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twenty-two cardinals declared against Henry. Clement then pronounced a decree, annulling all the proceedings against Catherine; but he withheld the publication of it, still hoping to conciliate the king of England. Meanwhile, queen Anne gave birth to a daughter in September, 1533, who was named Elizabeth, and whose reign fully realised the apprehensions of the papists relative to the consequences of the king's marriage with her mother.

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The parliament met in November, when the kingdom was declared to be wholly independent of the pope. All payments to the see of Rome were forbidden; the princess Mary was deprived of her right to the throne: Catherine was styled the dowager of prince Arthur; but she firmly refused to relinquish the title of queen. Cromwell was the agent chiefly employed in these measures, which were popular with the best informed part of the community, whose feelings are thus described by the contemporary chronicler, Hall: In this year, the third day of November, the king's highness held his high court of parliament; in the which was concluded and made many sundry good, wholesome, and godly statutes; but, among all, one special statute, which authorized the king's highness to be supreme head of the church of England, by the which the pope, with all his college of cardinals, with all their pardons and indulgences, was utterly abolished out of this realm. God be everlastingly praised therefore." To this every well-wisher to his country will add, Amen. Among other proceedings, this parliament petitioned the king against the cruel and inquisitorial proceedings of the Romish prelates, by persecuting men under the charge of heresy, which is still continued. It is in vain for modern Romish historians to impute these persecutions to the secular power; the registers of the prelates themselves prove where they originated.

The papists had no right to object to the proceedings of Henry respecting the divorce, which the pope

had, in fact, secretly advised, while he was openly obliged to oppose it. The time-serving, extraordinary conduct of pope Clement was by no means suitable for one who arrogated to be infallible; but the conquests of Bourbon rendered him subject to the emperor; thus the enthralment of the pope led to the liberation and subsequent prosperity of England. Henry was learned beyond the monarchs of his age; but his mental acquirements rather strengthened than diminished his attachment to popery: and, but for his personal collision with the pope, his mind would not have sought deliverance from the thraldom of Rome, nor would his affection for Anne Boleyn have promoted the English Reformation.

It is remarkable, that the breach between Rome and England appears to have been made irreparable by the precipitate conduct of Clement, rather than by the measures of Henry. By the efforts of the bishop of Paris, who visited England, and from thence proceeded to Rome, under all the disadvantages of a winter journey, Clement was induced to promise Henry satisfaction, if he would go through the form of submitting the whole affair to the pope. A day was fixed for the return of the king's answer, and Henry sent a messenger to Rome with his engagement to consent. A winter journey to Rome was then a more difficult matter than it now is. The courier did not arrive as expected, by March the 23rd, 1534. The French prelate pressed hard for a few days' delay, but the cardinals of the imperial faction urged an immediate decision, and Clement gave way to their importunity. The consistory then gave the definitive censure against Henry, pressing the affair to a conclusion more hastily than usual. Two days later the courier arrived; but the pope, though he earnestly desired to get rid of this hasty decision, was unable to do so. The wrath of Henry increased when he heard what had passed: from that time he pressed forward open measures for separation from Rome. On what a thread does the

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fate of empires depend, as to human plans! But there is One who disposes all aright:

"With Him is strength and wisdom:
The deceived and the deceiver are his;
He leadeth counsellors away spoiled,
And maketh the judges fools.

He removeth away the speech of the trusty,
And taketh away the understanding of the aged."

One important event hastens others forward. A large portion of the national clergy were inclined to favour the king's views; but the monks and friars have ever shown themselves the pope's devoted servants. The members of the monastic orders, which were formed to support the papacy, all opposed the king. As their influence upon the ignorant part of the people was very great, they excited much discontent, chiefly by false or exaggerated statements. There can be no hesitation in characterizing as treasonable these attempts to put the body of the people under the command of a foreign power, actually at war with their monarch. Let the reader attend to this state of affairs, whereby a civil war was in effect again begun in England, which raged from house to house, though not supported by regular armies in the field. We cannot be surprised that vindictive passions were roused in the breast of Henry, or harsh and unfeeling measures resorted to. Let it not be forgotten, that these feelings were first excited by cardinal Wolsey, and afterwards brought into action by the popes Clement VII. and Paul III.

Hitherto the persecutions for religion had been carried on rather by the king's advisers than by himself. Occupied by his favourite pursuits and pleasures, Henry took no personal part in those sanguinary proceedings. The details are related in the ecclesiastical histories of that period. Warham, Wolsey, and More, all were more or less implicated in them. The cardinal, perhaps, left the details of these matters to Longland, Stokesly, and others; but by severe edicts against

the writings of Luther, and determined opposition to the circulation of the Scriptures in English, he did all that the most bigoted papists could desire. Sir Thomas More denied having actually forwarded these persecutions; but the piles in which Bilney, Bayfield, Tewkesbury, Bainham, and others, were burned, witness against him; while the tree in his garden at Chelsea, called "the tree of truth," to which respectable persons were tied and whipped, the early sufferings of Frith, and many other circumstances, show his persecuting spirit. It is painful and humiliating to find that Cranmer consented to the latter deed: though he endeavoured to save Frith, it was only upon condition of his recanting the views he had learned from Scripture against the dogmas of transubstantiation. Such was the feeling excited against these sufferers, that Dr. Cooke, rector of a London parish, openly told the people standing around the stake at which Frith and a lad named Hewitt were burned, not to pray for them any more than for dogs; the precise expression, as Turner observes, that Turkish bigotry has applied to all Christians. The same valuable historian plainly shows, that Henry had not hitherto appeared severe and merciless, compared with other ruling powers. His conduct does not suffer from a comparison with either Francis or Charles, except with reference to his queens, and his proceedings towards them certainly cannot be ascribed to the Reformation.

We have spoken of the resistance of the papists as being, in fact, civil discord, although embattled armies did not take the field with banners displayed, as in the wars of the Roses. The leading combatants were a different order of men; they had recourse to the implements of warfare they were most accustomed to use. Fraud and imposture have ever been the customary weapons of the monastic orders. Early in 1534, the matter of Elizabeth Barton, a young woman of Aldington in Kent, brought many papists into difficulties. Being troubled with epileptic fits, during which she uttered

incoherent words, the Roman ecclesiastics trained her to pretend visions and revelations, exhibiting a letter, said to have been written from heaven by Mary Magdalene. She attracted a degree of public notice for some years, the immediate object being to encourage pilgrimages to a chapel in her neighbourhood, but intimations were early given through her against the king's proceedings. Warham, Fisher, with More, and other leading characters, countenanced her, though they did not lend themselves directly to the treasonable designs of her more active confederates or employers. The pope's agents in England also encouraged proceedings so likely to promote their master's authority: the real drift of the scheme soon plainly appeared. The Maid of Kent, as she was called, declared that Henry was no longer king, and that if he proceeded in his present course, he should "die a villain's death" before a day which was named. The king was also warned not to meddle with "the pope's patrimony," the sums extracted from England by the papacy. He was urged to destroy the Reformers and their books, the English Testament in particular.

The friars, especially the Observantines, were active in making known the pretended revelations of this nun, and in attacking the king. One, named Peto, preaching before the king at Greenwich, declared in his sermon that the dogs would lick his blood, as they had done that of Ahab. Other preachers travelled the country, exciting the people against the king, by magnifying the pope, speaking of kings as his vassals. Some of these, as Hubberdin and Harrison, were of that class of half crazy enthusiasts, who are often urged upon notice by the more cool and crafty instigators of any public troubles. But a large proportion of the mass of the people were already inclined to the doctrines of the Reformation. Latimer, with others, exposed the errors of popery; they taught the way salvation in a manner deeply interesting, urging the importance of studying the word of God.

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