VI. SPANIARDS IN SPAIN
(1534-1542.)
The doctrines of the Gospel were slowly spreading in Spain; their advance was silent, but it was none the less rapid. The Catholic Illescas, in his Historia Pontifical, asserts that 'so great were the number, the rank, and the importance of the culprits, that if the application of the remedy had been delayed for two or three months, the whole of Spain would have been on fire.' The Reformation would have wrought the salvation of this people, not only in a moral and religious sense, but also in respect to national prosperity and greatness. Unfortunately the papacy and Philip II. had the last word, and they ensured its ruin.
[Sidenote: BARTHOLOMEW CARRANZA.]
We have seen that the Gospel had been well received at Seville, in the south; it was likewise welcomed at Valladolid, in the north, the usual seat of the king. There was one man who at this epoch, by reason of his ability, the offices with which he was invested, the missions which were entrusted to him, and his religious character, played an important part in Spain. He passed for one of the most violent enemies of evangelical truth; and such indeed he was, but ultimately he became himself an evangelical, at least in essential points. This was Bartholomew Carranza, who was born in 1503, at Miranda, in Navarre, and was at this time teaching theology at Valladolid with great applause. He had completed his studies at the university of Alcala, and in 1520 had entered the Dominican order. While he was at the college of St. Gregory of Valladolid, in 1527, he had undertaken the defence of Erasmus, and had consequently been denounced to the Holy Office. At a still earlier period he had conversed with a Dominican older than himself, Professor Michael de Saint Martin, on matters pertaining to the conscience. The doctor found that the young monk greatly limited the power of the pope. For this he had been rebuked and ultimately denounced to the Holy Office (November 19, 1530). But these two denunciations came to nothing. It was found that the evidence was not sufficient to support an accusation. On the revival of the denunciations at a later period, Carranza, who by this time had become an archbishop, was placed under arrest. At an early age he had felt some relish for the truth. Had he lived in the midst of Gospel light he would have joyfully received it; but the darkness of Rome withheld him and for a long time led him astray. In 1534 he was appointed professor of theology at Valladolid, and in 1539 he was named a delegate to Rome to attend a chapter of his order. He maintained there some theses with so much success that Pope Paul III. gave him permission to read prohibited books. The reading of these was afterwards of advantage to him. At this time he enjoyed the reputation of a fervent Catholic. His opposition to heretics, his olive-colored complexion, and the sombre costume of his order, earned him the surname of the black monk. Nevertheless he displayed altogether a superior mind; and in consequence of this he was early distinguished by Charles the Fifth. If he were then strongly attached to Roman doctrines it was with sincerity, because he believed them to be true; and he was, moreover, a stranger to petty ecclesiastical superstitions.[180]
Carranza's teaching, perhaps, contributed to make the Gospel attractive to younger minds at Valladolid. At first they showed some timidity; but the cruel death of one of the most earnest Spanish Christians inspired them, about the middle of the century, with more zeal and courage. Among the disciples of Carranza was Don Domingo de Roxas, son of the marquis of Poza--a name rendered illustrious by a great poet--and whose mother was a daughter of the count of Selinas. This young man, who was destined by his parents for the church, was amiable, upright, a lover of truth, keenly susceptible and impressible, endowed likewise with courage, but not with that immovable firmness which belongs to powerful characters. He listened with enthusiasm to the lectures of Carranza, who in certain cases made use of the phrases of the reformers, while condemning their doctrines. The same was afterwards done by the Council of Trent, to which Carranza was sent as delegate by Charles the Fifth. He used to say that man, since his fall, could not be justified by the power of nature; but that he is justified by Jesus Christ. To these assertions, however, he added explanations which weakened them. 'The moral power of man,' he said, 'is indeed diminished but not destroyed; he is able to incline himself to righteousness, and faith justifies only so far as charity is added to it.'
Ere long Domingo showed less timidity than his master. He laid aside every thing that weakened the doctrine and embraced the pure faith drawn from the Word of God. At the same time that he listened to Carranza he was reading Luther and Melanchthon, and he thought their doctrines more evangelical and more powerful than those of his master. The professor trembled lest his disciple should become a heretic and should raise up others. What to Roxas appeared a friendly light, seemed to Carranza the signal of a conflagration. In vain he endeavored to prove to young de Roxas the mass and purgatory. The latter, understanding that the truth was the property of all, communicated it to those around him. He put into circulation the works of the reformers; he composed others himself. Among the latter was an 'Exposition of the Faith.' By these means he gained over to the Gospel several inhabitants of Valladolid. He encountered opposition on the part of some members of his own family; but he found access to others, as well as to several noble houses of Castile.[181]
[Sidenote: AUGUSTINE CAZALLA.]
Another young Castilian, Augustine Cazalla, a contemporary of Roxas, at the age of seventeen had had Carranza as his confessor; and he attended, at the same time as Domingo, the lectures of this illustrious master at the college of St. Gregory at Valladolid. His father was director of the royal finances, and his mother Leonora (whose maiden name was de Vibero), a friend of the friends of the Gospel, opened her house to them, and freely welcomed the refugees who were driven by persecution from their own abodes. On this account the house of Leonora was afterwards razed, and on its ruins fanaticism erected a monumental stone, which remained there till our own days.[182] Cazalla completed his studies at Alcala, became canon of Salamanca, and attained a position in the first rank of Spanish preachers. The circumstances in which he was placed, and particularly the hospitality of his mother, prepared him to receive the Gospel. He was even accused of having 'openly taught in the Lutheran conventicles of Valladolid.' It appears, however, that he did not publicly declare himself for the Word of God until the emperor, having nominated him his preacher and almoner, took him with him into Germany, where he had frequent intercourse with the Lutherans.[183]
Even before Cazalla decided for the Gospel Don Domingo de Roxas had found a powerful assistant in the evangelization of Valladolid and its neighborhood. An Italian noble, Don Carlos de Seso, born at Verona, of one of the first families of the country, had distinguished himself in the service of the emperor, and had, it seems, learnt something at an early age of the doctrine of the Reformation. He settled in Spain, and during his residence at Valladolid became intimate with the evangelical Christians of that city. He had a cultivated mind, great nobility of character, gentlemanly manners, and much zeal for the truth. Having become a Spaniard, he discharged in his adopted country certain civil functions; and this afforded him opportunities of diffusing with more freedom the knowledge of the Gospel. He did this zealously in some towns situated to the east of Valladolid, on the banks of the Douro; at Toro, where this river is spanned by the numerous arches of an immense bridge, and where Seso was corregidor; and, somewhat further eastward, in the melancholy and sombre Zamora, which the Cid had reconquered from the Moors, and where the ruins of his palace were to be seen. His active exertions were next put forth in another quarter. We find him proclaiming the love of God in Jesus Christ at Valencia, to the north of Valladolid, and under the very walls of its beautiful cathedral. He afterwards married Doña Isabella de Castilla, niece of the bishop of Calahorra, and a descendant of King Pedro the Cruel, and took up his abode at Villa Mediana. Here he became very successful in the evangelization of Logroño, and the rich and fertile districts lying around, which are watered by the Ebro. Don Carlos de Seso was remarkable for the energy of his faith, the vigor of his language, and the devotion of his whole being to Jesus Christ. He was to give evidence of his courage at the time of his death, by apostrophizing the cruel Philip II. himself, whose fanatical answer became celebrated.[184]
[Sidenote: DE ROXAS.]
Don Domingo de Roxas had a sister, the marchioness of Alcagnices, whose character bore much resemblance to his own, and who, like him, attached herself to Carranza, but with still more enthusiasm. She found in him a faithful, pious, and disinterested guide; not a director, but a Christian friend. She as well as her brother had frequent conversations with Carranza. Domingo on one occasion was speaking with joy about the complete justification of the sinner by the grace of Christ. 'But,' he added, 'I do not see how this truth is to be reconciled with purgatory.' 'It would be no great harm,' said Carranza, 'if there were no purgatory.' Domingo was astonished, and replied by citing the decisions of the church. His master then closed the discussion by saying: 'You are not at present capable of thoroughly understanding this matter.' In a little while, Domingo, convinced that the justification of man is the essence of Christianity, returned to the subject; and Carranza told him that he did not see in Holy Scripture any clear proofs of the existence of purgatory.[185] De Roxas rejoiced to hear this, for he desired above all things that his master should unreservedly accept the doctrines of the Gospel. But this was not so easy as he thought, and whenever he made a timid attempt to induce him to adopt them, Carranza at once checked him. 'Beware,' said he, 'lest you allow yourself to be carried away by your talents.' The disciple then withdrew disheartened. Carranza's refusal to follow him in all the evangelical doctrines 'excited his deepest compassion,' and also occasioned him the greatest grief. 'For,' he said, 'if Don Bartholomew entirely received the true faith, he would induce my sister to adopt it, so completely does the marchioness yield to his opinion.' Filled with confidence, Roxas added: 'I am still in hope of seeing this change effected;' and allured still further and further by his hopes he exclaimed: 'If so great a change as this be wrought in Carranza, the king and all Spain will embrace this religion.'[186]
The faith of Carranza seemed in fact to become brighter and more real, so that the fine castles in the air which the young and ardent De Roxas was building were not altogether unfounded. One day, not long afterwards, Carranza, when preaching at Valladolid in Passion week, was suddenly carried away by the liveliness of his faith and the warmth of his love for the Saviour; and speaking as if he saw heaven opened, as if he discerned not only the image of the Saviour, but the Saviour himself crucified, he spoke with enthusiasm of the unutterable blessedness of such contemplation for faithful souls, and extolled with all his power the justification of men by a living faith in the passion and the death of Jesus Christ. 'Really,' said the bishop Peter de Castro, who was present, 'Carranza preached to-day as Philip Melanchthon might have done.' The bishop informed the illustrious orator of his own way of thinking; the latter replied only by keeping profound silence.[187] Carranza afterwards preached a sermon of a similar kind before Philip II. in London, whither he had accompanied the king, and where he prosecuted the evangelical teachers of Oxford and other places, while sometimes preaching the same doctrines as they did. The fanaticism of Catholic unity and universality stifled in his soul the claims of Christian faith. The new man, formed within by divine grace, was in his case kept down by the natural man, whose instincts had been rendered more cruel by the influence of Rome and the Inquisition.
[Sidenote: WORKS OF CARRANZA.]
The marchioness of Alcagnices could not do without him. The piety of Carranza met her deepest wants, and his attachment to Rome was a ground of confidence to her that in adopting his faith she was not separating from the church. Anxious to enjoy his teaching even when he was absent, she caused copies to be made of his Spanish works, and had translations made of those which were in Latin. In this task she employed the friar Francis de Tordesillas. This monk, who was a strictly orthodox man, was occasionally shocked, while making these translations and copies, by certain phrases which appeared to have a Lutheran tendency. He was very much grieved about it, and so much the more because it was not only for the marchioness that he did this work, but also for several other ladies, admirers of Carranza. What a calamity if he should become an agent of the Lutheran heresy! And yet there were so many fine things in those books, and Carranza was so illustrious a doctor! The monk of Tordesillas bethought himself of a means of preventing the evil. At the head of the manuscript he put a notice to the reader, in which he said,--'that in reading the works of Don Bartholomew, all the propositions which they contain must be understood in the Catholic sense, and particularly those which relate to justification, which it seems possible to interpret in an opposite sense; that in this way there would be no danger of falling into any error; that he had seen the author practice good works, fasts, almsgiving and prayers, so that he, the speaker, was sure that every thing which the doctor had written was in the spirit of the Catholic religion.'[188] But the religious devotee labored in vain. Most readers took simply and in the natural sense what they read. Moreover the notice to the reader was counteracted by more powerful advice. Domingo de Roxas told both the nuns with whom he was connected, particularly those of the convent of Bethlehem, and other persons who showed any leaning to piety, that the evangelical doctrines, and he did not scruple to say to many the maxims of Luther, were approved by a man so virtuous and so learned as Carranza.[189]
Far from being moved to retract his doctrines by the reproaches which he incurred on account of them, Carranza, who was of a resolute and determined character, reasserted them in more and more positive language. One day when he was at the village of Alcagnices, probably on a visit to the castle, he felt it incumbent on him to make it distinctly understood that nothing would induce him to renounce the faith which inspired him, and that to leave no room for doubt he was even prepared to sign a legal instrument, bond, or contract, to that effect. For this reason, and remembering that according to a popular proverb 'where notary has passed there is no going back,' he exclaimed in the presence of Domingo de Roxas, Peter de Sotelo, Christopher Padilla, and others: 'At the time of my death I will have a notary to attest the renunciation which I make of all my good works and all the merit of them. I rely on the works of Jesus Christ; and knowing that he has expiated my sins I look upon them as annulled.'[190]
It is remarkable that Carranza, after declarations so evangelical, should have been elected, and this in Spain, and against his own will, to the highest dignity of the church, the primacy. True, Rome afterwards made up for this gentle treatment by great severity. This illustrious doctor and distinguished prelate, who had caused so many evangelical Christians to be imprisoned, himself spent the last seventeen years of his life in prison. He exalted the pope, his government, and his ministry, as much as and more than any other man; but he committed the crime of exalting Jesus Christ still more. The punishment was only retarded, not averted, by his submission to Rome. Even at the time when Carranza was still in the enjoyment of the highest favor Valladolid saw a memorable example of punishment instantly awarded to any one who should magnify Jesus Christ, without caring for the pope and his church.
[Sidenote: CRUELTY OF THE INQUISITORS.]
The young San Romano, who had been converted at Bremen, and had been arrested after making great efforts to induce Charles the Fifth to countenance the Reformation, arrived in ill health at Valladolid at the time when the Gospel was working in private circles, and even in general society, but had not yet been boldly preached there as at Seville. He had been roughly treated, and compelled to follow in the emperor's suite as a captive, some say even into Africa; but the treatment which he had to undergo at the hands of the inquisitors of Valladolid, to whom he was delivered up, far surpassed in harshness that of Charles. They confined him in a dark and horrible dungeon; they sent to him incessantly wicked and ignorant monks, who were instructed to worry him and to induce him to abandon his faith; they frequently made a spectacle of him, exposing him to the laughter and contempt of the populace, and daily loaded him with reproaches and insults, in the hope of thereby terrifying him, breaking down his spirit, and leading him to retract his faith. But their attempt was frustrated. They found, on the contrary, that in some marvellous way which they could not understand, his strength, his earnestness, and his resolution day by day increased. He confuted the arguments of the monks, and courageously avowed the doctrines which were the objects of their anathemas. The sacrifice of the mass, said the monks, procures ex opere operato the remission of sins. 'Horrible abomination,' said San Romano. 'Auricular confession,' resumed the inquisitors, 'the satisfaction of purgatory, the invocation of saints'.... But he stopped them and cried out: 'Blasphemy against God and profanation of the blood of Jesus Christ!'[191] These monks, of orders gray, brown, or black, who buzzed about him like wasps, and were incessantly stinging him, were amazed at such language, and asked him what then he did believe. He replied: 'I maintain and will openly and clearly maintain to my latest breath that there is no creature who by his own strength, his own works, or any worthiness of his own can merit the pardon of his sins and obtain the salvation of his soul. The mercy of God alone, the work of the Mediator, who by his own blood has cleansed us from all sin, these save us.' His condemnation was henceforth certain.
San Romano, and with him a great number of criminals, appeared before a multitude of the people to receive sentence. He was condemned to be burnt alive as a heretic, the others were absolved. 'Ah!' said one of his friends,
"Dat veniam corvis, vexat censura columbas."
After sentence had been passed, they put upon the head of the martyr a paper crown, on which were depicted many horrible figures of demons,[192] and then led him away to the place of execution.
San Romano walked on, surrounded by the mob, who heaped on him insults 'harder to bear than death.' Just beyond the suburbs of the town he came to a wooden cross. The crowd stopped and the inquisitors wished to compel him to adore it. 'It is not wood,' he replied, 'which Christians adore, but God. He is present in my heart and I adore him there with all reverence. Pass on; go straight to the place of my destination.' At these words the people uttered loud cries, and loaded him with insults, considering his refusal to be a crime. 'The cross,' said some of them, 'the cross would not allow a heretic to adore it.' Then fancying that there was some divinity in the wood, the crowd pressed round it; some drew their swords, and clove the cross into a thousand pieces.[193] Most happy did any one think himself who could secure the smallest fragment, for the wood was to heal them of every disease.
[Sidenote: DEATH OF SAN ROMANO.]
San Romano was accompanied by a numerous escort. He was surrounded by archers of the Imperial Guard. Some great personages belonging to both parties had desired to be witnesses of the last moments of this man, whose convictions were so deep. Amongst them was the English envoy. San Romano was placed in the midst of a great heap of wood, which was forthwith set on fire in several places. When he began to feel the fire he raised his head,[194] looking up to heaven, which was about to receive him. But the inquisitors imagined that he was calling them and would yield to their entreaties. 'Draw away the wood,' they said, 'he wants to retract his doctrine.' The burning pieces were removed, and San Romano was set as it were at liberty, without having taken any harm from the fire. Turning then a look of indignation upon the inquisitors, he said: 'What malice urges you to this? Why envy me my happiness? Why snatch me from the true glory which awaits me?'[195] The inquisitors then, confused and irritated, ordered him to be again cast into the fire, which had by this time risen to great violence, and instantly consumed him.
The sermon at this auto-da-fé had been preached by Carranza,[196] but it does not appear that he had convinced all his hearers. Some of the archers of the Imperial Guard carefully collected the ashes of the disciple of the Gospel. The English ambassador avowed that he recognized in him 'a true martyr of Jesus Christ.'[197] In consequence of this saying he was obliged to absent himself from court for several months. The archers who had gathered up the ashes were sent to prison. Meanwhile the inquisitors declared everywhere that San Romano was damned, that none was permitted to pray for him, and that whosoever should dare to hope for his salvation would be considered a heretic. This martyrdom took place about the year 1542.[198]
The times of the Reformation abound in martyrs; and we might well ask whether primitive Christianity, which came to an end when the reign of Constantine began, had so great a number of them as the renovated Christianity of the sixteenth century; especially if we take into account the different length of the periods. The impulse which led the martyrs of the Netherlands, of France, England, Hungary, Italy, Spain, and other lands to give up their lives calmly and even joyfully, proceeded from the depth of their convictions, the holy and sovereign voice of conscience, enlightened, purified, and strengthened by the word of God. In the souls of these lowly heroes there was a secret and mighty testimony to the truth of the Gospel which vividly manifested to them its grandeur, impelled them to sacrifice all for its sake, and gave them courage to obey, although it cost them not only goods and worldly greatness, but also the good opinion, the affection and esteem even of those whom they most tenderly loved. Obedience, indeed, was not always instantaneous. Sometimes there were hindrances, conflicts, hesitation, and delay. There were also some weak consciences which were overcome. But wherever the conscience was sound, it acquired in the midst of difficulties more and more force, and when once its voice was heard the victory was won. It must be understood that we do not mean here a conscience which a man has made for himself; that of which we speak was the highest expression of truth, justice, and the divine will, and it was found to be the same in all regions. The souls of these martyrs were exempt from all prejudices, pure as a cloudless sky. They were conscientious men; and herein we have the complete explanation of the grand phenomenon presented to us in the Reformation. Here was a force sufficient to break through stubborn bonds, to surmount passionate opposition, to brave torture, and to go to the stake. No concessions were to be made, no agreement with error. The noble martyrs of the first centuries and of the sixteenth were the select spirits and the glory of the human race.
[Sidenote: ITS RESULT.]
The death of San Romano was not fruitless. The saying current in the first centuries was once more verified,--the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church. His faith, his renunciation of the world, his courage at the stake, his rejoicing at the near approach of death, deeply affected such of the spectators as had a conscience not yet seared. The evangelicals of Valladolid, who had hardly avowed their convictions except to their most intimate friends, were emboldened. They expressed their sympathy with the martyr, and zeal and decision took the place of timidity and lukewarmness. No church, however, was formed in Valladolid till some years afterwards.
VII. QUEEN JOANNA
(BORN 1479; DIED 1555.)
Among the victims immolated in Spain, in the Netherlands, and elsewhere, by the fanaticism of Charles the Fifth and his subordinates, there was one, the most illustrious of all, whose history has been long hidden by a mysterious veil. This was his mother, Queen Joanna, the daughter of Ferdinand and Isabella. The veil has been partly lifted in our days by the discovery of some documents in the archives of Simancas.[199] Although the information is not yet complete, and perhaps may never be so, it is nevertheless possible now to get some glimpses of the mysterious drama which darkened the life of this unfortunate princess. Few histories are more astonishing than the history of this woman, whom we see by some tragic destiny connected with three executioners--her father, her husband, and her son. These three men, King Ferdinand, the archduke Philip, and the emperor Charles the Fifth, whom she never ceased to love, and whom God had given her for protectors, deprived her of her kingdoms, cast her into prison, and had the strappado inflicted on her.[200] To complete their infamy, they circulated a report that she was mad. She displayed remarkable intelligence, and in this respect she would have taken high rank among princes, far above her father and her husband, if not above her son. The latter derived from her, certainly not from his father, his great abilities. Some celebrated physicians having been summoned by the Comuneros to inquire whether the alleged madness existed, and having interrogated the officers and servants who were about her, Cardinal--afterwards Pope--Adrian, one of her jailers, gave the emperor an account of the inquiry in these words: 'Almost all the officers and servants of the queen assert that she has been oppressed and forcibly detained in this castle for fourteen years, under pretence of madness, while in fact she has always been as sound in mind and as rational as at the time of her marriage.'[201]
[Sidenote: JOANNA IMPRISONED.]
The desire to possess themselves of the supreme power incited these three unworthy princes to deprive Joanna and to keep her in shameful captivity. It was to her and not to her father Ferdinand, that the kingdom of Castile belonged after the death of Isabella. It was to her, and not to her husband Philip, nor afterwards to her son Charles, that the Spains, Naples, Sicily, and other dominions belonged. She was deprived of all by these traitorous princes, and received in exchange a narrow prison.
Joanna, the daughter of Ferdinand of Aragon and Isabella of Castile, was born in 1479, and was brought up in Spain under the care of her mother. Although it was not in those days the custom of the court, as it was in the time of Philip II., to attend the auto-da-fé, the whipping and the torture of heretics, these exploits of fanaticism done to the honor of Jesus Christ and his holy mother were nevertheless at this epoch the favorite subject of conversation at that devout court. The prison, the whip, the rack, and the stake, were the commonplaces of their intercourse. The compassionate heart, the sound understanding, and all the good instincts of the young girl rebelled against these excesses of the Roman faith; and it was soon discovered that there was in her mind an opposition to the favorite notions of her mother, and a deep feeling against these punishments. It was a great grief to Isabella to see her own daughter wantonly ruining herself; for was it not in her eyes ruin to doubt of the holiness of the proceedings of the Inquisition? She, therefore, attempted to stifle the first germs of disobedience. She did not shrink from extreme measures to bring Joanna to a better mind. The marquis of Denia, chief jailer of the unhappy prisoner, wrote to Charles the Fifth, on January 26, 1522, as follows: 'If your Majesty would employ torture against her, it would be in many respects rendering service to God and at the same time doing a good work towards the queen herself. This course is necessary with persons of her disposition; and the queen, your grandmother, punished and treated in this way her daughter the queen, our sovereign lady.'
When Joanna had attained the age of seventeen her father and mother began to think about a marriage alliance for her; and it is easy to understand that she was eager to accept the hand of the archduke of Burgundy, one of the handsomest knights of his age. The prince was to conduct her to the Netherlands, of which he had been sovereign since 1482, and thus he would withdraw her from the teaching of her mother. Joanna's readiness was very natural under the circumstances.
Soon after her arrival in the Netherlands it was observed that feelings to which the cruelty of the Inquisition had given birth in her noble heart were developing themselves--indignation against the persecutors, and love for the persecuted. It is known that in these parts were to be found some of the Vaudois, the Lollards, and the Brethren of the Common Life, all alike inspired with a true religious spirit. The fresh information which Joanna now received strengthened her previous impressions of hostility to Roman superstition. The Catholic Isabella, alarmed at the reports which reached her, sent to Brussels the sub-prior of Santa Cruz, Thomas de Matienzo, to see what the facts were, and to arrest the evil. The princess, who tenderly loved her mother, was cast down on hearing of her displeasure, and tears started to her eyes. But her resolution did not give way. The sub-prior took all possible pains to draw from Joanna some answer to the questions which Isabella had charged him to ask. He was very coldly received; and on Assumption Day, when two of the confessors of the princess presented themselves for the purpose of receiving her confession, she declined their services in the very presence of her mother's envoy.[202] Her former tutor, Friar Andrew, who felt much anxiety for the soul of his pupil, entreated her to dismiss certain Parisian theologians, who seem to have been more enlightened than the majority of the priests, but whom Friar Andrew called drunkards. At the same time he begged the princess to supply their place by taking for her confessor a good Spanish monk. But all his entreaties were fruitless. Nothing could overcome the repugnance which she felt towards the Roman religion. On several occasions she refused its rites, but she did not advance nor take any active steps. Her strength was passive only.
[Sidenote: BIRTH OF CHARLES THE FIFTH.]
On February 24, 1500, Joanna gave birth to a son, who was to become the emperor Charles the Fifth. Conspicuous amongst the magnificent presents offered to the young prince was the gift of the ecclesiastics of Flanders, who laid before him the New Testament, splendidly bound, and bearing the inscription in letters of gold--Search the Scriptures.
Isabella was deeply distressed to see her daughter thus drifting away from Spanish orthodoxy. It was not a complete rebellion; Joanna did not openly profess all the doctrines called in Spain heretical. But the queen had ordered hundreds of her subjects to be burnt for slighter opposition than that of the princess. Would Isabella's devotion to the Virgin go so far as to sacrifice to it her daughter? Even had she desired it, it would not have been easy; for Joanna, as the wife of a foreign prince, was emancipated from her mother's control. Besides, it may well be believed that Isabella would not have committed such a crime. Still, the question arises, would she allow a heretic to ascend the throne of Castile? Would she expose the Inquisition, an institution so dear to her, to the risk of being suppressed by the princess who was to succeed her? Never. Her whole being revolted against such a thought. The priestly party rejoiced to see these scruples of the queen, and endeavored to increase them. King Ferdinand himself, Joanna's father, but not a tender-hearted father, felt that it was for his own interest to embitter more and more the feeling of her mother.
As early as 1502 Isabella's plan was formed. She would keep the heretic Joanna from the throne which belonged to her after her own death. On the meeting of the Cortes, at Toledo, in 1502, and at Madrid and Alcala de Henares, in 1503, the queen caused to be laid before them a project of law by virtue of which the government of Castile should belong after her death to Ferdinand, in case of Joanna's absence, or of her unwillingness or inability personally to exercise the rights which belonged to her. This resolution was voted by the Cortes, and was inserted by Isabella in her will, in which she set forth the conditions which she had at first laid down. The pope confirmed the arrangement. Thus was Joanna to be set aside from succession to the throne which belonged to her on account of her opposition to the Inquisition and to other Roman practices. But Isabella took care not to state this, because she perceived that such an avowal would be dangerous. The priesthood and the holy office were almost universally detested, and, therefore, it was necessary to avoid asserting that they were the cause of the exclusion of Joanna, for this would have rallied to her cause the majority of the nation. Some pretext must, however, be found. It should be reported that she was mad. This is nothing but the truth, thought the priests. Is it possible that any one not mad would reject Rome and her decrees, and put in their place some other senseless doctrines?
[Sidenote: TREACHERY OF PHILIP AND FERDINAND.]
In 1504 Isabella died. Ferdinand publicly announced to the people, assembled in front of the palace of Medina del Campo, that although the crown belonged to his daughter he should continue to govern during his lifetime. Joanna and Philip, her husband, were still in the Netherlands. It appears that Joanna bore with meekness this robbery of the crown by her father; but it was otherwise with her husband. Philip energetically protested against this act of spoliation. 'Ferdinand,' he said, 'has put into circulation a false report of the madness of his daughter and other absurdities of the like kind, solely with a view to furnish himself with a pretext for seizing her crown.'[203] It has generally been stated that it was Philip's mother who had caused the madness of his widow. But this report, it is evident, was already in circulation at a time when she had, without contradiction, the full possession of her reason. We have seen from what source the report came, and the interest which her father had in causing it to be believed.
In 1506 Philip, accompanied by Joanna, arrived in Spain for the purpose of assuming himself the power which his father-in-law had usurped. The majority of the people soon declared themselves on the side of Joanna; and Ferdinand, in a fit of anger, was on the point of encountering his son-in-law with capa y spada, intending to plunge his sword into his bosom. But he observed ere long that a party was forming, and was becoming more and more numerous, at the head of which was the constable of Castile, whose object was to set aside both Philip and Ferdinand, and to place the legitimate queen on the throne. Ferdinand was perplexed, finding that he had two rivals, his son-in-law and his daughter. It was clear to him that Joanna, as Infanta and lawful heiress, would easily win all the hearts of the people, and that Philip, as a foreigner and usurper, would find it hard to gain acceptance. He resolved, therefore, to unite with Philip against his own daughter. He gave him an appointment to meet him at Villafafila, on June 26 (1506). The king determined to assume an appearance of amiability. He took with him only a small number of attendants, dressed himself plainly, mounted an ass, and thus arrived in the presence of his son-in-law with the air of a gallant country gentleman, an amiable smile upon his lips, and saying that he came 'with love in his heart and peace in his hands.' Philip received him attended by a considerable number of grandees of the Netherlands and of Spain, besides a large body of men-at-arms. Philip himself, who was surnamed the Handsome, was in the pride of his youth and strength. Ferdinand having dismounted from his ass and saluted his son-in-law begged him to follow him alone into the church. All the members of their suite were forbidden to accompany the two princes, and guards were stationed at the entrance to prevent any one from penetrating into the church. There, at the foot of the altar, these two traitorous men were about to conspire the ruin, the spoliation, and we might almost say the death of their innocent victim, daughter of one of them and wife of the other. The interview began. The sentinels were able occasionally to catch glimpses of the two princes, and even to hear their voices, but they could not understand what they said. Ferdinand spoke much and with animation; Philip made only short answers and at times seemed to be embarrassed. The father-in-law pointed out to his son-in-law that Joanna was on the point of being placed on the throne by the people, and that both of them would thus be deprived of it; that they ought to pledge themselves to combine all their efforts to exclude her, and that they would assign as their motive that she was incapacitated for reigning by reason of 'her malady,' which propriety did not permit them to name. It is evident that the reference was to the alleged madness. Whether Philip, who lived with Joanna and knew her real state, had also protested against this false accusation, gave way at once, we can not tell. However this may be, Ferdinand, who for a long time had not seen his daughter, succeeded in persuading his son-in-law to adopt this pretext. It likewise appears that there was already some talk about imprisoning the queen.[204] While Ferdinand thus sacrificed his daughter, he felt no scruple about deceiving his son-in-law. An agreement was concluded between the two conspirators that the government of Castile should belong to Philip; and in the instrument signed the same day it was alleged that Joanna refused to accept it herself. Meanwhile the courtiers were awaiting the two princes; and the guards having reported the visible animation and eloquence of the father-in-law, it was expected that he would come away triumphant. Great, therefore, was the astonishment when it became known that he had yielded every thing to his son-in-law. Thus the story of the madness of Joanna, first invented in the interest of Rome, was confirmed by her father, by her husband, and afterwards by her son Charles the Fifth, in their own interest, and with a view to despoil her of the crown of Spain, of Naples, Sicily and her other dominions.
[Sidenote: THE SECRET PROTEST.]
But what is to be thought of Ferdinand's concession? It was a mere piece of acting. His ass, his modest suite, his plain unarmed arrival, had been nothing but a comedy, the object of which was to put him in a position to allege that he had fallen into the hands of his son-in-law, and that the latter had compelled him to sign the agreement. He immediately prepared a secret protest, in which he declared that Joanna was kept prisoner by Philip on false pretences, and that he considered it his duty to deliver her and to place her on the throne. He then set out for Naples, delegating as his representative with Philip his well-beloved Master Louis Ferrer, who enjoyed his entire confidence, desiring him to look after his interests. He had hardly set out when, after an illness of three or four days, Philip died. The current rumor was that he had been poisoned. Some persons declared that they knew he had received a dose of poison in his food (bocado). But the scandal of a trial was dreaded, and the matter was hushed up. The guilty Ferdinand remained master of the situation. Joanna had been placed in confinement by her husband immediately after the interview of Villafafila. After the death of Philip, Ferrer took possession of her. Several princes, particularly Henry VII. of England, aspired to the hand of this widow, heiress of several kingdoms; but Ferdinand hastened to write in all directions that to 'his great vexation' his daughter could not possibly think of a second marriage. This gradually gave wider currency to the fable of her madness.
The queen was then at Burgos, and it was determined to remove her thence to Tordesillas, where they intended to keep her in confinement. Philip had died at Burgos, and his body was to be transferred to Granada, to be there interred in the sepulchre of the kings. This involved a journey from the north to the middle of Spain, and Tordesillas lay on the road. The scheme was to have the queen set out at the same time as the body of her husband. One and the same escort would thus serve for both. It has been supposed that there might be financial reasons for this arrangement. In our days, it has been said, no one would ever think of such economy. But at that time the want of money was incessantly obtruding itself, and people might be well pleased to save a thousand scudos.[205] This conjecture is admissible; but there were other reasons. The journey was made slowly. On two or three occasions the queen was removed from one place to another by night. But it is of little moment whether the journey from Burgos to Tordesillas was made by night or by day. In any case it was a strange spectacle, the grand funeral car, with its dismal but splendid accompaniments, and after these the carriages of the captive queen, about whom the most extraordinary reports were already in circulation. It has been stated that the death of Philip had cost Joanna the loss of her reason; it has been said that she had so much affection for her husband that she wished to have his body always near her, as if it were still living; that she was jealous even of her dead husband, and would not allow her women to approach his corpse.[206] It was rumored at the time that the queen, watching for the moment of his return to life, refused to be separated from the lifeless body; and this very journey was referred to as an irrefragable proof of her madness. But these allegations are belied by facts. As the tomb at Granada was not yet ready, the body of Philip remained for several years in the convent of St. Clara at Tordesillas, and the queen did not once go to see it nor did she even express a wish to do so. She used to speak of Philip as any faithful wife would speak of her deceased husband. Her excessive tenderness for Philip, who had behaved infamously towards her, her resolution never to be separated from his corpse--these are fables of modern history, invented by those who were determined to deprive her of her rights and to thrust themselves into her place.
[Sidenote: JOANNA AT TORDESILLAS.]
Joanna arrived at Tordesillas under the guardianship of Ferrer, the man who, it was believed, had poisoned her husband. The palace was a plain house, situated in a barren country; the climate was scorching in summer and very severe in winter. Joanna was confined here in a narrow chamber, without windows, and lighted only by a candle; she was not allowed to walk, even for a few minutes, in a corridor which looked out upon the river. She was thus refused a liberty accorded even to murderers. She was there, without money, attended by two female keepers, and unable to communicate with the outer world.
The mother of Charles V. continued to show in the prison of Tordesillas her dislike to the Roman ceremonies. She refused to hear mass; and the main business of her keepers was to get her to attend it. The cruel marquis of Denia, count of Lerma, who succeeded Ferrer, endeavored to compel the queen to practices which she abhorred. 'There is not a day passes,' he wrote, 'on which we are not taken up with the affair of the mass.'[207] At length the queen consented to attend mass, at the end of the corridor, either from fear of the scourge, the pain of which she knew, or perhaps in order not to sunder herself from the religion of Spain, of which she constantly hoped to be acknowledged as queen. But when they brought her the pax, the paten which the priest offers to great persons to kiss, she refused it, and commanded it to be presented to the Infanta her daughter, whom they had not yet taken away from her.
At Christmas, 1521, matins were being sung in the chapel which had been fitted up at the end of the corridor. The Infanta alone was present. Suddenly Joanna appeared, wretchedly attired for a queen. She did not attend the mass herself, and even wished to prevent her daughter from attending it. She interrupted the service, ordered with a voice that re-echoed from the walls that the altar should be taken away and every thing else that was used in the religious ceremonies, and then laying hold of her daughter she dragged her away from the place. Nothing could at this time bend her; she resolutely refused to attend mass or any other Catholic services. In vain did the marquis of Denia entreat her to conform to the Roman practices; she would not hear of such a thing. 'In truth,' wrote the marquis to Charles V., 'if your majesty would apply the torture (premia), it would be doing service to God and to her highness.'[208]
[Sidenote: HER HARSH TREATMENT.]
The mother of Charles V. was plunged into the deepest melancholy by the treatment to which she was subjected. Her days were a constant succession of sorrows. Her passage through life was from one suffering to another. All her desire was to get out of that horrible prison; and in striving to attain this object she displayed much good sense, earnestness, and perseverance. She begged the marquis of Denia to allow her to quit Tordesillas, at least for a time. She wished to go to Valladolid. She alleged as a reason the bad air she breathed and the acute sufferings it caused her. Her health required a change of air, and she must at least undertake a journey. Her deep feeling moved her barbarous jailer himself. For a moment pity touched that heart of stone. 'Her language is so touching,' wrote Denia to the emperor, 'that it becomes difficult for the marchioness and myself to withstand her appeals. It is impossible for me to let any one go near her, for not a man in the world could resist her persuasion. Her complaints awaken in me deep compassion, and her utterances might move stones.'[209] This is not how Denia would have written to Charles if he had been speaking of a mad woman. Moreover he requested him to destroy his letters. At times she remained silent; and we know that the grief which does not utter itself is only the more fatal to the sufferer. At other times her distress broke forth. One day (April, 1525) she contrived to find access to the corridor and filled it with her sighs and moanings, shedding the while floods of tears. Denia gave orders immediately that she should be taken into her narrow chamber, so that she might not be heard.[210] At the same time he wrote to Charles V.: 'I have always thought that in her highness's state of indisposition, nothing would do her more good than the rack; and after this that some good and loyal servant of your majesty should speak to her. It is necessary to see whether she will not make any progress in the things which your majesty desires.' By these things he means confession, the mass, and other Roman rites.
In 1530, despairing of seeing the queen confess, 'I can not believe,' he wrote, 'that so fortunate a thing can happen. However, I will use all needful endeavors.'
The officers of Charles V., and the monks who had incessantly labored for the conversion of Joanna to Romanism, multiplied their efforts as her death approached. She withstood their pressing entreaties to receive the rites, the symbols of the papacy, and people heard the cries which she uttered while they put her to torture. She would have neither confession nor extreme unction.
[Sidenote: DEATH OF JOANNA.]
Had Joanna become acquainted with the Reformation and the writings of the Reformers, and with the doctrines which they professed? This has been doubted; but it seems improbable that she should have been ignorant of them. Joanna was a Lutheran, says one of the learned writers who have devoted most attention to this subject.[211] This statement is perhaps too definite. But the evangelical doctrines were penetrating everywhere; and they must have reached the prison of Joanna. It has been asserted that Luther at this time had more numerous adherents in Spain than in Germany itself.[212] The keepers of the prison perhaps prevented evangelical works from reaching the queen. There is, however, a light which no hand of man can intercept. The theologian de Soto, celebrated for his acquirements, as well as for his piety, came to her on the morning of her death; and he appears to have thought her a Christian, but not a Roman Catholic. He said: 'Blessed be the Lord, her highness told me things which have consoled me.' Here is the Christian. He adds: 'Nevertheless, she is not disposed to the sacrament of the Eucharist.' Here is the enlightened woman who rejects the rites of Rome. 'She committed her soul to God,' said the princess Joanna, granddaughter of the queen, 'and gave thanks to Him that at length He delivered her from all her sorrows.' Her last words were: 'Jesus Christ crucified, be with me.'[213] She breathed her last on April 12, 1555, between five and six o'clock in the morning.
Thus died the mother of Charles V. at the age of seventy-six years. She had been at various times kept in prison by her husband, Philip of Austria; for ten years by her father, Ferdinand the Catholic; and for thirty-nine years by her son, the emperor Charles V. She is a unique example of the greatest misfortunes, and her dark destiny surpasses all the stories of ancient times. The heiress of so many famous kingdoms, treated as the most wretched of women, was in her last year strictly confined in her dungeon, and lay in the midst of filth which was never removed. Covered as she was with tumors, in anguish and solitude, can we wonder that strange and terrifying images were sometimes produced in her brain by her isolation, melancholy, and fear? But while she was the victim of the gloomiest fanaticism ever met with in the world, she was consoled in the midst of all these horrors, as her latest words prove, by her God and Father in heaven.
The time has come for posterity to render to her memory the compassion and the honor which are her due.
I. THE THREE PARTIES WHICH DIVIDED ENGLAND
(1536-1540.)
There were in 1536 three distinct parties in England, the papists, the evangelicals, and the Anglican Catholics, who were halting between the two extremes. It was a question which of the three would gain the upper hand.
The Reformation in England was born of the power of the Word of God, and did not encounter there such obstacles as were raised against it in France by a powerful clergy and by princes hostile to evangelical faith and morality. The English prelates, weakened by various circumstances, were unable to withstand an energetic attack; and the sovereign was 'the mad Harry,' as Luther had called him.[214] His whims opened the doors to religious freedom, of which the Reformation was to take advantage. Thus England, which had remained in a state of rudeness and ignorance much longer than France, was early enlightened by the Reformation; and the nation awakened by the Gospel gave birth in the sixteenth century to such master minds as France, though more highly civilised, failed to produce so early. Shakespeare was born in 1563, one year before the death of Calvin. The Reformation placed England a century ahead of the rest of Europe. The final triumph, however, of the Reformation was not reached without many conflicts; and the two adversaries more than once engaged hand to hand, before one overthrew the other.
[Sidenote: BIRTH OF EDWARD VI.]
About the middle of October, 1537, an event occurred which was of great importance for the triumph of the Gospel. There was at that time great rejoicing in the palace of the Tudors and in all England, for Queen Jane (Seymour), on October 12, presented to Henry VIII. the son which he had so much desired. Letters written beforehand, in the name of the Queen, announced it in every place, and congratulations arrived from all quarters. This birth was called 'the most joyful news which for many years had been announced in England.' Bishop Latimer wrote: 'Here is no less joying and rejoicing in these parts for the birth of our prince, whom we hungered so long, than there was, I trow, inter vicinos at the birth of St. John Baptist.'[215] (Luke i. 58.) Princeps natus ad imperium! exclaimed the politicians. 'God grant him long life and abundant honors!' they wrote from the Continent. Henry was anxious that people should believe in this future. 'Our prince,' Cromwell sent word to the ambassadors of England, 'our Lord be thanked, is in good health, and sucketh like a child of his puissance, which you my lord William can declare.'[216] It was all the more important to declare this, because the very contrary was asserted. It was even reported by some that the child was dead. As Henry feared that some attempt might be made on his son's life, he forbade that any one should approach the cradle without an order signed by his own hand. Every thing brought into the child's room was to be perfumed, and measures of precaution against poison were taken. The infant was named Edward; Archbishop Cranmer baptized him, and was one of his godfathers. The king created him at the age of six Prince of Wales and Duke of Cornwall. Sir Edward Seymour, his uncle by the mother's side, was created earl of Hertford. It was alleged that a spell had been thrown upon the king to prevent his having a male child; and behold, he had now an heir in spite of the spell. His dynasty was strengthened. Henry VIII. became more powerful at home, more respected abroad.
This great rejoicing was followed by a great mourning. The queen took cold; the women in attendance were indiscreet in their management;[217] the queen was seized with acute pains. She was very ill during the night of October 23, and died on the following day.
What would Henry do? He had not a tender heart. Far from rejecting the thought of a fresh marriage, he gave an order, as we find in a letter written on the very day of the queen's death, requiring his ambassadors, the bishop of Winchester and Lord William Howard, to seek another wife for him. Cromwell pointed out to them two among others, Margaret, daughter of Francis I., afterwards duchess of Savoy, and Mary of Guise, widow of the duke of Longueville, who was the mother of Mary Stuart. The secretary of state, even before the body of the deceased queen was quite cold, wrote: 'In the ensearching out of which matter, his majesty desireth you both to exhibit that circumspection and diligence that may answer to His Grace's expectation conceived of you.'[218]
Voilà l'extrême deuil dont son âme est atteinte!
Other agents besides these took part in the search. Hutton,[219] the envoy in the Netherlands, offered several spouses to the king. He might make his choice. There was a daughter of the Sire de Brederode, fourteen years of age; the widow of Count Egmont, who was forty, but did not look so old; the princess of Cleves, but of her there was not much to be said in praise either of her mind or her beauty; the young widow of the duke of Milan, Christina of Denmark, niece of the emperor, who was said to be very beautiful, of agreeable conversation and dignified in person. The king resolved on this last alliance, which would reconcile him with the emperor. For some time nothing was thought of but the making of marriages in this direction. The princess Mary was to marry Louis of Portugal, Elizabeth a son of the king of the Romans, and Edward was to be betrothed to a daughter of the emperor.
[Sidenote: SWITZERLAND AND ENGLAND.]
The birth of the young prince had, however, another kind of significance. The hopes of the partisans of the Catholic Mary disappeared, and the friends of the Reformation rejoiced at the thought that the young prince was godson of the archbishop. Many circumstances contributed to their encouragement. They witnessed the formation of unlooked-for ties between the evangelicals of England and those of Switzerland; and the pure Gospel as professed by the latter began to exercise a real influence over England. Edward, during his very short reign, was to fulfil the best hopes to which his birth had given rise, and the triumph to which his reign seemed destined was already visibly in preparation.
Simon Grynaeus, the friend of Erasmus and Melanchthon, and professor at the university of Basel had, as early as 1531, held intercourse with Henry VIII. and Cranmer.[220] Afterwards Cranmer and Bullinger, successor of Zwinglius at Zurich, had also become acquainted with each other; and, as early as 1536, some young Englishmen of good family had betaken themselves to Zurich, that they might drink at the full fountain of Christian knowledge and life which sprang forth there. Some of them lived in the house of Pellican, others with Bullinger himself. These young men were John Butler, who had a rich patrimony in England--a sagacious man and a Christian who persevered in prayer; Nicholas Partridge, from Kent, a man of active and devoted character; Bartholomew Traheron, who had already (1527 and 1528) declared at Oxford for the Reformation, and had been persecuted by Doctor London; Nicholas Eliot, who had studied law in England, and who afterwards held some government office; and others besides.[221] Bullinger was strongly attached to these young Englishmen. He directed their studies and, in addition to his public teaching, he explained to them in his own house the prophet Isaiah.
[Sidenote: ENGLISH LETTER TO CALVIN.]
There was much talk at Zurich at this time about a young French theologian, Calvin by name, who was settled at Geneva, and had published a profound and eloquent exposition of Christian doctrines. The young Englishmen eagerly longed to make his acquaintance. Butler, Partridge, Eliot, and Traheron set out for Geneva in November, 1537, bearing letters of introduction from Bullinger to the reformer. The latter received them in the most kindly manner. It was more than common courtesy, they wrote to Bullinger.[222] They were delighted with his appearance and with his conversation, at once so simple and so fruitful. They felt a charm which drew them to his presence again and again. The master taught well, and the disciples listened well. Calvin was at the time in great trouble. Caroli was causing him much annoyance, and persecution had just broken out at Nismes.[223] The four Englishmen, being called elsewhere, took their departure deeply saddened by the painful separation. A letter written by them shortly afterwards is the first communication addressed by England to the reformer of Geneva. It runs as follows:--'We wish you the true joy in Christ. May as much happiness be appointed to us from henceforth as our going away from you has occasioned us sorrow! For although our absence, as we hope, will not be of very long continuance, yet we can not but grieve at being deprived even for a few hours of so much suavity of disposition and delightful conversation. And this also distresses us in no small measure, lest there should be any persons who may regard us as resembling flies, which swarm everywhere in the summer, but disappear on the approach of winter. You may be assured that, if we had been able to assist you in any way, no pleasure should have called us away from you, nor should any peril have withdrawn us. This distress, indeed, which the disordered tempers of certain individuals have brought upon you, is far beyond our power to alleviate. But you have one, Christ Jesus, who can easily dispel by the beams of his consolation whatever cloud may arise upon your mind. He will restore to you a joyful tranquillity; he will scatter and put to flight your enemies; he will make you gloriously to triumph over your conquered adversaries; and we will entreat him, as earnestly as we can, to do this as speedily as possible. We have written these few lines at present, most amiable and learned Master Calvin, that you may receive a memorial of our regard towards you. Salute in our names that individual of a truly heroic spirit and singular learning and godliness, Master Farel. Salute, too, our sincere friends Master Olivetan and your brother Fontaine. Our countrymen send abundant salutations. Farewell, very dear friend.'[224]
England at this time did justice to the Genevese reformer.
Much admiration was likewise felt for Bullinger. We confess ourselves to be entirely yours, wrote to him the four Englishmen, 'as long as we can be our own.' The works of the Zurich doctor were much read in England, and diffused there the spirit of the Gospel. Nicolas Eliot wrote to him:--'And how great weight all persons attribute to your commentaries, how greedily they embrace and admire them (to pass over numberless other arguments), the booksellers are most ample witnesses whom by the sale of your writings alone, from being more destitute than Irus and Codrus, you see suddenly become as rich as Crœsus.[225] May God, therefore, give you the disposition to publish all your writings as speedily as possible, whereby you will not only fill the coffers of the booksellers, but will gain over very many souls to Christ, and adorn his church with most precious jewels.'[226]
[Sidenote: WORKS OF BULLINGER.]
At the news that the mighty king of England had separated from the pope, the Swiss theologians were filled with hope, and they vied with each other in speeding his progress towards the truth. Bullinger composed two works in Latin which he dedicated to Henry VIII.; the first of them on The Authority, the Certitude, the Stability and the Absolute Perfection of Holy Scripture; the second on The Institution and the Function of Bishops. He forwarded copies of these works to Partridge and Eliot for presentation to the king, to Cranmer, and to Cromwell. The two young Englishmen went first to the archbishop and delivered to him the volumes intended for the king and for himself. The archbishop consented to present the book to the prince, but not till after he had read it himself, and on condition that Eliot and Partridge should be present, that they might answer any questions asked by the king. Then going to Cromwell, they gave him the copy intended for him; and the viceregent, more prompt than the archbishop, showed it the same day to Henry VIII., to whom Cranmer then hastened to present his own copy. The king expressed a wish that the work should be translated into English. 'Your books are wonderfully well received,' wrote Eliot to Bullinger, 'not only by our king, but equally so by the lord Cromwell, who is keeper of the king's privy seal and vicar-general of the church of England.'[227]
Other Continental divines who held the same views as the Swiss likewise dedicated some theological writings both to the king and to Cranmer. Capito, who was at the time at Strasburg, dedicated to Henry VIII. a book in which he treated, among other subjects, of the mass (de missa, &c.). The king, as usual, handed it to two persons belonging to the two opposing parties, in order to get their opinions. He then examined their verdict, and announced his own. Cranmer wrote to Capito that the king 'could by no means digest' his piece on the mass,[228] although at the same time he approved some of the other pieces. Bucer, a colleague of Capito, having written a commentary on the Epistle to the Romans, dedicated it to Cranmer, and wrote to him as follows:--'It is not enough to have shaken off the yoke of the pope, and to be unwilling to take upon us the yoke of Christ; but if God be for us who can be against us? and Christianity is a warfare.'[229]
While the Swiss and the Strasburgers were seeking to enlighten England, the Roman party on the Continent and the Catholic party in England itself were striving to keep her in darkness. The pope, in sorrow and in anger, saw England lost to Rome. Nevertheless the Catholic rising in the northern counties allowed him still to cherish hope. The king of France and the emperor, both near neighbors of England, could if necessary strike with the sword. The pope must therefore stir up to action not only the English Catholics, but also the courts of Paris and Brussels. Whom should he select for the mission? Reginald Pole, an Englishman, a zealous Roman Catholic, and a kinsman of Henry VIII., seemed to be the man made for the occasion. It was he who had lately written these words--'There was never a greater matter entreated, of more importance to the wealth of the realm and the whole church than this [the re-establishment of papal authority]. And this same that you go about to take away, the authority of one head in the church, was a more principal and groundless cause of the loss of the Orient, to be in infidels' hands, and all true religion degenerate, than ever was the Turk's sword, as most wisest men have judged. For if they had agreed all with the Occidental Church, they had never come to that misery; and like misery if God have not mercy on us to return to the church, is most to be feared in our realm.... Your sweet liberty you have got, since you were delivered from the obedience papal, speaketh for itself. Whereof the rest of the realm hath such part that you be without envy of other countries, that no nation wisheth the same to have such liberty granted them.'[230] This last assertion was doubtful.
Pole was at this time at Padua, where he had studied, and where he was resident by permission of the king. He avoided going to Rome lest he should offend Henry. But he received one day an invitation from Paul III., who summoned him to the Vatican to take part in a consultation about the general council. To comply with this summons would be to pass the Rubicon; it would make Henry VIII. his irreconcilable enemy, and would expose to great danger not only himself but all his family. Pole therefore hesitated. The advice, however, of the pious Contarini, the command of the pope, and his own enthusiasm for the cause, brought him to a decision. On his arrival at Rome he gave himself up entirely; and when Christmas was drawing near, on December 20, 1536, the pope created him cardinal, together with del Monte, afterwards Julius III.; Caraffa, afterwards Paul IV.; Sadoleto, Borgia, Cajetan, and four others.[231] These proceedings were very seriously criticised in England. For the vain glory of a red hat,[232] said Tonstall and Stokesley, Pole is, in fact, an instrument of the pope to set forth his malice, to depose the king from his kingdom, and to stir his subjects against him. There was, however, something more in his case than a cardinal's hat; there was, we must acknowledge, a faith doubtless fanatical but sincere in the papacy. Not long afterwards the pope nominated him the new cardinal legate beyond the Alps; the object of this measure being per dar fermento,[233] to excite men's minds. He was to induce the king of France and the emperor to enter into the views of the Roman court, to inflame the Catholics of England, and, if he should be unable to go there himself, to take up his residence in the Netherlands, and thence conspire for the ruin of Protestantism in England.
[Sidenote: POLE DECLARED A REBEL.]
At the beginning of Lent, 1537, Pole, attended by a numerous suite, set out from Rome. The pope, who was not thoroughly sure of his new legate, had appointed as his adviser the bishop of Verona, who was to make up for any deficiency of experience on the part of the legate, and to put him on his guard against pride. Henry VIII., on learning the nature of his young cousin's mission, was exceedingly angry. He declared Pole a rebel, set a price on his head, and promised fifty thousand crowns to any one who should kill him. Cromwell, following his master's example, exclaimed, 'I will make him eat his own heart.'[234] This was only a figure of speech, but it was rather a strong one. No sooner had Henry VIII. heard of the arrival of Pole in France than he demanded that Francis I. should deliver him up, as a subject in rebellion against his king. Pole had not been long at Paris before he heard of this demand. It aroused in his heart more pride than fear. It revealed to him his own importance; and turning to his attendants he said, 'This news makes me glad; I know now that I am a cardinal.' Francis I. did not concede the demand of the angry Tudor; but he did consider the mission of Pole as one of those attacks on the power of kings in which the papacy from time to time indulged. When Pole, therefore, made his appearance at the palace he was refused admission. While still only at the door, and even before he had had time to knock, he himself tells us, he was sent away.[235] 'I am ready to weep,' he added, 'to find that a king does not receive a legate of Rome.' Francis I. having sent him an order to leave France, he fled to Cambray, which at that time formed part of the Netherlands.
[Sidenote: FAILURE OF HIS MISSION.]
No sooner was he there than, under great excitement about what had occurred to him at Paris, he wrote to Cromwell, complaining bitterly that Henry VIII., in order to get him into his power, did not scruple to violate both God's law and man's, and even 'to disturb all commerce between country and country.' 'I was ashamed to hear that ... a prince of honor should desire of another prince of like honor, Betray thine own ambassador, betray the legate, and give him into my ambassador's hands to be brought to me.'[236] The like, he says, was never heard of in Christendom. Pole had more hope of the emperor than of Francis I.; but he was soon undeceived. He was not permitted to go out of the town; and a courier entrusted with his despatches was arrested by the Imperialists at Valenciennes and sent back to him. He now resolved on taking a step towards opening communication with the English government; and as he did not venture to present himself to the ambassadors of Henry VIII. in France, he sent to them the bishop of Verona. But this prelate, likewise, was not received, and he was only allowed to speak to one of the secretaries. He endeavored to convince him of the perfect innocence of Pole and of his mission. 'The cardinal-legate,' he said, 'is solely charged by the pope to treat of the safety of Christendom.' This was true in the sense intended by Rome; but it is well known what this safety, in her view, required.
Fresh movements in the north of England tended to increase the anger of Henry VIII. It was not enough that Pole had been driven from France. The king now wrote himself to Hutton, his envoy at Brussels--'You shall deliver unto the regent our letters for the stay of his entry into the emperor's dominions; ... you shall press them ... neither to admit him to her presence, nor to suffer unto him to have any other entertainment than beseemeth the traitor and rebel of their friend and ally.... You shall in any wise cause good secret and substantial espial to be made upon him from place to place where he shall be.'[237] Pole, on his part, spoke as a Roman legate. He summoned the queen to prove her submission to the apostolic see, and to grant him an audience; and he made use of serious menaces. 'If traitors, conspirators, rebels, and other offenders,' said the English ambassador, 'might under the shadow of legacie have sure access into all places, and thereby to trouble and espy all things, that were overmuch dangerous.'[238] Here was no question of rebellion, Pole sent word to the regent by the bishop of Verona, but of the Reformation; and he was sent to refute the errors which it was spreading in England. Her opinion was that he should return, 'for that she had no commission of the emperor to intermeddle in any point of his legacy.'[239]
Hereupon Pole went from Cambray to Liége; but in consequence of the advice of the bishop of Liége, he only ventured to go there in disguise.[240] He was received into the bishop's palace, but his stay there was 'not without great fear.'[241] He set out again on August 22, and went to Rome. Never had any mission of a Roman pontiff so entirely failed. The ambitious projects of the pope against the Reformation in England had proved abortive. But one of the secrets of Roman policy is to put a good face on a bad case. The less successful Pole had been the more necessary it was to assume an air of satisfaction with him and his embassy. In any case, was it not a victory for him to have returned safe and sound after having to do with Francis I., Henry VIII., and Charles V.? It was November when he reached Rome; and he was received as generals used to be received by the ancient Romans after great victories. They carried him, so to speak, on their arms; every one heaped upon him demonstrations of respect and joy; and his secretary, on the last day of the year, 1537, wrote to the Catholics of England, to describe to them the great triumph that was made at Rome for the safe arrival of his master.[242] Rome may beat or be beaten, she always triumphs.
This mission of Reginald Pole had fatal consequences. In the following year, his brothers, Lord Montague, the marquis of Exeter, and Sir Edward Nevil, were arrested and committed to the Tower. Some time afterwards his mother, Margaret, countess of Salisbury, the last of the Plantagenets, a woman of remarkable spirit, was likewise arrested. They were charged with aiming at the deposition of Henry and at placing Reginald on the throne. 'I do perceive,' it was said, 'it should be for my Lord Montague's brother, which is beyond the sea with the bishop of Rome, and is an arrant traitor to the king's highness.'[243] They were condemned and executed in January, 1539. The countess was not executed till a later time.
[Sidenote: GERMAN ENVOYS IN ENGLAND.]
Paul III. had been mistaken in selecting the cousin of the king to stir up Catholic Europe against him. But some other legate might have a chance of success. Henry felt the necessity of securing allies upon the Continent. Cranmer promptly availed himself of this feeling to persuade Henry to unite with the Protestants of Germany. The elector of Saxony, the landgrave of Hesse, and the other Protestant princes, finding that the king had resolutely broken with the pope, had suppressed the monasteries and begun other reforms, consented to send a deputation. On May 12, Francis Burkhardt, vice-chancellor of Saxony, George von Boyneburg, doctor of law, and Frederick Myconius, superintendent of the church of Gotha--a diplomatist, a jurisconsult, and a theologian--set out for London. The princes wished to be worthily represented, and the envoys were to live in magnificent style and keep a liberal table.[244] The king received them with much good-will. He thanked them that, laying aside their own affairs, they had undertaken so laborious a journey; and he especially spoke of Melanchthon in the most loving terms.[245] But the delegates, whilst they were so honorably treated by their own princes and by the king of England, were much less so by inferior agents. They were hardly settled in the house assigned to them than they were attacked by the inhabitants, 'a multitude of rats daily and nightly running in their chambers.'[246] In addition to this annoyance, the kitchen was adjacent to the parlor, in which they were to dine, so that the house was full of smells, and all who came in were offended.
But certain bishops were to give them more trouble than the rats. Cranmer received them as friends and brethren, and endeavored to take advantage of their presence to promote the triumph of the Gospel in England; but Tonstall, Stokesley, and others left no stone unturned to render their mission abortive. The discussion took place in the archbishop's palace at Lambeth, and they did their best to protract it, obstinately defending the doctrines and the customs of the Middle Ages. They were willing, indeed, to separate from Rome; but this was in order to unite with the Greek church, not with the evangelicals. Each of the two conflicting parties endeavored to gain over to itself those English doctors who were still wavering. One day, Richard Sampson, bishop of Chichester, who usually went with the Scholastic party, having come to Lambeth at an early hour, Cranmer took him aside and so forcibly urged on him the necessity of abandoning tradition that the bishop, a weak man, was convinced. But Stokesley, who had doubtless noticed something in the course of the discussion, in his turn took Sampson aside into the gallery, just when the meeting was breaking up, and spoke to him very earnestly in behalf of the practices of the church. These customs are essential, said Stokesley, for they are found in the Greek church. The poor bishop of Chichester, driven in one direction by the bishop of London and in the opposite by the archbishop of Canterbury, was much embarrassed, and did not know which way to turn. His decision was for the last speaker. The semi-Roman doctors at this period, who sacrificed to the king the Roman rite, felt it incumbent upon them to cross all Europe for the purpose of finding in the Turkish empire the Greek rite, which was for them the Gospel. England must be dressed in a Grecian garb. But Cranmer would not hear of it; and he presented to his countrymen the wedding garment of which the Saviour speaks.[247]
[Sidenote: PROLONGED DISCUSSIONS.]
The summer was now drawing to an end. The German delegates had been in London three or four months without having made any progress. Wearied with fruitless discussions, they began to think of their departure. But before setting out, about the middle of August, they forwarded to the king a document in which they argued from Holy Scripture, from the testimony of the most ancient of the Fathers, and from the practice of the primitive church, against the withdrawal of the cup, private masses, and the celibacy of priests, three errors which they looked upon as having essentially contributed to the deformation of Christendom. When Cranmer heard of their intention to leave England, he was much affected. Their departure dissipated all his hopes. Must he then renounce the hope of seeing the Word of God prevail in England as it was prevailing in evangelical Germany? He summoned them to Lambeth, and entreated them earnestly and with much kindliness[248] for the king's sake to remain. They replied 'that at the king's request they would be very well content to tarry during his pleasure, not only a month or two, but a year or two, if they were at their own liberty. But forasmuch they had been so long from their princes, and had not all this season any letters from them, it was not to be doubted but that they were daily looked for at home, and therefore they durst not tarry.' However, after renewed entreaties, they said, 'We will consult together.' They discussed with one another the question whether they ought to leave England just at the time when she was perhaps on the point of siding with the truth. Shall we refuse to sacrifice our private convenience to interests so great? They adopted the least convenient but most useful course. We will tarry, they said, for a month, 'upon hope that their tarrying should grow into some good success concerning the points of their commission,' and 'trusting that the king's majesty would write unto their princes for their excuse in thus long tarrying.' The evangelicals of Germany believed it to be their duty to tolerate certain secondary differences, but frankly to renounce those errors and abuses which were contrary to the essential doctrines of the Gospel, and to unite in the great truths of the faith. This was precisely what the Catholic party and the king himself had no intention of doing. When Cranmer urged the bishops to apply themselves to the task of answering the Germans, they replied 'that the king's grace hath taken upon himself to answer the said orators in that behalf ... and therefore they will not meddle with the abuses lest they should write therein contrary to that the king shall write.'[249] It was, indeed, neither pleasant nor safe to contradict Henry VIII. But in this case the king's opinion was only a convenient veil, behind which the bishops sought to conceal their ill-will and their evil doctrines. Their reply was nothing but an evasion. The book was written, not by the king, but by one of themselves, Tonstall, bishop of Durham.[250] He ran no risk of contradicting himself. In spite of this ill-will, the Germans remained not only one month but two. Their conduct, like that of Cranmer, was upright, devoted, noble, and Christian; while the bishops of London and Durham and their friends, clever men no doubt, were souls of a lower cast, who strove to escape by chicanery from the free discussion proposed to them, and passed off their knavery as prudence.
[Sidenote: DEPARTURE OF THE GERMANS.]
The German doctors had now nothing more to do. They had offered the hand and it had been rejected. The vessel which was to convey them was waiting. They were exhausted with fatigue; and one of them, Myconius, whom the English climate appeared not to suit, was very ill. They set out at the beginning of October, and gave an account of their mission to their sovereigns and to Melanchthon. The latter thought that, considering the affection which the king displayed towards him, he might, if he intervened at this time, do something to incline the balance the right way. He therefore wrote to Henry VIII. a remarkable letter, in which, after expressing his warm gratitude for the king's good-will, he added:--'I commend to you, Sire, the cause of the Christian religion. Your majesty knows that the principal duty of sovereigns is to protect and propagate the heavenly doctrine,[251] and for this reason God gives them the same name as his own, saying to them, Ye are gods (Ps. lxxxii. 6). My earnest desire is to see a true agreement, so far as regards the doctrine of piety, established between all the churches which condemn Roman tyranny, an agreement which should cause the glory of God to shine forth, should induce the other nations to unite with us and maintain peace in the churches.' Melanchthon was right as to the last point; but was he right as to the office he assigned to kings? In his view it was a heroic action to take up arms for the church.[252] But what church was it necessary to protect and extend sword in hand? Catholic princes, assuredly, drew the sword against the Protestants rather than the Protestants against the Catholics. The most heroic kings, by this rule, would be Philip II. and Louis XIV. Melanchthon's principle leads by a straight road to the Inquisition. To express our whole thought on the matter,--what descendant of the Huguenots could possibly acknowledge as true, as divine, a principle by virtue of which his forefathers, men of whom the world was not worthy, were stripped of every thing, afflicted, tormented, scattered in the deserts, mountains, and caves of the earth, cast into prison, tortured, banished, and put to death? Conscience, which is the voice of God, is higher than all the voices of men.
II. HENRY VIII., SUPREME HEAD OF THE ENGLISH CHURCH--A MARTYR
(1538.)
[Sidenote: RETURN OF GARDINER.]
The Romish party in England did not confine itself to preventing the union of Henry with the Protestants of Germany; but contended at all points against evangelical reformation, and strove to gain over the king by a display of enthusiastic devotion to his person and his ecclesiastical supremacy. This was especially the policy of Gardiner. Endowed with great acuteness of intellect, he had studied the king's character, and he put forth all his powers to secure his adoption of his own views. Henry did not esteem his character, but highly appreciated his talents, and on this account employed him. Now Gardiner was the mainstay of the Scholastic doctrines and the most inflexible opponent of the Reformation. He was for three years ambassador in France, and during that mission he had displayed great pomp and spent a sum equivalent, in our present reckoning, to about sixty thousand pounds. He had visited the court of the emperor, and had had interviews with the Roman legate. One day, at Ratisbon, an Italian named Ludovico, a servant of the legate, while talking with one of the attendants of Sir Henry Knevet, who was a member of the English embassy, had confided to him the statement that Gardiner had secretly been reconciled with the pope, and had entered into correspondence with him. Knevet, exceedingly anxious to know what to think of it, had had a conference with Ludovico, and had come away convinced of the reality of the fact. No sooner did Gardiner get wind of these things, then he betook himself to Granvella, chancellor of the empire, and sharply complained to him of the calumnies of Ludovico. The chancellor ordered the Italian to be put in prison; but in spite of this measure many continued to believe that he had spoken truth. We are inclined to think that Ludovico said more than he knew. The story, however, indicates from which quarter the wind was blowing in the sphere in which Gardiner moved. He had set out for Paris on October 1, 1535; and on September 28, 1538, there was to be seen entering London a brilliant and numerous band, mules and chariots hung with draperies on which were embroidered the arms of the master, lackeys, gentlemen dressed in velvet, with many ushers and soldiers. This was Gardiner and his suite.[253]
The three years' absence of this formidable adversary of the Gospel had been marked by a slackening of the persecution, and by a more active propagation of the Holy Scriptures. His return was to be distinguished by a vigorous renewal of the struggle against the Gospel. This was the main business of Gardiner. To this he consecrated all the resources of the most acute understanding and the most persistent character. He began immediately to lay snares round the king, whom in this respect it was not very hard to entrap. Two difficulties, however, arose. At first Henry VIII., by the influence of the deceased queen, had been somewhat softened towards the Reformation. Then the rumors of the reconciliation of Gardiner with the pope might have alienated the king from him. The crafty man proceeded cleverly and killed two birds with one stone. 'The pope,' he said to the king, 'is doing all he can to ruin you.' Henry, provoked at the mission of Pole, had no doubt of that. 'You ought then, Sire,' continued the bishop, 'to do all that is possible to conciliate the Continental powers, and to place yourself in security from the treacherous designs of Rome.[254] Now the surest means of conciliating Francis I., Charles V., and other potentates, is to proceed rigorously against heretics, especially against the sacramentarians.' Henry agreed to the means proposed with the more readiness because he had always been a fanatic for the corporal presence, and because the Lutherans, in his view, could not take offence at seeing him burn some of the sacramentarians.
A beginning was made with the Anabaptists. The mad and atrocious things perpetrated at Munster were still everywhere talked of, and these wretched people were persecuted in all European countries. Some of them had taken refuge in England. In October, 1538, the king appointed a commission to examine certain people 'lately come into the kingdom, who are keeping themselves in concealment in various nooks and corners.' The commission was authorized to proceed, even supposing this should be in contravention of any statutes of the realm.[255]
Four Anabaptists bore the fagots at Paul's church, and two others, a man and a woman, originally from the Netherlands, were burnt in Smithfield. Cranmer and Bonner sat on this commission, side by side with Stokesley and Sampson. This fact shows what astonishing error prevailed at the time in the minds of men. Gardiner wanted to go further; and while associating, when persecution was in hand, with such men as Cranmer, he had secret conferences with Stokesley, bishop of London, Tonstall of Durham, Sampson of Chichester, and others, who were devoted to the doctrines of the Middle Ages. They talked over the means of resisting the reforms of Cranmer and Cromwell, and of restoring Catholicism.
[Sidenote: BISHOP SAMPSON.]
Bishop Sampson, one of Gardiner's allies, was a staunch friend of ancient superstitions, and attached especial importance to the requirement that God should not be addressed in a language understood by the common people. 'In all places,' he said, 'both with the Latins and the Greeks, the ministers of the church sung or said their offices or prayers in the Latin or Greek grammatical tongue, and not in the vulgar. That the people prayed apart in such tongues as they would... and he wished that all the ministers were so well learned that they understood their offices, service or prayers which they said in the Latin tongue.'[256] In his view, it was not lawful to speak to God except grammatically.
Sampson, a weak and narrow-minded man, was swayed by prejudices and ruled by stronger men; and he had introduced in his diocese customs contrary to the orders of the king. Weak minds are often in the van when important movements are beginning; the strong ones are in the rear and urge them on. This was the case with Sampson and Gardiner. Cromwell, who had a keen and penetrating intellect, and whose glance easily searched the depths of men's hearts and pierced to the core of facts, perceived that some project was hatching against the Reformation; and as he did not dare to attack the real leaders, he had Sampson arrested and committed to the Tower. The bishop was not strong-minded and trembled for a slight cause; it may, therefore, be imagined how it was with him when he found himself in the state prison. He fell into great trouble and extraordinary dejection of mind.[257] His imagination was filled with fatal presentiments, and his soul was assailed by great terrors. To have displeased the king and Cromwell, what a crime! One might have thought that he would die of it, says a historian. He saw himself already on the scaffold of Bishop Fisher and Sir Thomas More. At this time the powerful minister summoned him to his presence. Sampson admitted the formation of an alliance between Gardiner, Stokesley, Tonstall and himself to maintain the old religion, its traditions and rites, and to resist any innovation. He avowed the fact that his colleagues and himself stood pledged to put forth all their efforts for the restoration of degenerated Catholicism. In their opinion, nothing which the Greeks had preserved ought to be rejected in England. One day when Bishop Sampson was passing over the Thames in a barge, in company with the bishop of Durham, to Lambeth Palace, the latter produced an old Greek book which he used to carry in his pocket, and showed Sampson several places in that book wherein matters that were then in controversy were ordained by the Greek Church.[258] These bishops, who spoke so courageously to each other, did not speak so with the king. They feigned complete accordance with him; and for him they had nothing but flatteries. Cranmer was not strong, but at least he was never a hypocrite. Sampson, however, exhibited so much penitence and promised so much submission that he was liberated. But Cromwell now knew what to think of the matter. A conspiracy was threatening the work which he had been at so much pains to accomplish. He observed that the archbishop's influence was declining at court, and he began to have secret forebodings of calamity in which he would be himself involved.
Gardiner, in fact, energetically urged the king to re-establish all the ancient usages. Thus, although but a little while before orders had been given to place bibles in the churches, and to preach against pilgrimages, tapers, kissing of relics, and other like practices,[259] it was now forbidden to translate, publish, and circulate any religious works without the king's permission; and injunctions were issued for the use of holy water, for processions, for kneeling down and crawling before the cross, and for lighting of tapers before the Corpus Christi. Discussions about this sacrament of the Eucharist were prohibited.[260] It was Gardiner's wish to seal these ordinances with the blood of martyrs. He had begun by striking in anima vili; the persecution of the Dutch sacramentarians was merely the exordium; it was needful now to proceed to the very action itself, to strike a blow at an evangelical and esteemed Englishman, and to invest his death with a certain importance.
[Sidenote: JOHN NICHOLSON.]
There was at this time in London, a minister named John Nicholson, who had studied at the university of Cambridge, had been converted by means of his conversations with Bilney, and had afterwards been the friend of Tyndale and Frith, and by his intercourse with them had been strengthened in the faith. He was a conscientious man, who did not suppose that it was enough to hold a doctrine comformable with the Word of God, but, conscious of the great value of the truth, was ready to lay down his life for it, even if there were nothing at stake but a point looked upon as secondary. Faithfulness or unfaithfulness to one's convictions--this was in his view the decisive test of the morality or immorality of a man. In the age of the Reformation there were greater preachers and greater theologians than Nicholson; but there was not one more deserving of honor. Having translated from the Latin and the Greek works which might give offence, and having professed his faith, he had been obliged to cross the sea, and he became chaplain to the English house at Antwerp. Here it was that he became acquainted with Tyndale and Frith. Being accused of heresy by one Barlow, he was taken to London, by order of Sir Thomas More, then chancellor, and was kept prisoner at Oxford, in the house of Archbishop Warham, where he was deprived of every thing, especially of books. On the occasion of his appearance, in 1532, before the archbishop and other prelates, Nicholson steadfastly maintained that all that is necessary to salvation is to be found in the Holy Scripture. 'This,' he said, 'is the question which is the head and whole content of all others objected against me. This is both the helm and stern of both together.'[261] There were forty-five points, and to these he made answer article by article.[262] Shortly afterwards, in consequence of the death of Warham and of Cranmer's appointment to the vacant see, the Antwerp chaplain was set at liberty. He determined to remain in London, took, it seems, from prudential considerations, the name of Lambert, and devoted himself to the labors of a teacher, but at the same time adhered to the resolution to avail himself of every opportunity of maintaining the truth.
[Sidenote: HIS WORK ON THE LORD'S SUPPER.]
Being informed one day that Doctor Taylor was to preach at St. Peter's Church, Cornhill, he went to hear him, not only because of his well-known gifts, but also because he was not far from the Gospel. He was later appointed bishop of Lincoln under pious King Edward, and was deprived of that office under the fanatical Mary. Taylor preached that day on the real presence of Christ in the bread and the wine. Nicholson also believed, indeed, in the presence of the Lord in the Supper, but this presence, he believed, was in the hearts of the faithful. After the service he went to see Taylor, and with modesty and kindliness urged various arguments against the doctrines which he had been setting forth. 'I have not time just now,' said the doctor, 'to discuss the point with you, as other matters demand my attention; but oblige me by putting your thoughts in writing and call again when I am more at leisure.' Lambert applied himself to the task of writing, and against the doctrine of the presence in the bread he adduced ten arguments, which were, says Fox, very powerful. It does not appear that Taylor replied to them. He was an upright man, who gave impartial consideration to these questions, and by Nicholson's reasoning he seems to have been somewhat shaken. As Taylor was anxious to be enlightened himself and to try to satisfy his friendly opponent, he communicated the document to Barnes. The latter, a truly evangelical Christian, was nevertheless of opinion that to put forward the doctrine of this little work would seriously injure the cause of the Reformation. He therefore advised Taylor to speak to Archbishop Cranmer on the subject. Cranmer, who was of the same opinion, invited Nicholson to a conference, at which Barnes, Taylor, and Latimer were also present. These four divines had not at this time abandoned the view which the ex-chaplain of Antwerp opposed: and considering the fresh revival of sacramental Catholicism, they were not inclined to do so. They strove therefore to change the opinion of the pious minister, but in vain. Finding that they unanimously condemned his views, he exclaimed: 'Well then, I appeal to the king.' This was a foolish and fatal appeal.
Gardiner did not lose a minute, but promptly took the business in hand, because he saw in it an opportunity of striking a heavy blow; and, what was an inestimable advantage, he would have on his side, he thought, Cranmer and the other three evangelical divines. He therefore 'went straight to the king,'[263] and requesting a private audience, addressed him in the most flattering terms. Then, as if the interests of the king were dearer to him than to the king himself, he respectfully pointed out that he had everywhere excited by various recent proceedings suspicion and hatred; but that at this moment a way was open for pacifying men's minds, 'if only in this matter of John Lambert, he would manifest unto the people how strictly he would resist heretics; and by this new rumor he would bring to pass not only to extinguish all other former rumors, and as it were with one nail to drive out another, but also should discharge himself of all suspicion, in that he now began to be reported to be a favorer of new sects and opinions.'[264]
The vanity as well as the interests of Henry VIII. dictated to him the same course as Gardiner advised. He determined to avail himself of this opportunity to make an ostentatious display of his own knowledge and zeal. He would make arrangements of an imposing character; it would not be enough to hold a mere conversation, but there must be a grand show. He therefore ordered invitations to be sent to a great number of nobles and bishops to attend the solemn trial at which he would appear as head of the church. He was not content with the title alone, he would show that he acted the part. One of the principal characteristics of Henry VIII. was a fondness for showing off what he conceived himself to be or what he supposed himself to know, without ever suspecting that display is often the ruin of those who wish to seem more than they are.[265]
Meanwhile Lambert, confined at Lambeth, wrote an apology for his faith which he dedicated to the king, and in which he solidly established the doctrine which he had professed.[266] He rejoiced that his request to be heard before Henry VIII. had been granted. He desired that his trial might be blessed, and he indulged in the pleasing illusion that the king, once set in the presence of the truth, must needs be enlightened and would publicly proclaim it. These pleasant fancies gave him courage, and he lived on hope.
[Sidenote: LAMBERT BEFORE THE KING.]
On the appointed day, Friday, November 16, 1538, the assembly was constituted in Westminster Hall. The king, in his robes of state, sat upon the throne. On his right were the bishops, judges, and jurisconsults; on his left the lords temporal of the realm and the officers of the royal house. The guards, attired in white, were near their master, and a crowd of spectators filled the hall. The prisoner was placed at the bar. Doctor Day[267] spoke to the following effect: That the king in this session would have all states, degrees, bishops, and all others to be admonished of his will and pleasure, that no man should conceive any sinister opinion of him, as that now the authority and name of the bishop of Rome being utterly abolished, he would also extinguish all religion, or give liberty unto heretics to perturb and trouble, without punishment, the churches of England, whereof he is the head. And moreover that they should not think that they were assembled at that present to make any disputation upon the heretical doctrine; but only for this purpose, that by the industry of him and other bishops the heresies of this man here present (meaning Lambert), and the heresies of all such like, should be refuted or openly condemned in the presence of them all. Henry's part then began. His look was sternly fixed on Lambert, who stood facing him; his features were contracted, his brows were knit.[268] His whole aspect was adapted to inspire terror, and indicated a violence of anger unbecoming in a judge, and still more so in a sovereign. He rose, stood leaning on a white cushion, and looking Lambert full in the face, he said to him in a disdainful tone: 'Ho! good fellow, what is thy name?' The accused, humbly kneeling down, replied: 'My name is John Nicholson, although of many I be called Lambert.' 'What!' said the king, 'have you two names? I would not trust you, having two names, although you were my brother.' 'O most noble prince,' replied the accused, 'your bishops forced me of necessity to change my name.' Thereupon the king, interrupting him, commanded him to declare what he thought as touching the sacrament of the altar. 'Sire,' said Lambert, 'first of all I give God thanks that you do not disdain to hear me. Many good men, in many places, are put to death, without your knowledge. But now, forasmuch as that high and eternal King of kings hath inspired and stirred up the king's mind to understand the causes of his subjects, specially whom God of his divine goodness hath so abundantly endued with so great gifts of judgment and knowledge, I do not mistrust but that God will bring some great thing to pass through him, to the setting forth of the glory of his name.' Henry, who could not bear to be praised by a heretic, rudely interrupted Lambert, and said to him in an angry tone: 'I came not hither to hear mine own praises thus painted out in my presence; but briefly go to the matter, without any more circumstance.' There was so much harshness in the king's voice that Lambert was agitated and confused. He had dreamed of something very different. He had conceived a sovereign just and elevated above the reach of clerical passions, whose noble understanding would be struck with the beauty of the Gospel. But he saw a passionate man, a servant of the priests. In astonishment and confusion he kept silence for a few minutes, questioning within himself what he ought to do in the extremity to which he was reduced.
[Sidenote: HIS ADDRESS.]
Lambert was especially attached to the great verities of the Christian religion, and during his trial he made unreserved confession of them. 'Our Saviour would not have us greatly esteem our merits,' said he, 'when we have done what is commanded by God, but rather reckon ourselves to be but servants unprofitable to God ... not regarding our merit, but his grace and benefit. Woe be to the life of men, said St. Augustine, be they ever so holy, if Thou shalt examine them, setting thy mercy aside.... Again he says, Doth any man give what he oweth not unto Thee, that Thou should'st be in his debt? and hath any man aught that is not Thine?... All my hope is in the Lord's death. His death is my merit, my refuge, my health, and my resurrection. And thus,' adds Lambert, 'we should serve God with hearty love as children, and not for need or dread, as unloving thralls and servants.'[269]
But the king wanted to localize the attack and to limit the examination of Lambert to the subject of the sacrament. Finding that the accused stood silent, the king said to him in a hasty manner with anger and vehemency:[270] 'Why standest thou still? Answer as touching the sacrament of the altar, whether dost thou say that it is the body of Christ or wilt deny it?' After uttering these words, the king lifted up his cap adorned with pearls and feathers, probably as a token of reverence for the subject under discussion. 'I answer with St. Augustine,' said Lambert, 'that it is the body of Christ after a certain manner.'[271] The king replied: 'Answer me neither out of St. Augustine, nor by the authority of any other; but tell me plainly whether thou sayest it is the body of Christ or no.' Lambert felt what might be the consequences of his answer, but without hesitation he said: 'Then I deny it to be the body of Christ.' 'Mark well!' exclaimed the king; 'for now thou shalt be condemned even by Christ's own word, Hoc est corpus meum.'
The king then turning to Cranmer commanded him to refute the opinion of the accused. The archbishop spoke with modesty, calling Lambert 'brother,' and although refuting his arguments he told him that if he proved his opinion from Holy Scripture, he (Cranmer) would willingly embrace it. Gardiner, finding that Cranmer was too weak, began to speak. Tonstall and Stokesley followed. Lambert had put forward ten arguments, and ten doctors were appointed to deal with them, each doctor to impugn one of them. Of the whole disputation the passage which made the deepest impression on the assembly was Stokesley's argument. 'It is the doctrine of the philosophers,' he said, 'that a substance can not be changed but into a substance.' Then, by the example of water boiling on the fire, he affirmed the substance of the water to pass into the substance of the air.[272] On hearing this argument, the aspect of the bishops, hitherto somewhat uneasy, suddenly changed. They were transported with joy, and considered this transmutation of the elements as giving them the victory, and they cast their looks over the whole assembly with an air of triumph. Loud shouts of applause for some time interrupted the sitting. When silence was at length restored, Lambert replied that the moistness of the water, its real essence, remained even after this transformation; that nothing was changed but the form; while in their system of the corpus domini the substance itself was changed; and that it is impossible that the qualities and accidents of things should remain in their own nature apart from their own subject. But Lambert was not allowed to finish his refutation. The king and the bishops, indignant that he ventured to impugn an argument which had transported them with admiration, gave vent to their rage against him,[273] so that he was forced to silence, and had to endure patiently all their insults.
[Sidenote: CONDEMNATION OF LAMBERT.]
The sitting had lasted from noon till five o'clock in the evening. It had been a real martyrdom for Lambert. Loaded with rebukes and insults, intimidated by the solemnity of the proceedings and by the authority of the persons with whom he had to do, alarmed by the presence of the king and by the terrible threats which were uttered against him, his body too, which was weak before, giving way under the fatigue of a sitting of five hours, during which, standing all the time, he had been compelled to fight a fierce battle, convinced that the clearest and most irresistible demonstrations would be smothered amidst the outcries of the bystanders, he called to mind these words of Scripture, 'Be still,' and was silent. This self-restraint was regarded as defeat. Where is the knowledge so much boasted of? they said; where is his power of argumentation? The assembly had looked for great bursts of eloquence, but the accused was silent. The palm of victory was awarded to the king and the bishops by noisy and universal shouts of applause.
It was now night. The servants of the royal house appeared in the hall and lighted the torches. Henry began to find his part as head of the church somewhat wearisome. He determined to bring the business to a conclusion, and by his severity to give to the pope and to Christendom a brilliant proof of his orthodoxy. 'What sayest thou now,' he said to Lambert, 'after all these great labors which thou hast taken upon thee, and all the reasons and instructions of these learned men? Art thou not yet satisfied? Wilt thou live or die? What sayest thou? Thou hast yet free choice.' Lambert answered, 'I commend my soul into the hands of God, but my body I wholly yield and submit unto your clemency.' Then said the king, 'In that case you must die, for I will not be a patron unto heretics.' Unhappy Lambert! He had committed himself to the mercy of a prince who never spared a man who offended him, were it even his closest friend. The monarch turned to his vicar-general and said, 'Cromwell, read the sentence of condemnation.' This was a cruel task to impose upon a man universally considered to be the friend of the evangelicals. But Cromwell felt the ground already trembling under his feet. He took the sentence and read it. Lambert was condemned to be burnt.
Four days afterwards, on Tuesday, November 20, the evangelist was taken out of the prison at eight o'clock in the morning and brought to Cromwell's house. Cromwell summoned him to his room and announced that the hour of his death was come. The tidings greatly consoled and gladdened Lambert. It is stated that Cromwell added some words by way of excuse for the part which he had taken in his condemnation, and sent him into the room where the gentlemen of his household were at breakfast. He sat down and at their invitation partook of the meal with them, with all the composure of a Christian. Immediately after breakfast he was taken to Smithfield, and was there placed on the pile, which was not raised high. His legs only were burnt, and nothing remained but the stumps. He was, however, still alive; and two of the soldiers, observing that his whole body could not be consumed, thrust into him their halberts, one on each side, and raised him above the fire. The martyr, stretching towards the people his hands now burning, said, 'None but Christ! None but Christ!' At this moment the soldiers withdrew their weapons and let the pious Lambert drop into the fire, which speedily consumed him.[274]
[Sidenote: FLATTERIES.]
Henry VIII., however, was not satisfied. The hope which he had entertained of inducing Lambert to recant had been disappointed. The Anglo-Catholic party made up for this by everywhere extolling his learning and his eloquence. They praised his sayings to the skies--every one of them was an oracle; he was in very deed the defender of the faith. There was one, not belonging to that party, who wrote to Sir Thomas Wyatt, then foreign minister to the king, as follows:--'It was marvellous to see the gravity and the majestic air with which his majesty discharged the functions of Supreme head of the Anglican Church; the mildness with which he tried to convert that unhappy man; the force of reasoning with which he opposed him. Would that the princes and potentates of Christendom could have been present at the spectacle; they would certainly have admired the wisdom and the judgment of his majesty, and would have said that the king is the most excellent prince in the Christian world.'[275]
This writer was Cromwell himself. He suppressed at this time all the best aspirations of his nature, believing that, as is generally thought, if one means to retain the favor of princes, it is necessary to adapt one's self to all their wishes. A mournful fall, which was not to be the only one of the kind! It has been said, 'Every flatterer, whoever he may be, is always a treacherous and hateful creature.'[276]
III. THE SIX ARTICLES
(1538-1540.)
While the Anglo-Catholic party were recovering their former influence over Henry's mind, some members of the Roman Catholic party were laboring to re-establish the influence of the pope. They supposed that they had found a clue by means of which the king might be brought back to the obedience of Rome. Henry who, while busy in preparing fires for the martyrs, did not forget the marriage altar, was very desirous of obtaining the hand of Christina, duchess of Milan. Now, it was this princess, a niece of Charles V., of whom it was thought possible to make use for gaining over the king to the pope. She was now at the court of Brussels, with her aunt Queen Mary; and it is related that to the first offer of Henry VIII. she had replied with a smile,--'I have but one head; if I had two, one of them should be at the service of his majesty.' If she did not say this, as some friends of Henry VIII. have maintained, something like it was doubtless said by one of the courtiers. However this may be, the king did not meet with a refusal. Francis I., alarmed at the prospect of an alliance between Henry VIII. and Charles V., sent word to Henry that the emperor was deceiving him. The king did not believe it. The queen regent of the Netherlands endeavored to bring about this union; Spanish commissioners arrived to conduct the negotiation, and Hutton de Wriothesley, the English envoy at Brussels, devoted himself zealously to the business. One of the principal officers of the court, taking supper with the latter, in June, 1538, inquired of him for news about the negotiation. Hutton expressed his surprise 'that the emperor had been so slack therein.' His companion remarked that the only difficulty in the matter was that the king his (Hutton's) master had 'married the lady Katherine, to whom the duchess is near kinswoman,' so that the marriage could not be solemnized without a dispensation from the pope.[277]
[Sidenote: MARRIAGE NEGOTIATIONS.]
The emperor spoke more clearly still. Wyatt was instructed to tell the king that the hand of the duchess of Milan would be given to him, with a dowry of one hundred thousand crowns, and an annuity of fifteen thousand, secured on the duchy; and that for the gift of this beautiful and accomplished young widow all they required of him was that he should be reconciled with the bishop of Rome.[278] This was fixing a high price on the hand of Christina. The princess, considering perhaps that it was a glorious task to bring back Henry VIII. to the bosom of the papacy, declared her readiness to obey the emperor. The pope, on his part, was willing to grant the necessary dispensation; but the king must first make his submission. For a prince of such fiery passions this was a great temptation. The chancellor Wriothesley, who was negotiating the affair, was himself undecided about it. At one time he eagerly advocated it, and at another time he wrote (January 21, 1539): 'If this marriage may not be had with such honor and friendship as is requisite, that his Grace may also fix his most noble stomach in some other place'.[279] The treaty was finally broken off, the thread snapped, to the great regret of the Roman party. One circumstance might influence the king's decision. Before the negotiations had been closed, in December, 1538, the pope published the bull of 1535, in which he excommunicated Henry VIII. Had the pontiff no hope of good from the matrimonial intrigue, or did he intend to catch the king by fear?
Henry understood that it was not enough to oppose the king of England to the pope. The Word of God was for him the rival of Rome. During these years, 1538 and 1539, in which so many measures were taken against the evangelical doctrine and its teachers, the Bible, strange to say, was printed and circulated. This publication has one singular characteristic; it was made by the intervention of Henry VIII. and Francis I., the two greatest enemies of the faith of the Holy Scriptures among all the sovereigns of the world.
The emperor and the king of France occasionally coquetted with the king of England, whom each of them was anxious to win over to his own side. Francis, knowing how sensitive Henry was on the subject of marriage, offered him his son Henry of Orleans for the princess Mary. Cromwell, who was now giving way to the Anglo-Catholic party on many points essential to reform, was all the more desirous of holding by those which his master would really permit. Amongst these was the translation of the Bible. He saw in the offer made by Francis I. an opening of which he might avail himself. An edition of the Bible, extending to 2,500 copies, published the year before by the eminent printer Richard Grafton in conjunction with Whitchurch, was now exhausted. Cromwell determined to issue a new one; and as printing was better executed at Paris than in London, the French paper also being superior, he begged the king to request permission of Francis I. to have the edition printed at Paris. Francis addressed a royal letter to his beloved Grafton and Whitchurch, saying that having received credible testimonies to the effect that his very dear brother, the king of the English, whose subjects they were, had granted full and lawful liberty to print, both in Latin and in English, the Holy Bible, and of importing it into his kingdom, he gave them himself his authorization so to do.[280] Francis comforted himself with the thought that his own subjects spoke neither English nor Latin; and, besides, this book so much dreaded would be immediately exported from France.
[Sidenote: THE BIBLE PRINTED AT PARIS.]
Grafton and the pious and learned Coverdale arrived at Paris, at the end of spring, 1538, to undertake this new edition of Tyndale's translation. They lodged in the house of the printer Francis Regnault, who had for some time printed missals for England. As the sale of these had very much fallen off, Regnault changed his course, and determined to print the Bible. The two Englishmen selected a fine type and the best paper to be had in France. But these were expensive, and as early as June 23 they were obliged to apply to Cromwell to furnish them with the means for carrying on his edition of the Bible.[281] They were moreover beset with other difficulties. They could not make their appearance out of doors in Paris without being exposed to threats; and they were in daily expectation that their work would be interrupted. Frances I., their reputed protector, was gone to Nice. By December 13, after six months' labor, their fears had become so serious that when Bonner, who had succeeded Gardiner as English ambassador in France, was setting out from Paris on his way to London, they begged him to take with him the portion already printed and deliver it to Cromwell. The hypocritical Bonner, not satisfied with all the benefices he now held, was grasping at the bishopric of Hereford, which he called a great good fortune, and which he succeeded in getting. He was at this time bent on currying favor with Cromwell, on whose influence the election depended, and therefore, hiding his face under a gracious mask, which he was ere long impudently to throw off, he had most eagerly complied with the request.[282]
Four days later, December 17, the officers of the Inquisition entered the printing-office and presented a document signed by Le Tellier, summoning Regnault and all whom it concerned to appear and make answer touching the printing of the Bible. He was at the same time enjoined to suspend the work, and forbidden to take away what was already printed. Are we to suppose that the Inquisition did not trouble itself about the royal letters of Francis I., or that the prince had changed his mind? Either of these suppositions might be entertained. In consequence of the dispatch of the packet to London, there were but a few sheets to be seized, and these were condemned to be burnt in the Place Maubert. But the officer was even more greedy of gain than fanatical; and gold being offered him by the Englishmen for recovery of their property, almost all the sheets were restored to them. His compliance is perhaps partly to be explained by the consideration that this was not a common case. The proprietors of the sheets seized were the Lord Cromwell, first secretary of state, and the king of England. The matter did not rest here; the bold Cromwell was not to be baffled. Agents sent by him to Paris got possession of the presses, the types, and even the printers, and took the whole away with them to London. In two months from the time of their arrival the printing was completed. On the last page appeared the statement: The whole Bible finished in 1539; and the grateful editors added, A domino factum est istud.[283] The violent proceeding of the Inquisition turned to a great gain for England. Many French printers and a large stock of type had been imported; and henceforward many and more beautiful editions of the Bible were printed in England. 'The wicked diggeth a pit and falleth into it.'
[Sidenote: ATTEMPTED COMPROMISE.]
Two parties therefore existed in England, and these frequently concerned themselves more with the points on which they differed than with the great facts of their religion. In one pulpit a preacher would call for reformation of the abuses of Rome; in a neighboring church, another preacher would advocate their maintenance at any cost. One monk of York preached against purgatory, while some of his colleagues defended the doctrine. All this gave rise to most exciting discussion amongst the hearers. In addition to the two chief parties, there were the profane, animated by a spirit of unbelief and without reverence for sacred things. While pious men were peacefully assembled for the reading of the Holy Scriptures, these mockers sat in public-houses over their pots of beer, uttering their sarcasms against every body, and especially against the priests. If they spoke of those who gave only the wafer, and not the wine, they would say:--'That is because he has drunk the whole of it; the bottle is empty.' At times they undertook even to discuss, as in old times was done at Byzantium, the most difficult points in theology, and this was still worse. The king, anxious to play his part as head of the church, was desirous of bringing about a union of the two chief parties, and had no doubt that the party of the profane would then disappear. His favorite notion, like that of princes in general, was to have but one single religious opinion in his kingdom. Freedom was a restraint to him. He therefore began, as the emperor Constantine had done, by attempting to gain his end by means of a system of indifference and of subjection to his will. In a royal proclamation he required that the party of reformation and the party of tradition should 'draw in one yoke,'[284] like a pair of good oxen at the plough. He did not omit, however, to read the priests a lesson. He rebuked them for busying themselves far more with the distribution of the consecrated wafer and with the sprinkling of their flocks with holy water than with teaching them what these acts meant. Indifference, however, was of course unattainable, for it implies that each party should consider unimportant the very doctrines on which it sets the highest value. Henry, nevertheless, boldly made the attempt.
When the parliament met on April 28, 1539, the lord chancellor announced that the king was very anxious to see all his subjects holding one and the same opinion in religion, and required that a committee should be nominated to examine the various opinions, and to draw up articles of agreement to which every one might give his consent. On May 5 nine commissioners were named, five of whom were Anglo-Catholics, and at their head was Lee, archbishop of York. A project was presented 'for extirpating heresies among the people.' A catalogue of heresies was to be drawn up and read at all the services. The commissioners held discussion for one day, but neither of the two parties would make any concession. As the vicegerent Cromwell and the archbishop of Canterbury were in the ranks of the reformation party, the majority was unable to gain the ascendency, and the commission arrived at no decision.
The king was very much dissatisfied with this result. He had been willing to leave the work of conciliation in the hands of the bishops, and now the bishops did not agree. His patience, of which he had no large stock, was exhausted. The Anglo-Catholic party took advantage of his dissatisfaction, and hinted to him that if he really aimed at unity he would have to take the matter into his own hands, and settle the doctrine to which all must assent. Why should he allow his subjects the liberty of thinking for themselves? Was he not in England master and ruler of every thing?
[Sidenote: THE SIX ARTICLES.]
Another circumstance, of an entirely different kind, acted powerfully, about this time, upon the king's mind. The pope had just entered into an alliance with the emperor and the king of France. A fact of such importance could not fail to make a great noise in England. 'Methinks,' said one of the foreign diplomatists now in England, 'that if the pope sent an interdict and excommunications, with an injunction that no merchant should trade in any way with the English, the nation would, without further trouble, bestir itself and compel the king to return to the church.'[285] Henry, in alarm, adopted two measures of defence against this triple alliance. He gave orders for the fortification of the ports, examination of the condition of various landing-places, and reviewing of the troops; and at the same time, instead of endeavoring after a union of the two parties, he determined to throw himself entirely on the Scholastic and Catholic side. He hoped thereby to satisfy the majority of his subjects, who still adhered to the Roman church, and perhaps also to appease the powers. 'The king is determined on grounds of policy,' it was said, 'that these articles should pass.'[286]
Six articles were therefore drawn up of a reactionary character, and the duke of Norfolk was selected to bring them forward. He did not pride himself on scriptural knowledge. 'I have never read the Holy Scriptures and I never will read them,' he said; 'all that I want is that every thing should be as it was of old.' But if Norfolk were not a great theologian, he was the most powerful and the most Catholic lord of the Privy Council and of the kingdom. On the 16th of May the duke rose in the upper house and spoke to the following effect:--'The commission which you had named has done nothing, and this we had clearly foreseen. We come, therefore, to present to you six articles, which, after your examination and approval, are to become binding. They are the following: 1st, if any one allege that after consecration there remains any other substance in the sacrament of the altar than the natural body of Christ conceived of the Virgin Mary, he shall be adjudged a heretic and suffer death by burning, and shall forfeit to the king all his lands and goods, as in the case of high treason; 2d, if any one teach that the sacrament is to be given to laymen under both kinds; or 3d, that any man who has taken holy orders may nevertheless marry; 4th, that man or woman who has vowed chastity may marry; 5th, that private masses are not lawful and should not be used; or 6th, that auricular confession is not according to the law of God, any such person shall be adjudged to suffer death, and forfeit lands and goods as a felon.'[287]
Cromwell had been obliged to sanction, and perhaps even to prepare, this document. When once the king energetically announced his will the minister bowed his head, knowing well that if he raised it in opposition he would certainly lose it. Nevertheless, that he might to some extent be justified in his own sight, he had resolved that the weapon should be two-edged, and had added an article purporting that any priest giving himself up to uncleanness should for the first offence be deprived of his benefices, his goods, and his liberty, and for the second should be punished with death like the others.
[Sidenote: CRANMER'S OPPOSITION.]
These articles, which have been called the whip with six strings and the bloody statute,[288] were submitted to the parliament. But none of the lords temporal, or of the commons, aware that the king was fully resolved, ventured to assail them. One man, however, rose, and this was Cranmer. 'Like a constant patron of God's cause,' says the chronicler, 'he took upon him the earnest defence of the truth oppressed in the parliament; three days together disputing against those six wicked articles; bringing forth such allegations and authorities as might easily have helped the cause, nisi pars major vicisset, ut sæpe olet, meliorem.'[289] Cranmer spoke temperately, with respect for the sovereign, but also with fidelity and courage. 'It is not my own cause that I defend,' he said, 'it is that of God Almighty.'
The archbishop of Canterbury was not, however, alone. The bishops who belonged to the evangelical party, those of Worcester, Rochester, St. David's, Ely, and Salisbury, likewise spoke against the articles.[290] But the king insisted, and the act passed. These articles, said Cranmer at a later time, were 'in some things so enforced by the evil counsel of certain papists against the truth and common judgment both of divines and lawyers, that if the king's Majesty himself had not come personally into the parliament house, those laws had never passed.'[291] Cranmer never signed nor consented to the Six Articles.[292]
The parliament at the same time conferred on the king unlimited powers. A bill was carried purporting that some having by their disobedience shown that they did not well understand what a king can do by virtue of his royal power, it was decreed that every proclamation of his majesty, even when inflicting fines and penalties, should have the same force as an act of parliament. Truth had already been sacrificed, and liberty was to be the next victim.
Latimer, bishop of Worcester, did more than Cranmer. On July 1, eight days after the close of the session, he resigned his bishopric, and his heart leaped for joy as he laid aside his episcopal vestments. 'Now I am rid of a heavy burden,' he said, 'and never did my shoulders feel so light.' One of his former colleagues having expressed his surprise, he replied: 'I am resolved to be guided only by the Book of God, and sooner than depart one jot from that, let me be trampled under the feet of wild horses!' He now withdrew into the country, intending to lead there a quiet life. He took care of his flowers and gathered his fruit. Having had a fall from a tree, he found it necessary to return to London for the purpose of procuring surgical attendance. When the government was informed of this, orders were given to arrest and commit him to the Tower, and there he remained till the king's death. Shaxton, bishop of Salisbury, likewise resigned his see, on what grounds we do not know. Under Queen Mary he became a violent persecutor. Many evangelical Christians quitted England, and among them especially to be noted are Hooper, Rogers, and John Butler.[293] Cranmer remained in his archiepiscopal palace at Lambeth; but he sent away his wife and children to his wife's relations in Germany.
This want of fidelity on Cranmer's part is only explicable on the ground of the efforts made by Henry VIII. to retain him. On the day of the prorogation of parliament, June 28, 1539, Henry, fearing lest the archbishop, disheartened and distrusted, should offer to him his resignation, sent for him, and, receiving him with all the graciousness of manner which he knew so well how to assume when he wished, said: 'I have heard with what force and learning you opposed the Six Articles. Pray state your arguments in writing, and deliver the statement to me.' Nor was this all that Henry did. Desirous that all men, and particularly the adherents of Anglo-Catholicism should know the esteem which he felt for the primate, he commanded the leader of this party, the duke of Norfolk, his brother-in-law, the duke of Suffolk, Norfolk's rival, Lord Cromwell, and several other lords to dine the next day with the archbishop at Lambeth. You will assure him, he said, of my sincere affection, and you will add that although his arguments did not convince the parliament, they displayed much wisdom and learning.
[Sidenote: THE KING AND THE PRIMATE.]
The company, according to the king's request, arrived at the archbishop's palace, and Cranmer gave his guests an honorable reception. The latter executed the king's commission, adding that he must not be disheartened although the parliament had come to a decision contrary to his opinion. Cranmer replied that 'he was obliged to his majesty for his good affection, and to the lords for the pains they have taken.' Then he added resolutely: 'I have hope in God that hereafter my allegations and authorities will take place, to the glory of God and commodity of the realm.' They sat down to table. Every guest apparently did his best to make himself agreeable to the primate. 'My lord of Canterbury,' said Cromwell, 'you are most happy of all men; for you may do and speak what you list, and, say what all men can against you, the king will never believe one word to detriment or hindrance.' The meal, however, did not pass altogether so smoothly. The king had brought together, in Cromwell and Norfolk, the most heterogeneous elements; and the feast of peace was disturbed by a sudden explosion. Cromwell, continuing his praises, instituted a parallel between Cardinal Wolsey and the archbishop of Canterbury. 'The cardinal,' he said, 'lost his friends by his haughtiness and pride; while you gain over your enemies by your kindliness and your meekness.' 'You must be well aware of that, my lord Cromwell,' said the duke of Norfolk, 'for the cardinal was your master.' Cromwell, stung by these words, acknowledged the obligations under which he lay to the cardinal, but added; 'I was never so far in love with him as to have waited upon him to Rome if he had been chosen pope, as I understand, my lord duke, that you would have done.' Norfolk denied this. But Cromwell persisted in his assertion, and even specified a considerable sum which the duke was to receive for his services as admiral to the new pope, and for conducting him to Rome. The duke, no longer restraining himself, swore with great oaths that Cromwell was a liar. The two speakers, forgetting that they were attending a feast of peace, became more and more excited and did not spare hard words. Cranmer interposed to pacify them. But from this time these two powerful ministers of the king swore deadly hatred to each other. One or other of them must needs fall.[294]
[Sidenote: CRANMER'S TIME-SERVING.]
The king's course with respect to Cranmer is not so strange as it appears. Without Cranmer, he would have been under the necessity of choosing another primate, and what a task would that have been. Gardiner, indeed, was quite ready to take the post; but the king, although he sometimes listened to him, placed no confidence in him. Not only did it seem to Henry difficult to find any other man than Cranmer; but there was a further difficulty of appointing an archbishop in due form. Could it be done by the aid of the pope? Impossible. Without the pope? This too was very difficult. The priesthood would not concede such a power to the king, nor was it probable that they would accept his choice. The king foresaw troubles and conflicts without end. The best course was to keep the present primate, and this was the course adopted. Herein lay the security of the archbishop in the midst of the misfortunes and scenes of blood around him. He had made a declaration of his faith, and he did not withdraw from it. He hoped for better things, according to the advances which were made him. He believed that by keeping his post he might prevent many calamities. The Six Articles were a storm which must be allowed to blow over; and, in accordance with his character, he bowed his head while the wind blew in that direction.
The bloody statute was the cause of profound sorrow among the evangelical Christians. Some of them, more hasty than others, making use of the strong language of the time, asserted that the Six Articles had been written, not with Gardiner's ink, as people said, 'but with the blood of a dragon, or rather the claws of the Devil.'[295] They have been spoken of, even by Roman Catholics of our own age, as 'the enactments of this severe and barbarous statute.'[296] But the Catholics of that age rejoiced in them, and believed that it was all over with the Reformation. Commissioners were immediately named to execute this cruel law, and there was always a bishop among them. These commissioners, who sat in London, in Mercer's Chapel, formerly a dwelling house and the place of Becket's birth,[297] even exaggerated the harshness of the Six Articles. Fifteen days had not elapsed before five hundred persons were imprisoned, some for having read the Bible, others for their posture at church. The greatest zeal was displayed by Norfolk among the lords temporal, and by Stokesley, Gardiner, and Tonstall among the lords spiritual. Their aim was to get a Book of Ceremonies, a strange farrago of Romish superstitions, adopted as the rule of worship.
The violent thunder-clap which had suddenly pealed over England, and occasioned so much trouble, was nowhere on the Continent more unexpected, nowhere excited a greater commotion than at Wittenberg. Bucer on one side, and several refugees arriving at Hamburg on the other, had made known this barbarous statute to the reformers, and had entreated the Protestants of Germany to interpose with Henry in behalf of their fellow-religionists. Luther, Melanchthon, Jonas, and Pomeranus met together, and were unanimous in their indignation. 'The king,' they said, 'knows perfectly well that our doctrine concerning the sacrament, the marriage of priests, and other analogous subjects, is true. How many books he has read on the subject! How many reports have been made to him by the most competent judges! He has even had a book translated, in which the whole matter is explained, and he makes use of this book every day in his prayers. Has he not heard and approved Latimer, Cranmer, and other pious divines? He has even censured the king of France for condemning this doctrine. And now he condemns it himself more harshly than the king or the pope. He makes laws like Nebuchadnezzar, and declares that he will put to death any one who does not observe them. Great sovereigns of our day are taking it into their heads to fashion for themselves religions which may turn to their own advantage, like Antiochus Epiphanes of old. I have power, says the king of England, to require that any one of my courtiers shall not marry so long as he intends to remain at court; for the same reason I have also power to forbid the marriage of priests. We are now entreated to address remonstrances to this prince. The Scriptures certainly teach us to endeavor to bring back the weak; but it requires that the proud who compound with their conscience should be left to go in their own way. It is clear that the king of England makes terms with conscience. He has already been warned, and has paid no attention; there is, therefore, no hope that he will listen to reason if he be warned anew. Consider, besides, what kind of men those are in whose hands he places himself. Look at Gardiner, who while exposing before all the nation his scandalous connections (liaisons) dares to assert that it is contrary to the law of God for a minister of God to have a lawful wife.'[298]
[Sidenote: EXCITEMENT IN GERMANY.]
Thus did the theologians of Wittenberg talk of the matter. Calvin thought with them, and he wrote, almost on the same day, that the king of England had distinctly shown his disposition by the impious edict which he had published.[299] The doctors of Wittenberg referred to the Elector; and the latter, to whom Henry VIII. had communicated the Six Articles, requested them to make one more attempt to influence the king. Melanchthon therefore wrote to him; and after an exordium in which he endeavored to prepare the mind of Henry, he said, 'What affects and afflicts me is not only the danger of those who hold the same faith as we do; but it is to see you making yourself the instrument of the impiety and cruelty of others; that the doctrine of Christ is set aside in your kingdom, superstitious rites perpetuated, and debauchery sanctioned; in a word, to see that the Roman antichrist is rejoicing in his heart because you take up arms on his side and against us, and is hoping, by means of your bishops, easily to recover what by wise counsel has been taken from him.' Melanchthon then combats the several articles and refutes the sophisms of the Catholic party on the subject. 'Illustrious king,' he continued, 'I am grieved at heart that you, while condemning the tyranny of the bishop of Rome, should undertake the defence of institutions which are the very sinews of his power. You are threatening the members of Jesus Christ with the most atrocious punishments, and you are putting out the light of evangelical truth which was beginning to shine in your churches. Sire, this is not the way to put away antichrist, this is establishing him ... this is confirmation of his idolatry, his errors, his cruelty, and his debaucheries.
'I implore you, therefore, to alter the decree of your bishops. Let the prayers offered up to God by so many pious souls throughout the world, for the true reformation of the Church, for the suppression of impious rites, and for the propagation of the Gospel, move you. Do justice to those pious men who are now in prison for the Lord's sake. If you do this, your great clemency will be praised by posterity as long as learning exists. Behold how Jesus Christ wandered about from place to place. He was hungry, he was thirsty, naked and bound; he complained of the raging of the priests, of the unjust cruelty of kings; he commands that the members of his body should not be torn in pieces, and that his Gospel should be honored. It is the duty of a pious king to receive this Gospel and to watch over it. By doing so, you will be rendering to God acceptable worship.'[300]
Had these eloquent exhortations any influence on Henry VIII.? On a former occasion he had shown himself rather provoked than pleased by letters of the reformer.[301] However, after the loud peal of thunder which had alarmed evangelical Christians in every part of Europe, the horizon cleared a little, and the future looked less threatening.
There was one point on which Henry did incline rather to Cranmer's side; this was auricular confession. Perhaps he dreaded it on political grounds. Now the bishops were urgent for its universal adoption, and Tonstall wrote to the king on the subject. Henry rejected his demand and called him a self-willed man. He seemed thus to draw towards reconciliation with his primate. Nor was this all. A bill had passed withdrawing heretics from the jurisdiction of the bishops, and subjecting them to the secular courts. The chancellor, supported by Cranmer, Cromwell, and Suffolk, and with the sanction of the king, set at liberty the five hundred persons who had been committed to prison. The thunderbolt had indeed trenched the seas, but nobody was hurt--at least for the moment.[302]
[Sidenote: THE MOCK SEA-FIGHT.]
Henry resorted to other means for the purpose of reassuring those who imagined that the pope was already re-established in England. He exhibited to the citizens of London the spectacle of one of those sea-fights, on which the ancient Romans used to lavish such enormous sums. Two galleys, one of them decorated with the royal ensigns, the other with the papal arms, appeared on the Thames, and a naval combat began. The two crews attacked each other; the struggle was sharp and obstinate; at length the soldiers of the king boarded the enemy and threw into the water amidst the shouts of the people an effigy of the pope and images of several cardinals. The pontifical phantom, seized by bold hands, was dragged through the streets; it was hung, drowned, and burnt.[303] It would have been better for the king to let alone such puerile and vulgar sports, which pleased none but the mob, and to give more serious proofs of his attachment to the Gospel.
IV. HENRY VIII. AND ANNE OF CLEVES
(1539-1540.)
At the period which we have now reached, Henry VIII. displayed in a more and more marked manner that autocratic disposition which submits to no control. He lifted up or cast down; he crowned men with honors or sent them to the scaffold. He pronounced things white or black as suited him, and there was no other rule but his own absolute and arbitrary power. A simple and modest princess was one of the first to learn by experience that he was a despot in his family as well as in church and state.
[Sidenote: ANNE OF CLEVES.]
Henry had now been a widower for two years--a widower against his will; for immediately after the death of Jane Seymour he had sought in almost all quarters for a wife, but he had failed. The two great Continental sovereigns had just been reconciled with each other, and the emperor had even cast a slight upon the king of England in the affair of the duchess of Milan. Henry was therefore now desirous of contracting a marriage which should give offence to Charles, and should at the same time win for himself allies among the enemies of that potentate. Cromwell, for his part, felt the ground tremble under his feet; Norfolk and Gardiner had confirmed their triumph by getting the Six Articles passed. The vicegerent was therefore aiming to strengthen at once his own position and that of the Reformation, both of them impaired. Some have supposed it possible that his scheme was to unite the nations of the Germanic race, England, Germany, and the North, in support of the Reformation against the nations of the Latin race. We do not think that Cromwell went so far as this. A young Protestant princess, Anne, daughter of the duke of Cleves and sister-in-law of the elector of Saxony, who consequently possessed both the religious and the political qualifications looked for by the king and his minister, was proposed to Henry by his ambassadors on the Continent, and Cromwell immediately took the matter in hand. This union would bring the king of England into intimate relations with the Protestant princes, and would ensure, he thought, the triumph of the Reformation in England, for Henry's wives appeared to have great influence over him, at least so long as they were in favor. Henry was, however, seeking something more in his betrothed than diplomatic advantages. Cromwell knew this, and did not fail to make use of that argument. 'Every one praises the beauty of this lady,' he wrote to the king (March 18, 1539), 'and it is said that she surpasses all other women, even the duchess of Milan. She excels the latter both in the features of her countenance and in her whole figure as much as the golden sun excelleth the silver moon.[304] Her portrait shall be sent you. At the same time, every one speaks of her virtue, her chastity, her modesty, and the seriousness of her aspect.' The portrait of Anne, painted by Holbein, was presented to the king, and it gave him the idea of a lady not only very beautiful, but of tall and majestic stature. He was charmed and hesitated no longer. On September 16, the Count Palatine of the Rhine and other ambassadors of the elector of Saxony and the duke of Cleves arrived at Windsor. Cromwell having announced them to the king, the latter desired his minister to put all other matters out of his head, saving this only.[305] The affair was arranged, and the ambassadors on their departure received magnificent presents.
The princess, whose father was dead and had been succeeded by his son, left Cleves at the close of the year 1539, in severe winter weather. Her suite numbered two hundred and sixty-three persons, among them a great many seigneurs, thirteen trumpeters, and two hundred and twenty-eight horses. The earl of Southampton, Lord Howard, and four hundred other noblemen and gentlemen, arrayed in damask, satin, and velvet, went a mile out of Calais to escort her. The superb cortége entered the town, and came in sight of the English vessels decorated with a hundred banners of silk and gold, and the marines all under arms. As soon as the princess appeared the trumpets sounded, volleys of cannon succeeded each other, and so dense was the smoke that the members of the suite could no longer see each other. Every one was in admiration. After a repast provided by Southampton, there were jousts and tourneys. The progress of the princess being delayed by rough weather, Southampton, aware of the impatience of his master, felt it necessary to write to him to remember 'that neither the winds nor the seas obey the commands of men.' He added that 'the surpassing beauty of the princess did not fall short of what had been told him.' Anne was of simple character and timid disposition, and very desirous of pleasing the king; and she dreaded making her appearance at the famous and sumptuous court of Henry VIII. Southampton having called the next day to pay his respects to her, she invited him to play with her some game at cards which the king liked, with a view to her learning it and being able to play with his majesty. The earl took his seat at the card-table in company with Anne and Lord William Howard, while other courtiers stood behind the princess and taught her the game. 'I can assure your majesty,' wrote the courtier, 'that she plays with as much grace and dignity as any noble lady that I ever saw in my life.' Anne, resolved on serving her apprenticeship to the manners of the court, begged Southampton to return to sup with her, bringing with him some of the nobles, because she was 'much desirous to see the manner and fashion of Englishmen sitting at their meat.' The earl replied that this would be contrary to English custom; but at length he yielded to her wish.[306]
[Sidenote: HER ARRIVAL IN ENGLAND.]
As soon as the weather appeared more promising, the princess and her suite crossed the Channel and reached Dover, whence, in the midst of a violent storm, they proceeded to Canterbury. The archbishop, accompanied by five bishops, received Anne in his episcopal town, in a high wind and heavy rain; the princess appearing as if she might be the sun which was to disperse the fogs and the darkness of England, and to bring about there the triumph of evangelical light. Anne went on to Rochester, about half way between Canterbury and London. The king, unable to rest, eagerly longing to see his intended spouse, set out accompanied by his grand equerry, Sir Anthony Brown, and went incognito to Rochester.[307] He was announced, and entered the room in which the princess was; but no sooner had he crossed the threshold and seen Anne, than he stopped confused and troubled. Never had any man been more deceived in his expectation. His imagination--that mistress of error and of falsehood, as it has been called--had depicted to him a beauty full of majesty and grace; and one glance had dispersed all his dreams. Anne was good and well-meaning, but rather weak-minded. Her features were coarse; her brown complexion was not at all like roses and lilies; she was very corpulent, and her manners were awkward. Henry had exquisite good taste; he could appreciate beauties and defects, especially in the figure, the bearing, and the attire of a woman. Taste is not without its corresponding distaste. Instead of love, the king felt for Anne only repugnance and aversion. Struck with astonishment and alarm, he stood before her, amazed and silent. Moreover, any conversation would have been impossible, for Anne was not acquainted with English nor Henry with German. The betrothed couple could not even speak to each other. Henry left the room, not having courage even to offer to the princess the handsome present which he brought for her. He threw himself into his bark, and returned gloomy and pensive to Greenwich. 'He was woe,' he said to himself, 'that ever she came unto England.'[308] He deliberated with himself how to break it off. How could men in their senses have made him reports so false? He was glad, he said, that 'he had kept himself from making any pact of bond with her.' He thought that the matter was too far gone for him to break it off. 'It would drive the duke her brother into the emperor or French king's hands.' The inconvenience of a flattering portrait had never been so deeply felt. It is not to be doubted that if at this very moment the emperor and the king of France had not been together at Paris, Henry would have immediately sent back the unfortunate young lady.[309]
[Sidenote: HENRY'S DISAPPOINTMENT.]
Shortly after the king's arrival at Greenwich, Cromwell, the promoter of this unfortunate affair, presented himself to his majesty, not without fear, and inquired how he liked the lady Anne. The king replied,--'Nothing so well as she was spoken of. Had I known as much before as I do now, she should not have come within this realm.' Then, with a deep sigh, he exclaimed, 'What remedy?'[310] 'I know none,' said Cromwell, 'and I am very sorry therefor.' The agents of the king had given proof neither of intelligence nor of integrity in the matter. Hutton, who had written to Cromwell that the princess was not beautiful, and Southampton, who had had a good view of her at Calais, had both spoken to the king only of her beauty. On the following day Anne arrived at Greenwich; the king conducted her to the apartment assigned to her, and then retired to his own very melancholy and in an ill humor. Cromwell again presented himself. 'My lord,' said the king, 'say what they will, she is nothing so fair as she hath been reported ... howbeit, she is well and seemly.' 'By my faith, sir,' replied Cromwell, 'ye say truth; but I think she has a queenly manner.' 'Call together the council,' said Henry.
The princess made her entry into London in great pomp, and appeared at the palace. The court had heard of Henry's disappointment and was in consternation. 'Our king,' they said, 'could never marry such a queen.' In default of speech, music would have been a means of communication; it speaks and moves. Henry and his courtiers were passionately fond of it; but Anne did not know a single note. She knew nothing but the ordinary occupations of women. In vain did Cromwell venture to say to his master that she had, nevertheless, a portly and fine person. Henry's only thought was how to get rid of her. The marriage ceremony was deferred for a few days. The council took into consideration the question whether certain projects of union between Anne and the son of the duke of Lorraine did not form an obstacle to her marriage with Henry. But they found here no adequate ground of objection. 'I am not well treated,' the king said to Cromwell. Many were afraid of a rupture. The divorce between Henry and Catherine, the cruelty with which he had treated the innocent Anne Boleyn, had already given rise to so much discontent in Europe that people dreaded a fresh outbreak. The cup was bitter, but he must drink it. The 6th of January was positively fixed for the fatal nuptials. The king was heard the day before murmuring in a low tone with an accent of despair,--'It must be; it must be,' and presently after, 'I will put my neck under the yoke.' He determined to live in a becoming way with the queen. An insuperable antipathy filled his heart, but courteous words were on his lips. In the morning the king said to Cromwell,--'If it were not for the great preparations that my states and people have made for her, and for fear of making a ruffle in the world, and of driving her brother into the hands of the emperor and the French king's hands, being now together, I would never have married her.' Cromwell's position had been first shaken by his quarrel with Norfolk; it sustained a second shock from the king's disappointment. Henry blamed him for his misfortune, and Cromwell in vain laid the blame on Southampton.[311]
On January 6 the marriage ceremony was performed at Greenwich by the archbishop, with much solemnity but also with great mournfulness. Henry comforted himself for his misfortune by the thought that he should be allied with the Protestant princes against the emperor, if only they would consent somewhat to modify their doctrine. On the morrow Cromwell again asked him how he liked the queen. Worse than ever, replied the king. He continued however, to testify to his wife the respect due to her.
It was generally anticipated that this union would be favorable to the Reformation. Butler, in a letter to Bullinger at Zurich, wrote: 'The state and condition of that kingdom is much more sound and healthy since the marriage of the queen than it was before. She is an excellent woman, and one who fears God; great hopes are entertained of a very extensive propagation of the Gospel by her influence.' And in another letter he says: 'There is great hope that it [the kingdom] will ere long be in a much more healthy state; and this every good man is striving for in persevering prayer to God.'[312] Religious books were publicly offered for sale, and many faithful ministers, particularly Barnes, freely preached the truth with much power, and no one troubled them.[313] These good people were under a delusion. 'The king,' they said, 'who is exceedingly merciful, would willingly desire the promotion of the truth.'[314]
[Sidenote: FALLACIOUS HOPES.]
But the Protestantism of the king of England was displayed not so much in matters of faith as in public affairs. He showed much irritation against the emperor; and this gave rise to a characteristic conversation. Henry having instructed (January, 1540) his ambassador in the Netherlands, Sir Thomas Wyatt, to make certain representations and demands on various subjects which concerned his government, 'I shall not interfere,' drily replied the grand potentate. Wyatt having further made complaint that the English merchants in Spain were interfered with by the Inquisition, the emperor laconically answered that he knew nothing about it, and referred him to Granvella. Wyatt then having been so bold as to remark that the monarch answered him in an ungracious manner,[315] Charles interrupted him and said that he 'abused his words toward him.' But the ambassador, who meant exactly to carry out his master's orders, did not stop, but uttered the word ingratitude. Henry considered Charles ungrateful on the ground that he had greatly obliged him on one important occasion. In fact, the emperor Maximilian having offered to secure the empire for the king of England, the thought of encircling his brows with the crown of the Roman emperors inflamed the ardent imagination of the young prince, who was an enthusiast for the romantic traditions of the Middle Ages. But, after the death of Maximilian, the Germans decided in favor of Charles. The latter then came to England, and the two kings met. Not very much is known of what they said in their interview; but whatever it might be, Henry yielded, and he believed that to his generosity Charles was indebted for the empire. 'Ingratitude!' replied the emperor to the ambassador. 'From whom mean you to proceed that ingratitude?... I would ye knew I am not ingrate, and if the king your master hath done me a good turn I have done him as good or better. And I take it so, that I can not be toward him ingrate; the inferior may be ingrate to the greater. But peradventure because the language is not your natural tongue, ye may mistake the term.' 'Sir,' replied Wyatt, 'I do not know that I misdo in using the term that I am commanded.' The emperor was much moved. 'Monsieur l'ambassadeur,' he said, 'the king's opinions be not always the best.' 'My master,' Wyatt answered, 'is a prince to give reason to God and to the world sufficient in his opinions.' 'It may be,' Charles said coolly.[316] His intentions were evidently becoming more and more aggressive. Henry VIII. clearly perceived what his projects were. 'Remember,' said the king the same month to the duke of Norfolk, whom he had sent as envoy extraordinary to France, 'that Charles has it in his head to bring Christendom to a monarchy.[317] For if he be persuaded that he is a superior to all kings, then it is not to be doubted that he will by all ways and means ... cause all those whom he so reputeth for his inferiors to acknowledge his superiority in such sort as their estates should easily be altered at his arbitre.' These words show that Henry possessed more political good sense than was usually attributed to him; but they are not exactly a proof of his evangelical zeal.
[Sidenote: THE SAXON AMBASSADORS.]
He did something, however, in this direction. Representatives of the elector of Saxony and the landgrave of Hesse had accompanied Anne of Cleves to England. Henry received them kindly and entertained them magnificently; he succeeded so well in dazzling them by his converse and his manners, that these grave ambassadors sent word to their masters how the nuptials of his majesty had been celebrated under joyful and sacred auspices.[318] Nevertheless, they did not conceal from Henry VIII. that the elector and the landgrave 'had been thrown into consternation, as well as many others, by an atrocious decree, the result of the artifices of certain bishops, partisans of Roman impiety.' Thereupon the king, who wished by all means to gain over the evangelical princes, declared to their representatives 'that his wisdom should soften the harshness of the decree, that he would even suspend its execution, and that there was nothing in the world that he more desired than to see the true doctrine of Christ shine in all churches,[319] and that he was determined always to set heavenly truth before the tradition of men.' In consequence of these statements of the king the Wittenberg theologians sent to him some evangelical articles, to which they requested his adherence, and which were entirely opposed to those of Gardiner.[320] We shall presently see how Henry proceeded to fulfil his promises.
Cromwell was anxious to take advantage of these declarations to get the Gospel preached, and he knew men capable of preaching it. He relied most of all on Barnes, who had returned to England with the most flattering testimonials from the Wittenberg reformers, and even from the elector of Saxony and the king of Denmark. Barnes had been employed by Henry in the negotiation of his marriage with Anne of Cleves, and had thus contributed to this union, a circumstance which did not greatly recommend him to the king. There were, besides, Garret, curate of All Saints' Church, in Honey-lane, of whom we have elsewhere spoken;[321] Jerome, rector of Stepney, and others. Bonner, who on his return from France was elected bishop of London, and who was afterwards a zealous persecutor, designated these three evangelical ministers to preach at Paul's Cross during Lent in 1540. Bonner, perhaps, still wished to curry favor with Cromwell; or perhaps these preachers had been complained of, and the king wished to put them to the test.[322] Barnes was to preach the first Sunday (Feb 14); but Gardiner, foreboding danger, wished to prevent him, and consequently sent word to Bonner that he should that day preach himself. Barnes resigned the pulpit to this powerful prelate, who, well aware what doctrine the three evangelicals would proclaim at St. Paul's, was determined to prevent them, and craftily to stir up prejudices against the innovators and their innovations. Confutation beforehand, he thought, is more useful than afterwards. It is better to be first than second; better to prevent evils than to cure them. He displayed some ingenuity and wit. Many persons were attracted by the notion that the Reformation was a progress and advance. He alleged that it was the contrary; and, taking for his text the words addressed to Jesus by the tempter on the pinnacle of the temple, Cast thyself down, he said: 'Nowadays the devil tempteth the world and biddeth them to cast themselves backward. There is no forward in the new teaching, but all backward. Now the devil teacheth, Come back from fasting, come back from praying, come back from confession, come back from weeping for thy sins; and all is backward, insomuch that men must now learn to say their Pater-Noster backward.'[323] The bishop of Winchester censured with especial severity the evangelical preachers, on the ground that they taught the remission of sins through faith and not by works. Of old, he said, heaven was sold at Rome for a little money; now that we have done with all that trumpery the devil hath invented another--he offers us heaven for nothing. A living faith which unites us to the Saviour was counted as nothing by Gardiner.
[Sidenote: BOLDNESS OF BARNES.]
On the following Sunday Barnes preached. The lord-mayor and Gardiner, side by side, and many other reporters, says the Chronicle, were present at the service. The preacher vigorously defended the doctrine attacked by the bishop; but unfortunately, he indulged, like him, in attempts at wit, and even in a play upon his name, complaining of the gardener who would not take away the tares from the garden of the Lord. This punning would anywhere have been offensive; it was doubly offensive in the pulpit in the presence of the bishop himself. 'Punning,' says one, 'the poorest kind of would-be wit.' Barnes, however, appears to have been conscious of his fault; for before he closed his discourse he humbly begged Gardiner, in the presence of all his hearers, to lift up his hand, if he forgave him. Gardiner lifted up only a finger. Garret preached energetically the next Sunday; but he studiously avoided offending any one. Lastly, Jerome preached, and taking up the passage relating to Sarah and Hagar in the epistle of St. Paul to the Galatians, maintained that all those who are born of Sarah, the lawful wife, that is, who have been regenerated by faith, are fully and positively justified.[324]
Bishop Gardiner and his friends lost no time in complaining to the king of the 'intolerable arrogance of Barnes.' 'A prelate of the kingdom to be thus insulted at Paul's Cross!' said the former ambassador to France. Henry sent for the culprit to his cabinet. Barnes confessed that he had forgotten himself, and promised to be on his guard against such rash speeches in future. Jerome and Garret likewise were reprimanded; and the king commanded the three evangelists to read in public on the following Sunday, at the solemn Easter service celebrated in the church of St. Mary's Hospital, a retractation which was delivered to them in writing. They felt bound to submit unreservedly to the commands of the king. Barnes, therefore, when the 4th of April was come, ascended the pulpit and read word for word the official paper which he had received. After this, turning to the bishop of Winchester, who was present by order of the king, he earnestly and respectfully begged his pardon. Having thus discharged, as he believed, his duty, first as a subject, then as a Christian, he felt bound to discharge also that of a minister of God. He therefore preached powerfully the doctrine of salvation by grace, the very doctrine for which he was persecuted. The lord-mayor, who was sitting by Gardiner's side, turned to the bishop and asked him whether he should send him from the pulpit to ward for that his bold preaching contrary to his retractation.[325] Garret and Jerome having followed the example of Barnes, the king gave orders that the three evangelists should be taken and confined in the Tower. 'Three of our best ministers,' wrote Butler to Bullinger, 'are confined in the Tower of London. You may judge from this of our misfortunes.'[326]
[Sidenote: EDITIONS OF THE BIBLE.]
At the same time that Henry VIII. was imprisoning the ministers of God's Word, he was giving full liberty to the Word itself. It must be confessed that in his conflict with the pope he did make use of the Bible. He interpreted it, indeed, in his own way; but still he used it and helped to circulate it. This was a fact of importance for the Reformation in England. The first Bible named after Cranmer appeared at this time (April, 1540), with a preface by the archbishop, in which he called upon 'high and low, male and female, rich and poor, master and servant, to read it and to meditate upon it in their own houses.'[327] A magnificent copy on vellum was presented to the king. In the same month appeared another Bible, printed in smaller type; in July another great Bible; in November a third in folio, authorized by Henry VIII., 'supreme head of his church.' It would seem even that there was one more edition this year. At all events, the New Testament was printed.[328] The enemies of the Bible were in power. Nevertheless the Bible was gaining the victory; and the luminary which was to enlighten the world was beginning to shed abroad its light everywhere.
V. DISGRACE AND DEATH OF CROMWELL, EARL OF ESSEX
(1540.)
Eight days after the imprisonment of Barnes and his two friends (April 12, 1540), parliament opened for the first time without abbots or priors. Cromwell was thoughtful and uneasy; he saw everywhere occasions of alarm; he felt his position insecure. The statute of the Six Articles, the conviction which possessed his mind that the doctrines of the Middle Ages were regaining an indisputable ascendency over the king, the wrath of Norfolk, and Henry's ill-will on account of the queen whom Cromwell had chosen for him--these were the dark points which threatened his future. His friends were scattered or persecuted; his enemies were gathered about the throne. Henry, however, made no sign, but secretly meditated a violent blow. He concealed the game he was playing so that others, and especially Cromwell himself, should have no perception of it. The powerful minister, therefore, appeared in parliament, assuming a confident air, as the ever-powerful organ of the supreme will of the king. Henry VIII., the man of extremes, thought proper at this time to exhibit himself as an advocate of a middle course. The country is agitated by religious dissensions, said the vicegerent, his representative; and in his speech to the House he set forth on the one hand the rooted superstition and obstinate clinging to popery, and on the other thoughtless and impertinent and culpable rashness (referring doubtless to Barnes): that the king desired a union of the two parties; that he leaned to neither side; that he would equally repress the license of heretics and that of the papists, and that he 'set the pure and sincere doctrine of Christ before his eyes.'[329] These words of Cromwell were wise. Union in the truth is the great want of all ages. But Henry added his comment. He refused to turn to the right or to the left. He would not himself hold, nor did he intend to permit England to hold, any other doctrine than that prescribed by his own sovereign authority, sword in hand. Cromwell did not fail to let it be known by what method the king meant to bring about this union; he insisted on penalties against all who did not submit to the Bible and against those who put upon it a wrong interpretation. Henry intended to strike right and left with his vigorous lance. To carry out the scheme of union a commission was appointed, the result of which, after two years' labors, was a confused medley of truths and errors.[330]
[Sidenote: CROMWELL'S HONORS AND WEALTH.]
Strange to say, although Cromwell was now on the brink of an abyss, the king still heaped favors upon him. He was already chancellor of the Exchequer, first secretary of state, vicegerent and vicar-general of England in spiritual affairs, lord privy seal, and knight of the Garter; but he was now to see fresh honors added to all these. The earl of Essex had just died, and a week later died the earl of Oxford, who had been lord chamberlain. Hereupon Henry made Cromwell, 'the blacksmith's son,' whom Norfolk and the other nobles despised so heartily, earl of Essex and lord chamberlain, and had his name placed at the head of the roll of peers. Wealth was no more wanting to him than honors. He received a large portion of the property of the deceased lord Essex; the king conferred on him thirty manors taken from the suppressed monasteries; he owned great estates in eight counties; and he still continued to superintend the business of the crown. We might well ask how it came to pass that such a profusion of favors fell to his lot just at the time when the king was angry with him as the man who had given him Anne of Cleves for a wife; when the imprisonment of Barnes, his friend and confidential agent, greatly compromised him, and when, in addition to these things, Norfolk, Gardiner, and the whole Catholic party were striving to put down this parvenu, who offended them and stood in their way. Two answers may be given to this question. Henry was desirous that Cromwell should make a great effort to secure the assent of parliament to bills of a very extraordinary character but very advantageous to the king; and it was his hope that the titles under which Cromwell would appear before the houses would make success easier. Several contemporaries, however, assigned a different cause for these royal favors. 'Some persons now suspect,' wrote Hilles to Bullinger, 'that this was all an artifice, to make people conclude that he [Cromwell] must have been a most wicked traitor, and guilty of treason in every possible way; or else the king would never have executed one who was so dear to him, as was made manifest by the presents he had bestowed upon him.'[331] Besides, was it not the custom of the ancients to crown their victims with flowers before sacrificing them?
Henry was greedy of money, and was in want of it, for he spent it prodigally. He applied to Cromwell for it. The latter was aware that in making himself the king's instrument in this matter he was estranging from himself the mind of the nation; but he considered that a great sovereign must have great resources, and he was always willing to sacrifice himself for the king, for to him he owed every thing, and he loved him in spite of his faults. On April 23, four days after receiving from the king such extraordinary favors, Cromwell proposed to the house to suppress the Knights of St. John of Jerusalem, and urged that their estates, which were considerable, should be given to the king. This was agreed to by parliament. On May 3 he demanded for his majesty a subsidy of unparalleled character, namely, four tenths and fifteenths, in addition to ten per cent. on the rents of lands and five per cent. on the value of merchandise. This also he obtained. Next he went to the convocation of the clergy, and claimed from them two tenths and twenty per cent. on ecclesiastical revenues for two years. Again he succeeded. By May 8 the king had obtained through Cromwell's energy all that he wished for.
[Sidenote: THE KING'S LETTER TO HIM.]
On the very next day, Sunday, May 9, Cromwell received in his palace a note from the king thus worded:[332]
'HENRY R.
'By the King.
'Right trusty and well beloved cousin,--We greet you well; signifying unto you our pleasure and commandment is that forthwith, and upon the receipt of these our letters, setting all other affairs apart, ye do repair unto us, for the treaty of such great and weighty matters as whereupon doth consist the surety of our person, the preservation of our honor, and the tranquillity and quietness of you, and all other our loving and faithful subjects, like as at your arrival here ye shall more plainly perceive and understand. And that ye fail not hereof, as we specially trust you.
'Given under our signet, at our manor of Westminster, the 9th day of May.'
What could this urgent and mysterious note mean? Cromwell could not rest after reading it. 'The surety of our person, the preservation of our honor' are in question, said the king. We may imagine the agitation of his mind, his fears as to the result of the visit, and the state of perplexity in which, without losing a minute, he went in obedience to the king's command. We have no information as to what passed at this interview. Probably the minister supposed that he had justified himself in his master's sight. On the following day, Monday, the earl of Essex was present as usual in the House of Lords and introduced a bill. The day after, parliament was prorogued till May 25. What could be the reason for this? It has been supposed that Cromwell's enemies wished to gain the time needful for collecting evidence in support of the charges which they intended to bring against him. When the fifteen days had elapsed, parliament met again, and the earl of Essex was in his place on the first and following days. He was still in the assembly as minister of the king on June 10, on which day, at three o'clock, there was a meeting of the Privy Council. The duke of Norfolk, the earl of Essex, and the other members were quietly seated round the table, when the duke rose and accused Cromwell of high treason. Cromwell understood that Norfolk was acting under the sanction of the king, and he recollected the note of May 9. The lord chancellor arrested him and had him conducted to the Tower.[333]
[Sidenote: CHARGES AGAINST CROMWELL.]
Norfolk was more than ever in favor, for Henry, husband of Anne of Cleves, was at this time enamored of Norfolk's niece. He believed--and Gardiner, doubtless, did not fail to encourage the belief--that he must promptly take advantage of the extraordinary good-will which the king testified to him to overthrow the adversary of Anglican Catholicism, the powerful protector of the Bible and the Reformation. In the judgment of this party Cromwell was a heretic and a chief of heretics. This was the principal motive, and substantially the only motive, of the attack made on the earl of Essex. In a letter addressed at this time by the Council to Sir John Wallop,[334] ambassador at the court of France, a circular letter sent also to the principal officers and representatives of the king, the crime of which Cromwell was accused is distinctly set forth. 'The lord privy seal,' it was therein said, 'to whom the king's said majesty hath been so special good and gracious lord, neither remembering his duty herein to God, nor yet to his highness ... hath not only wrought clean contrary to this his grace's most godly intent, secretly and indirectly advancing the one of the extremes, and leaving the mean indifferent true and virtuous way which his majesty sought and so entirely desired; but also hath showed himself so fervently bent to the maintenance of that his outrage that he hath not spared most privily, most traitorously, to devise how to continue the same, and plainly in terms to say, as it hath been justified to his face by good witness, that if the king and all his realm would turn and vary from his opinions, he would fight in the field in his own person, with his sword in his hand, against him and all other; adding that if he lived a year or two he trusted to bring things to that frame that it should not lie in the king's power to resist or let it, if he would; binding his words with such oaths and making such gesture and demonstration with his arms, that it might well appear he had no less fixed in his heart than was uttered with his mouth. For the which apparent and most detestable treasons, and also for ... other enormities ... he is committed to the Tower of London, there to remain till it shall please his majesty to have him thereupon tried according to the order of his laws.' It was added that the king, remembering how men wanting the knowledge of the truth would speak diversely of the matter, desired them to declare and open the whole truth.
Nothing could be more at variance with the character and the whole life of Cromwell than the foolish sayings attributed to him. Every intelligent man might see that they were mere falsehoods invented by the Catholic party to hide its own criminal conduct. But at the same time it most clearly pointed out in this letter the real motive of the blow aimed at Cromwell, the first, true, efficient cause of his fall, the object which his enemies had in view and towards which they were working. They fancied that the overthrow of Cromwell would be the overthrow of the Reformation. Wallop did not fail to impart the information to the court to which he was accredited; and Henry VIII. was delighted to hear of 'the friendly rejoyce of our good brother the French king, the constable and others there,' on learning the arrest of the lord privy seal.[335] This rejoicing was very natural on the part of Francis I., Montmorency, and the rest of them.
[Sidenote: CRANMER'S PLEA FOR HIM.]
As soon as the arrest of June 10 was known, the majority of those who had most eagerly sought after the favor of Cromwell, and especially Bonner, bishop of London, immediately turned round and declared against him. He had gained no popularity by promoting the last bills passed to the king's advantage; and the news of his imprisonment was therefore received with shouts of joy.[336] In the midst of the general defection, one man alone remained faithful to the prisoner--this was Cranmer. The man who had formerly undertaken the defence of Anne Boleyn now came forward in defence of Cromwell. The archbishop did not attend the Privy Council on Thursday, June 10; but being in his place on the Friday, he heard that the earl of Essex had been arrested as a traitor. The tidings astonished and affected him deeply. He saw in Cromwell at this time not only his personal friend, not only the prudent and devoted supporter of the Reformation, but also the ablest minister and the most faithful servant of the king. He saw the danger to which he exposed himself by undertaking the defence of the prisoner; and he felt that it was his duty not recklessly to offend the king. He therefore wrote to him in a prudent manner, reminding him, nevertheless, energetically, of all that Cromwell had been. His letter to the king was written the day after he heard of the fall of the minister. 'I heard yesterday in your grace's council,' he says, 'that he [Cromwell] is a traitor; yet who can not be sorrowful and amazed that he should be a traitor against your majesty, he that was so advanced by your majesty; he whose surety was only by your majesty; he who loved your majesty (as I ever thought) no less than God; he who studied always to set forwards whatsoever was your majesty's will and pleasure; he that cared for no man's displeasure to serve your majesty; he that was such a servant, in my judgment, in wisdom, diligence, faithfulness, and experience, as no prince in this realm ever had; he that was so vigilant to preserve your majesty from all treasons that few could be so secretly conceived but he detected the same in the beginning? If the noble princes of memory, King John, Henry II., and Richard II. had had such a counsellor about them, I suppose that they should never have been so traitorously abandoned and overthrown as those good pious princes were.... I loved him as my friend, for so I took him to be; but I chiefly loved him for the love which I thought I saw him bear ever towards your grace, singularly above all other. But now, if he be a traitor, I am sorry that ever I loved him or trusted him, and I am very glad that his treason is discovered in time. But yet again I am very sorrowful, for who shall your grace trust hereafter, if you might not trust him? Alas! I bewail and lament your grace's chance herein, I wot not whom your grace may trust. But I pray God continually night and day to send such a counsellor in his place whom your grace may trust, and who for all his qualities can and will serve your grace like to him, and that will have so much solicitude and care to preserve your grace from all dangers as I ever thought he had.'[337]
Cranmer was doubtless a weak man; but assuredly it was a proof of some devotion to truth and justice, and of some boldness too, thus to plead the cause of the prisoner before a prince so absolute as Henry VIII., and even to express the wish that some efficient successor might be found. Lord Herbert of Cherbury thinks that Cranmer wrote to the king boldly; and this is also our opinion. The prince being intolerant of contradiction, this step of the archbishop was more than was needed to ruin him as well as Cromwell.
Meanwhile, the enemies of the prisoner were trying to find other grounds of accusation besides that which they had first brought forward. Indeed, it seemed to some persons a strange thing that he who, under Henry VIII. was head of the church, vicegerent in spiritual affairs, should be a heretic and a patron of heretics; and many found in this charge an 'occasion of merriment.'[338] They set to work, therefore, after the blow, to discover offences on the part of the accused. After taking great pains, this is what they discovered and set forth in the bill of attainder: 1. That he had set at liberty some prisoners suspected of treason; a crime indeed in the eyes of a gloomy despot, but in the judgment of righteous men an act of justice and virtue. 2. That he had granted freedom of export of corn, horses, and other articles of commerce; the crime of free trade which would be no crime now. Not a single instance can be specified in which Cromwell had received any present for such license. 3. That he had, though a low-born man, given places and orders, saying only that he was sure that the king would approve them. On this point Cromwell might reasonably allege the multiplicity of matters entrusted to his care, and the annoyance to which it must have subjected the king, had he continually troubled him to decide the most trifling questions. 4. That he had given permission, both to the king's subjects and to foreigners, to cross the sea 'without any search.' This intelligent minister appears to have aimed at an order of things less vexatious and more liberal than that established under Henry VIII., and in this respect he stood ahead of his age. 5. That he had made a large fortune, that he had lived in great state, and had not duly honored the nobility. There were not a few of the nobles who were far from being honorable, and this great worker had no liking for drones and idlers. With respect to his fortune, Cromwell incurred heavy expenses for the affairs of the realm. In many countries he kept well-paid agents, and the money which he had in his hands was spent more in state affairs than in satisfying his personal wishes. In all this there was evidently more to praise than to blame. But Cromwell had enemies who went further than his official accusers.[339] The Roman Catholics gave out that he had aspired to the hand of the king's daughter, the princess Mary. This would have been a strange and sympathetic union, between the Malleus monachorum and the fanatical Mary!
These groundless charges were followed by the true motives for his disgrace. It was alleged that he had adopted heretical (that is to say, evangelical) opinions; that he had promoted the circulation of heretical works; that he had settled in the realm many heretical ministers; and that he had caused men accused of heresy to be set at liberty. That when any one went to him to make complaint of detestable errors, he defended the heretics and severely censured the informers; and that in March last, persons having complained to him of the new preachers, he answered that 'their preaching was good.'[340] For these crimes, the acts of a Christian, honest and beneficent man, condemnation must be pronounced. Cromwell indeed was guilty.
[Sidenote: THE LEADER OF THE PROSECUTION.]
The conduct of the prosecution was entrusted to Richard Rich, formerly speaker of the House of Commons, now solicitor-general and chancellor of the court of augmentations. He had already rendered service to the king in the trials of Bishop Fisher and Sir Thomas More; the same might be expected of him in the trial of Cromwell. It appears that he accused Cromwell of being connected with Throgmorton,[341] the friend and agent of Cardinal Pole. Now the mere mention of Pole's name would put Henry out of temper. Cromwell's alliance with this friend of the pope was the pendant of his scheme of marriage with the lady Mary; the one was as probable as the other. Cromwell wrote from his prison to the king on the subject, and stoutly denied the fable. It was not introduced into the formal pleadings; but the charge was left vaguely impending over him, and it was reasserted that he was guilty of treason. Cromwell was certainly not faultless. He was above all a politician, and political interests had too much weight with him. He was the advocate of some vexatious and unjust measures, and he acted sometimes in opposition to his own principles. But his main fault was a too servile devotion to the prince who pretended that he had been betrayed by him; and of this he had given a lamentable proof in the case of Anne Boleyn.
His enemies were afraid that, if the trial were conducted openly before his peers according to law, he would make his voice heard and clear himself of all their imputations. They resolved therefore to proceed against him without trial, and without discussion, by the parliamentary method, by bill of attainder; a course pronounced by Roman Catholics themselves 'a most iniquitous measure.'[342] He ought to have been tried, and he was not tried. He was, however, confronted on Friday, June 11, the day after his arrest, with one of his accusers, and thus learnt what were the charges brought against him. Conducted again to the Tower, he became fully aware of the danger which was impending over him. The power of his enemies, Gardiner and Norfolk, the increasing disfavor of Anne of Cleves, which seemed inevitably to involve his own ruin, the proceedings instituted against Barnes and other evangelists, the anger of the king--all these things alarmed him and produced the conviction in his mind that the issue was doubtful, and that the danger was certain. He was in a state of great distress and deep melancholy; gloomy thoughts oppressed him, and his limbs trembled. The prison has been called the porch of the grave, and Cromwell indeed looked upon it as a grave. On June 30 he wrote to the king from his gloomy abode an affecting letter, 'with heavy heart and trembling hand,' as he himself said.
[Sidenote: EXAMINATION OF CROMWELL.]
About the end of June, the duke of Norfolk, the lord chancellor, and the lord high admiral went to the Tower, instructed to examine Cromwell and to make various declarations to him on the part of the king. The most important of these related to the marriage of Henry VIII. with Anne of Cleves. They called upon him to state all that he knew touching this marriage, 'as he might do before God on the dread day of judgment.' On June 30 Cromwell wrote to the king a letter in which he set forth what he knew on the subject; and he added: 'And this is all that I know, most gracious and most merciful sovereign lord, beseeching Almighty God ... to counsel you, preserve you, maintain you, remedy you, relieve and defend you, as may be most to your honor, with prosperity, health and comfort of your heart's desire ... [giving you] continuance of Nestor's years.... I am a most woeful prisoner, ready to take the death, when it shall please God and your majesty; and yet the frail flesh inciteth me continually to call to your grace for mercy and grace for mine offences: and thus Christ save, preserve, and keep you.
'Written at the Tower this Wednesday, the last day of June, with the heavy heart and trembling hand of your highness' most heavy and most miserable prisoner and poor slave,
'THOMAS CRUMWELL.'
After having signed the letter, Cromwell, overpowered with terror at his future prospects, added:--
'Most gracious prince, I cry for mercy, mercy, mercy.'[343]
The heads of the clerical party, impatient to be rid of an enemy whom they hated, hurried on the fatal decree. The Parliament met on Thursday, June 17, seven days after Cromwell's imprisonment; and Cranmer, who had attended the sittings of the House of Lords on the previous days, was not present on this occasion. The earl of Southampton, who had become lord keeper of the privy seal in Cromwell's place, entered and presented the bill of attainder against his predecessor. It was read a first time. The second and third readings followed on Saturday the 19th. Cranmer, whose absence had probably been noticed, was present; and, according to his lamentable system, adapted to the despotism of his master, after having complied with the dictate of his conscience by calling to mind the merits of Cromwell, he complied with the will of the king, and by his silence acquiesced in the proceedings of the House. The bill was sent to the lower House. It appears that the commons raised some scruples or objections, for the bill remained under consideration for ten days. It was not until June 29 that the commons sent the bill back to the peers, with some amendments; and the peers, ever in haste, ordered that the three readings should take place at the same sitting. They then sent it to the king, who gave his assent to it. The man who was prosecuted had been so powerful that it was feared lest he should regain his strength and begin to advance with fresh energy.
The king, meanwhile, seems to have hesitated. He was less decided than those who at this time enjoyed his favor.
Although the lord chancellor, the duke of Norfolk, and Lord Russell had come to announce to Cromwell that the bill of attainder had passed, he remained still a whole month in the Tower. The royal commissioners interrogated him at intervals on various subjects. It seems even that the king sent him relief, probably to mitigate the severities of his imprisonment. Cromwell habitually received the king's commissioners with dignity, and answered them with discretion. Whether the questions touched on temporal or ecclesiastical affairs, he ever showed himself better informed than his questioners.[344]
[Sidenote: HIS LETTER TO THE KING.]
Henry sent word to him that he might write any thing that he thought meet under his present circumstances. From this, Cromwell appears to have conceived a hope that the king would not permit his sentence to be executed. He took courage and wrote to the king. 'Most gracious king,' he said, 'your most lamentable servant and prisoner prostrate at the feet of your most excellent majesty, have heard your pleasure ... that I should write.... First, where I have been accused to your majesty of treason, to that I say, I never in all my life thought willingly to do that thing that might or should displease your majesty.... What labors, pains, and travails I have taken, according to my most bounden duty God also knoweth.... If it had been or were in my power, to make your majesty so puissant, as all the world should be compelled to obey you, Christ he knoweth I would,... for your majesty hath been... more like a dear father... than a master.... Should any faction or any affection to any point make me a traitor to your majesty, then all the devils in hell confound me, and the vengeance of God light upon me.... Yet our Lord, if it be his will, can do with me as he did with Susan, who was falsely accused.... Other hope than in God and your majesty I have not.... Amongst other things, most gracious sovereign, master comptroller shewed me that your grace shewed him that within these fourteen days ye committed a matter of great secresy, which I did reveal.... This I did.... I spake privily with her [the queen's] lord chamberlain... desiring him... to find some mean that the queen might be induced to order your grace pleasantly in her behavior towards you.... If I have offended your majesty therein, prostrate at your majesty's feet I most lowly ask mercy and pardon of your highness.... Written with the quaking hand and most sorrowful heart of your most sorrowful subject and most humble servant and prisoner, this Saturday at your [Tower] of London.
'THOMAS CROMWELL.'[345]
Cromwell was resigned to death; and the principal object of his concern was the fate of his son, his grandchildren, and likewise of his domestic servants. His son was in a good position, having married a sister of the queen Jane Seymour. 'Sir, upon my knees,' he said, 'I most humbly beseech your gracious majesty to be good and gracious lord to my poor son, the good and virtuous woman his wife, and their poor children, and also to my servants. And this I desire of your grace for Christ's sake.' The unhappy father, returning to his own case, finished by saying, 'Most gracious prince, mercy, mercy, mercy!'[346] Cromwell wrote twice in this manner; and the king was so much affected by the second of these letters that he 'commanded it thrice to be read to him.'[347]
Would Cromwell then, after all, escape? Those who were ignorant of what was passing at court looked upon it as impossible that he should be sacrificed so long as Anne of Cleves was queen of England. But the very circumstances which seemed to them the guarantee of his safety were to be instead the occasion of his ruin.
Henry's dislike to his wife was ever increasing, and he was determined to get rid of her. But, as usual, he concealed beneath flowers the weapon with which he was about to strike her. In the month of March, the king gave, in honor of the queen, a grand fête with a tournament, as he had done for Anne Boleyn; and amongst the numerous combatants, who took part in the jousting were Sir Thomas Seymour, the earl of Sussex, Harry Howard, and Richard Cromwell, nephew of the earl of Essex, and ancestor of the great Protector Oliver.[348]
[Sidenote: CATHERINE HOWARD.]
One circumstance contributed to hasten the decision of the king. There was at the court a young lady, small of stature, of a good figure and beautiful countenance, of ladylike manners, coquettish and forward, who at this time made a deep impression on Henry. This was Catherine Howard, a niece of the duke of Norfolk, now residing with her grandmother, the duchess-dowager, who allowed her great liberty. Katherine was in every respect a contrast to Anne of Cleves. Henry resolved to marry her, and for this purpose to get rid forthwith of his present wife. As he was desirous of being provisionally relieved of her presence, he persuaded her that a change of air would be very beneficial to her, and that it was necessary that she should make a stay in the country. On June 24 he sent the good princess, who felt grateful for his attentions, to Richmond. At the same time he despatched the bishop of Bath to her brother, the duke of Cleves, with a view to prepare him for the very unexpected decision which was impending over his sister, and to avert any vexatious consequences.[349]
Cromwell, then, had no aid to look for at the hands of a queen already forsaken and ere long repudiated. He could not hope to escape death. His enemies were urgent for the execution of the bill. They professed to have discovered a correspondence which he had carried on with the Protestant princes of Germany.[350]
Cromwell's determination to offer no opposition to the king led him to commit serious mistakes, unworthy of a Christian. Nevertheless, according to documents still extant, he died like a Christian. He was not the first, nor the last, who in the presence of death, of capital punishment, has examined himself, and confessed himself a sinner. While he spurned the accusations made by his enemies, he humbled himself before the weightier and more solemn accusations of his own conscience. How often had his own will been opposed to the commandments of the divine will! But at the same time he discovered in the Gospel the grace which he had but imperfectly known; and the doctrines which the Catholic church of the first ages had professed became dear to him.
On July 28, 1540, Cromwell was taken to Tower Hill, the place of execution. On reaching the scaffold he said: 'I am come hither to die, and not to purge myself.... For since the time that I have had years of discretion, I have lived a sinner and offended my Lord God, for the which I ask Him heartily forgiveness. And it is not unknown to many of you that I have been a great travailler in this world, and being but of a base degree, was called to high estate; and since the time I came thereunto I have offended my prince, for the which I ask him heartily forgiveness, and beseech you all to pray to God with me, that he will forgive me. O Father, forgive me! O Son, forgive me! O Holy Ghost, forgive me! O Three Persons in one God, forgive me!... I die in the Catholic faith.... I heartily desire you to pray for the king's grace, that he may long live with you in health and prosperity.'
By insisting in so marked a manner on the doctrine of the Trinity, professed in the fourth century by the councils of Nicaea and Constantinople, Cromwell doubtless intended to show that this was the Catholic doctrine in which he asserted that he died. But he did not omit to give evidence that his faith was that of the Scriptures.
[Sidenote: EXECUTION OF CROMWELL.]
After his confession, he knelt down, and at this solemn hour he uttered this Christian and fervent prayer:[351] 'O Lord Jesu! which art the only health of all men living and the everlasting life of them which die in thee, I, wretched sinner, do submit myself wholly unto thy most blessed will, and being sure that the thing can not perish which is committed unto thy mercy, willingly now I leave this frail and wicked flesh, in sure hope that thou wilt, in better wise, restore it to me again at the last day in the resurrection of the just. I beseech thee, most merciful Lord Jesus Christ! that thou wilt by thy grace make strong my soul against all temptations, and defend me with the buckler of thy mercy against all the assaults of the devil. I see and acknowledge that there is in myself no hope of salvation, but all my confidence, hope, and trust is in thy most merciful goodness. I have no merits nor good works which I may allege before thee. Of sins and evil works, alas! I see a great heap; but yet through thy mercy I trust to be in the number of them to whom thou wilt not impute their sins; but wilt take and accept me for righteous and just, and to be the inheritor of everlasting life. Thou, merciful Lord! wast born for my sake; thou didst suffer both hunger and thirst for my sake; thou didst teach, pray, and fast for my sake; all thy holy actions and works thou wroughtest for my sake; thou sufferedst most grievous pains and torments for my sake; finally, thou gavest thy most precious body and thy blood to be shed on the cross for my sake. Now, most merciful Saviour! let all these things profit me, that thou freely hast done for me, which hast given thyself also for me. Let thy blood cleanse and wash away the spots and foulness of my sins. Let thy righteousness hide and cover my unrighteousness. Let the merits of thy passion and blood-shedding be satisfaction for my sins. Give me, Lord! thy grace, that the faith of my salvation in thy blood waver not in me, but may ever be firm and constant; that the hope of thy mercy and life everlasting never decay in me: that love wax not cold in me. Finally, that the weakness of my flesh be not overcome with the fear of death. Grant me, merciful Saviour! that when death hath shut up the eyes of my body, yet the eyes of my soul may still behold and look upon thee; and when death hath taken away the use of my tongue, yet my heart may cry and say unto thee, "Lord! into thy hands I commend my soul; Lord Jesu! receive my spirit!" Amen.'[352]
This is one of the most beautiful prayers handed down to us in Christian times.
Cromwell having finished his prayer and being now ready, a stroke of the axe severed his head from his body.
Thus died a man who, although he had risen from the lowliest to the loftiest estate, never allowed himself to be seduced by pride, nor made giddy by the pomps of the world, who continued attached to his old acquaintances, and was eager to honor the meanest who had rendered him any service; a man who powerfully contributed to the establishment of Protestantism in England,[353] although his enemies, unaware of the very different meanings of the words 'Catholicism' and 'Popery,' took pleasure in circulating the report in Europe, after his death, that he died a Roman Catholic; a man who for eight years governed his country, the king, the parliament, and convocation; who had the direction of all domestic as well as foreign affairs; who executed what he had advised, and who, in spite of the blots which he himself lamented, was one of the most intelligent, most active, and most influential of English ministers.[354] It is said that the king ere long regretted him. However this may be, he protected his son and gave him proofs of his favor, doubtless in remembrance of his father.
Another nobleman, Walter, Lord Hungerford, was beheaded at the same time with Cromwell, for having endeavored to ascertain, by 'conjuring,' how long the king would live.[355]
VI. DIVORCE OF ANNE OF CLEVES
(1540.)
[Sidenote: ROME TRIUMPHANT.]
The Catholic party was triumphant. It had set aside the Protestant queen and sacrificed the Protestant minister; and it now proceeded to take measures of a less startling character, but which were a more direct attack on the very work of the Reformation. It thought proper to put to death some of those zealous men who were boldly preaching the pure Gospel, not only for the sake of getting rid of them, but even more for the purpose of terrifying those who were imitating them or who were willing to do so.
Of these men, Barnes, Garret, and Jerome were the most known. They were in prison; but Henry had hitherto scrupled about sacrificing men who preached a doctrine opposed to the pope. The party, moreover, united all their forces to bring about the fall of Cromwell, who had been confined within the same walls. After his death, the death of the preachers followed as a matter of course; it was merely the corollary; it was a natural consequence, and needed no special demonstration; the sentence, according to the Romish party, had only to be pronounced to be evidently justified. On these principles the king's council and the parliament proceeded; and two days after the execution of Cromwell, these three evangelists, without any public hearing, without knowing any cause of their condemnation, without receiving any communication whatsoever,[356] were taken out of prison, July 30, 1540, to be conducted to Smithfield, where they were to be deprived, not only of their ministry, but of their lives.
Henry, however, was not free from uneasiness. He had openly asserted that he leaned neither to one side nor to the other; that he weighed both parties in a just balance; and now, while he is boasting of his impartiality, every body persists in saying that he gives all the advantage to the papists. What is he to do in order to be just and impartial? Three papists must be found to be put to death at the same time with the evangelicals. Then nobody will venture to assert that the king does not hold the balance even. The measure shall be faultless and one of the glories of his reign. The three papists selected to be placed in the other scale bore the names of Abel, Powel, and Fetherstone. The first two were political pamphleteers who had supported the cause of Catherine of Aragon; and the third was, like them, an opponent of royal supremacy. It seems that in this matter the king also made allowance for the composition of his own council, which comprised both friends and enemies of the Reformation. Amongst the former were the archbishop of Canterbury, the duke of Suffolk, viscounts Beauchamp and Lisle, Russell, Paget, Sadler, and Audley. Amongst the latter were the bishops of Winchester and Durham, the duke of Norfolk, the earl of Southampton, Sir Antony Brown, Paulet, Baker, Richard, and Wingfield. There was therefore a majority of one against the Reformation, just enough to turn the scale. Henry, with a show of impartiality, assigned three victims to each of these parties. Preparations were made at the Tower for carrying out this equitable sentence. In the court-yard were three hurdles, of oblong shape, formed of branches of trees closely intertwined, on which the culprits were to be drawn to the place of execution. Why three only, as there were six condemned? The reason was soon to be seen. When the three prisoners of each side were brought out, they proceeded to lay one evangelical on the first hurdle, and by his side a papist, binding them properly to each other to keep them in this strange coupling. The same process was gone through with the second and the third hurdles;[357] they then set out, and the six prisoners were drawn two and two to Smithfield. Thus, in every street through which the procession passed, Henry VIII. proclaimed by this strange spectacle that his government was impartial, and condemned alike the two classes of divines and of doctrines.
[Sidenote: PAPIST AND PROTESTANT MARTYRS.]
The three hurdles reached Smithfield. Two and two, the prisoners were unbound, and the three evangelicals were conducted to the stake. No trial having been allowed them by the court, these upright and pious men felt it their duty to supply its place at the foot of the scaffold. The day of their death thus became for them the day of hearing. The tribunal was sitting and the assembly was large. Barnes was the first speaker. He said: 'I am come hither to be burned as a heretic.... God I take to record, I never (to my knowledge) taught any erroneous doctrine ... and I neither moved nor gave occasion of any insurrection.... I believe in the Holy and Blessed Trinity; ... and that this blessed Trinity sent down the second person, Jesus Christ, into the womb of the most blessed and purest Virgin Mary.... I believe that through his death he overcame sin, death and hell; and that there is none other satisfaction to the Father, but this his death and passion only.' At these words Barnes, deeply moved, raised his hands to heaven, and prayed God to forgive him his sins. This profession of faith did not satisfy the sheriff. Then some one asked him what he thought of praying to the saints. 'I believe,' answered Barnes, 'that they are worthy of all the honor that Scripture willeth them to have. But, I say, throughout all Scripture we are not commanded to pray to any saints.... If saints do pray for us, then I trust to pray for you within the next half-hour.' He was silent, and the sheriff said to him: 'Well, have you any thing more to say?' He answered: 'Have ye any articles against me for the which I am condemned?' The sheriff answered: 'No.' Barnes then put the question to the people whether any knew wherefore he died. No one answered. Then he resumed: 'They that have been the occasion of it I pray God forgive them, as I would be forgiven myself. And Doctor Stephen, bishop of Winchester that now is, if he have sought or wrought this my death, either by word or deed, I pray God forgive him.... I pray that God may give [the king] prosperity, and that he may long reign among you; and after him that godly prince Edward may so reign that he may finish those things that his father hath begun.'[358] Then collecting himself, Barnes addressed three requests to the sheriff, the prayer of a dying man. The first was that the king might employ the wealth of the abbeys which had been poured into the treasury in relieving his poor subjects who were in great need of it. The second was that marriage might be respected, and that men might not live in uncleanness. The third, that the name of God might not be taken in vain in abominable oaths. These prayers of a dying man, who was sent to the scaffold by Henry himself, ought to have produced some impression on the heart of the king. Jerome and Garret likewise addressed affecting exhortations to the people. After this, these three Christians uttered together their last prayer, shook hands with and embraced each other, and then meekly gave themselves up to the executioner. They were bound to the same stake, and breathed their last in patience and in faith.
On the same day, at the same hour, and at the same place where the three friends of the Gospel were burnt, the three followers of the pope, Abel, Fetherstone, and Powel were hung. A foreigner who was present exclaimed: 'Deus bone! quomodo hic vivunt gentes? Hic suspenduntur papistæ, illic comburuntur antipapistæ.' The simple-minded and ignorant asked what kind of religion people should have in England, seeing that both Romanism and Protestantism led to death. A courtier exclaimed: 'Verily, henceforth I will be of the king's religion, that is to say, of none at all!'[359]
[Sidenote: PROPOSED DIVORCE OF THE QUEEN.]
Cromwell and these six men were not to be the only objects of the king's displeasure. Even before they had undergone their sentence, the king had caused his divorce to be pronounced. In marrying Anne of Cleves, his chief object had been to form an alliance with the Protestants against the emperor. Now these two opponents were by this time reconciled with each other. Henry, therefore, deeply irritated, no longer hesitated to rid himself of the new queen. He was influenced, moreover, by another motive. He was smitten with the charms of another woman. However, as he dreaded the raillery, the censures, and even the calamities which the divorce might bring upon him, he was anxious not to appear as the originator of it, and should the accusation be made, to be able to repel it as a foul imposture without shadow of reality. He resolved, therefore, to adopt such a course that this strange proceeding should seem to have been imposed upon him. This intention he hinted to one of the lords in whom he had full confidence; and the latter made some communications about it, on July 3, to the Privy Council. On the 6th his majesty's ministers pointed out to the upper house the propriety of their humbly requesting the king, in conjunction with the lower house, that the convocation of the clergy might examine into his marriage with Anne of Cleves, and see whether it were valid. The lords adopted the proposal; and a commission consisting of the lord chancellor, the archbishop of Canterbury, and the dukes of Norfolk and Suffolk, presented it to the commons, who gave their assent to it. Consequently the whole House of Lords and a commission of twenty members of the lower house appeared before the king, and stated that the matter about which they had to confer with him was of such an important character that they must first request his permission to lay it before them. Henry, feigning utter ignorance of what they meant, commanded them to speak. They then said,--'We humbly pray your majesty to allow the validity of your marriage to be investigated by the convocation of the clergy; we attach all the more importance to this proceeding because the question bears upon the succession to the throne of your majesty.' It was well known that the king did not love Anne, and that he was even in love with another.[360] This is a striking instance of the degree of meanness to which Henry VIII. had reduced his parliament; for an assembly, even if some mean souls are to be found in it, undertakes not to be despicable, and what is noblest in it usually comes to the surface. But if the shameful compliances of the parliament astonish us, the audacious hypocrisy of Henry VIII. surprises us still more. He stood up to answer as if in the presence of the Deity; and concealing his real motives he said,--'There is nothing in the world more dear to me than the glory of God, the good of England, and the declaration of the truth.' All the actors in this comedy played their parts to perfection.[361] The king immediately sent to Richmond some of his councillors, amongst them Suffolk and Gardiner, to communicate to the queen the demand of the parliament and to ascertain her opinion with respect to it. After many long conferences, Anne gave her consent to the proposal.[362]
[Sidenote: EXAMINATION OF WITNESSES.]
The next day, July 7, the matter was brought before Convocation by Gardiner, bishop of Winchester, who was very anxious to see a Roman Catholic queen upon the throne of England. A committee was nominated for the purpose of examining the witnesses; and of this committee the bishop was a member. An autograph declaration of the king was produced, in which he dwelt strongly on the fact that he took such a dislike to Anne as soon as he saw her that he thought instantly of breaking off the match; that he never inwardly consented to the marriage, and that in fact it had never been consummated.[363] Within two days all the witnesses were heard. Henry was impatient; and the Roman party urgently appealed to the assembly to deliver a judgment which would rid England of a Protestant queen. Cranmer, out of fear or feebleness (he had just seen Cromwell lose his head), went with the rest of them. In his view the will of Henry VIII. was almost what destiny was for the ancients--
---- Des arrêts du destin l'ordre est invariable. ----
On July 9, Convocation, relying upon the two reasons given by the king, and upon the fact that there was something ambiguous in Anne's engagement with the son of the duke of Lorraine, decided that his majesty 'was at liberty to contract another marriage for the good of the realm.'[364] None of these reasons had any validity.[365] Nor did Henry escape the condemnation and the raillery which he had so much feared. 'It appears,' said Francis I., 'that over there they are pleased to do with their women as with their geldings,--bring a number of them together and make them trot, and then take the one which goes easiest.'[366]
[Sidenote: THE DIVORCE ACCEPTED.]
The archbishop of Canterbury on July 10 reported to the House of Lords that Convocation had declared the marriage null and void by virtue both of the law of God and of the law of England. The bishop of Winchester read the judgment and explained at length the grounds of it, and the house declared itself satisfied. The archbishop and the bishop made the same report to the Commons. On the following day--Henry did not intend that any time should be lost--the lord chancellor, the duke of Norfolk, the earl of Southampton, and the bishop of Winchester betook themselves to Richmond, whither the innocent queen had been sent for change of air, and informed her, on the king's behalf, of the proceedings of parliament and of Convocation. Anne was distressed by the communication. She had supposed that the clergy would acknowledge, as it was their duty to do, the validity of her marriage. However it may be, so sharp was the stroke that she fainted away.[367] The necessary care was bestowed on her, and she recovered, and gradually reconciled herself to the thought of submission to Henry's will. The delegates told her that the king, while requiring her to renounce the title of queen, conferred on her that of his adopted sister, and gave her precedence in rank of all the ladies of the court, immediately after the queen and the daughters of the king. Anne was modest; she did not think highly of herself, and had often felt that she was not made to be queen of England. She therefore submitted, and the same day, July 11, wrote to the king,--'Though this case must needs be most hard and sorrowful unto me, for the great love which I bear to your most noble person, yet having more regard to God and his truth than to any worldly affection, as it beseemed me ... I knowledge myself hereby to accept and approve the same [determination of the clergy] wholly and entirely putting myself, for my state and condition, to your highness's goodness and pleasure; most humbly beseeching your majesty ... to take me for one of your most humble servants.' She subscribed herself 'Your majesty's most humble sister and servant, Anne, daughter the Cleves.'[368]
The king sent word to her that he conferred on her a pension of three thousand pounds, and the palace at Richmond. Anne wrote to him again, July 16, to thank him for his great kindness, and at the same time sent him her ring.[369] She preferred--and herein she showed some pride--to remain in England, rather than to go home after such a disgrace had fallen upon her. 'I account God pleased,' she wrote to her brother, 'with what is done, and know myself to have suffered no wrong or injury.... I find the king's highness ... to be as a most kind, loving and friendly father and brother.... I am so well content and satisfied that I much desire my mother, you, and other mine allies so to understand it, accept and take it.'[370] Seldom has a woman carried self-renunciation to such a length.