Chapter XVII (2)

If Henry was indifferent to a quarrel, the Emperor seemed to be equally willing; Wyatt gathered from his manner, either that he was careless of consequences, or that he desired to provoke the English to strike the first blow. He answered as before, that Brancetor had committed no crime that he knew of. If the King of England would be more explicit in his accusations, he would consider them. His dispute with the Duke of Cleves he intended to settle by himself, and would allow of no interference; and as to the merchants, he had rather they should never visit his countries at all, than visit them to carry thither their heresy.[554] Irritation is a passion which it is seldom politic to excite; and a message like that of Wyatt had been better undelivered, unless no doubt existed of being able to support it by force. A fixed idea in Cromwell's mind, which we trace in all his correspondence, was the impossibility of a genuine coalition between Charles and Francis. Either misled by these impressions, or deceived by rumours, Henry seems to have been acting, not only in a reliance on the Germans, but in a belief that the Emperor's visit to Paris had closed less agreeably than it had opened, that the Milan quarrel had revived, and that the hasty partnership already threatened a dissolution. Some expectations of the kind he had unquestionably formed, for, on the arrival of Wyatt's letter with the Emperor's answer, he despatched the Duke of Norfolk on a mission into France, which, if successful, would have produced a singular revulsion in Europe. Francis was to be asked frankly how the Italian question stood. If the Emperor was dealing in good faith with him, or if he was himself satisfied, nothing more need be desired; if, on the contrary, he felt himself "hobbled with a vain hope," there was now an opportunity for him to take fortune prisoner, to place his highest wishes within his grasp, and revenge Pavia, and his own and his children's captivity. The ingratitude story was to be repeated, with Charles's overbearing indignation; redress for the open and iniquitous oppression of English subjects had been absolutely refused; and the Emperor's manner could be interpreted only as bearing out what had long been suspected of him, that he "aspired to bring Christendom to a monarchy;" that "he thought himself superior to all kings," and, "by little and little," would work his way to universal empire. His insolence might be punished, and all dangers of such a kind for ever terminated, at the present juncture. A league was in process of formation, for mutual defence, between the King of England, the Duke of Cleves, the Elector of Saxony, the Landgrave, and other princes of the Empire. Let Francis join them, and "they would have the Emperor in such a pitfall, that percase it might be their chance to have him prisoner at their pleasure, his being so environed with them, and having no way to start."[555]

[Sidenote: Henry's proposal is communicated to the Emperor.]

The temptation was so well adjusted to the temperament of Francis that it seemed as if he felt an excuse necessary to explain his declining the combination. The French chancellor told Norfolk that his master was growing old, and that war had lost its charm for him. But, in fact, the proposal was, based upon a blunder for which Cromwell's despair was probably responsible. Francis, at the moment, was under the influence of the Cardinal of Ferrara, who had come from Rome on a crusading expedition; and, so far from then desiring to quarrel with Charles, he simply communicated to him Henry's suggestions; while the Queen of Navarre gave a warning to Norfolk that, if the Anglo-German league assumed an organized form, it would be followed by an alliance as close and as menacing between France and the Empire.[556]

[Sidenote: The Germans back out also,]

Cromwell had again failed; and another and a worse misadventure followed. The German princes, for whose sake the Privy Seal had incurred his present danger, had their own sense of prudence, and were reluctant to quarrel with the Emperor, so long as it was possible to escape. Experience had taught Charles the art of trifling with their credulity, and he flattered them with a hope that from them he would accept a mediation in behalf of the Duke of Cleves, which he had rejected so scornfully when offered by England.

[Sidenote: And the foreign policy of Cromwell, as well as the domestic, fails equally.]

[Sidenote: The Bishop of Chichester is sent to the Tower,]

[Sidenote: And is almost followed by Tunstall.]

Thus was Henry left alone, having been betrayed into an attitude which he was unable to support, and deserted by the allies for whom he had entangled himself in a marriage which he detested. Well might his confidence have been shaken in the minister whose fortune and whose sagacity had failed together. Driven forward by the necessity of success or destruction, Cromwell was, at the same time, precipitating the crisis in England. Gardiner, Tunstall, and Sampson the Bishop of Chichester, were his three chief antagonists. In April Sampson was sent to the Tower, on a charge of having relieved "certain traitorous persons" who had denied the king's supremacy.[557] The two others, it is likely, would soon have followed: the Bishop of Chichester accused them of having been the cause of his own misconduct, to such extent as he admitted himself to have erred;[558] and although Tunstall equivocated, he at least would not have escaped imprisonment, had the Privy Seal remained in power, if imprisonment had been the limit of his sufferings.[559] To the eyes of the world, the destroyer of the monasteries, the "hammer of the monks," remained absolute as ever. No cloud, as yet, was visible in the clear sky of his prosperity, when the moment came, he fell suddenly, as if struck by lightning, on the very height and pinnacle of his power. If events had been long working towards the catastrophe, it was none the less abrupt, surprising, unlooked for.

[Sidenote: April 12. Parliament meets.]

[Sidenote: Cromwell opens the session with a speech on unity of opinion.]

On the 12th of April, amidst failure abroad and increased discontent at home, parliament assembled. After the ordinary address from the chancellor, Cromwell rose to speak a few words on the state of the kingdom.

"The King's Majesty," he said, "knowing that concord is the only sure and true bond of security in the commonwealth, knowing that if the head and all the members of the body corporate agree in one, there will be wanting nothing to the perfect health of the state, has therefore sought, prized, and desired concord beyond all other things. With no little distress, therefore, he learns that there are certain persons who make it their business to create strife and controversy; that in the midst of the good seed tares also are growing up to choke the harvest. The rashness and carnal license of some, the inveterate corruption and obstinate superstition of others, have caused disputes which have done hurt to the souls of pious Christians. The names of Papist and heretic are bandied to and fro. The Holy Word of God, which his Highness, of his great clemency, has permitted to be read in the vulgar tongue, for the comfort and edification of his people this treasure of all sacred things--is abused, and made a servant of errour or idolatry; and such is the tumult of opinion, that his Highness ill knows how to bear it. His purpose is to shew no favour to extremes on either side. He professes the sincere faith of the Gospel, as becomes a Christian prince, declining neither to the right hand nor to the left, but setting before his eyes the pure Word of God as his only mark and guide. On this Word his princely mind is fixed; on this Word he depends for his sole support; and with all his might his Majesty will labour that errour shall be taken away, and true doctrines be taught to his people, modelled by the rule of the Gospel. Of forms, ceremonies, and traditions he will have the reasonable use distinguished from the foolish and idolatrous use. He will have all impiety, all superstition, abolished and put away. And, finally, he will have his subjects cease from their irreverent handling of God's book. Those who have offended against the faith and the laws shall suffer the punishment by the laws appointed; and his first and last prayer is for the prevailing of Christ--the prevailing of the Word of Christ--the prevailing of the truth."[560]

[Sidenote: Cromwell is created Earl of Essex.]

[Sidenote: Permission granted to bequeath land by will.]

[Sidenote: Monks are released from the vow of poverty.]

[Sidenote: Reduction of the number of sanctuaries, and limitation of their privileges.]

[Sidenote: Act for the maintenance of the navy.]

[Sidenote: May 3. Bill for a subsidy of four fifteenths and four tenths.]

A general intimation of intentions, which being so stated every one would approve, passed quietly, and the subject dropped. It is the peculiarity of discourses on theological subjects, that they are delivered and they are heard under an impression, both on the part of the speaker and of his audience, that each is in possession of the only reasonable and moderate truth; and so long as particulars are avoided, moderation is praised, and all men consent to praise it--excess is condemned, and all agree in the condemnation. Five days after, a public mark of the king's approbation was bestowed on Cromwell, who was created Earl of Essex; and the ordinary legislation commenced quietly. The complaints against the statute of Uses were met by a measure which silently divided the leading root of the feudal system. Persons holding lands by military tenure were allowed to dispose of two-thirds in their wills, as they pleased. Lands held under any other conditions might be bequeathed absolutely, without condition or restriction.[561] To prevent disputes on titles, and to clear such confusion of claims as had been left remaining by the Uses Act, sixty years' possession of property was declared sufficient to constitute a valid right; and no claim might be pressed which rested on pretensions of an older date.[562] The Privy Seal's hand is legible in several acts abridging ecclesiastical privileges, and restoring monks, who had been dead in law, to some part of their rights as human beings. The suppression of the religious houses had covered England with vagrant priests, who, though pensioned, were tempted, by idleness and immunity from punishment, into crimes. If convicted of felony, and admitted "to their clergy," such persons were in future to be burnt in the hand.[563] A bill in the preceding year had relieved them from their vows of poverty; they were permitted to buy, inherit, or otherwise occupy property. They were freed by dissolution from obedience to their superiors, and the reflection naturally followed, that the justice which had dispensed with two vows would dispense with the third, and that a permission to marry, in spite of the Six Articles, would soon necessarily follow. Further inroads were made also upon the sanctuaries. Institutions which had worn so deep a groove in the habits of men could not be at once put away; nor, while the letter of the law continued so sanguinary, was it tolerable to remove wholly the correctives which had checked its action, and provide no substitute. The last objection was not perhaps considered a serious one; but prejudice and instinct survived, as a safeguard of humanity. The protection of sanctuary was withdrawn for the more flagrant felonies, for murder, rape, robbery, arson, and sacrilege. Churches and church-yards continued to protect inferior offenders; and seven towns--Wells, Westminster, Manchester, Northampton, York, Derby, and Launceston--retained the same privileges, until, finding that their exemption only converted them into nests of crime, they petitioned of themselves for desecration. Some other regulations were also introduced into the system. Persons taking refuge in a church were allowed to remain not longer than forty days; at the end of which they were to abjure before the coroner and leave the country, or were to be consigned for life to one of the specified towns, where they were to be daily inspected by the governor, and if absent three days consecutively--no very barbarous condition--were to forfeit their security.[564] An act was passed for the better maintenance of the navy; and next, bringing inevitable ill-will with it to the unpopular minister, appeared the standard English grievance, a Money Bill. In the preceding session the Duke of Norfolk had laid before the Lords a statement of the extraordinary expenses which had been cast upon the Crown, and of the inadequacy of the revenue.[565] Twelve months' notice had been given, that the Houses might consider at their leisure the demand which was likely to be made upon them. It appeared in a bill introduced on the 3d of May, requiring a subsidy of four fifteenths and four tenths, the payments to be spread over a period of four years.[566]

[Sidenote: Expenses incurred in the defence of the realm.]

The occasion of a demand of money was always carefully stated: the preamble set forth that the country had prospered, had lived in wealth, comfort, and peace under the king, for thirty-one years. His Highness, in the wisdom which God had given him, had brought his subjects out of blindness and ignorance to the knowledge of God and his holy Word. He had shaken off the usurpations of the Bishop of Rome, by whose subtle devices large sums had been annually drained out of the realm. But in doing this he had been forced to contend against insurrections at home and the peril of invasion from the powers of the Continent. He had built a navy and furnished it. He had raised fortresses, laid out harbours, established permanent garrisons in dangerous places, with arsenals for arms and all kinds of military stores. Ireland after an arduous struggle was at length reduced to obedience; but the conquest was maintained at a great and continuing cost. To meet this necessary outlay, no regular provision existed; and the king threw himself confidently upon his subjects, with an assurance that they would not refuse to bear their share in the burden.

[Sidenote: Four priests and a woman are attainted for high treason.]

The journals throw no light upon the debate, if debate there was. The required sum was voted; we know no more.[567] The sand in Cromwell's hour-glass was almost run. Once more, and conspicuously, his spirit can be seen in a bill of attainder against four priests, three of whom, Abel, Fetherston, and Powell, had been attached to the household of Queen Catherine, and had lingered in the Tower, in resolute denial of the supremacy; the fourth, Robert Cook, of Doncaster, "had adhered to the late arrogant traitor Robert Aske." In companionship with them was a woman, Margaret Tyrrell, who had refused to acknowledge Prince Edward to be heir to the crown. These five were declared by act of parliament guilty of high treason; their trial was dispensed with; they were sentenced to death, and the bill was passed without a dissentient voice.[568] This was on the 1st of June.[569] It was the same week in which the Tower seemed likely to be the destiny of Tunstall and Gardiner; the struggling parties had reached the crisis when one or the other must fall. Nine days more were allowed to pass; on the tenth the blow descended.

But I must again go back for a few steps, to make all movements clear.

[Sidenote: June. Progress of the misfortune of the marriage.]

[Sidenote: May. Relations between the king and queen.]

[Sidenote: Conversation between Wriothesley and Cromwell.]

From the day of the king's marriage "he was in a manner weary of his life."[570] The public policy of the connexion threatened to be a failure. It was useless abroad, it was eminently unpopular at home; while the purpose for which the country had burdened him with a wife was entirely hopeless.[571] To the queen herself he was kindly distant; but, like most men who have not been taught in early life to endure inconvenience, he brooded in secret over his misfortune, and chafed the wound by being unable to forget it. The documents relating to the pre-contract were not sent; his vexation converted a shadow into a reality. He grew superstitious about his repugnance, which he regarded as an instinct forbidding him to do an unlawful thing. "I have done as much to move the consent of my heart and mind as ever man did," he said to Cromwell, "but without success."[572] "I think before God," he declared another time, "she has never been my lawful wife."[573] The wretched relations continued without improvement till the 9th of May. On that day a royal circular was addressed to every member of the Privy Council, requiring them to attend the king's presence, "for the treaty of such great and weighty matters as whereupon doth consist the surety of his Highness's person, the preservation of his honour, and the tranquillity and quietness of themselves and all other his loving and faithful subjects."[574] It may be conjectured that the king had at this time resolved to open his situation for discussion. No other matter can be ascertained to have existed at the time worthy of language so serious. Yet he must have changed his purpose. For three weeks longer the secret was preserved, and his course was still undecided. On the evening of the 6th or 7th of June Sir Thomas Wriothesley repaired to Cromwell's house with the ordinary reports of public business. He found the minister alone in a gallery, leaning against a window. "Were there any news abroad?" Cromwell asked. Wriothesley said he knew of none. "There is something," the minister said, "which troubles me. The king loves not the queen, nor ever has from the beginning; insomuch as I think assuredly she is yet as good a maid for him as she was when she came to England." "Marry, sir," Wriothesley answered, "I am right sorry that his Majesty should be so troubled. For God's sake, devise how his Grace may be relieved by one way or the other." "Yes," Cromwell said, "but what and how?" Wriothesley said he could not tell on the moment; but standing the case as it did, he thought some way might be found. "Well, well," answered the minister, "it is a great matter." The conversation ended; and Wriothesley left him for the night.

"The next day following," Wriothesley deposed, "having occasion eftsoons for business to repair unto him, I chanced to say, 'Sir, I have thought somewhat of the matter you told me, and I find it a great matter. But, sir, it can be made better than it is. For God's sake, devise for the relief of the king; for if he remain in this grief and trouble, we shall all one day smart for it. If his Grace be quiet we shall all have our parts with him.' 'It is true,' quoth he; 'but I tell you it is a great matter.' 'Marry,' quoth I, 'I grant; but let the remedy be searched for.' 'Well,' quoth he; and thus brake off from me."[575]

[Sidenote: Wriothesley hints a divorce,]

[Sidenote: From which Cromwell shrinks,]

Wriothesley's remedy was of course a divorce. It could be nothing else. Yet, was it not a remedy worse than any possible disorder? Cromwell, indeed, knew himself responsible. He it was who, with open eyes, had led the king into his embarrassment. Yet, was a second divorce to give mortal affront to the Lutherans, as the first had done to the Catholics? Was another marriage scandal to taint a movement which had already furnished too much of such material to insolence? What a triumph to the Pope! What a triumph to the Emperor! How would his own elaborate policy crumble to ruins! It was a great matter indeed to Cromwell.

[Sidenote: But which the English conservatives would be likely to favor.]

But how would the whisper of the word sound in the ears of the English reactionaries? What would the clergy think of it in whose, only not unanimous, convictions the German alliance had been from the first a pollution? What would the parliament think of it, who had seen the fruit of their theological labours so cunningly snatched from them? What would the Anglican bishops think of it, who had found themselves insulted from the pulpit, from behind the shield of the hateful connexion--with one of their body already in the Tower, and the same danger hanging before them all? Or the laity generally--the wool-growers of the counties, the merchants of the cities, the taxpayers charged with the new subsidy, who, in the connexion with the house of Cleves, saw a fresh cause of quarrel with the Emperor and the ruin of the trade with Flanders; what, to all these, in the heat and rage of party, must have seemed the natural remedy for the king's difficulty? Let Queen Catherine and her friends be avenged by a retribution in kind. Their opinions on the matter were shortly expressed.

[Sidenote: Cromwell begins to totter.]

[Sidenote: Hasty expressions drop from him.]

[Sidenote: The king's promise.]

Meanwhile, the minister who, in the conduct of the mighty cause which he was guiding, had stooped to dabble in these muddy waters of intrigue, was reaping, within and without, the harvest of his errors. The consciousness of wrong brought with it the consciousness of weakness and moody alternations of temper. The triumph of his enemies stared him in the face, and rash words dropped from him, which were not allowed to fall upon the ground, declaring what he would do if the king were turned from the course of the Reformation. Carefully his antagonists at the council-board had watched him for years. They had noted down his public errors; spies had reported his most confidential language. Slowly, but surely, the pile of accusations had gathered in height and weight, till the time should come to make them public. Three years before, when the northern insurgents had demanded Cromwell's punishment, the king had answered that the laws were open, and were equal to high and low. Let an accuser come forward openly, and prove that the Privy Seal had broken the laws, and he should be punished as surely and as truly as the meanest criminal. The case against him was clear at last; if brought forward in the midst of the king's displeasure, the charges could not fail of attentive hearing, and the release from the detested matrimony might be identified with the punishment of the author of it.

[Sidenote: Mixed causes for the hatred against Cromwell.]

For struck down Cromwell should be, as his master Wolsey had been, to rise no more. Not only was he hated on public grounds, as the leader of a revolution, but, in his multiplied offices, he had usurped the functions of the ecclesiastical courts; he had mixed himself in the private concerns of families; he had interfered between wives and husbands, fathers and sons, brothers and sisters. In his enormous correspondence[576] he appears as the universal referee--the resource of all weak or injured persons. The mad Duchess of Norfolk chose him for her patron against the duke. Lady Burgh, Lady Parr, Lady Hungerford,[577] alike made him the champion of their domestic wrongs. Justly and unjustly, he had dragged down upon himself the animosity of peers, bishops, clergy, and gentlemen, and their day of revenge was come.

[Sidenote: June 10.]

[Sidenote: He is arrested.]

[Sidenote: Treasonable words are sworn against him.]

[Sidenote: Exultation of the reactionaries in London.]

On the 10th of June he attended as usual at the morning sitting of the House of Lords. The Privy Council sat in the afternoon, and, at three o'clock, the Duke of Norfolk rose suddenly at the table: "My Lord of Essex," he said, "I arrest you of high treason." There were witnesses in readiness, who came forward and swore to have heard him say "that, if the king and all his realm would turn and vary from his opinions, he would fight in the field in his own person, with his sword in his hand, against the king and all others; adding that, if he lived a year or two, he trusted to bring things to that frame that it should not lie in the king's power to resist or let it."[578] The words "were justified to his face." It was enough. Letters were instantly written to the ambassadors at foreign courts, desiring them to make known the blow which had been struck and the causes which had led to it.[579] The twilight of the summer evening found Thomas Cromwell within the walls of that grim prison which had few outlets except the scaffold; and far off, perhaps, he heard the pealing of the church-bells and the songs of revelry in the streets, with which the citizens, short of sight, and bestowing on him the usual guerdon of transcendent merit, exulted in his fall. "The Lord Cromwell," says Hall, "being in the council chamber, was suddenly apprehended and committed to the Tower of London; the which many lamented, but more rejoiced, and specially such as either had been religious men or favoured religious persons; for they banqueted and triumphed together that night, many wishing that that day had been seven years before, and some, fearing lest he should escape, although he were imprisoned, could not be merry; others, who knew nothing but truth by him, both lamented him and heartily prayed for him. But this is true, that, of certain of the clergy, he was detestably hated; and specially of such as had borne swing, and by his means were put from it; for indeed he was a man that, in all his doings, seemed not to favour any kind of Popery, nor could not abide the snuffing pride of some prelates."[580]

[Sidenote: A trial intended, but exchanged for an act of attainder.]

The first intention was to bring him to trial,[581] but a parliamentary attainder was a swifter process, better suited to the temper of the victorious reactionists. Five Romanists but a few days previously had been thus sentenced under Cromwell's direction. The retribution was only the more complete which rendered back to him the same measure which he had dealt to others. The bill was brought in a week after his arrest. His offences, when reduced into ordinary prose out of the passionate rhetoric with which they were there described, were generally these:--

[Sidenote: He had set at liberty persons convicted or suspected of treason.]

1. He was accused of having taken upon himself, without the king's permission, to set at liberty divers persons convicted and attainted of misprision of high treason, and divers others being apprehended and in prison for suspicion of high treason. No circumstances and no names were mentioned; but the fact seemed to be ascertained.

[Sidenote: He had issued commissions on his own authority.]

2. He was said to have granted licences for money; to have issued commissions in his own name and by his own authority; and, to have interfered impertinently and unjustly with the rights and liberties of the king's subjects.

[Sidenote: He had encouraged heresy.]

3. Being a detestable heretic and disposed to set and sow common sedition and variance amongst people, he had dispersed into all shires in the realm great numbers of false, erroneous books, disturbing the faith of the king's subjects on the nature of the Eucharist and other articles of the Christian faith. He had openly maintained that the priesthood was a form--that every Christian might equally administer the Sacraments. Being vicegerent of the king in matters ecclesiastical, and appointed to correct heresy, he had granted licences to persons detected or openly defamed of heresy to teach and preach.

[Sidenote: He had released heretics from prison.]

4. He had addressed letters to the sheriffs in various shires, causing many false heretics to be set at liberty, some of whom had been actually indicted, and others who had been for good reason apprehended and were in prison.

[Sidenote: He had rebuked their accusers and prosecutors.]

5. On complaint being made to him of particular heretics and heresies, he had protected the same heretics from punishment; "he had terribly rebuked their accusers," and some of them he had persecuted and imprisoned, "so that the king's good subjects had been in fear to detect the said heretics and heresies."

[Sidenote: He had threatened to maintain them by force.]

6. In fuller explanation of the expressions sworn against him on his arrest, he had made a confederation of heretics, it was said, through the country; and supposing himself to be fully able, by force and strength, to maintain and defend his said abominable treasons and heresies, on declaration made to him of certain preachers, Dr. Barnes and others, preaching against the king's proclamation, "the same Thomas Cromwell affirming the same preaching to be good, did not let to declare and say, 'If the king would turn from it, yet I would not turn; and if the king did turn, and all his people, I would fight in the field, with my sword in my hand, against him and all others; and if that I live a year or two, it shall not lie in the king's power to let it if he would.'"

[Sidenote: He had amassed a fortune by bribery,]

7. By bribery and extortion he had obtained vast sums of money; and being thus enriched, he had held the nobles in disdain.

[Sidenote: And had menaced the nobility.]

8. Finally, being reminded of his position with respect to the lords, and of the consequences which he might bring upon himself, he had said, "If the Lords would handle him so, he would give them such a breakfast as never was made in England, and that the proudest of them should know."[582]

[Sidenote: Were the accusations true?]

[Sidenote: And if true, was his escape or acquittal possible?]

The amount and character of the evidence on which these charges were brought we have no means of judging; but the majority of them carry probability on their front; and we need not doubt that the required testimony was both abundant and sound. The case, of course, had been submitted in all its details to the king before the first step had been taken; and he was called upon to fulfil the promise which he had made of permitting justice to have its way. How was the king to refuse? Many a Catholic had gone to the scaffold for words lighter than those which had been sworn against Cromwell, by Cromwell's own order. Did he or did he not utter those words? If it be these to which he alluded in a letter which he wrote from the Tower to the king,[583] Sir George Throgmorton and Sir Richard Rich were the witnesses against him; and though he tried to shake their testimony, his denial was faint, indirect--not like the broad, absolute repudiation of a man who was consciously clear of offence.[584] Could he have cleared himself on this one point, it would have availed him little if he had suspended the action of the law by his own authority, if he had permitted books to circulate secretly which were forbidden by act of parliament, if he had allowed prisoners for high treason or heresy to escape from confinement. Although to later generations acts such as these appear as virtues, not as crimes, the king could not anticipate the larger wisdom of posterity. An English sovereign could know no guidance but the existing law, which had been manifestly and repeatedly broken. Even if he had himself desired to shield his minister, it is not easy to see that he could have prevented his being brought to trial, or, if tried, could have prevented his conviction, in the face of an exasperated parliament, a furious clergy, and a clamorous people. That he permitted the council to proceed by attainder, in preference to the ordinary forms, must be attributed to the share which he, too, experienced in the general anger.

[Sidenote: Cranmer declares his confidence in Cromwell's integrity.]

Only one person had the courage or the wish to speak for Cromwell. Cranmer, the first to come forward on behalf of Anne Boleyn, ventured, first and alone, to throw a doubt on the treason of the Privy Seal. "I heard yesterday, in your Grace's council," he wrote to the king, "that the Earl of Essex is a traitor; yet who cannot be sorrowful and amazed that he should be a traitor against your Majesty--he whose surety was only by your Majesty--he who loved your Majesty, as I ever thought, no less than God--he who studied always to set forwards whatsoever was your Majesty's will and pleasure--he that cared for no man's displeasure to serve your Majesty--he that was such a servant, in my judgment, in wisdom, diligence, faithfulness, and experience as no prince in this realm ever had--he that was so vigilant to preserve your Majesty from all treasons, that few could be so secretly conceived but he detected the same in the beginning!--I loved him as my friend, for so I took him to be; but I chiefly loved him for the love which I thought I saw him bear ever towards your Grace, singularly above all others. But now, if he be a traitor, I am sorry that ever I loved or trusted him; and I am very glad that his treason is discovered in time; but yet, again, I am very sorrowful; for who shall your Grace trust hereafter, if you may not trust him? Alas! I lament your Grace's chance herein. I wot not whom your Grace may trust."[585]

[Sidenote: But inasmuch as he had broken the law openly and repeatedly,]

[Sidenote: And inasmuch as the law in a free country is the only guide to the magistrate, his condemnation was inevitable.]

The intercession was bravely ventured; but it was fruitless. The illegal acts of a minister who had been trusted with extraordinary powers were too patent for denial; and Cranmer himself was forced into a passive acquiescence, while the enemies of the Reformation worked their revenge. Heresy and truth, treason and patriotism! these are words which in a war of parties change their meaning with the alternations of success, till time and fate have pronounced the last interpretation, and human opinions and sympathies bend to the deciding judgment. But while the struggle is still in progress--while the partisans on either side exclaim that truth is with them, and error with their antagonists, and the minds of this man and of that man are so far the only arbiters--those, at such a time, are not the least to be commended who obey for their guide the law as it in fact exists. Men there are who need no such direction, who follow their own course--it may be to a glorious success, it may be to as glorious a death. To such proud natures the issue to themselves is of trifling moment. They live for their work or die for it, as their Almighty Father wills. But the law in a free country cannot keep pace with genius. It reflects the plain sentiments of the better order of average men; and if it so happen, as in a perplexed world of change it will happen and must, that a statesman, or a prophet, is beyond his age, and in collision with a law which his conscience forbids him to obey, he bravely breaks it, bravely defies it, and either wins the victory in his living person, or, more often, wins it in his death. In fairness, Cromwell should have been tried; but it would have added nothing to his chances of escape. He could not disprove the accusations. He could but have said that he had done right, not wrong,--a plea which would have been but a fresh crime. But, in the deafening storm of denunciation which burst out, the hastiest vengeance was held the greatest justice. Any charge, however wild, gained hearing: Chatillon, the French ambassador, informed his court that the Privy Seal had intended privately to marry the Lady Mary, as the Duke of Suffolk had married the king's sister, and on Henry's death proposed to seize the crown.[586] When a story so extravagant could gain credence, the circular of the council to the ambassadors rather furnishes matter of suspicion by its moderation.

[Sidenote: The attainder passes.]

[Sidenote: The quarrel with the Emperor is at an end.]

The attainder passed instantly, with acclamations. Francis wrote a letter of congratulation to the king on the discovery of the "treason."[587] Charles V., whose keener eyes saw deeper into the nature of the catastrophe, when the news were communicated to him, "nothing moved outwardly in countenance or word," said merely, "What, is he in the Tower of London, and by the king's commandment?"[588] He sent no message, no expression of regret or of pleasure, no word of any kind; but from that moment no menacing demonstrations or violent words or actions ruffled his relations with England, till a new change had passed upon the stage. His own friends were now in power. He knew it, and acknowledged them.[589]

[Sidenote: Triumph of the reactionaries.]

The barrier which had stemmed the reactionary tide had now fallen. Omnipotent in parliament and convocation, the king inclining in their favour, carrying with them the sympathy of the wealth, the worldliness, and the harder intellect of the country, freed from the dreaded minister, freed from the necessity of conciliating the German Protestants, the Anglican leaders made haste to redeem their lost time, and develope their policy more wisely than before.

[Sidenote: The Bishop of Bath is despatched to the Duke of Cleves.]

[Sidenote: July 1. Improvement of the machinery for the enforcement of the Six Articles.]

[Sidenote: July 6. Parliament discusses the marriage.]

Their handiwork is to be traced in the various measures which occupied the remainder of the session. The first step was to despatch the Bishop of Bath to the Duke of Cleves, to gain his consent, if possible, to his sister's separation from the king; Anne, herself, meanwhile, being recommended, for the benefit of her health, to retire for a few days to Richmond. The bill of attainder was disposed of on the 19th of June; on the 22d the bishops brought in a bill for the better payment of tithes, which in the few years last past certain persons had contemptuously presumed to withhold.[590] On the 1st of July a bill was read enacting that, whereas in the parliament of the year preceding "a godly act was made for the abolishment of diversity of opinion concerning the Christian religion," the provisions of which, for various reasons, had not been enforced, for the better execution of the said act the number of commissioners appointed for that purpose should be further increased; and the bishops and the bishops' chancellors should be assisted by the archdeacons and the officials of their courts.[591] This measure, like the attainder, was passed unanimously.[592] On the 5th a general pardon was introduced, from which heretics were exempted by a special proviso.[593] The new spirit was rapid in its manifestation. The day after (for it was not thought necessary to wait for a letter from Germany) the Cleves' marriage was brought forward for discussion; and the care with which the pleadings were parodied which had justified the divorce of Catherine, resembled rather a deliberate intention to discredit the first scandal than a serious effort to defend the second; but we must not judge the conduct of a party blinded with passion by the appearance which such conduct seems to wear in a calmer retrospect.

[Sidenote: Speech of the Lord Chancellor not to the purpose.]

The chancellor, once more reminding the lords of the wars of the Roses, and the danger of a disputed succession, informed them that certain doubts had arisen affecting the legality of the king's present marriage. The absence of a prospect of issue was the single palliative of the present proceedings. The chancellor injured the case, so far as it admitted of injury, by dwelling on the possibility of an issue of doubtful legitimacy. The questions raised, however, belonged, he said, to the canon law, and he proposed that they should be submitted to the clergy then sitting in convocation.

[Sidenote: A delegacy of the two Houses waits upon the king.]

[Sidenote: The queen consents to accept the judgment of convocation.]

When the chancellor had ceased, the peers desired to communicate with the other House. Six delegates were sent down to repeat the substance of what they had heard, and returned presently, followed by twenty members of the House of Commons, who signified a wish to speak with the king in person. The lords assented, and repaired in a body with the twenty members to Whitehall. The formality of state interviews may not be too closely scrutinized. They requested to be allowed to open to his Majesty a great and important matter, which his Majesty, they were well aware, had alone permitted them to discuss. His Majesty being confident that they would make no improper demands, they laid before him the proposition which they had heard from the woolsack, and added their own entreaties that he would be pleased to consent.[594] The king was gracious, but the canon law required also the consent of the queen; for which, therefore, the Duke of Suffolk, the Bishop of Winchester, and other noblemen were despatched to Richmond, and with which they soon returned.[595] Six years were spent over the affair with Queen Catherine: almost as many days sufficed to dispose of Anne of Cleves.

[Sidenote: July 7. The convocation undertake the investigation.]

[Sidenote: Evidence is given in.]

On the Wednesday morning the clergy assembled, and Gardiner, in "a luminous oration,"[596] invited them to the task which they were to undertake. Evidence was sent in by different members of the Privy Council whom the king had admitted to his confidence; by the ladies of the court who could speak for the condition of the queen; and, finally, by Henry himself, in a paper which he wrote with his own hand, accompanying it with a request that, after reviewing all the circumstances under which the marriage had been contracted, they would inform him if it was still binding; and adding at the same time an earnest adjuration, which it is not easy to believe to have been wholly a form, that, having God only before their eyes, they would point out to him the course which justly, honourably, and religiously he was at liberty to pursue.[597]

His personal declaration was as follows:[598]--

[Sidenote: The king makes a declaration of his own conduct.]

"I depose and declare that this hereafter written is merely the verity, intended upon no sinister affection, nor yet upon none hatred or displeasure, and herein I take God to witness. To the matter I say and affirm that, when the first communication was had with me for the marriage of the Lady Anne of Cleves, I was glad to hearken to it, trusting to have some assured friend by it, I much doubting at that time both the Emperor, and France, and the Bishop of Rome, and also because I heard so much both of her excellent beauty and virtuous behaviour. But when I saw her at Rochester, which was the first time that ever I saw her, it rejoiced my heart that I had kept me free from making any pact or bond before with her till I saw her myself; for I assure you that I liked her so ill and [found her to be] so far contrary to that she was praised, that I was woe that ever she came into England, and deliberated with myself that if it were possible to find means to break off, I would never enter yoke with her; of which misliking both the Great Master (Lord Russell), the Admiral that now is, and the Master of the Horse (Sir Anthony Brown) can and will bear record. Then after my repair to Greenwich, the next day after, I think, I doubt not but the Lord of Essex will and can declare what I then said to him in that case, not doubting but, since he is a person which knoweth himself condemned to die by act of parliament, he will not damn his soul, but truly declare the truth not only at that time spoken by me, but also continually until the day of the marriage, and also many times after; wherein my lack of consent I doubt not doth or shall well appear, and also lack enough of the will and power to consummate the same, wherein both he and my physicians can testify according to the truth."

[Sidenote: The clergy deliberate for three days, and on the fourth deliver their sentence.]

Nearly two hundred clergy were assembled, and the ecclesiastical lawyers were called in to their assistance. The deliberation lasted Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday.[599] On Saturday they had agreed upon their judgment, which was produced and read in the House of Lords.

[Sidenote: Owing to the imperfectly cleared pre-contract,]

The contract between the Lady Anne of Cleves and the Marquis of Lorraine was sufficient, they would not say to invalidate, but to perplex and complicate any second marriage into which she might have entered.

[Sidenote: Conditions unfulfilled,]

Before the ceremony the king had required the production of the papers relating to that engagement with so much earnestness, that the demand might be taken as a condition on which the marriage was completed. But the papers had not been produced, the uncertainties had not been cleared ... and thus there had not only been a breach of condition, but, if no condition had been made, the previous objection was further increased.

[Sidenote: The enforced consent of the king,]

Consent had been wanting on the part of the king. False representations had been held out to bring the lady into the realm and force her upon his Majesty's acceptance.

The solemnization of the marriage was extorted from his Majesty against his will under urgent pressure and compulsion by external causes.

[Sidenote: The absence of consummation,]

[Sidenote: And from other causes affecting the interests of the kingdom,]

Consummation had not followed, nor ought to follow, and the convocation had been informed--as indeed it was matter of common notoriety--that if his Majesty could, without the breach of any divine law, be married to another person, great benefits might thereby accrue to the realm, the present welfare and safety whereof depended on the preservation of his royal person, to the honour of God, the accomplishment of His will, and the avoiding of sinister opinions and scandals.

Considering all these circumstances, therefore, and weighing what the Church might and could lawfully do in such cases, and had often before done,[600] the convocation, by the tenor of those their present letters, declared his Majesty not to be any longer bound by the matrimony in question, which matrimony was null and invalid; and both his Majesty and the Lady Anne were free to contract and consummate other marriages without objection or delay.

[Sidenote: They declare the marriage dissolved.]

[Sidenote: The continuance of the marriage could not have been desired.]

[Sidenote: But the scandal was great and inevitable.]

To this judgment two archbishops, seventeen bishops, and a hundred and thirty-nine clergy set their hands.[601] Their sentence was undoubtedly legal, according to a stricter interpretation of the canon law than had been usual in the ecclesiastical courts. The case was of a kind in which the queen, on her separate suit, could, with clear right, have obtained a divorce _a vinculo_ had she desired; and the country had been accustomed to see separations infinitely more questionable obtained in the court of the Rota or at home, with easy and scandalous levity.[602] Nor could the most scrupulous person, looking at the marriage between Henry and Anne of Cleves on its own merits, pretend that any law, human or divine, would have been better fulfilled, or that any feeling entitled to respect would have been less outraged, by the longer maintenance of so unhappy a connexion. Yet it is much to be regretted that the clergy should have been compelled to meddle with it; under however plausible an aspect the divorce might be presented, it gave a colour to the interpretation which represented the separation from Catherine as arising out of caprice, and enabled the enemies of the Church of England to represent her synods as the instruments of the king's licentiousness.[603]

[Sidenote: The queen signifies her acquiescence.]

[Sidenote: She will remain in England with the rank of a princess; palaces, pensions, and establishments.]

For good or for evil, however, the judgment was given. The Bishop of Winchester spoke a few words in explanation to the two houses of parliament when it was presented;[604] and the next day the Duke of Suffolk and Wriothesley waited on the queen, and communicated the fortune which was impending over her. Anne herself--who, after the slight agitation which the first mooting of the matter naturally produced, had acquiesced in everything which was proposed to her--received the intimation with placidity. She wrote at their request to the king, giving her consent in writing. She wrote also to her brother, declaring herself satisfied, and expressing her hope that he would be satisfied as well. So much facility increased the consideration which her treatment entitled her to claim. The Bishop of Bath had taken with him to the Duke of Cleves an offer, which ought to have been an insult, of a pecuniary compensation for his sister's injury. It was withdrawn or qualified, before it was known to have been refused, to increase the settlement on the ex-queen. For many reasons the king desired that she should remain in England; but she had rank and precedence assigned to her as if she had been a princess of the blood. Estates were granted for her maintenance producing nearly three thousand a year. Palaces, dresses, jewels, costly establishments were added in lavish profusion, to be her dowry, as she was significantly told, should she desire to make a fresh experiment in matrimony. And she not only (it is likely) preferred a splendid independence to the poverty of a petty court in Germany, but perhaps, also, to the doubtful magnificence which she had enjoyed as Henry's bride.[605]

[Sidenote: Monday, July 12. The bill for the divorce is passed in parliament.]

[Sidenote: Displeasure of the Duke of Cleves,]

[Sidenote: And want of generosity on the part of the king,]

Parliament made haste with the concluding stroke. On Monday the 12th the bill for the divorce was introduced: it was disposed of with the greatest haste which the forms of the Houses would allow; and the conclusion of the matter was announced to the queen's own family and the foreign powers almost as soon as it was known to be contemplated. The Duke of Cleves, on the first audience of the Bishop of Bath, had shown himself "heavy and hard to pacify and please." When all was over, the Bishops of Winchester and Durham, with other noble lords, wrote to him themselves, persuading him to acquiesce in a misfortune which could no longer be remedied; his sister had already declared her own satisfaction; and Henry, through his commissioners, informed him in detail of the proceedings in parliament and convocation, and trusted that the friendship between the courts would not be interrupted in consequence. It would have been well had he added nothing to a bare narrative of facts; but questionable actions are rarely improved in the manner of their execution. The king was irritated at the humiliation to which the conduct of the German powers had exposed him in the spring; and the Duke of Cleves had afterwards increased his displeasure by a secret intrigue with the court of Paris. Satisfied with his settlements upon Anne, he avowed an anxiety to be extricated from his offer of money to the duke, "who might percase, to his miscontentment, employ it by the advice of others, or at least without commodity to the giver."[606] In fact, he said, as he had done nothing but what was right, "if the lady's contentation would not content her friends, it should not be honourable for him, with detriment and waste of his treasure, to labour to satisfy those who without cause misliked his doings, which were just, and without injury to be passed over."[607] Finally, he concluded: "In case the duke sheweth himself untractable and high-couraged, in such sort as devising interests and respects, he shall further set forth the matter, and increase it with words more largely than reason would he should, alledging, percase, that though the lady is contented, yet he is not contented, her mother is not contented, requiring why and wherefore, and such other behaviour as men in high stomach, forgetting reason, shew and utter, in that case you, the Bishop of Bath, declaring unto the duke how we sent you not thither to render an account of our just proceedings, but friendly to communicate them, you shall desire the duke to license you to depart."[608]

[Sidenote: Which does not contrast favourably with the conduct of the duke.]

[Sidenote: The duke will not admit that his sister has been honourably treated; but will not pres his quarrel to a rupture.]