A.D. 1529, 1530. DEATH OF WOLSEY. 271 Dr. Thomas Cranmer, fellow of Jesus College in Cambridge, fell one evening by accident into company with Gardiner, now secretary of state, and Fox, the king's almoner; and as the business of the divorce became the subject of conversation, he observed that the readiest way, either to quiet Henry's conscience, or extort the Pope's consent, would be to consult all the universities of Europe with regard to this controverted point; if they agreed to approve of the king's marriage with Catherine, his remorse would naturally cease; if they condemned it, the Pope would find it difficult to resist the solicitations of so great a monarch, seconded by the opinion of all the learned men in Christendom. When the king was informed of the proposal, he was delighted with it, and swore, with more alacrity than delicacy that Cranmer had got the right sow by the ear; he sent for that divine, engaged him to write in defense of the divorce, and immediately, in prosecution of the scheme proposed, employed his agents to collect the judgments of all the universities in Europe. Several of these gave verdict in the king's favor; not only those of France, Paris, Orleans, Bourges, Toulouse, Angers, which might be supposed to lie under the influence of their prince, ally to Henry; but also those of Italy, Venice, Ferrara, Padua, even Bologna itself, though under the immediate jurisdiction of Clement. Oxford alone, and Cambridge, alarmed at the progress of Lutheranism, made some difficulty. Their opinion, however, conformable to that of the other universities of Europe, was at last obtained, though not without the use of threats. Meanwhile the enemies of Wolsey, and Anne Boleyn in particular, had persuaded Henry to renew the prosecution against his ancient favorite. The cardinal had, by the king's command, removed to his see of York, and had taken up his residence at Cawood, in Yorkshire, where he rendered himself extremely popular in the neighborhood by his affability and hospitality. Here he was arrested on a charge of high treason by the Earl of Northumberland, who had received orders to conduct him to London in order to his trial. The cardinal, partly from the fatigues of his journey, partly from the agitation of his anxious mind, was seized with a disorder which turned into a dysentery; and he was able, with some difficulty, to reach Leicester Abbey. When the abbot and the monks advanced to receive him with much respect and reverence, he told them that he was come to lay his bones among them; and he immediately took to his bed, whence he never rose more. A little before he expired he said, among other things, to Sir William Kingston, Constable of the Tower, who had him in custody, "Had I but served God as diligently as I have served the king, he would not have given me over in my gray hairs. hairs. Let me advise you," he added, "if you be one of the privy-council, as by your wisdom you are fit, take care what you put into the king's head; for you can never put it out again." Thus died this famous cardinal (Nov. 29, 1530), whose character seems to have contained as singular a variety as the fortune to which he was exposed. "Haughty beyond comparison," says Mr. Hallam (Constitutional History, i., 22), "negligent of the duties and decorums of his station, profuse as well as rapacious, obnoxious alike to his own order and to the laity, his fall had long been secretly desired by the nation and contrived by his adversaries. His generosity and magnificence seem rather to have dazzled succeeding ages than his own. But, in fact, his best apology is the disposition of his master. The latter years of Henry's reign were far more tyrannical than those during which he listened to the counsel of Wolsey; and though this was principally owing to the peculiar circumstances of the latter period, it is but equitable to allow some praise to a minister for the mischief which he may be presumed to have averted." Obverse: HENRICVS. OCTA. ANGLIE. FRANCI. ET. HIB. REX. FIDEI. DEFENSOR. M. IN. TERR. ECCLE. ANGII. ET. HIBE. SVB. CHRIST. CAPVT. SVPREMVM. For Reverse, see next page. CHAPTER XV. HENRY VIII. CONTINUED. FROM THE DEATH OF WOLSEY TO THE DEATH OF THE KING. A.D. 1530-1547. § 1. Proceedings against the Clergy and the Court of Rome. Henry's Marriage with Anne Boleyn. Catherine divorced. § 2. The Reformation. Establishment of the Succession and Committal of Fisher and More. The King declared supreme Head of the Church. § 3. State of Parties. Tyndale's Bible. Persecutions. The Holy Maid of Kent. § 4. Execution of Fisher and More. Henry excommunicated. Death of Queen Catherine. § 5. Suppression of the lesser Monasteries. Trial and Execution of Queen Anne. Henry marries Jane Seymour. Settlement of the Succession. § 6. Discontents and Insurrections. Pilgrimage of Grace. Birth of Prince Edward and Death of Queen Jane. Suppression of the greater Monasteries. § 7. The Pope publishes his Bull of Excommunication. Cardinal Pole. § 8. Law of the Six Articles. Servility of the Parliament and Tyranny of the King. § 9. Henry marries Anne of Cleves. § 10. Fall and Execution of Cromwell. Henry's Divorce from Anne of Cleves and Marriage with Catherine Howard. Religious Persecutions. Execution of the Countess of Salisbury. § 11. Marriage, Trial, and Execution of Queen Catherine Howard. § 12. War with Scotland and Death of James V. Henry's Marriage with Catherine Parr. War with France. Peace concluded. § 13. Scotch Affairs. Theological Dogmatism of Henry. His Queen in Danger. § 14. Attainder of the Duke of Norfolk and Execution of the Earl, of Surrey. Death and Character of the King. § 1. IN 1531 a new session of Parliament was held, together with a convocation; and the king here gave strong proofs of his ++ WNT && Reverse of gold medal of Henry VIII. Inscription in Hebrew and Greek of the extensive authority, as well as of his intention to turn it to the depression of the clergy. The same law under which Wolsey had been prosecuted was now turned against the ecclesiastics. It was pretended that every one who had submitted to the legatine court, that is, the whole Church, had violated the statute of provisors, and been guilty of the offense of præmunire, and the attorney general accordingly brought an indictment against them. The convocation knew that it would be in vain to oppose reason or equity to the king's arbitrary will. They therefore threw themselves on the mercy of their sovereign, and they agreed to pay £118,840 for a pardon. A confession was likewise extorted from them that the king was the protector and the supreme head of the Church and clergy of England, though some of them had the dexterity to get a clause inserted which invalidated the whole submission, and which ran in these terms: in so far as is permitted by the law of Christ. By this strict execution of the statute of provisors, a great part of the profit, and still more of the power, of the court of Rome was cut off, and the connections between the Pope and the English clergy were in some measure dissolved. The next session found both king and Parliament in the same dispositions. An act was passed against levying the annates or first-fruits.* The better to keep the Pope in awe, the king was intrusted with a power of regulating these payments, and of confirming or infringing this act at his pleasure; and it was voted that any censures which should be *These were a year's annual income of their sees, given by all bishops and archbishops to the Pope, upon presentation to their preferments. They were one of the main sources of the papal revenue. A.D. 1534. HENRY'S MARRIAGE WITH ANNE BOLEYN. 275 passed by the court of Rome on account of that law should be entirely disregarded, and that mass should be said, and the sacraments administered, as if no such censures had been issued. After the prorogation, Sir Thomas More, the chancellor, foreseeing that all the measures of the king and Parliament led to a breach with the Church of Rome, and to an alteration of religion, with which his principles would not permit him to concur, desired leave to resign the great seal; and he descended from his high station with more joy and alacrity than he had mounted up to it. The king, who had entertained a high opinion of his virtue, recieved his resignation with some difficulty; and he delivered the great seal soon after to Sir Thomas Audley (1532). During these transactions in England the court of Rome was not without solicitude; and she entertained just apprehensions of losing entirely her authority in England. Yet the queen's appeal was received at Rome; the king was cited to appear; and several consistories were held to examine the validity of their marriage. Henry declined to plead his cause before this court, and, in order to add greater security to his intended defection from Rome, he procured an interview with Francis at Boulogne and Calais, where he renewed his personal friendship as well as public alliance with that monarch, and concerted all measures for their mutual defense. And being now fully determined in his own mind, as well as resolute to stand all consequences, he privately celebrated his marriage with Anne Boleyn (Jan. 25, 1533), whom he had previously created Marchioness of Pembroke. In the next Parliament an act was made against all appeals to Rome in causes of matrimony, divorces, wills, and other suits cognizant in ecclesiastical courts. Cranmer, now created Archbishop of Canterbury on the death of Warham, opened his court at Dunstable for examining the validity of Catherine's marriage. Catherine, who resided at Ampthill, six miles. distant, refused to appear either in person or by proxy. Cranmer pronounced sentence, by which he annulled the king's marriage with Catherine as unlawful and invalid from the beginning (May 23). By a subsequent sentence he ratified the marriage with Anne Boleyn, who soon afterward was publicly crowned queen, with all the pomp and dignity suited to that ceremony. To complete the king's satisfaction on the conclusion of this intricate and vexatious affair, she was safely delivered of a daughter (Sept. 7, 1533), who received the name of Elizabeth, and who afterward swayed the sceptre with such renown and felicity. The Pope, on the other hand, formally pronounced the judgment of Cranmer to be illegal, and declared Henry to be excommunicated if he adhered to it. § 2. The quarrel between Henry and the Pope was now irreconcilable, and the year 1534 may be considered as the era of the |