. Ask others whether I do lie."[347]

Such was Bonner. The fame, or infamy, which he earned for himself in later years condemns his minor vices to perpetual memory; or perhaps it is a relief to find that he was linked to mankind by participating in their more venial frailties.

Leaving Nice, with its sunny waters, and intrigues, and dissipations, we return to England.

[Sidenote: Demolition of the religious houses.]

[Sidenote: Mutinous condition of the houses unsuppressed.]

[Sidenote: Voluntary surrenders become frequent. The friars of St. Francis, in Stamford, consider that Christian living does not consist in ducking and becking.]

Here the tide, which had been checked for awhile by the rebellion, was again in full flow. The abbeys within the compass of the act had fallen, or were rapidly falling. Among these the demolition was going actively forward. Among the larger houses fresh investigations were bringing secrets into light which would soon compel a larger measure of destruction. The restoration of discipline, which had been hoped for, was found impossible. Monks who had been saturated with habits of self-indulgence, mutinied and became unmanageable when confined within the convent walls.[348] Abbots in the confidence of the government were accused as heretics. Catholic abbots were denounced as traitors. Countless letters lie among the State Papers, indicating in a thousand ways that the last hour of monasticism was approaching; that by no care of government, no efforts to put back the clock of time, could their sickly vitality be longer sustained. Everywhere, as if conscious that their days were numbered, the fraternities were preparing for evil days by disposing of their relics,[349] secreting or selling their plate and jewels, cutting down the timber on the estates, using in all directions their last opportunity of racking out their properties. Many, either from a hope of making terms for themselves, or from an honest sense that they were unfit to continue, declared voluntarily that they would burden the earth no longer, and voted their own dissolution. "We do profoundly consider," said the warden and friars of St. Francis in Stamford, "that the perfection of a Christian living doth not consist in douce ceremonies, wearing of a grey coat, disguising ourselves after strange fashions, ducking and becking, girding ourselves with a girdle of knots, wherein we have been misled in times past; but the very true way to please God, and to live like Christian men without hypocrisy or feigned dissimulation, is sincerely declared unto us by our master Christ, his Evangelists and Apostles. Being minded, therefore, to follow the same, conforming ourselves unto the will and pleasure of our Supreme Head under God in earth, and not to follow henceforth superstitious traditions, we do, with mutual assent and consent, surrender and yield up all our said house, with all its lands and tenements, beseeching the king's good grace to dispose of us as shall best stand with his most gracious pleasure."[350]

[Sidenote: The prior and convent of St. Andrews confess to carnal living.]

"We," said the prior and convent of St. Andrews, "called religious persons, taking on us the habit and outward vesture of our rule, only to the intent to lead our lives in idle quietness, and not in virtuous exercise, in a stately estimation, and not in obedient humility, have, under the shadow of the said rule, vainly, detestably, and ungodly devoured the yearly revenues of our possessions in continual ingurgitations and farcings of our bodies, and other supporters of our voluptuous and carnal appetites, to the manifest subversion of devotion and cleanness of living, and to the most notable slander of Christ's holy Evangile, withdrawing from the minds of his Grace's subjects the truth and comfort which they ought to have by the faith of Christ, and also the honour due to the glorious majesty of God Almighty, stirring them with persuasions, engines, and policy to dead images and counterfeit relics for our damnable lucre; which our horrible abominations and long-covered hypocrisy, we revolving daily, and pondering in our sorrowful hearts, constrained by the anguish of our consciences, with hearts most contrite and repentant, do lamentably crave his Highness' most gracious pardon,"--they also submitting and surrendering their house.[351]

[Sidenote: General investigation into the pretensions of images and relics.]

[Sidenote: The blood of Hales.]

[Sidenote: Our Lady's taper of Cardigan.]

Six years had passed since four brave Suffolk peasants had burnt the rood at Dovercourt; and for their reward had received a gallows and a rope. The high powers of state were stepping now along the road which these men had pioneered, discovering, after all, that the road was the right road, and that the reward had been altogether an unjust one. The "materials" of monastic religion were the real or counterfeit relics of real or counterfeit saints, and images of Christ or the Virgin, supposed to work miraculous cures upon pilgrims, and not supposed, but ascertained, to bring in a pleasant and abundant revenue to their happy possessors. A special investigation into the nature of these objects of popular devotion was now ordered, with results which more than any other exposure disenchanted the people with superstition, and converted their faith into an equally passionate iconoclasm. At Hales in Worcestershire was a phial of blood, as famous for its powers and properties as the blood of St. Januarius at Naples. The phial was opened by the visitors in the presence of an awe-struck multitude. No miracle punished the impiety. The mysterious substance was handled by profane fingers, and was found to be a mere innocent gum, and not blood at all, adequate to work no miracle either to assist its worshippers or avenge its violation.[352] Another rare treasure was preserved at Cardigan. The story of our Lady's taper there has a picturesque wildness, of which later ages may admire the legendary beauty, being relieved by three centuries of incredulity from the necessity of raising harsh alternatives of truth or falsehood. An image of the Virgin had been found, it was said, standing at the mouth of the Tivy river, with an infant Christ in her lap, and the taper in her hand burning. She was carried to Christ Church, in Cardigan, but "would not tarry there." She returned again and again to the spot where she was first found; and a chapel was at last built there to receive and shelter her. In this chapel she remained for nine years, the taper burning, yet not consuming, till some rash Welshman swore an oath by her, and broke it; and the taper at once went out, and never could be kindled again. The visitors had no leisure for sentiment. The image was torn from its shrine. The taper was found to be a piece of painted wood, and on experiment was proved submissive to a last conflagration.[353]

[Sidenote: The "great sibyll of Worcester."]

Kings are said to find the step a short one from deposition to the scaffold. The undeified images passed by a swift transition to the flames. The Lady of Worcester had been lately despoiled of her apparel. "I trust," wrote Latimer to the vicegerent, that "your lordship will bestow our great sibyll to some good purpose--_ut pereat memoria cum sonitu_--she hath been the devil's instrument to bring many, I fear, to eternal fire. She herself, with her old sister of Walsingham, her younger sister of Ipswich, with their two other sisters of Doncaster and Penrice, would make a jolly muster in Smithfield. They would not be all day in burning."[354] The hard advice was taken. The objects of the passionate devotion of centuries were rolled in carts to London as huge dishonoured lumber; and the eyes of the citizens were gratified with a more innocent immolation than those with which the church authorities had been in the habit of indulging them.

[Sidenote: The rood of Boxley.]

[Sidenote: February. The rood is exhibited in Maidstone.]

The fate of the rood of Boxley, again, was a famous incident of the time. At Boxley, in Kent, there stood an image, the eyes of which on fit occasions "did stir like a lively thing." The body bowed, the forehead frowned. It dropped its lower lip, as if to speak.[355] The people in this particular rood, beyond all others, saw the living presence of Christ, and offerings in superabundant measure had poured in upon the monks. It happened that a rationalistic commissioner, looking closely, discovered symptoms of motion at the back of the figure. Suspicion caused inquiry, and inquiry exposure. The mystery had a natural explanation in machinery. The abbot and the elder brethren took refuge in surprise, and knew nothing. But the fact was patent; and the unveiled fraud was of a kind which might be useful. "When I had seen this strange object," said the discoverer, "and considering that the inhabitants of the county of Kent had in times past a great devotion to the same image, and did keep continual pilgrimage thither, by the advice of others that were here with me, I did convey the said image unto Maidstone on the market day; and in the chief of the market time did shew it openly unto all the people then being present, to see the false, crafty, and subtle handling thereof, to the dishonour of God and illusion of the said people; who, I dare say, if the late monastery were to be defaced again (the King's Grace not offended), they would either pluck it down to the ground, or else burn it; for they have the said matter in wondrous detestation and hatred."[356]

[Sidenote: It performs before the court,]

[Sidenote: April. And is destroyed at Paul's Cross]

But the rood was not allowed to be forgotten after a single exhibition; the imposture was gross, and would furnish a wholesome comment on the suppression, if it was shown off in London. From Maidstone, therefore, it was taken to the palace at Whitehall, and performed before the court.[357] From the palace it was carried on to its last judgment and execution at Paul's Cross. It was placed upon a stage opposite the pulpit, and passed through its postures, while the Bishop of Rochester lectured upon it in a sermon. When the crowd was worked into adequate indignation, the scaffold was made to give way, the image fell, and in a few moments was torn in pieces.

[Sidenote: The spirit of retribution inevitably awakened,]

Thus in all parts of England superstition was attacked in its strongholds, and destroyed there. But the indignation which was the natural recoil from credulity would not be satisfied with the destruction of images. The idol was nothing. The guilt was not with the wood and stone, but in the fraud and folly which had practised with these brute instruments against the souls of men. In Scotland and the Netherlands the work of retribution was accomplished by a rising of the people themselves in armed revolution. In England the readiness of the government spared the need of a popular explosion; the monasteries were not sacked by mobs, or the priests murdered; but the same fierceness, the same hot spirit of anger was abroad, though confined within the restraints of the law. The law itself gave effect, in harsh and sanguinary penalties, to the rage which had been kindled.

[Sidenote: And pushed into barbarous extremes.]

The punishments under the Act of Supremacy were not wholly frightful. No governments can permit their subjects to avow an allegiance to an alien and hostile power; and the executions were occasioned, I have observed already, by the same necessity, and must be regarded with the same feelings, as the deaths of brave men in battle, who, in questions of life and death, take their side to kill others or be killed. A blind animosity now betrays itself in an act of needless cruelty, for the details of which no excuse can be pleaded by custom or precedent, which clouds the memory of the greatest of the Reformers, and can be endured only, when regarded at a distance, as an instance of the wide justice of Providence, which punishes wrong by wrong, and visits on single men the offences of thousands.

[Sidenote: Offenses of Friar Forest.]

Forest, the late Prior of the Observants Convent at Greenwich, since the dissolution of his order in consequence of the affair of the Nun of Kent, had halted between a state of concealed disaffection and pretended conformity. In his office of confessor he was found to have instructed his penitents that, for himself, "he had denied the Bishop of Rome in his outward, but not in his inward man;" and he had encouraged them, notwithstanding their oath, to persevere in their old allegiance. He had thus laid himself open to prosecution for treason; and whatever penalty was due to an avowal of being the Pope's liege-man had been doubly earned by treachery. If he had been tried and had suffered like Sir Thomas More and the monks of the Charterhouse, his sentence would have ranked with theirs. The same causes which explained the executions of honourable men would have applied with greater force to that of one who had deepened his offences by duplicity. But the crown prosecutors, for some unknown reason, bestowed upon him a distinction in suffering.

When first arrested he was terrified: he acknowledged his offences, submitted, and was pardoned. But his conscience recovered its strength: he returned to his loyalty to the Papacy; he declared his belief that, in matters spiritual, the Pope was his proper sovereign, that the Bishop of Rochester was a martyr, as Thomas à Becket had been a martyr. Becket he held up as the pattern of all churchmen's imitation, courting for himself Becket's fortunes.[358] Like others, he attempted a distinction in the nature of allegiance. "In matters secular his duty was to his prince." But, on the threshold of the exception lay the difficulty which no Catholic could evade,--what was the duty of a subject when a king was excommunicated, and declared to have forfeited his crown?

Forest, therefore, fell justly under the treason law. But, inasmuch as Catholic churchmen declared the denial of the Pope's supremacy to be heresy, so, for a few unfortunate months, English churchmen determined the denial of the king's supremacy to be heresy; Forest was to be proceeded against for an offence against spiritual truth as well as a crime against the law of the land; and Cranmer is found corresponding with Cromwell on the articles on which he was to be examined.[359] I do not know that the document which I am about to quote was composed for this special occasion. For the first, and happily the last time, the meaning of it was acted upon.

[Sidenote: Anglican definition of heresy, which is extended to a denial of the royal supremacy.]

[Sidenote: Forest is sentenced to death.]

In an official paper of about this date, I find "heresy" defined to be "that which is against Scripture." "To say, therefore, that Peter and his successors be heads of the universal Church, and stand stubbornly in it, is heresy, because it is against Scripture (Ecclesiastes v.); where it is written, 'Insuper universæ terræ rex imperat servienti'--that is to say, the king commandeth the whole country as his subjects; and therefore it followeth that the Bishop of Rome, which is in Italy where the Emperor is king, is subject to the Emperor, and that the Emperor may command him; and if he should be head of the universal Church, then he should be head over the Emperor, and command the Emperor, and that is directly against the said text, Ecclesiastes v. Wherefore, to stand in it opiniatively is heresy."[360] In the spirit, if not in the letter of this monstrous reasoning, Forest was indicted for heresy in a court where we would gladly believe that Cranmer did not sit as president. He was found guilty, and was delivered over, in the usual form, to the secular arm.

[Sidenote: The image of Dderfel Gadern.]

An accidental coincidence contributed to the dramatic effect of his execution. In a chapel at Llan Dderfel, in North Wales, there had stood a figure of an ancient Welsh, saint, called Dderfel Gadern. The figure was a general favourite. The Welsh people "came daily in pilgrimage to him, some with kyne, some with oxen and horses, and the rest with money, insomuch" (I quote a letter of Ellis Price, the Merionethshire visitor) "that there were five or six hundred, to a man's estimation, that offered to the said image the fifth day of this month of April. The innocent people hath been sore allured and enticed to worship, insomuch that there is a common saying amongst them that, whosoever will offer anything to the image of Dderfel Gadern, he hath power to fetch him or them that so offer, out of hell."[361] The visitor desired to know what he should do with Dderfel Gadern, and received orders to despatch the thing at once to London. The parishioners offered to subscribe forty pounds to preserve their profitable possession,[362] but in vain--Cromwell was ruthless. The image was sent to the same destination with the rest of his kind; and, arriving opportunely, it was hewn into fuel to form the pile where the victim of the new heresy court was to suffer.

[Sidenote: May. Latimer is appointed to preach at Forest's execution,]

[Sidenote: Who is slung in chains over the fire,]

[Sidenote: Refuses to recant,]

[Sidenote: And is burnt.]

A day at the end of May was fixed for Forest's death. Latimer was selected to preach on the occasion; and a singular letter remains from him from which I try to gather that he accepted reluctantly the ungrateful service. "Sir," he addressed Cromwell, "if it be your pleasure, as it is, that I shall play the fool after my customable manner when Forest shall suffer, I would wish that my stage stood near unto Forest, for I would endeavour myself so to content the people, that therewith I might also convert Forest, God so helping, or, rather, altogether working. Wherefore, I would that he shall hear what I shall say--_si forte_. If he would yet, with his heart, return to his abjuration, I would wish his pardon. Such is my foolishness."[363] The gleam of pity, though so faint and feeble that it seemed a thing to be ashamed of, is welcome from that hard time. The preparations were made with a horrible completeness. It was the single supremacy case which fell to the conduct of ecclesiastics; and ecclesiastics of all professions, in all ages, have been fertile in ingenious cruelty. A gallows was erected over the stake, from which the wretched victim was to be suspended in a cradle of chains. When the machinery was complete, and the chips of the idol lay ready, he was brought out and placed upon a platform. The Lord Mayor, the Dukes of Norfolk and Suffolk, Lord Southampton, and Cromwell were present with a pardon, if at the last moment his courage should fail, and he would ask for it. The sermon began. It was of the usual kind--the passionate language of passionate conviction. When it was over, Latimer turned to Forest, and asked him whether he would live or die. "I will die" was the gallant answer. "Do your worst upon me. Seven years ago you durst not, for your life, have preached such words as these; and now, if an angel from heaven should come down and teach me any other doctrine than that which I learnt as a child, I would not believe him. Take me; cut me to pieces, joint from joint. Burn--hang--do what you will--I will be true henceforth to my faith."[364] It was enough. He was laid upon his iron bed, and slung off into the air, and the flame was kindled. In his mortal agony he clutched at the steps of the ladder, to sway himself out of the blaze; and the pitiless chronicler, who records the scene, could see only in this last weakness an evidence of guilt. "So impatiently," says Hall, "he took his death as never any man that put his trust in God."[365]

[Sidenote: The bodies of the saints.]

Still the torrent rolled onward. Monasteries and images were gone, and fancied relics, in endless numbers. There remained the peculiar treasures of the great abbeys and cathedrals--the mortal remains of the holy men in whose memories they had been founded, who by martyrs' deaths, or lives of superhuman loftiness, had earned the veneration of later ages. The bodies of the saints had been gathered into costly shrines, which a beautiful piety had decorated with choicest offerings. In an age which believed, without doubt or pretence, that the body of a holy man was incorporated into the body of Christ, that the seeming dust was pure as Christ's body was pure, and would form again the living home of the spirit which had gone away but for awhile, such dust was looked upon with awe and pious fear. Sacred influences were imagined to exhale from it. It was a divine thing, blessed and giving blessing. Alas! that the noblest feelings can pass so swiftly into their opposites, that reverend simplicity should become the parent of a miserable superstition! The natural instinct of veneration had ossified into idolatry, and saints' bones became charms and talismans. The saints themselves became invisible under the swathings of lies. The serpent of healing had become a Nehushtan--an accursed thing, and, with the system to which it belonged, was to pass away and come no more.

[Sidenote: Circulars for the demolition of shrines.]

The sheriffs and magistrates of the various counties received circulars from the vicegerent, directing that "whereas prayers were offered at the shrines which were due to God only, that the honour which belonged to the Creator was by a notable superstition given to the creature, and ignorant people, enticed by the clergy, had fallen thereby into great error and idolatry," they were to repair severally to the cathedrals, churches, or chapels in which any such shrine might be. The relics, reliquaries, gold, silver, or jewels, which they contained, were to be taken out and sent to the king; and they were to see with their own eyes the shrine itself levelled to the ground, and the pavement cleared of it.[366] The order was fulfilled with or without reluctance. Throughout England, by the opening of the year 1539, there was nothing left to tell of the presence of the saints but the names which clung to the churches which they had built, or the shadowy memories which hung about their desecrated tombs.

Only in one instance was the demolition of a shrine marked by anything peculiar.

[Sidenote: Historical aspect of the English Reformation.]

[Sidenote: Thomas à Becket.]

[Sidenote: August 18.]

[Sidenote: The historical champion of the Church. Sept. 30.]

[Sidenote: October. His shrine at Canterbury is destroyed, and his bones are burnt;]

[Sidenote: And an official narrative is published of his conduct.]

The aim from the beginning of the movement, both of the king and the parliament, had been to represent their measures not as new things, but as a reassertion of English independence, a revival of the historical policy of the English kings. From the defeat of Henry II., on the death of Becket, to the accession of the house of Lancaster, the Plantagenet princes had fought inch by inch for the recovery of the ground which had been lost. After sleeping a century and a half, the battle had recommenced; and the crown was determined to inaugurate its victories by the disgrace and destruction of the famous champion whose spirit still seemed to linger in the field. On the 18th of August Cranmer informed the vicegerent that he suspected that the blood of St. Thomas of Canterbury shown in the cathedral was an imposture, like the blood of Hales, "a feigned thing, made of some red ochre, or such like matter."[367] He desired that there might be an investigation, and mentioned Dr. Legh and his own chaplain as persons fitted for the conduct of it. The request appears to have been granted, and the suspicion about the blood to have been confirmed.[368] The opportunity was taken to settle accounts in full with the hero of the English Church. On the 30th of September the shrine and the relics were shown, perhaps for the last time, to Madame de Montreuil and a party of French ladies.[369] In the following month the bones of the martyr who for centuries had been venerated throughout Europe, which peers and princes had crossed the seas to look upon, which tens of thousands of pilgrims year after year for all those ages had crowded to reverence, were torn from their hallowed resting-place, and burnt to powder, and scattered to the winds. The golden plating of the shrine, the emeralds and rubies, the votive offerings of the whole Christian world, were packed in chests, and despatched to the treasury. The chiselled stone was splintered with hammers. The impressions worn upon the pavement by the millions of knees[370] which had bent in adoration there, alone remained to tell of the glory which had been. Simultaneously with the destruction of his remains, Becket's name was erased out of the service-books, the innumerable church-windows in which his history was painted were broken, the day which commemorated his martyrdom was forbidden to be observed; and in explanation of so exceptional a vehemence an official narrative was published by the government of the circumstances of his end, in which he was described as a traitor to the state, who had perished in a scuffle provoked by his own violence.[371]

[Sidenote: Agitation of Catholic Christendom.]

The executions of More and Fisher had convulsed Europe; but the second shock was felt as much more deeply than the first as the glory of the saint is above the fame of the highest of living men. The impious tyrant, it now seemed, would transfer his warfare even into heaven, and dethrone the gods. The tomb of Becket was the property of Christendom rather than of England. There was scarcely a princely or a noble family on the Continent some member of which had not at one time or other gone thither on pilgrimage, whose wealth had not contributed something to the treasure which was now seized for the royal coffers. A second act had opened in the drama--a crisis fruitful in great events at home and abroad.

[Sidenote: Anxiety in England for the king's marriage.]

[Sidenote: Charles keeps up appearances till the autumn.]

The first immediate effect was on the treaty for the king's marriage. Notwithstanding the trifling of the commissioners in April,--notwithstanding the pacification of Nice, and the omission of the king's name among the contracting parties,--Charles succeeded in persuading Wyatt that he was as anxious as ever for the completion of the entire group of the proposed connexions; and Henry, on his part, was complacently credulous. The country was impatient to see him provided with a wife who might be the mother of a Duke of York. Day after day the council remonstrated with him on the loss of precious time;[372] and however desirable in itself the imperial alliance appeared, his subjects were more anxious that he should be rapidly married somewhere, than that even for such an object there should be longer delay. But Charles continued to give fair words; and the king, although warned, as he avowed, on all sides, to put no faith in them, refused to believe that Charles would cloud his reputation with so sustained duplicity; and in August he sent Sir Thomas Wriothesley to Flanders, to obtain, if possible, some concluding answer.

[Sidenote: October.]

[Sidenote: He grows cold.]

[Sidenote: November 20.]

[Sidenote: Wriothesley reports a hostile feeling at Brussels.]

The Regent, in receiving Wriothesley, assured him that his master's confidence was well placed--that "the Emperor was a prince of honour," and never meant "to proceed with any practice of dissimulation." Whatever others might choose to say, both she and her brother remained in one mind and purpose, and desired nothing better than to see the Duchess Christina Queen of England.[373] Her language remained similarly cordial till the beginning of October; and, as the least violent hypothesis is generally the safest, it may be believed that till this time the Emperor had really entertained, or had not as yet relinquished, the intention of bestowing his niece as he professed to wish. But from the end of the autumn the tide turned, and soon flowed visibly the other way. There was no abrupt conclusion--the preliminaries were wearily argued day after day. The English minister was still treated with courtesy; but his receptions had lost their warmth, and with court and people his favour chilled with the changing season. He was taunted with the English apostasy from the Church. "It is said that religion is extinct among us," he wrote in November,--"that we have no masses--that the saints are burned--and all that was taken for holy clearly subverted."[374] Each day the prospect became visibly darker: from cordiality there was a change to politeness--from politeness to distance--from distance to something like a menace of hostility. The alteration can without difficulty be interpreted.

[Sidenote: The Pope launches his bull,]

[Sidenote: January. And Pole's book is printed.]

The intentions of the Papal court had been made known by Michael Throgmorton, in his letter to Cromwell. The Pope's movements were, perhaps, quickened when the insult to the martyr's bones became known to him. The opportunity was in every way favourable. France and Spain were at peace; the Catholic world was exasperated by the outrage at Canterbury. The hour was come--he rose upon his throne, and launched with all his might his long-forged thunderbolt. Clement's censure had been mild sheet lightning, flickering harmlessly in the distance: Paul's was the forked flash, intended to blight and kill. Reginald Pole, his faithful adherent, had by this time rewritten his book: he had enriched it with calumnies, either freshly learned, or made credible in his new access of frenzy. It was now printed, and sown broadcast over Christendom. The Pope appended a postscript to his Bull of Deposition, explaining the delay in the issue: not, as he had explained that delay to Henry himself, by pretending that he had executed no more than a form which had never been intended for use; but professing to have withheld a just and necessary punishment at the intercession of the European sovereigns. But his mercy had been despised, his long-suffering had been abused, and the monstrous king had added crime to crime, killing living priests and profaning the sepulchres of the dead. In his contempt for religion he had cited the sainted Thomas of Canterbury to be tried as a traitor; he had passed an impious sentence upon him as contumacious. The blessed bones, through which Almighty God had worked innumerable miracles, he had torn from their shrine of gold, and burnt them sacrilegiously to ashes. He had seized the treasures consecrated to Heaven; he had wasted and robbed the houses of religion; and, as he had transformed himself into a wild beast, so to the beasts of the field he had given honour beyond human beings. He had expelled the monks from their houses, and turned his cattle among the vacant ruins. These things he had done, and his crimes could be endured no longer. As a putrid member he was cut off from the Church.[375]

[Sidenote: Pole goes to Spain to rouse the Emperor.]

The book and the excommunication being thus completed and issued, Pole was once more despatched to rouse the Emperor to invasion, having again laid a train to explode, as he hoped successfully, when the Spanish troops should land.

The Pope's intentions must have been made known to Charles before they were put in force, and interpret the change of treatment experienced by Wriothesley. Whether, as a sovereign prince, he would or would not consent to give the active support which was to be demanded of him, the Emperor, perhaps, had not determined even in his own mind; but at least he would not choose the opportunity to draw closer his connexion with the object of the Church's censures.

[Sidenote: The marriage treaty is finally relinquished.]