Section 17 of 58 - Table of Contents
CHAPTER VIII HENRY VIII (iv) 1529-33--THE BREACH WITH ROME [Sidenote: 1529 No revolt as yet] It will have been observed that when Wolsey found that the divorce was inevitable, his energies were concentrated on the single purpose of securing it under papal authority. For this he had two reasons--one, that without that authority the King's act would appear in all its arbitrariness, causing grave scandal: the other that if that authority were refused, he foresaw the cleavage between England and Rome which did eventually take place. Apart however from the divorce, there had not been up to the time of Wolsey's fall any hint of an opinion in high places that such a cleavage was _per se_ desirable or desired--although both Wolsey himself and Gardiner had given Clement fair warning that Henry was likely to reconsider the papal claims altogether unless the Pope complied with his wishes. The revocation of the cause to Rome immediately brought the execution of this threat into the sphere of practical politics. In the second place there had been no tendency to encourage or allow deviations from recognised orthodox doctrine. The new criticism had been so far admitted as to produce a rigid section and a liberal section among the orthodox, such leading prelates as Wolsey himself, Warham, Fox, Fisher, and Tunstal, all favouring the new learning in various degrees, and being supported therein by such learned laymen as Sir Thomas More. Their toleration however had not extended to anything censurable as heresy, and their attitude had been somewhat stiffened by the course of the Lutheran revolt on the Continent. The increased licence within the Empire, following the edict of Spires in 1528, led to an increased activity in the suppression of heretics and heretical publications in England, first under Wolsey and then under his successor in the Chancellorship. [Sidenote: Growth of anti-clericalism] In a third direction however, though not much had been done in the way of measures, an _anti-clerical_ party had been growing up: a party which sought to diminish clerical jurisdiction, clerical privileges, and clerical emoluments. Among the ecclesiastics themselves there were not a few who desired to improve clerical administration from within, but without diminution of ecclesiastical authority; the anti-clericals were laymen who wished the reforms to be forced on the Church from outside, reducing ecclesiastical authority in the process. These two policies were in direct opposition, seeing that antagonism to Wolsey--emphatically a reformer of the prior class--was the leading motive with the nobility who headed the second class; while the Commons in general desired primarily to be freed from the exactions by which the clergy benefited, and from which they did not believe the clergy would of their own initiative cut themselves off. Wolsey had begun the internal amendment, by his visitation and suppression of the smallest monasteries and the appropriation of ecclesiastical property to educational purposes, and by some substitution of the superior organisation of the legatine court for that of the Ordinaries; but the latter step had been cancelled by his fall and by the ominous appeal to the statute of Praemunire against legatine jurisdiction. On the other hand, the anti-clerical action had been practically confined so far to the modifications as to Benefit of Clergy; unless we include the publication of pamphlets and rhymes attacking the ecclesiastical body in general, or Wolsey in particular as the incarnation of their shortcomings. Some years were still to elapse before any material changes from orthodox theological doctrine were to be entertained. But in 1529, the suspension of the Trial was forthwith followed by the adoption of a policy--as yet only provisional--setting aside the Pope's authority; and the assembly of Parliament in November was marked by an immediate attack on ecclesiastical abuses. [Sidenote: Thomas Cranmer] In the last six months of this year the King discovered two instruments consummately adapted for executing his will. It appears that the idea of obtaining the opinions of the Doctors at the English Universities had already been mooted, and that one of those selected [Footnote: Strype, _Memorials of Cranmer_. Hook, _Life of Cranmer_.] at Cambridge was Thomas Cranmer, a learned and amiable divine with marked leanings towards the New Learning; who in his early graduate days had fallen under the influence of the teaching at Cambridge of Erasmus; in scholarship subtle and erudite, in affairs guileless and easily swayed; timorous by nature, but capable of outbreaks of audacity as timid persons often are: a gentle and lovable man, but lacking in that robust self-confidence needed by one who would take a resolutely independent line; a man intended to be a student and forced by an unkind fate to assume the role of a man of action. Such a character, brought under the direct influence of a powerful will and a magnetic personality, is readily led to see everything as it is desired that he should see it, and at the worst to differ from the master-mind only with submission. [Sidenote: Appeal to the universities] When Campeggio suspended the sittings of the Commission the, King withdrew to Waltham Cross. Steven Gardiner and Foxe the King's almoner, who were in his suite, met Cranmer who had left Cambridge on account of an outbreak of the sweating sickness. They had, as was natural, a conversation on "the King's affair"; when Cranmer propounded the theory that if the Universities of Europe--that is, the qualified divines--gave it as their opinion that the union with Katharine had been contrary to the Divine Law, the King might follow the dictates of his conscience and pronounce the marriage null without recognising Papal jurisdiction. This was clearly quite a different thing from producing the judgment of the Doctors merely as an expert opinion which must carry weight with the Judge at Rome. It was practically an assertion that the Pope's judgment was not of higher authority than the King's; an answer to a question as to jurisdiction; a suggestion of replying to the Pope's revocation of the case by a counter-revocation. Foxe reported the conversation to Henry, who caught at the new method of giving a constitutional colour to an arbitrary proceeding. Cranmer was summoned to court, attached to the Boleyn household, set down to write a thesis on the point of conscience, and sent off early in 1530 in the train of the Earl of Wiltshire (to which dignity Sir Thomas Boleyn--had been raised) on an embassy to the Emperor at Bologna. Moreover his plan for consulting the Universities was actively taken in hand. [Sidenote: The new Parliament] In the meantime, in November, Henry's most famous Parliament had opened session. The last, called six years before under Wolsey's regime to obtain supplies, had shown a qualified submissiveness. The new one, whether packed or not, displayed prompt signs of activity. Known to fame as the "Seven Years'" or "Reformation" Parliament, it consistently displayed three characteristics: it was anti-papal and anti-clerical; it endorsed the Royal will; but it refused dictation where its pocket was concerned. Its first session lasted only a few weeks, but was marked by an attack on clerical abuses, and by the sudden prominence achieved by Thomas Cromwell. [Sidenote: Thomas Cromwell] Concerning Cromwell's early years, much is reported and little is known. The common rumour declared that he was the son of a blacksmith--as it declared Wolsey to be the son of a butcher. He is said to have tried various trades, among others those of man-at-arms in the mercenary troop of an Italian nobleman, wool-merchant and usurer at Antwerp, usurer and petty attorney in England. On all these points the evidence is scanty and inconclusive. About 1520, he found his way into Wolsey's entourage, and was a member of the 1523 parliament. Wolsey found him an apt man of business, and entrusted him with a good deal of the financial management of his educational schemes; in the course of which it is at least probable that he applied the twin practices of bribery and blackmail, which not without reason were attributed at a later date to his servants. Yet, however unscrupulous he may have been in his dealings with others, to the master whose service he had followed he was always loyal. Wolsey made him his secretary; and when the Cardinal fell, the secretary's position seemed exceedingly precarious. Whether from an admirable fidelity or through amazingly astute hypocrisy, he boldly and openly took up the cudgels in parliament on behalf of the stricken minister, apparently challenging imminent ruin for himself. Action so courageous won him applause and good-will instead of present hostility. More than that, it immediately marked him in the eyes of the King--an exceedingly shrewd judge of men--as an invaluable prospective servant for himself. A combination of audacity and fidelity with shrewdness, resourcefulness, and unscrupulosity, was precisely what he wanted and precisely what he had found. The Cardinal's secretary became the King's secretary, and forthwith identified himself with the policy of establishing the Royal autocracy in a stronger form than it had ever before assumed in England. Whether or no Thomas Cromwell learnt his political principles as an adventurer in Italy, he became himself the living embodiment of those doctrines of state-craft which were systematised by Macchiavelli in his treatise "The Prince". [Sidenote: Pope, Clergy and King] In the reconstruction of the relations between Church and State which covers more than nine-tenths of the Reformation under Henry VIII. there were three parties concerned; the Pope, the Sovereign, and the Clerical Organisation in England. From time immemorial, Popes and Kings had striven periodically with each other in asserting antagonistic control over the ecclesiastical body; and the ecclesiastical body had made common cause, now with the Pope and now with the King, in resisting encroachments by the rival authority. If the clergy submitted to one or the other, it was always with a reservation that submission to physical force could not impair the inherent rights of the successors of the Apostles. Similarly, if the Pope gave way to the King or the King to the Pope, their respective successors regarded the claims surrendered as rights not cancelled but in abeyance. The prevailing conditions at any given time were always looked upon as a _modus vivendi_ liable to readjustment when any of the three parties felt impelled to claim a larger freedom of action or a larger power of control. In the past however the Spiritual Powers had drawn effectively upon their armoury of excommunications and interdicts in the conflict; it was now to be seen whether these ancient weapons had become obsolete. If they could be defied with comparative impunity, there could be but one end to a struggle between the Spiritual and the Temporal forces. [Sidenote: Double campaign opens] By the appeal to the Universities, Henry gave warning of a possible anti-papal campaign: in which he could look for a considerable degree of clerical support up to a certain point, more particularly because the clergy generally were ready to be released from the financial exactions of the Holy See, as well as from its practical exercise of patronage. Parliament opened an anti-clerical campaign, but its measures at first were confined to dealing with almost indefensible and obvious abuses. Bishop Fisher recognised the familiar thin end of the wedge, and charged the Commons with desiring "the goods, not the good" of the Church; but the opposition was slender. In the six weeks of the first session, there were passed, the Probate and Mortuaries Acts, abolishing, reducing, or regulating fees, and the Pluralities Act, forbidding the clergy in general to hold more than one benefice, and requiring Residence--a very inconvenient arrangement for papal nominees. The general value of the Act however was impaired by a schedule of exemptions. Fisher's protest had its counterpart in the protest of Convocation, not against the avowed objects of this legislation but against Parliament as its source: the position being that Convocation was itself preparing legislation with the same ends in view, and was the proper body to do so. [Sidenote: 1530 Answers of the Universities] During 1530, Parliament remained inactive. The Earl of Wiltshire's embassy to Bologna, of which the object was to induce Charles to withdraw his opposition to the divorce, naturally proved abortive. The consultation of the Universities however went on apace. The theory propounded for their acceptance was that Katharine had been in actual fact the wife of Henry's brother; that this being so her marriage with Henry was contrary to the Law of God; and that by consequence the second contract was actually not only voidable but void, the dispensation being under those circumstances a dead letter. On the other side it was maintained that whatever validity there might be in this argument, it fell to the ground if--as was asserted on the Queen's behalf--her first marriage had been ceremonial only. The answers of the Universities were inconclusive, some declaring the marriage valid, others declaring it void, and others, including Oxford and Cambridge, declaring that it was against the Law of God without pronouncing the dispensation of Julius _ipso facto_ invalid. Moreover, had the opinions given been decisive in themselves, the method by which they were obtained would have destroyed their moral value. Francis, finding that England's friendship was in the balance, dictated a favourable reply to the French Universities. Those in England knew they were not free agents. Clement professed to give those in Italy a free hand, but in that country Charles was the dominant power. In Germany the Lutherans were hostile to Henry personally on account of his own anti-Lutheran pronouncements. Nowhere was a judgment on the simple merits of the case procurable. [Sidenote: Preoccupation of the Clergy] In the meantime, the clergy in England had been mainly occupied with a campaign against heresy, and with the suppression of dangerous literature; [Footnote: According to Mr. Froude, Henry only assented with reluctance to the suppression of Tindal's Testament on condition of the preparation of an authorised version being agreed to. But even Hall, whom he cites, only says that both proposals were adopted after long debate.--Froude, i., p. 298 (Ed. 1862).] but willingly or not found themselves committed to approving the preparation of an authorised translation of the Scriptures--the one movement under Henry which tended definitely, in effect though not of set purpose, to a revision of Doctrine. [Sidenote 1: Menace of Praemunire] [Sidenote 2: 1531 "Only Supreme Head"] [Sidenote 3: Proceedings in Parliament] In December of 1530, however, the Church was to receive a rough reminder that the Defender of the Faith was a stickler for the rigidity of the statutes. He had already struck at Wolsey because, urged thereto by himself, the Cardinal had obtained and exercised legatine powers contrary to the Statutes of Praemunire. Such was the King's reverence for the Law that after it had been transgressed with his sanction for ten years he felt it his duty to penalise the transgressor. After another twelve-month, he felt it his further duty to penalise all who had submitted to the illegal authority. The clergy were informed that they lay one and all under the royal displeasure for breach of praemunire (of which they had in fact been technically guilty), and could only hope for pardon by purchasing it for something over L100,000--practically equivalent to about a couple of millions now. Convocation, alive to the futility of resistance, apologised for its iniquity and admitted the justice of the punishment. Thereupon, in the preamble to the bill by which they were to mulct themselves, the King required the insertion of a clause which designated him "Protector and Only Supreme Head of the Church and Clergy in England". This roused general resistance. Convocation proposed conferences, and sought some compromise which they could reconcile with their consciences. The King would have no compromise, demanding instant submission. At last Warham hit upon the expedient of one of those saving phrases which might mean everything or nothing, and yet could not be objected to on the face of it; inserting the words "so far as the laws of Christ permit": the precise degree to which the said laws did permit being susceptible of unlimited argument, as the royal claims or the clerical conscience might respectively demand. Even so had Becket in the past shielded himself with the words "Saving the rights of my Order". For the time being, this diplomatic evasion or pitiful subterfuge, as the advocates and contemners of the clergy respectively call it, saved the situation. At the time, it must be remarked, Henry did not intend the title to be read as repudiating the Papal Supremacy, which had not hitherto been formally called question. On the face of it, it looks like a touch of Cromwell's; in a thing designed to force the hand of the Clergy in the future if the Papal Supremacy should be directly challenged. The clause was accepted (for the Province of Canterbury) on March 22nd; six weeks later it was also accepted by the Convocation of York, with a protest from Tunstal, now bishop of Durham, who had been distinguished by his diplomatic services under Wolsey's regime. During the corresponding session (January-March 1531) no anti-clerical measures were introduced in Parliament; which registered the Royal pardon and received the formal announcement of the decision of the Universities. The "stern and lofty moral principles" [Footnote: Froude, i., 307, 310 (Ed. 1862). The historian's enthusiasm may seem to require some qualification. The retrospective creation of crimes is a dangerous practice: and the penalty applied might even be considered savage.] of the nation were however vindicated, in consequence of the wholesale poisoning of the bishop of Rochester's household, attributed to an attempt to make away with Fisher himself. By a special enactment, the essentially un-English practice of poisoning was retrospectively classified as high treason, and the criminal sentenced to death by boiling.Prev Next All
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