Chapter I

THE NATION AND ITS PARTIES.
(AUTUMN 1529.)

England, during the period of which we are about to treat, began to separate from the pope and to reform her Church. In the history of that country the fall of Wolsey divides the old times from the new.

The level of the laity was gradually rising. A certain instruction was given to the children of the poor; the universities were frequented by the upper classes, and the king was probably the most learned prince in Christendom. At the same time the clerical level was falling. The clergy had been weakened and corrupted by its triumphs, and the English, awakening with the age and opening their eyes at last, were disgusted with the pride, ignorance, and disorders of the priests.

While France, flattered by Rome calling her its eldest daughter, desired even when reforming her doctrine to preserve union with the papacy; the Anglo-Saxon race, jealous of their liberties, desired to form a Church at once national and independent, yet remaining faithful to the doctrines of Catholicism. Henry VIII. is the personification of that tendency, which did not disappear with him, and of which it would not be difficult to discover traces even in later days.

Other elements calculated to produce a better reformation existed at that time in England. The Holy Scriptures, translated, studied, circulated, and preached since the fourteenth century by Wickliffe and his disciples, became in the sixteenth century, by the publication of Erasmus’s Testament, and the translations of Tyndale and Coverdale, the powerful instrument of a real evangelical revival, and created the scriptural reformation.

These early developments did not proceed from Calvin,—he was too young at that time; but Tyndale, Fryth, Latimer, and the other evangelists of the reign of Henry VIII., taught by the same Word as the reformer of Geneva, were his brethren and his precursors. Somewhat later, his books and his letters to Edward VI., to the regent, to the primate, to Sir W. Cecil and others, exercised an indisputable influence over the reformation of England. We find in those letters proofs of the esteem which the most intelligent persons of the kingdom felt for that simple and strong man, whom even non-protestant voices in France have declared to be “the greatest Christian of his age.”[5]

[Sidenote: Reform, Evangelical and Legal.]

A religious reformation may be of two kinds: internal or evangelical, external or legal. The evangelical reformation began at Oxford and Cambridge almost at the same time as in Germany. The legal reformation was making a beginning at Westminster and Whitehall. Students, priests, and laymen, moved by inspiration from on high, had inaugurated the first; Henry VIII. and his parliament were about to inaugurate the second, with hands occasionally somewhat rough. England began with the spiritual reformation, but the other had its motives too. Those who are charmed by the reformation of Germany sometimes affect contempt for that of England. “A king impelled by his passions was its author,” they say. We have placed the scriptural part of this great transformation in the first rank; but we confess that for it to lay hold upon the people in the sixteenth century, it was necessary, as the prophet declared, that kings should be its nursing-fathers, and queens its nursing-mothers.[6] If diverse reforms were necessary, if by the side of German cordiality, Swiss simplicity, and other characteristics, God willed to found a protestantism possessing a strong hand and an outstretched arm; if a nation was to exist which with great freedom and power should carry the Gospel to the ends of the world, special tools were required to form that robust organization, and the leaders of the people—the commons, lords, and king—were each to play their part. France had nothing like this: both princes and parliaments opposed the reform; and thence partly arises the difference between those two great nations, for France had in Calvin a mightier reformer than any of those whom England possessed. But let us not forget that we are speaking of the sixteenth century. Since then the work has advanced; important changes have been wrought in Christendom; political society is growing daily more distinct from religious society, and more independent; and we willingly say with Pascal, “Glorious is the state of the Church when it is supported by God alone!”

Two opposing elements—the reforming liberalism of the people, and the almost absolute power of the king—combined in England to accomplish the legal reformation. In that singular island these two rival forces were often seen acting together; the liberalism of the nation gaining certain victories, the despotism of the prince gaining others; king and people agreeing to make mutual concessions. In the midst of these compromises, the little evangelical flock, which had no voice in such matters, religiously preserved the treasure entrusted to it: the Word of God, truth, liberty, and Christian virtue. From all these elements sprang the Church of England. A strange church some call it. Strange indeed, for there is none which corresponds so imperfectly in theory with the ideal of the Church, and, perhaps, none whose members work out with more power and grandeur the ends for which Christ has formed his kingdom.

[Sidenote: New Parliament Summoned.]

Scarcely had Henry VIII. refused to go to Rome to plead his cause, when he issued writs for a new parliament (25th September, 1529). Wolsey’s unpopularity had hitherto prevented its meeting: now the force of circumstances constrained the king to summon it. When he was on the eve of separating from the pope, he felt the necessity of leaning on the people. Liberty is always the gainer where a country performs an act of independence with regard to Rome. Permission being granted in England that the Holy Scriptures should regulate matters of religion, it was natural that permission should also be given to the people and their representatives to regulate matters of state. The whole kingdom was astir, and the different parties became more distinct.

The papal party was alarmed. Fisher, Bishop of Rochester, already very uneasy, became disturbed at seeing laymen called upon to give their advice on religious matters. Men’s minds were in a ferment in the bishop’s palace, the rural parsonage, and the monk’s cell. The partisans of Rome met and consulted about what was to be done, and retired from their conferences foreseeing and imagining nothing but defeat. Du Bellay, at that time Bishop of Bayonne, and afterwards of Paris, envoy from the King of France, and eye-witness of all this agitation, wrote to Montmorency; “I fancy that in this parliament the priests will have a terrible fright.”[7] Ambitious ecclesiastics were beginning to understand that the clerical character, hitherto so favorable to their advancement in a political career, would now be an obstacle to them. “Alas!” exclaimed one of them, “we must off with our frocks.”[8]

Such of the clergy, however, as determined to remain faithful to Rome gradually roused themselves. A prelate put himself at their head. Fisher, Bishop of Rochester, was learned, intelligent, bold, and slightly fanatical; but his convictions were sincere, and he was determined to sacrifice everything for the maintenance of catholicism in England. Though discontented with the path upon which his august pupil King Henry had entered, he did not despair of the future, and candidly applied to the papacy our Saviour’s words,—_The gates of hell shall not prevail against it_.

A recent act of the king’s increased Fisher’s hopes. Sir Thomas More had been appointed chancellor. The Bishop of Rochester regretted, indeed, that the king had not given that office to an ecclesiastic, as was customary; but he thought to himself that a layman wholly devoted to the Church, as the new chancellor was, might possibly, in those strange times, be more useful to it than a priest. With Fisher in the Church, and More in the State (for Sir Thomas, in spite of his gentle _Utopia_, was more papistical and more violent than Wolsey), had the papacy anything to fear? The whole Romish party rallied round these two men, and with them prepared to fight against the Reformation.

Opposed to this hierarchical party was the political party, in whose eyes the king’s will was the supreme rule. The Dukes of Norfolk and Suffolk, president and vice-president of the Council, Sir William Fitz-William, lord-admiral, and those who agreed with them, were opposed to the ecclesiastical domination, not from the love of true religion, but because they believed the prerogatives of the State were endangered by the ambition of the priests, or else because, seeking honor and power for themselves, they were impatient at always encountering insatiable clerks on their path.

Between these two parties a third appeared, on whom the bishops and nobles looked with disdain, but with whom the victory was to rest at last. In the towns and villages of England, and especially in London, were to be found many lowly men, animated with a new life,—poor artisans, weavers, cobblers, painters, shopkeepers,—who believed in the Word of God, and had received moral liberty from it. During the day they toiled at their respective occupations; but at night they stole along some narrow lane, slipped into a court, and ascended to some upper room in which other persons had already assembled. There they read the Scriptures and prayed. At times even during the day, they might be seen carrying to well-disposed citizens certain books strictly prohibited by the late cardinal. Organized under the name of “The Society of Christian Brethren,” they had a central committee in London, and missionaries everywhere, who distributed the Holy Scriptures and explained their lessons in simple language. Several priests, both in the city and country, belonged to their society.

This Christian brotherhood exercised a powerful influence over the people, and was beginning to substitute the spiritual and life-giving principles of the Gospel for the legal and theocratic ideas of popery. These pious men required a moral regeneration in their hearers, and entreated them to enter, through faith in the Saviour, into an intimate relation with God, without having recourse to the mediation of the clergy; and those who listened to them, enraptured at hearing of truth, grace, morality, liberty, and of the Word of God, took the teachings to heart. Thus began a new era. It has been asserted that the Reformation entered England by a back-door. Not so; it was the true door these missionaries opened, having even prior to the rupture with Rome preached the doctrine of Christ.[9] Idly do men speak of Henry’s passions, the intrigues of his courtiers, the parade of his ambassadors, the skill of his ministers, the complaisance of the clergy, and the vacillations of parliament. We, too, shall speak of these things; but above them all there was something else, something better,—the thirst exhibited in this island for the Word of God, and the internal transformation accomplished in the convictions of a great number of its inhabitants. This it was that worked such a powerful revolution in British society.

[Sidenote: Table Talk.]

In the interval between the issuing of the writs and the meeting of parliament, the most antagonistic opinions came out. Conversation everywhere turned on present and future events, and there was a general feeling that the country was on the eve of great changes. The members of parliament who arrived in London gathered round the same table to discuss the questions of the day. The great lords gave sumptuous banquets, at which the guests talked about the abuses of the Church, of the approaching session of parliament, and of what might result from it.[10] One would mention some striking instance of the avarice of the priests; another slyly called to mind the strange privilege which permitted them to commit, with impunity, certain sins which they punished severely in others. “There are, even in London, houses of ill-fame for the use of priests, monks, and canons.[11] And,” added others, “they would force us to take such men as these for our guides to heaven.” Du Bellay, the French ambassador, a man of letters, who, although a bishop, had attached Rabelais to his person in the quality of secretary, was frequently invited to parties given by the great lords. He lent an attentive ear, and was astonished at the witty, and often very biting remarks uttered by the guests against the disorders of the priests. One day a voice exclaimed,—“Since Wolsey has fallen, we must forthwith regulate the condition of the Church and of its ministers. We will seize their property.” Du Bellay, on his return home, did not fail to communicate these things to Montmorency. “I have no need,” he says, “to write this strange language in cipher; for the noble lords utter it at open table. I think they will do something to be talked about.”[12]

The leading members of the Commons held more serious meetings with one another. They said they had spoken enough, and that now they must act. They specified the abuses they would claim to have redressed, and prepared petitions for reform to be presented to the king.

Before long the movement descended from the sphere of the nobility to that of the people; a sphere always important, and particularly when a social revolution is in progress. Petty tradesmen and artisans spoke more energetically than the lords. They did more than speak. The apparitor of the Bishop of London having entered the shop of a mercer in the ward of St. Bride, and left a summons on the counter calling upon him to pay a certain clerical tax, the indignant tradesman took up his yard-measure, whereupon the officer drew his sword, and then, either from fear or an evil conscience, ran away. The mercer followed him, assaulted him in the street, and broke his head. The London shopkeepers did not yet quite understand the representative system; they used their staves when they should have waited for the speeches of the members of parliament.

The king tolerated this agitation because it forwarded his purposes. There were advisers who insinuated that it was dangerous to give free course to the passions of the people, and that the English, combining great physical strength with a decided character, might go too far in the way of reform, if their prince gave them the rein. But Henry VIII., possessing an energetic will, thought it would be easy for him to check the popular ebullition whenever he pleased. When Jupiter frowned, all Olympus trembled.

Footnote 5:

These letters will be found in Bonnet’s _Lettres Françaises de Calvin_
i. pp. 261, 305, 332, 345, 374. _Zurich Letters_, ii. pp. 70, 785, &c.

Footnote 6:

Isaiah xlix. 23.

Footnote 7:

Le Grand, _Preuves du Divorce_, p. 378.

Footnote 8:

“Il nous faudra jeter le froc aux orties.”—Ibid.

Footnote 9:

“Certain preachers who presumed to preach openly or secretly in a
manner contrary to the catholic faith.”—Foxe, _Acts_, iv. p. 677.

Footnote 10:

Le Grand, _Preuves du Divorce_, Du Bellay to Montmorency, p. 374.

Footnote 11:

“Communis pronuba inter presbyteros, fratres, monacos et
canonicos.”—Hall, _Criminal Causes_, p. 28.

Footnote 12:

“Je crois qu’ils vont faire de beaux miracles.”—Le Grand, _Preuves_,
p. 374.