October (the period of greatest danger to borne you several children. I have ever health from the Roman atmosphere), the studied to please you, and I appeal to your legate maintained that all courts deriving conscience whether in the earliest moments their authority from the pope were bound of our union you were not satisfied that my to suspend their sittings during that time. marriage with your brother was not comWolsey consented, and the king began to plete. Our parents were accounted the consider him as a minister of too much re- wisest princes of their age, and they were finement and duplicity, who, as he aimed surrounded by prudent counsellors and learnat being equally well with the papal and ed canonists. I must presume their advice royal courts, was to be no longer suitable to have been right. I cannot therefore to the impatience prevalent at the latter. submit to the court, nor can my advocates,* Catharine, who had secret friends at court, who are your subjects, speak freely for me.' excited the suspicions of the king against In the progress of this trial the unwonted her enemy the cardinal, without perhaps humility of Wolsey in yielding the preceknowing that her rival Anne Boleyn was dence to Campeggio awakened suspicions already employed as one of the instruments of his cordiality, which were countenanced of his overthrow. The man who had been by his acquiescence in his colleague's proso long a domineering favorite all parties crastination. openly or privily joined to destroy. The A remarkable coincidence of circumattorney-general, on the 9th of October, stances now occurred which might have 1529, commenced a prosecution against him alarmed a less jealous monarch. On the for procuring bulls from Rome without the 15th of July, Clement, in spite of promises, king's license. On the 17th of the same removed the suit from the legatine court month the great seal was taken from him. to be heard before himself at Rome. The The charge was doubtless the consumma- bull of avocation was in three days after tion of injustice, since Wolsey had obtained dispatched to England, where the messenthese bulls with the knowledge and for the ger found the legatine court adjourned for service of the king, and had executed them two months, under the pretence of the nefor years under the eye of his ungrateful cessary conformity of all papal courts to master. On the 1st of December, 1529, the usages of the Roman tribunals. This the lords, with Sir Thomas More, the new unreasonable suggestion originated indeed chancellor, at their head, presented an ad- with Campeggio, but was connived at by dress to the king enumerating various arti- Wolsey. It is not easy to believe that it cles of accusation against the tottering car- was not concerted with Clement, to afford dinal, and praying that he might no more ample time for his avocation before the lehave any power, jurisdiction, or authority gates could again assemble, and thereby to within the realm: this address was sent to silence the most effective species of legal the commons for their concurrence; but resistance. Campeggio, in obedience to the more serious parts of it were confuted the instructions of Clement, quitted Engwith such ability as well as fidelity by the land, and the pope summoned the English cardinal's grateful servant Thomas Crom- monarch to appear before him at Rome in well, that it was found impossible to prosecute the accusation of treason. forty days, an insult, which though in some measure repaired, was never forgiven. The dilatory proceedings of the legatine To the other circumstances of suspicion court had much contributed to widen the against the cardinal must be added that Sir breach between the king and his minister. Frances Bryan was said to have obtained They seem indeed to have been spun out possession of a secret letter from Wolsey to a length which an impatient prince was to the pope, which gave reasonable grounds not likely much longer to endure. The only for apprehending that the cardinal covered memorable circumstance in the progress of an illicit and clandestine intercourse under the suit was the calm dignity with which his official correspondence with the holy see. the queen asserted her own wronged inno- Anne Boleyn is said by her enemies to have cence, and displayed the superiority of plain stolen this letter from Bryan, and to have` sense and natural feeling over those legal showed it to the king. These practices formalities which are so hateful when they were not peculiar to one of the parties. The arc abused. Kneeling before her husband, emperor did not fail to communicate to his she is said to have addressed him in words aunt, the queen of England, the intrigues to the following effect:-"I am a poor carried on at Rome, and her remaining woman, and a stranger in your dominions, where I can neither expect good counsel nor indifferent judges. But, sir, I have long been your wife, and I desire to know wherein I have offended you. I have been your spouse twenty years and more. I have *The bishops of Rochester and St. Asaph, with Dr. Ridley. The first soon after fell for his religion. The last, at the distance of twenty years, displayed equal virtue. † Herbert, 123, 124. friends at court conveyed the intelligence | conception of duty had been as exact as his from her to the king. sense of its obligation was strong. "If he Wolsey confessed his offence against the had been more humble, or less wealthy," statute of premunire,* of which he was says lord Herbert, "he was capable of the technically guilty, inasmuch as he had re- king's mercy." The sudden and violent ceived the bulls without a formal license. fall of a man from the pinnacle of greatThe court necessarily pronounced by their ness to an unexpected grave is one of the sentence, "that he was out of the protec- tragic scenes in human affairs, which has tion of the law; that his lands, goods, and a power over the heart, even when unchattels were forfeited, and that his person aided by esteem; and often reflects back was at the mercy of the king." The car- on his life an unmerited interest, which dinal, with his vast possessions, fell by this though inspired by the downfall is in some sentence into the king's hands. That prince degree transferred to the fallen individual.|| sent presents and kind messages to the dis- It is manifest that as Henry approached carded minister, and suffered him to remain a final determination to set at naught the at Esher, in Surrey, a country-house of his papal authority, he must have perceived bishopric of Winchester. Here, however, that Wolsey was an unsuitable instrument Henry, with characteristic caprice, left him for that high strain of daring policy. The with some relaxation of apparent rigor; but church and court of Rome had too many without provision for his table, or furniture holds on the cardinal. As their political for his apartments. The sequel of his resi- schemes diverged, the ties of habit and dence near London was marked by the friendship were gradually loosened between same fluctuation on the part of Henry, the king and the cardinal; perhaps at least whose inconsistencies probably resulted from a touch from the hand of Anne Boleyn his proneness to be moved to action by every brought him to the ground, to clear the impulse of a present passion. In February, field for counsellors more irreconcilable to 1530, Wolsey was pardoned and restored the supreme pontiff. to his see of Winchester, and to the abbey A strong symptom of the king's growing of St. Alban's, with a grant of 6000l. and determination appeared in June, 1530, in a of all other rents not parcel of the arch- letter to the pope from two archbishops, bishopric of York. Even that great diocese two dukes, two marquesses, thirteen earls, was afterwards restored. He arrived at five bishops, twenty-five barons, twenty-two Cawood castle about the end of September, mitred abbots, and eleven knights and doc1530, where he employed himself in mag-tors, beseeching his holiness to bring the nificent preparations for his installation on king's suit to a speedy determination; and the archiepiscopal throne. At that moment at the same time intimating, in very intelhis final ruin seems to have been resolved ligible and significant language, that if he on. The earl of Northumberland, the former should delay to do justice he would find suitor or betrothed spouse of Anne Boleyn, that desperate remedies may at length be was chosen to apprehend him for high trea- tried in desperate distempers. T On the 27th son. He was carried first to lord Shrews- of September an answer to this alarming bury's castle of Sheffield, where he was address was dispatched, containing specious compelled by his distempers to rest, and explanations and fair promises. But a few afterwards to the abbey of Leicester. He days before, Gregory Casallis, the English breathed his last at that place, on the 30th agent at Rome, acquainted his master that of November, 1530. A journey from York the pope had secretly proposed to allow to Leicester on horseback so near to mid- Henry to wed a second wife during the life winter rendered a disorder in his bowels, of the first.** Casallis suspected this sugunder which he labored, mortal. His dying gestion to be an artifice of the imperial words were, "If I had served God as dili-party, perhaps to bring odium on Henry if gently as I have done the king, he would he accepted it, but it was more probably innot have given me over in my gray hairs. tended to save the house of Austria from This is the just reward that I must receive seeing one of her daughters repudiated.†† for the pains I have taken to do him ser- This expedient was naturally more acceptavice, not regarding my service to God." ble to the pope, because it implied no charge Had such feelings pervaded his life, instead of usurpation on his predecessor, and perof shining at the moment of death, his life would have been pure, especially if his *25 Ed. 3. 1., especially 16 R. 2. c. 5, called by Pope Martin V. "execrabile statutum quod omni divine et humanæ rationi contrarium est." Dod. Ch. Hist. i. 267. † 17th Feb. 1530. Rymer, xiv. Holinshed, iii. 755. § Herbert, 125. Of chance and change and fate in human life, ¶ Rymer, xiv. Herbert, 141. Wolsey is the first subscriber to this letter. ** Herbert, 141. Casallis gives no such hint, and considers the proposal hostile. haps, also, because polygamy was not pro- shire.* Cranmer came to the neighboring hibited by the letter of the Mosaic law. priory of St. Peter, at Dunstable, where, Had the proposal been made at an earlier by virtue of his duties as primate and period, Casallis might have welcomed a legate, he instituted a judicial investigasuggestion which would gratify the passion tion into the validity of the alleged marof his master, protect the dignity of an riage. The evidence for the king was laid Austrian princess, and preserve consistency before the court. Catharine, with the firmbetween the acts of successive pontiffs. But ness of a royal matron, maintained her own the Roman court with all its boasted state- dignity and the rights of her daughter. craft was unpractised in the policy of con- After being summoned for fifteen succescession, and had lingered till after the re- sive days, she was pronounced to be contuturn of a spring-tide had rendered retreat macious. On the 23d day of May, 1533, no longer practicable. Cranmer pronounced his final judgment, The king and people of England were declaring the alleged marriage between prepared by several circumstances for re- the king and the lady Catharine of Castile sistance to the papacy, though not, perhaps, to have been null and void, and enjoining for separation from the church. The ancient the parties no longer to cohabit. On his statutes for punishing unlicensed inter- return to Lambeth, by another judgment, course with the popedom, which were pass- of which he did not assign the grounds, ed when the residence of the popes at bearing date on the 28th of May, 1533, he Avignon threw them into the hands of confirmed the marriage of the king with France, had familiarized the English nation the lady Anne, which had been privately to the lawfulness of curbing papal encroach- solemnized by Dr. Lee, afterwards bishop ments. The long schism which had divided of Lichfield, about St. Paul's day. She was the western church into separate and ad- crowned on the 1st of June. As the archverse bodies, the adherents of various pre- bishop had long before publicly avowed his tenders to the triple crown, had inured all conviction of the invalidity of Catharine's Europe to the perilous opinion, that a pope marriage, there was no greater fault than might usurp, and that a revolt against him indecorum in his share of these proceedmight become a duty. The council of Con- ings; for the sentence of nullity only destance closed the schism, but struck a more clared the invalidity of a contract which fatal blow at the pontifical power, by subject- had from the beginning been void. But it ing the papal crown to the representative as- must be owned that Cranmer, who knew semblies of the church. The remains of the of the private marriage about a fortnight English Lollards were roused from their after it was solemnized, is exposed to a just places of refuge by the noise of a more mighty imputation of insincerity, throughout his revolt on the neighboring continent against subsequent judicial trial of the question, on the mystical Babylon. The prevalence of which the legitimacy of that ceremony dethe Lutherans along the line of coast which pended. Several preparations had been stretches from the mouth of the Meuse to made for these bold measures. Wolsey had that of the Oder, gave the utmost facility exercised the legatine power so long, that to the importation of dreaded opinions from the greater part of the clergy had done acts Germany and the Netherlands, with which which subjected them to the same heavy England had her chief traffic. They were penalties, under the ancient statutes, which gladly received by the traders of the south- had crushed the cardinal. No clergyman ern sea-ports, the most intelligent and pros- was secure. The attorney-general appears perous body of men in the kingdom. The to have proceeded against the bishops in martyrdom of Bilney and of others, who the court of king's bench, and the conviclaid down their lives for Protestantism, tion of the prelates would determine the served rather to signalize the growing fate of their clergy. After this demonstrastrength of the revolters than to damp the tion of authority, the convocation agreed to spirit of reformation. petition the king to pardon their fault. But it may well be doubted whether the The province of Canterbury bought this bulk of the people were not yet as unpre-mercy at the price of a grant of 100,000l.: pared as their sovereign for a total revolu- that of York contributed only 18,000l. Oction in doctrine and worship. There was casion was then taken to introduce a new no previous example of success in an at- title among those by which the petitioners tempt so extensive. Henry and his subjects addressed the king, who was petitioned as seemed at the period of the divorce to be" Protector of the Clergy, and supreme ready only to reform ecclesiastical abuses, Head of the Church of England;" a mode and to confine the pontifical authority with- of expression which seemed suitable to the in due limits. prayer of their petition, rather than intend In the spring of 1533, the queen resided at the royal honor of Ampthill, in Bedford * In days of old here Ampthill towers were seen, The mournful refuge of an injured queen. ed to be a legal designation. Archbishop a first year's income of vacant bishoprics, Warham supported the designation. Even from which the revenue of the cardinals Fisher consented, on condition of the inser-resident at Rome was derived. This statute tion of the words, "as far as the law of provides every softening compatible with Christ allows." This amendment was, in- an effective prohibition, and makes ample deed, large enough to comprehend every provision for private adjustment; becoming variety of opinion. But thus amended it coercive only on the failure of all spontaanswered the purpose of the court, which neous compromise.t But it touched the was to take this unsuspected opportunity connexion with Rome at the critical point of insinuating an appellation, pregnant with of money, and gave it to be understood that pretension, amidst the ancient formularies still larger sources of revenue might be and solemn phraseology consecrated by the turned to another channel. The convocalaws, and used by the high assemblies of tion had been obliged to undertake that the commonwealth. The new title, full of they should make no canons without the undefined but vast claims, soon crept from king's license; and, though this measure the petitions of the convocation into the was softened by limitations, it nevertheless heart of acts of parliament. A bill against served to throw light on the king's being ecclesiastical abuses was (fatally for them-"head of the church," a phrase which it selves) with success combated by the bish- was evident was not intended to remain a ops and abbots. In the following session vain and barren title. In all these movemore attacks were made against the estab-ments Luther was the prime, though the lished church, which seem to have supplied unconscious, mover. His importance would lord Herbert with a pretext for the ingeni- be imperfectly estimated by the mere numous speech on this subject which he puts ber of those who openly embraced his docinto the mouth of an anonymous and prob- trine. Many there were who, though not ably imaginary commoner. Lutherans, were moved by the spirit which The principal members of the adminis- Luther had raised. Some became moderate tration which succeeded Wolsey were the reformers to avert his reformation, which dukes of Norfolk and Suffolk, and the lord they feared and hated. Others adopted a chancellor More. They were friendly to a cautious and mild reformation, from inclinareformation of abuses in the church, though tion towards the principles of the great renot prepared for a revolution in her doc- former. Many were influenced by a pertrine and constitution. The pure and illus-suasion that it was vain to struggle against trious name of More seemed to suffice as a the stream; and not a few must, in all such pledge for a reformation which should be times, be infected by that mysterious contaeffectual without being subversive of the gion which spreads over the world the prevrights and interests of the church. To this alent tendencies of an age. Cranmer was government was not long after added raised to the see of Canterbury on the death Thomas Cromwell, a man whose life was a of Warham, who is celebrated by Erasmus specimen of the variety of adventures and among his kindest friends and most genervicissitudes of fortune incident to the lead-ous patrons. * ing actors of a revolutionary age. The son Henry was now on the brink of an open of a fuller near London, he had served as a breach with the apostolic see, and was trooper in the wars of Italy, and as a clerk about to appear as the first great monarch, at the desk of a merchant of Venice. On since the extinction of the race of Conhis return to England he studied the law, stantine, who had broken asunder the bonds but was soon taken into the service of Wol- of Christian communion. At the next step sey, whom he defended in adversity, not only he might, perhaps, find no footing. He with great ability, but with a fidelity still paused. He, as well as his contemporaries, more respectable. His various experience, doubtless felt misgivings that the example his shrewdness and boldness, recommended of this hitherto untried policy might not him to Henry, who required a minister more only eradicate religious faith, but shake remarkable for the vigor of his mind than the foundations of civil order, and perhaps for the delicacy of his scruples. He had, doom human society to a long and barbarous perhaps, heard the preaching of Luther, he anarchy. might have taken an active part in the sack By a series of statutes passed in the of Rome. He tempted his master with the years 1533 and 1534, the church of Engspoils of the church: he hinted at the suc- land was withdrawn from obedience to the cess which had attended the daring policy of the German princes. No practical measure had hitherto been adopted against the Roman see, but the stoppage of the annates, * Herbert, 137, 138. The pardon to the clergy of the province of Canterbury is confirmed by 22 Hen. 8. c. 15. Stat. Realm iii. 334. The like to those of the province of York + 23 Hen. 8. c. 20. Stat. of the Realm, iii. 385, by 23 Hen. 8. c. 19. The language respecting the king's supremacy is not repeated in these acts of {parliament, see of Rome, and thereby severed from their aiders and abettors, shall be adjudged communion with the other churches of the high traitors, and they shall suffer death as west. Appeals to Rome were prohibited, in cases of high treason." All the king's under the penalties of premunire,* the subjects were required to swear to the clergy acknowledged that they could not order of succession, under pain, if they did adopt any constitution without the king's not, of the consequence of misprision of assent; a purely domestic election and treason. consecration of all prelates was establish- In the next session all these enactments ed; all pecuniary contributions, called were sanctioned and established by a brief Peter-pence, imposed by "the bishop of but comprehensive act "concerning the Rome, called the pope," were abolished; king's majesty to be supreme head upon all lawful powers of licensing and dispens- earth of the church of England, which ing were transferred from him to the arch- granted him full power to correct and bishop of Canterbury; and his claims to amend any errors, heresies, abuses, &c., them are called usurpations made in defi- which by any ecclesiastical jurisdiction ance of the true principle, "that your might be reformed or redressed." The oath grace's realm recognizing no superior under to the succession was also re-enjoined,** God but only your grace, has been, and is, and its terms were somewhat altered. The free from subjection to the laws of any first-fruits, and the tenth of the income of foreign prince, potentate, or prelate." After all ecclesiastical benefices, were granted to thus excluding foreign powers by so strong the king, and commissioners were appointa denial of their jurisdiction, the same im-ed to value the benefices, with a machinery portant statute proceeds to affirm that "your afterwards so enlarged as to be instrumentmajesty is supreme head of the church of al in promoting rapine on a more extended England, as the prelates and clergy of your scale.tt · realm representing the said church in their The acquiescence, or rather the active synods and convocations have recognized, co-operation, of the established clergy in in whom consisteth the authority to ordain this revolution is not one of its least reand enact laws by the assent of your lords markable features. Several bishoprics were spiritual and temporal, and commons, in then vacant, in consequence of the disturbthis present parliament assembled." This ance of intercourse with Rome. Six bishbold statute was qualified by a singular pro- ops, however, sanctioned by their vote every viso, which suspended its execution till blow struck at the church. Fourteen abmidsummer, and enabled the king on or bots were generally present when the numbefore that day to repeal it; probably adopt- ber of temporal peers who attended were ed with some remaining hope that it might somewhat more than forty. They did not have terrors enough to countervail those shrink from the deposition of Catharine, by which were inspired by the Imperial armies. reducing her title to that of princess-dowaBy the next statute|| provision was made ger of Wales. By ratifying the marriage for the succession to the crown, the object of Anne Boleyn, they adopted those parts and the bulwark of the ecclesiastical reform- of the king's conduct which most disgusted ation. It confirmed the judgments of Cran- the people. The bill for subjecting the mer, which had pronounced the marriage clergy to the king as their sole head was with Catharine to be void, and that with so favorably treated as in one day to be read Anne to be valid. It directed that the lady three times and passed: no division appears Catharine should be henceforth called and on these measures. After the vacancies reputed only dowager to prince Arthur, and in the episcopal order were filled up, the settled the crown on the heirs of the king usual number of bishops attending without by his lawful wife, queen Anne. This suc- opposition was sixteen. Two prelates, cession was guarded by a clause, perhaps Heath of York, and Tunstall of Durham, unmatched in the legislation of Tiberius, were the messengers chosen to convey to which enacted, "that if any person, by Catharine the tidings of her solemn degrawriting, print, deed, or act, do, or cause to dation in parliament. Whether we ascribe be procured or done, anything to the slan- this non-resistance to dread of the king's der, prejudice, disturbance, or derogation displeasure, or to a lukewarm zeal for the of the lawful matrimony between your ma- established religion, it affords a striking and jesty and the said queen Anne; or as to the instructive contrast to the stubborn resistperil, slander, or disherison of any of the ance of the best and most honest of them issue of your highness, limited by this act in the beginning to the moderate reform of to inherit the crown; such persons, and such odious grievances as pluralities and non-residence. They were now compelled to * 24 Hen. 8. c. 2. Stat. of the Realm, iii. 427. † 25 Hen. 8. c. 19. § 25 Hen. 8. c. 21. 25 Hen. 8. c. 20. T 26 Hen. 8. c. 1. ** Ibid. c. 2. ‡‡ 1 Lords' Journals, 56, &c. |