CHAP. IN. metaphysical turn, and were thus involved in still greater difficulty and mystery than before. 4. The unimproved state of society still further aggravated these evils, because men were inflamed about controversies which they did not understand; and in this state of blindness and presumption, they eagerly seized upon badges of distinction, invented terms of reproach, associated their own passions with the cause of God, and defied every expostulation of reason, precept, and religion. 5. The intermixture of these religious disputes with earthly politics, produced additional evils, by giving names to parties, multiplying the causes of irritation, and adding new restlessness to the politics of the world. Thus arose the civil and religious wars in France; the revolt of the Netherlands; the thirty years' war in Germany; numerous rebellions in England; and those long and bitter contests which ended in the Revolution of 1688; and during which the church revenues were violently transferred from the first reformed preachers to a new class of teachers, who, in their turn were deprived, and compelled to give way to others. But the Reformation more than compensated for these evils by the benefits which it produced. They were only temporary; these were permanent, and will continue so long as the principles of the Reformation influence the conduct of mankind. 1. The Bible was opened, and a purer faith was established. Doctrines were no longer taken upon traditional authority; religion no longer consisted in vain ceremonies, and passive ignorance; the Gospel was a second time proclaimed to sinful men. The benefits. 2. The right of private judgment was asserted and acknowledged; the like freedom was extended to every department of human inquiry, and the only authority which was recognised, was the authority of truth. 3. Civil and religious liberty was established; for the reformers, as the advocates of religious liberty, were naturally connected with those of civil liberty, and their cause was always the cause of civil freedom.* Hence 4. Free and more popular governments were established. 5. The church was placed under the control of the state, and the social position of the clergy was completely changed.+ 6. The progress of civilisation and science was promoted; new energy was infused into the human mind; systems of public instruction changed, and schools were reformed and multiplied.‡ * See Smyth's Lectures on Modern History, lectures ix. and x. SECTION II-THE REFORMATION IN ENGLAND DURING THE REIGNS OF HENRY VIII. AND EDWARD VI. I. ASPECTS OF PUBLIC OPINION REGARDING THE CHURCH BEFORE THE ABOLITION OF THE PAPAL SUPREMACY. 7. Revival of the Lollards. The spirit of opposition to Rome was far stronger in England than in Germany, and the state of public opinion, as regarded the church and the clergy, was in every way favourable to the Reformation. The Lollards were still a numerous sect, though they had, during the later Plantagenet reigns, remained in obscurity, through the terror of persecution. In the reign of Henry VII., however, they again attracted the attention of the churchmen, and were brought before the spiritual courts. In 1494, Joan Boughton, the first English female martyr, was burnt in Smithfield; she was followed by many others during the next few years; and in 1506, martyrs in William Tylsworth was burnt in Amersham, his daughter Henry VII. being compelled to set fire to him with her own hands. While some had the courage thus to endure the flames for the sake of their faith, a much greater number preferred to recant, and were condemned to the mitigated punishments of imprisonment, penance, and branding on the cheek. Lollard the reign of 8. The Christian Brothers. In 1525 a society was enrolled in London called "The Association of Christian Brothers," composed of poor men, chiefly tradesmen and artizans, and a few of the clergy. It was carefully organised, and provided with funds; and its agents went up and down the country, carrying Testaments and tracts with them, and enrolling in the order all persons who dared to risk their lives in such a cause. The copies of the Testament they circulated were those of Tyndal's translation, and were issued from the Antwerp printing press.* They Circulation also circulated translations of the best German books, Testament. reprints of Wycliffe's tracts, or original commentaries; all which were read with wonderful eagerness by the people. The authorities were not slow in taking the alarm, and a resolution was taken to put down these books, and the hawkers of them, by a of Tyndal's * William Tyndal began life as a restless Oxford student, whence he moved to Cambridge, and afterwards to Gloucestershire, where he became a family tutor. Hearing of Luther's doings, and expressing himself with too warm approval to suit his patron's opinions, he was dismissed, and went to London, expecting the patronage of Bishop Tonstall. He was disappointed in this, but was received by one Alderman Monmouth, who furnished him with means to go to Wittemberg, where he saw Luther, and under his direction translated the Gospels and Epistles. Thence he went to Antwerp, was joined by a friar, named Joy, by Frith, from Cambridge, Barnes, Lambert, and others. The rest of his history may be gathered from the text. CHAP. III. systematic persecution. But as Wolsey, on whom the office of grand inquisitor devolved, was opposed to extreme measures, the reformers were treated very leniently. All the copies of Tyndal's Testament were bought before they left Antwerp, and brought to London and burnt; Barnes, and five of the Christian Brothers, were exposed for public penance in St. Paul's, and Oxford was purged of its heresy by the same gentle means. When Wolsey fell, however, the persecution was continued by the bishops, and under the chancellorship of Sir Thomas More, martyrs were again Martyrdom brought to the stake. Bilney, the companion of Latimer of Bilney and others. at Cambridge, was burnt by the Bishop of Norwich (1531), for being heterodox on the papacy and the mediation of saints, as the bishop alleged, but in reality, for having said in a sermon, that of his personal knowledge, the priests took away from the shrines the offerings of the pilgrims, and gave them to abandoned women. Bainham, a barrister of the Middle Temple, and one of the Christian Brothers, was also burnt (1532), as a relapsed heretic. Though these scenes were witnessed by the people generally, as if they had been ordinary executions, yet it is certain that the behaviour of the sufferers was the argument which at last converted the nation. The increasing number of prosecutions in London shows that the leaven was spreading, there being five executions in Smithfield between 1529 and 1533; besides those which took place in the provinces. The prisons were crowded with offenders who had abjured, and were undergoing penance; while the lists of those who were "troubled" by the authorities, are very extensive.* 9. Opposition to clerical excesses and clerical privileges. While the Lollards thus revived their bitter hatred of the church, and the Christian Brothers actively spread abroad the principles and doctrines of the Reformation, those who took little interest in theological disputes, and retained their attachment to the ancient faith, were equally offended with the inordinate opulence and encroaching temper of the clergy, complaints of whose Clerical irregularities were so numerous, that the parliament of ities. Henry VIII. passed an act for the prevention of clerical immoralities. The ecclesiastical system, in fact, was fast pressing its excesses to the extreme limit. While Wolsey talked of Reformation, but delayed its coming, and the persons to be reformed showed no fear that it would come at all, the monasteries grew worse and worse; the people were taught only what they could teach themselves; the consistory courts became more oppressive; irregular * Froude, II., ch. VI. 1487 pluralities multiplied, and non-residence and profligacy increased, -some clergymen held as many as eight benefices; bishops accumulated sees, and unable to attend to all, attended to none. Wolsey himself was the most grasping of pluralists, and the only resident bishop in England who was ever at his work, and ever in his diocese, was the devil. So said Latimer in a sermon at Paul's Cross.* But the great grievances between the laity and the clergy, were the exemption of the latter from civil punishment for consistory crimes, and the administration of justice in their consistory courts. courts. The duties of the officials of these courts resembled, in theory, the duties of the censors under the Roman republic; to watch over the moral conduct of the people, and punish sins as well as crimes. The performance of such duties naturally fell to the clergy, who were the guardians of morality, whose characters were a claim to confidence, whose duties gave them the means of observation which no other men could possess, and whose priestly office gave solemn weight to their sentences. For a time the practice of these duties corresponded to their intention; but the original design at length degenerated; the courts commuted their spiritual censures for pecuniary fines, and each offence against morality was rated at its specific money value in the episcopal tables. Benefit of clergy, again, as at this time Benefit of interpreted, was little else than a privilege to commit clergy. sins with impunity. By fictitious pretexts the church extended this privilege to every person who could read; claiming him, by prescriptive usage, as a clerk: and no clerk was amenable, for the worst crimes, to the secular jurisdiction, until he had been first tried and degraded by the ecclesiastical judge. A law of Henry VI. had enacted, that no clerk should be claimed by the bishop till after he had pleaded his "benefit of clergy" at his arraignment before the civil court. Henry VII., in 1487, extended this act by enacting, that clerks convicted of felony should be branded in the hand; and "benefit of clergy" was entirely taken away from murderers and highwaymen by the act 4, Henry VIII. An exemption was still made for priests, deacons, and subdeacons; but this did not satisfy the church, which had derived much benefit from persons not in holy orders having her protection; the convocation violently attacked the statute, and prosecuted one Dr. Standish for defending it. The King took his part, however, and the clergy were defeated. Among the clergy, properly so called, the prevailing offence was not crime, but licentious* Froude, I., 81-89. Licentiousness the chief crime of the clergy. CHAP. III. ness. This was passed over with indifference by consistory courts; but the slightest opposition to the courts themselves, as in the case of Hunne, presently to be related, was punished by the highest penalty-excommunication. The consequence was, that men began to ask themselves who and what these persons were who retained the privileges of saints, and were incapable of the most ordinary duties. Priests were hooted, or "knocked down into the kennel," as they walked along the streets; the sacrament was rejected at the hands which were considered polluted; and the appearance of an apparitor of the courts to serve a process or citation in a private house, was a signal for instant explosion.* Altered tone of ing, as shown by this. 10. Persecution of Richard Hunne. Under such circumstances we need not be surprised to find that the clergy had lost the respect of the people. The persecution of Richard Hunne, public feel. a merchant tailor, of London (1514), clearly manifests the altered tone of public feeling in this respect. Being sued by a clergyman in the spiritual court, Hunne took out a writ of præmunire against his pursuer, for bringing him before a court which was held under the authority of the papal legate. In revenge, the clergy imprisoned him in the Lollards' Tower, on a charge of heresy. He was found hanged in his chamber a day or two afterwards (December 4th), and though it was asserted to be his own act, the coroner's jury found the Bishop of London's chancellor and summoner guilty of the murder; and the presumptions against them were so strong, that had their trial been proceeded with, they would undoubtedly have been convicted. So bitter was the popular disposition towards the clergy, that the latter maintained that they should have no chance of justice in a temporal court; and one of the bishops declared that the London juries were so prejudiced against the church, that they would find Abel guilty of the murder of Cain. On the other hand, so vindictive were the clergy, that they actually tried Hunne's dead body, condemned him of heresy, and burnt his corpse in Smithfield. A famous pamphlet, called the "Supplication of the Beggars," Supplica- which was largely circulated in London, also showed the Beggars. spirit which was seething, in the bitterness and plainness with which it accused the monks of open immorality and shame.† tion of the 11. Petition of the Commons against the Clergy and their Spiritual Courts. 1529. The time was come, however, for retribution. Wolsey had dreamed that the church might still * Froude, I., 172-182. + Ibid I., 90-91. |