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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of History of England from the Fall of Wolsey
+to the Death of Elizabeth. Vol. II., by James Anthony Froude
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: History of England from the Fall of Wolsey to the Death of Elizabeth. Vol. II.
+
+Author: James Anthony Froude
+
+Release Date: August 14, 2009 [EBook #29687]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HISTORY OF ENGLAND ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Paul Dring, Juliet Sutherland and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+  HISTORY OF ENGLAND
+
+  FROM
+
+  THE FALL OF WOLSEY
+
+  TO
+
+  THE DEATH OF ELIZABETH.
+
+  BY
+
+  JAMES ANTHONY FROUDE, M.A.
+
+  LATE FELLOW OF EXETER COLLEGE, OXFORD.
+
+  VOLUME II.
+
+  NEW YORK:
+  CHARLES SCRIBNER AND COMPANY.
+  1872.
+
+
+[Illustration:
+
+Charles Scribner and Co of No 654 Broadway New York have authority from
+me to publish all works which I have chiefly written and may hereafter
+write. J A Froude.
+
+London. Jan. 29. 1871.]
+
+
+
+
+  CONTENTS OF VOLUME II.
+
+
+  CHAPTER VI.
+
+  THE PROTESTANTS.
+
+                                                                PAGE
+
+  The Lollards                                                    16
+
+  Presentation to Religious Benefices in the Fourteenth Century   17
+
+  Statutes of Provisors                                           21
+
+  Rise of the Lollards                                            25
+
+  John Wycliffe                                                   26
+
+  Theory of Property                                              28
+
+  Insurrection of Wat Tyler                                       29
+
+  Wycliffe's Influence declines                                   30
+
+  Death of Wycliffe                                               31
+
+  Insurrection of Oldcastle                                       34
+
+  Close of the Lollard Movement                                   35
+
+  New Birth of Protestantism                                      37
+
+  The Christian Brothers                                          38
+
+  Luther                                                          39
+
+  Multiplication of Testaments                                    40
+
+  William Tyndal                                                  41
+
+  The Antwerp Printing-Press                                      42
+
+  The Christian Brothers                                          43
+
+  Wolsey's Persecutions                                           49
+
+  Story of Anthony Dalaber                                        57
+
+  Escape of Garret                                                69
+
+  Perplexity of the Authorities                                   70
+
+  The Ports are set for Garret's Capture                          71
+
+  Garret goes to Bristol, and is taken                            72
+
+  The Investigation at Oxford                                     73
+
+  Doctor London's Intercession                                    74
+
+  The Bishop of Lincoln                                           75
+
+  Oxford is Purged                                                76
+
+  Temper of the Protestants                                       77
+
+  The Fall of Wolsey brings no Relief                             78
+
+  Sir Thomas More as Chancellor                                   79
+
+  Contrast between Wolsey and More                                88
+
+  Martyrdom of Bilney                                             89
+
+  Martyrdom of James Bainham                                      90
+
+  Feelings of the People                                          92
+
+  Pavier the Town Clerk                                           93
+
+  The Worship of Relics                                           94
+
+  Roods and Relics                                                95
+
+  The Rood of Dovercourt                                          96
+
+  The Paladins                                                    97
+
+  Early Life of Latimer                                           98
+
+  He goes to Cambridge                                           100
+
+  Latimer's Education                                            101
+
+  His Fame as a Preacher                                         102
+
+  He is appointed Chaplain to the King                           103
+
+  His Defence of the Protestants                                 104
+
+  He is cited before the Bishops                                 105
+
+  Latimer before the Bishops                                     106
+
+  Thomas Cromwell                                                109
+
+  Will of Thomas Cromwell                                        116
+
+
+  CHAPTER VII.
+
+  THE LAST EFFORTS OF DIPLOMACY.
+
+  Mary of Hungary                                                125
+
+  The King is cited to Rome                                      127
+
+  Clement refuses further Delay                                  128
+
+  Isolation of England                                           129
+
+  Henry urgent against the Interview                             130
+
+  He appeals to a Council                                        132
+
+  Terms of the Appeal                                            134
+
+  Legal Value of the Appeal                                      136
+
+  Cranmer's Sentence known at Rome                               137
+
+  Measures of the Consistory                                     138
+
+  Henry again calls on Francis                                   140
+
+  He will not surrender his Marriage                             141
+
+  He will not repeal his Legislation                             142
+
+  He urges the Rupture of the Interview                          143
+
+  Recal of the Embassy                                           144
+
+  England and Germany                                            145
+
+  Birth of Elizabeth                                             149
+
+  Clement arrives at Marseilles                                  150
+
+  The Interview                                                  151
+
+  Bonner at Marseilles                                           152
+
+  Bonner and the Pope                                            153
+
+  The Pope rejects the Appeal                                    157
+
+  Proposal for a Court to sit at Cambray                         158
+
+  Francis implores Henry to consent                              159
+
+  Henry refuses to revoke the Laws against the Papacy            160
+
+  State of England                                               162
+
+  The Princess Mary                                              165
+
+  Queen Catherine                                                168
+
+  The Nun of Kent                                                170
+
+  State of Feeling in England                                    178
+
+  Proposed Marriage of the Princess Mary                         181
+
+  The Nun of Kent                                                183
+
+  Disgrace of Mary                                               184
+
+  The Countess of Salisbury                                      185
+
+  The Nevilles                                                   187
+
+  General Superstition                                           191
+
+  Proposals for a Protestant League used as a Menace to Francis  192
+
+  The Protestant League                                          194
+
+  The Court of Brussels                                          196
+
+  Meeting of Parliament                                          197
+
+  Perils of the Reformation                                      198
+
+  Cromwell                                                       199
+
+  Opening Measures                                               200
+
+  The Conge d'Elire                                              201
+
+  Abolition of Exactions                                         204
+
+  Closing Protest                                                205
+
+  Apology of Sir Thomas More accepted by the King                206
+
+  Obstinate Defence of Fisher                                    208
+
+  The Bill proceeds                                              209
+
+  Execution of the Nun                                           210
+
+  Her last Words                                                 211
+
+  The Act of Succession                                          212
+
+  The first Oath of Allegiance                                   216
+
+  Clement gives final Sentence against the King                  218
+
+  Obscurity of the Pope's Conduct                                222
+
+  Mission of the Duke of Guise                                   223
+
+  The French Fleet watch the Channel                             224
+
+  The Commission sits to receive the Oath                        225
+
+  More and Fisher                                                226
+
+  More before the Commission                                     227
+
+  He refuses to Swear                                            228
+
+  Debate in Council                                              229
+
+  The Government are peremptory                                  230
+
+  Concession not possible                                        231
+
+  Royal Proclamation                                             232
+
+  Circular to the Sheriffs                                       233
+
+  Death of Clement VII.                                          236
+
+
+  CHAPTER VIII.
+
+  THE IRISH REBELLION.
+
+  State of Ireland                                               237
+
+  The Norman Conquest                                            238
+
+  Absentees                                                      239
+
+  The Norman Irish                                               241
+
+  Weakness of the English Rule                                   248
+
+  Distribution of the Irish Clans                                249
+
+  The Irish Reaction                                             251
+
+  Condition of the People                                        253
+
+  English and Irish Estimates                                    254
+
+  Ireland for the Irish                                          255
+
+  Coyne and Livery                                               256
+
+  The Geraldines of Kildare                                      257
+
+  Deputation of Lord Surrey                                      261
+
+  Return of Kildare                                              265
+
+  Foreign Intrigues                                              266
+
+  Desmond intrigues with the Emperor                             267
+
+  Geraldine Conspiracy                                           268
+
+  Kildare sent to the Tower                                      270
+
+  The Irish Rise                                                 271
+
+  The Duke of Richmond Viceroy                                   272
+
+  Third Deputation to Kildare                                    273
+
+  Ireland in its Ideal State                                     274
+
+  New Aspects of Irish Rebellion                                 275
+
+  Ireland and the Papacy                                         276
+
+  Kildare is sent to the Tower                                   277
+
+  Desmond and the Emperor                                        278
+
+  Corny O'Brien                                                  279
+
+  The Holy War of the Geraldines                                 280
+
+  General Rebellion                                              281
+
+  Siege of Dublin                                                282
+
+  Murder of Archbishop Allen                                     284
+
+  Fitzgerald writes to the Pope                                  285
+
+  Dublin saved by the Earl of Ormond                             286
+
+  A Truce agreed to                                              287
+
+  Delay of the English Deputy                                    288
+
+  Ormond again saves Dublin                                      289
+
+  The Deputy sails from Beaumaris                                290
+
+  Mismanagement of Skeffington                                   291
+
+  Delay and Incapacity                                           292
+
+  Burning of Trim and Dunboyne                                   293
+
+  Skeffington will not move                                      294
+
+  General Despondency                                            295
+
+  Disorganization of the English Army                            296
+
+  The Campaign opens                                             297
+
+  Siege of Maynooth                                              298
+
+  Storming of the Castle                                         299
+
+  The Pardon of Maynooth                                         300
+
+  The Rebellion collapses                                        301
+
+  Lord Leonard Grey                                              302
+
+  Fitzgerald surrenders                                          303
+
+  Dilemma of the Government                                      304
+
+  Execution of Fitzgerald                                        305
+
+  End of the Rebellion                                           306
+
+
+  CHAPTER IX.
+
+  THE CATHOLIC MARTYRS.
+
+  State of England in 1534                                       307
+
+  Temper of the Clergy                                           308
+
+  Order for Preaching                                            310
+
+  Secret Disaffection among the Clergy                           312
+
+  The Confessional                                               313
+
+  Treasonable Intrigues                                          317
+
+  Catholic Treasons                                              318
+
+  Persecuting Laws against the Catholics                         319
+
+  The Act of Supremacy                                           322
+
+  The Oath of Allegiance                                         326
+
+  Election of Paul the Third                                     328
+
+  Anxiety of the Emperor                                         330
+
+  Proposals for a Catholic Coalition                             331
+
+  Counter-Overtures of Francis to Henry                          332
+
+  Attitude of Henry                                              333
+
+  Distrust of France                                             335
+
+  England and the Papacy                                         336
+
+  The Penal Laws                                                 337
+
+  The Battle of the Faiths                                       338
+
+  The Charterhouse Monks                                         339
+
+  The Anabaptist Martyrs                                         357
+
+  Fisher and More                                                359
+
+  Fisher named Cardinal                                          364
+
+  The Pope condescends to Falsehood                              365
+
+  Fisher Tried and Sentenced                                     366
+
+  Execution of Fisher                                            367
+
+  Sir Thomas More                                                368
+
+  Effect upon Europe                                             377
+
+  Letter to Cassalis                                             382
+
+  Reply of the Pope                                              385
+
+  Bull of Deposition                                             386
+
+  Intrigues of Francis in Germany                                388
+
+  England and Germany                                            390
+
+
+  CHAPTER X.
+
+  THE VISITATION OF THE MONASTERIES.
+
+  Visitation of the Monasteries                                  396
+
+  The Abbey of St. Albans                                        402
+
+  Commission of 1535                                             407
+
+  The Visitors at Oxford                                         409
+
+  Progress of the Visitors                                       413
+
+  Visit to Langden Abbey                                         415
+
+  Fountains Abbey                                                417
+
+  The Monks at Fordham                                           419
+
+  The Monks of Pershore                                          421
+
+  Rules to be observed in all Abbeys                             423
+
+  The Black Book in Parliament                                   427
+
+  Discussion in Parliament                                       429
+
+  Conflicting Opinions                                           431
+
+  Smaller Houses suppressed                                      433
+
+  The Protestant Bishops                                         435
+
+  State of London                                                437
+
+  The Vagrant Act                                                439
+
+  Remission of Firstfruits                                       440
+
+  Dissolution of Parliament                                      441
+
+  The Work accomplished by Parliament                            442
+
+
+  CHAPTER XI.
+
+  TRIAL AND DEATH OF ANNE BOLEYN.
+
+  Death of Queen Catherine                                       443
+
+  Anne Boleyn                                                    446
+
+  Anne Boleyn committed to the Tower                             454
+
+  The Tower                                                      457
+
+  Cranmer's Letter to the King                                   459
+
+  Cranmer's Postscript                                           461
+
+  Preparations for the Trial                                     468
+
+  True Bills found by the Grand Juries                           469
+
+  The Indictment                                                 470
+
+  The Trials                                                     476
+
+  The opposite Probabilities                                     480
+
+  Execution of the five Gentlemen                                483
+
+  The Divorce                                                    484
+
+  The Execution                                                  486
+
+  The Succession                                                 488
+
+  The King's Third Marriage                                      490
+
+  Opinions of Foreign Courts                                     491
+
+  Meeting of Parliament                                          492
+
+  Speech of the Lord Chancellor                                  493
+
+  Second Act of Succession                                       495
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+THE PROTESTANTS.
+
+
+Where changes are about to take place of great and enduring moment, a
+kind of prologue, on a small scale, sometimes anticipates the true
+opening of the drama; like the first drops which give notice of the
+coming storm, or as if the shadows of the reality were projected
+forwards into the future, and imitated in dumb show the movements of the
+real actors in the story.
+
+[Sidenote: Prelude to the Reformation in the fourteenth century.]
+
+Such a rehearsal of the English Reformation was witnessed at the close
+of the fourteenth century, confused, imperfect, disproportioned, to
+outward appearance barren of results; yet containing a representative of
+each one of the mixed forces by which that great change was ultimately
+effected, and foreshadowing even something of the course which it was to
+run.
+
+[Sidenote: The Lollards forerunners, not fathers, of the Reformation.]
+
+There was a quarrel with the pope upon the extent of the papal
+privileges; there were disputes between the laity and the
+clergy,--accompanied, as if involuntarily, by attacks on the sacramental
+system and the Catholic faith,--while innovation in doctrine was
+accompanied also with the tendency which characterized the extreme
+development of the later Protestants--towards political republicanism,
+the fifth monarchy, and community of goods. Some account of this
+movement must be given in this place, although it can be but a sketch
+only. "Lollardry"[1] has a history of its own; but it forms no proper
+part of the history of the Reformation. It was a separate phenomenon,
+provoked by the same causes which produced their true fruit at a later
+period; but it formed no portion of the stem on which those fruits
+ultimately grew. It was a prelude which was played out, and sank into
+silence, answering for the time no other end than to make the name of
+heretic odious in the ears of the English nation. In their recoil from
+their first failure, the people stamped their hatred of heterodoxy into
+their language; and in the word _miscreant_, misbeliever, as the synonym
+of the worst species of reprobate, they left an indelible record of the
+popular estimate of the followers of John Wycliffe.
+
+[Sidenote: Changes in the mode of presentation to bishopricks.]
+
+[Sidenote: Right of free election conceded in the great charter to the
+chapters and the religious houses.]
+
+The Lollard story opens with the disputes between the crown and the see
+of Rome on the presentation to English benefices. For the hundred and
+fifty years which succeeded the Conquest, the right of nominating the
+archbishops, the bishops, and the mitred abbots, had been claimed and
+exercised by the crown. On the passing of the great charter, the church
+had recovered its liberties, and the privilege of free election had been
+conceded by a special clause to the clergy. The practice which then
+became established was in accordance with the general spirit of the
+English constitution. On the vacancy of a see, the cathedral chapter
+applied to the crown for a conge d'elire. The application was a form;
+the consent was invariable. A bishop was then elected by a majority of
+suffrages; his name was submitted to the metropolitan, and by him to the
+pope. If the pope signified his approval, the election was complete;
+consecration followed; and the bishop having been furnished with his
+bulls of investiture, was presented to the king, and from him received
+"the temporalities" of his see. The mode in which the great abbots were
+chosen was precisely similar; the superiors of the orders to which the
+abbeys belonged were the channels of communication with the pope, in the
+place of the archbishops; but the elections in themselves were free, and
+were conducted in the same manner. The smaller church benefices, the
+small monasteries or parish churches, were in the hands of private
+patrons, lay or ecclesiastical; but in the case of each institution a
+reference was admitted, or was supposed to be admitted, to the court of
+Rome.
+
+[Sidenote: Privilege of the pope and of the superiors of the religious
+orders in controlling the elections.]
+
+[Sidenote: A.D. 1306-7.]
+
+There was thus in the pope's hand an authority of an indefinite kind,
+which it was presumed that his sacred office would forbid him to abuse,
+but which, however, if he so unfortunately pleased, he might abuse at
+his discretion. He had absolute power over every nomination to an
+English benefice; he might refuse his consent till such adequate
+reasons, material or spiritual, as he considered sufficient to induce
+him to acquiesce, had been submitted to his consideration. In the case
+of nominations to the religious houses, the superiors of the various
+orders residing abroad had equal facilities for obstructiveness; and the
+consequence of so large a confidence in the purity of the higher orders
+of the Church became visible in an act of parliament which it was found
+necessary to pass in 1306-7.[2]
+
+[Sidenote: Act to prevent the superiors resident abroad from laying
+taxes on the English houses.]
+
+"Of late," says this act, "it has come to the knowledge of the king, by
+the grievous complaint of the honourable persons, lords, and other
+noblemen of his realm, that whereas monasteries, priories, and other
+religious houses were founded to the honour and glory of God, and the
+advancement of holy church, by the king and his progenitors, and by the
+said noblemen and their ancestors; and a very great portion of lands and
+tenements have been given by them to the said monasteries, priories, and
+religious houses, and the religious men serving God in them; to the
+intent that clerks and laymen might be admitted in such houses, and that
+sick and feeble folk might be maintained, hospitality, almsgiving, and
+other charitable deeds might be done, and prayers be said for the souls
+of the founders and their heirs; the abbots, priors, and governors of
+the said houses, _and certain aliens their superiors_, as the abbots and
+priors of the Cistercians, the Premonstrants, the orders of Saint
+Augustine and of Saint Benedict, and many more of other religions and
+orders have at their own pleasure set divers heavy, unwonted heavy and
+importable tallages, payments, and impositions upon every of the said
+monasteries and houses subject unto them, in England, Ireland, Scotland,
+and Wales, without the privity of the king and his nobility, contrary to
+the laws and customs of the said realm; and thereby the number of
+religious persons being oppressed by such tallages, payments, and
+impositions, the service of God is diminished, alms are not given to the
+poor, the sick, and the feeble; the healths of the living and the souls
+of the dead be miserably defrauded; hospitality, almsgiving, and other
+godly deeds do cease; and so that which in times past was charitably
+given to godly uses and to the service of God, is now converted to an
+evil end, by permission whereof there groweth great scandal to the
+people." To provide against a continuance of these abuses, it was
+enacted that no "religious" persons should, under any pretence or form,
+send out of the kingdom any kind of rent, tax, or tallage; and that
+"priors aliens" should not presume to assess any payment, charge, or
+other burden whatever upon houses within the realm.[3]
+
+The language of this act was studiously guarded. The pope was not
+alluded to; the specific methods by which the extortion was practised
+were not explained; the tax upon presentations to benefices, either
+having not yet distinguished itself beyond other impositions, or the
+government trusting that a measure of this general kind might answer the
+desired end. Lucrative encroachments, however, do not yield so easily to
+treatment; nearly fifty years after it became necessary to reenact the
+same statute; and while recapitulating the provisions of it, the
+parliament found it desirable to point out more specifically the
+intention with which it was passed.
+
+The popes in the interval had absorbed in their turn from the heads of
+the religious orders, the privileges which by them had been extorted
+from the affiliated societies. Each English benefice had become the
+fountain of a rivulet which flowed into the Roman exchequer, or a
+property to be distributed as the private patronage of the Roman bishop:
+and the English parliament for the first time found itself in collision
+with the Father of Christendom.
+
+[Sidenote: Statute of provisors forbidding the attempts of the popes to
+present to benefices in England.]
+
+"The pope," says the fourth of the twenty-fifth of Edward III.,
+"accroaching to himself the signories of the benefices within the realm
+of England, doth give and grant the same to aliens which did never dwell
+in England, and to cardinals which could not dwell here, and to others
+as well aliens as denizens, whereby manifold inconveniences have
+ensued." "Not regarding" the statute of Edward I., he had also continued
+to present to bishopricks, abbeys, priories, and other valuable
+preferments: money in large quantities was carried out of the realm from
+the proceeds of these offices, and it was necessary to insist
+emphatically that the papal nominations should cease. They were made in
+violation of the law, and were conducted with simony so flagrant that
+English benefices were sold in the papal courts to any person who would
+pay for them, whether an Englishman or a stranger. It was therefore
+decreed that the elections to bishopricks should be free as in time
+past, that the rights of patrons should be preserved, and penalties of
+imprisonment, forfeiture, or outlawry, according to the complexion of
+the offence, should be attached to all impetration of benefices from
+Rome by purchase or otherwise.[4]
+
+[Sidenote: The statute fails, and is again enacted in fresh forms.]
+
+If statute law could have touched the evil, these enactments would have
+been sufficient for the purpose; but the influence of the popes in
+England was of that subtle kind which was not so readily defeated. The
+law was still defied, or still evaded; and the struggle continued till
+the close of the century, the legislature labouring patiently, but
+ineffectually, to confine with fresh enactments their ingenious
+adversary.[5]
+
+[Sidenote: The popes threaten the censures of the church.]
+
+[Sidenote: The parliament declares that to bring any such censures into
+the realm shall be punished with death and forfeiture.]
+
+At length symptoms appeared of an intention on the part of the popes to
+maintain their claims with spiritual censures, and the nation was
+obliged to resolve upon the course which, in the event of their
+resorting to that extremity, it would follow. The lay lords[6] and the
+House of Commons found no difficulty in arriving at a conclusion. They
+passed a fresh penal statute with prohibitions even more emphatically
+stringent, and decided that "if any man brought into this realm any
+sentence, summons, or excommunication, contrary to the effect of the
+statute, he should incur pain of life and members, with forfeiture of
+goods; and if any prelate made execution of such sentence, his
+temporalities should be taken from him, and should abide in the king's
+hands till redress was made."[7]
+
+[Sidenote: A "great council" addresses the pope, with a desire for an
+arrangement.]
+
+[Sidenote: The question is brought to an issue by the excommunication of
+the bishops.]
+
+So bold a measure threatened nothing less than open rupture. The act,
+however, seems to have been passed in haste, without determined
+consideration; and on second thoughts, it was held more prudent to
+attempt a milder course. The strength of the opposition to the papacy
+lay with the Commons.[8] When the session of parliament was over, a
+great council was summoned to reconsider what should be done, and an
+address was drawn up, and forwarded to Rome, with a request that the
+then reigning pope would devise some manner by which the difficulty
+could be arranged.[9] Boniface IX. replied with the same want of
+judgment which was shown afterwards on an analogous occasion by Clement
+VII. He disbelieved the danger; and daring the government to persevere,
+he granted a prebendal stall at Wells to an Italian cardinal, to which a
+presentation had been made already by the king. Opposing suits were
+instantly instituted between the claimants in the courts of the two
+countries. A decision was given in England in favour of the nominee of
+the king, and the bishops agreeing to support the crown were
+excommunicated.[10] The court of Rome had resolved to try the issue by a
+struggle of force, and the government had no alternative but to
+surrender at discretion, or to persevere at all hazards, and resist the
+usurpation.
+
+[Sidenote: A.D. 1392-3.]
+
+[Sidenote: The House of Commons declare that they will stand with the
+Crown to live and die,]
+
+[Sidenote: And desire the king to examine the lords spiritual and
+temporal how they will stand.]
+
+[Sidenote: The lay lords answer directly, and the spiritual lords
+indirectly, to the same effect with the Commons.]
+
+The proceedings on this occasion seem to have been unusual, and
+significant of the importance of the crisis. Parliament either was
+sitting at the time when the excommunication was issued, or else it was
+immediately assembled; and the House of Commons drew up, in the form of
+a petition to the king, a declaration of the circumstances which had
+occurred. After having stated generally the English law on the
+presentation to benefices, "Now of late," they added, "divers processes
+be made by his Holiness the Pope, and censures of excommunication upon
+certain bishops, because they have made execution of the judgments
+[given in the king's courts], to the open disherison of the crown;
+whereby, if remedy be not provided; the crown of England, which hath
+been so free at all times, that it has been in no earthly subjection,
+should be submitted to the pope; and the laws and statutes of the realm
+by him be defeated and avoided at his will, in perpetual destruction of
+the sovereignty of the king our lord, his crown, his regality, and all
+his realm." The Commons, therefore, on their part, declared, "That the
+things so attempted were clearly against the king's crown and his
+regality; used and approved or in the time of all his progenitors, and
+therefore they and all the liege commons of the realm would stand with
+their said lord the king, and his said crown, in the cases aforesaid, to
+live and die."[11] Whether they made allusion to the act of 1389 does
+not appear,--a measure passed under protest from one of the estates of
+the realm was possibly held unequal to meet the emergency,--at all
+events they would not rely upon it. For after this peremptory assertion
+of their own opinion, they desired the king, "and required him in the
+way of justice," to examine severally the lords spiritual and temporal
+how they thought, and how they would stand.[12] The examination was
+made, and the result was satisfactory. The lay lords replied without
+reservation that they would support the crown. The bishops (they were in
+a difficulty for which all allowance must be made) gave a cautious, but
+also a manly answer. They would not affirm, they said, that the pope had
+a right to excommunicate them in such cases, and they would not say that
+he had not. It was clear, however, that legal or illegal, such
+excommunication was against the privileges of the English crown, and
+therefore that, on the whole, they would and ought to be with the crown,
+_loialment_, like loyal subjects, as they were bound by their
+allegiance.[13]
+
+In this unusual and emphatic manner, the three estates agreed that the
+pope should be resisted; and an act passed "that all persons suing at
+the court of Rome, and obtaining thence any bulls, instruments,
+sentences of excommunication which touched the king, or were against
+him, his regality, or his realm, and they which brought the same within
+the realm, or received the same, or made thereof notification, or any
+other execution whatever, within the realm or without, they, their
+notaries, procurators, maintainers and abettors, fautors and
+counsellors, should be put out of the king's protection, and their lands
+and tenements, goods and chattels, be forfeited."
+
+[Sidenote: The pope yields.]
+
+The resolute attitude of the country terminated the struggle. Boniface
+prudently yielded, and for the moment, and indeed for ever under this
+especial form, the wave of papal encroachment was rolled back. The
+temper which had been roused in the contest might perhaps have carried
+the nation further. The liberties of the crown had been asserted
+successfully. The analogous liberties of the church might have
+followed; and other channels, too, might have been cut off, through
+which the papal exchequer fed itself on English blood. But at this
+crisis the anti-Roman policy was arrested in its course by another
+movement, which turned the current of suspicion, and frightened back the
+nation to conservatism.
+
+[Sidenote: Analogous agitation among the laity against the corruption of
+the clergy.]
+
+While the crown and the parliament had been engaged with the pope, the
+undulations of the dispute had penetrated down among the body of the
+people, and an agitation had been commenced or an analogous kind against
+the spiritual authorities at home. The parliament had lamented that the
+duties of the religious houses were left unfulfilled, in consequence of
+the extortions of their superiors abroad. The people, who were equally
+convinced of the neglect of duty, adopted an interpretation of the
+phenomenon less favourable to the clergy, and attributed it to the
+temptations of worldliness, and the self-indulgence generated by
+enormous wealth.
+
+[Sidenote: John Wycliffe.]
+
+This form of discontent found its exponent in John Wycliffe, the great
+forerunner of the Reformation, whose austere figure stands out above the
+crowd of notables in English history, with an outline not unlike that of
+another forerunner of a greater change.
+
+[Sidenote: His early career.]
+
+The early life of Wycliffe is obscure. Lewis, on the authority of
+Leland,[14] says that he was born near Richmond, in Yorkshire. Fuller,
+though with some hesitation, prefers Durham.[15] He emerges into
+distinct notice in 1360, ten years subsequent to the passing of the
+first Statute of Provisors, having then acquired a great Oxford
+reputation as a lecturer in divinity, and having earned for himself
+powerful friends and powerful enemies. He had made his name
+distinguished by attacks upon the clergy for their indolence and
+profligacy: attacks both written and orally delivered,--those, written,
+we observe, being written in English, not in Latin.[16] In 1365, Islip,
+Archbishop of Canterbury, appointed him Warden of Canterbury Hall; the
+appointment, however, was made with some irregularity, and the following
+year, Archbishop Islip dying, his successor, Langham, deprived Wycliffe,
+and the sentence was confirmed by the king. It seemed, nevertheless,
+that no personal reflection was intended by this decision, for Edward
+III. nominated the ex-warden one of his chaplains immediately after, and
+employed him on an important mission to Bruges, where a conference on
+the benefice question was to be held with a papal commission.
+
+Other church preferment was subsequently given to Wycliffe; but Oxford
+remained the chief scene of his work. He continued to hold his
+professorship of divinity; and from this office the character of his
+history took its complexion. At a time when books were rare and
+difficult to be procured, lecturers who had truth to communicate fresh
+drawn from the fountain, held an influence which in these days it is as
+difficult to imagine as, however, it is impossible to overrate. Students
+from all Europe flocked to the feet of a celebrated professor, who
+became the leader of a party by the mere fact of his position.
+
+[Sidenote: Simplicity of his life and habits.]
+
+[Sidenote: The poor priests.]
+
+[Sidenote: His doctrines.]
+
+[Sidenote: The translation of the Bible.]
+
+The burden of Wycliffe's teaching was the exposure of the indolent
+fictions which passed under the name of religion in the established
+theory of the church. He was a man of most simple life; austere in
+appearance, with bare feet and russet mantle.[17] As a soldier of
+Christ, he saw in his Great Master and his Apostles the patterns whom he
+was bound to imitate. By the contagion of example he gathered about him
+other men who thought as he did; and gradually, under his captaincy,
+these "poor priests," as they were called--vowed to poverty because
+Christ was poor--vowed to accept no benefice, lest they should misspend
+the property of the poor, and because, as apostles, they were bound to
+go where their Master called them,[18] spread out over the country as an
+army of missionaries, to preach the faith which they found in the
+Bible--to preach, not of relics and of indulgences, but of repentance
+and of the grace of God. They carried with them copies of the Bible
+which Wycliffe had translated, leaving here and there, as they
+travelled, their costly treasures, as shining seed points of light; and
+they refused to recognise the authority of the bishops, or their right
+to silence them.
+
+[Sidenote: He is protected by John of Gaunt.]
+
+If this had been all, and perhaps if Edward III. had been succeeded by a
+prince less miserably incapable than his grandson Richard, Wycliffe
+might have made good his ground; the movement of the parliament against
+the pope might have united in a common stream with the spiritual move
+against the church at home, and the Reformation have been antedated by a
+century. He was summoned to answer for himself before the Archbishop of
+Canterbury in 1377. He appeared in court supported by the presence of
+John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster, the eldest of Edward's surviving sons,
+and the authorities were unable to strike him behind so powerful a
+shield.
+
+[Sidenote: Theory that the laity had a right to deprive the clergy of
+their property.]
+
+But the "poor priests" had other doctrines besides those which they
+discovered in the Bible, relating to subjects with which, as apostles,
+they would have done better if they had shrunk from meddling. The
+inefficiency of the clergy was occasioned, as Wycliffe thought, by their
+wealth and by their luxury. He desired to save them from a temptation
+too heavy for them to bear, and he insisted that by neglect of duty
+their wealth had been forfeited, and that it was the business of the
+laity to take it from its unworthy possessors. The invectives with which
+the argument was accompanied produced a widely-spread irritation. The
+reins of the country fell simultaneously into the weak hands of Richard
+II., and the consequence was a rapid spread of disorder. In the year
+which followed Richard's accession, consistory judges were assaulted in
+their courts, sanctuaries were violated, priests were attacked and
+ill-treated in church, churchyard, and cathedral, and even while engaged
+in the mass;[19] the contagion of the growing anarchy seems to have
+touched even Wycliffe himself, and touched him in a point most deeply
+dangerous.
+
+[Sidenote: Tendencies to anabaptism.]
+
+[Sidenote: Theory of the tenure of property.]
+
+[Sidenote: Wat Tyler's insurrection.]
+
+[Sidenote: A mischievous comment on Wycliffe's teaching.]
+
+His theory of property, and his study of the character of Christ, had
+led him to the near confines of Anabaptism. Expanding his views upon the
+estates of the church into an axiom, he taught that "charters of
+perpetual inheritance were impossible;" "that God could not give men
+civil possessions for ever;"[20] "that property was founded in grace,
+and derived from God;" and "seeing that forfeiture was the punishment of
+treason, and all sin was treason against God, the sinner must
+consequently forfeit his right to what he held of God." These
+propositions were nakedly true, as we shall most of us allow; but God
+has his own methods of enforcing extreme principles; and human
+legislation may only meddle with them at its peril. The theory as an
+abstraction could be represented as applying equally to the laity as to
+the clergy, and the new teaching received a practical comment in 1381,
+in the invasion of London by Wat, the tyler of Dartford, and 100,000
+men, who were to level all ranks, put down the church, and establish
+universal liberty.[21] Two priests accompanied the insurgents, not
+Wycliffe's followers, but the licentious counterfeits of them, who trod
+inevitably in their footsteps, and were as inevitably countenanced by
+their doctrines. The insurrection was attended with the bloodshed,
+destruction, and ferocity natural to such outbreaks. The Archbishop of
+Canterbury and many gentlemen were murdered; and a great part of London
+sacked and burnt. It would be absurd to attribute this disaster to
+Wycliffe, nor was there any desire to hold him responsible for it; but
+it is equally certain that the doctrines which he had taught were
+incompatible, at that particular time, with an effective repression of
+the spirit which had caused the explosion. It is equally certain that he
+had brought discredit on his nobler efforts by ambiguous language on a
+subject of the utmost difficulty, and had taught the wiser and better
+portion of the people to confound heterodoxy of opinion with sedition,
+anarchy, and disorder.
+
+[Sidenote: Measure for the repression of the poor priests passed in the
+House of Lords.]
+
+[Sidenote: Rejected by the Commons at Wycliffe's petition.]
+
+So long as Wycliffe lived, his own lofty character was a guarantee for
+the conduct of his immediate disciples; and although his favour had far
+declined, a party in the state remained attached to him, with sufficient
+influence to prevent the adoption of extreme measures against the "poor
+priests." In the year following the insurrection, an act was passed for
+their repression in the House of Lords, and was sent down by the king to
+the Commons. They were spoken of as "evil persons," going from place to
+place in defiance of the bishops, preaching in the open air to great
+congregations at markets and fairs, "exciting the people," "engendering
+discord between the estates of the realm." The ordinaries had no power
+to silence them, and had therefore desired that commissions should be
+issued to the sheriffs of the various counties, to arrest all such
+persons, and confine them, until they would "justify themselves" in the
+ecclesiastical courts.[22] Wycliffe petitioned against the bill, and it
+was rejected; not so much perhaps out of tenderness for the reformer, as
+because the Lower House was excited by the controversy with the pope;
+and being doubtfully disposed towards the clergy, was reluctant to
+subject the people to a more stringent spiritual control.
+
+[Sidenote: Wycliffe's position, however, declines. He makes his
+submission,]
+
+[Sidenote: And dies Dec. 31, 1384.]
+
+But Wycliffe himself meanwhile had received a clear intimation of his
+own declining position. His opposition to the church authorities, and
+his efforts at reinvigorating the faith of the country, had led him into
+doubtful statements on the nature of the eucharist; he had entangled
+himself in dubious metaphysics on a subject on which no middle course is
+really possible; and being summoned to answer for his language before a
+synod in London, he had thrown himself again for protection on the Duke
+of Lancaster. The duke (not unnaturally under the circumstances)
+declined to encourage what he could neither approve nor understand;[23]
+and Wycliffe, by his great patron's advice, submitted. He read a
+confession of faith before the bishops, which was held satisfactory; he
+was forbidden, however, to preach again in Oxford, and retired to his
+living of Lutterworth, in Leicestershire, where two years later he died.
+
+[Sidenote: Wycliffe's followers continue unmolested till the revolution
+of 1400 when they fall under the ban as disturbers of order.]
+
+With him departed all which was best and purest in the movement which he
+had commenced. The zeal of his followers was not extinguished, but the
+wisdom was extinguished which had directed it; and perhaps the being
+treated as the enemies of order had itself a tendency to make them what
+they were believed to be. They were left unmolested for the next twenty
+years, the feebleness of the government, the angry complexion which had
+been assumed by the dispute with Rome, and the political anarchy in the
+closing decade of the century, combining to give them temporary shelter;
+but they availed themselves of their opportunity to travel further on
+the dangerous road on which they had entered; and on the settlement of
+the country under Henry IV. they fell under the general ban which struck
+down all parties who had shared in the late disturbances.
+
+[Sidenote: A.D. 1400-1.]
+
+They had been spared in 1382, only for more sharp denunciation, and a
+more cruel fate; and Boniface having healed, on his side, the wounds
+which had been opened, by well-timed concessions, then, was no reason
+left for leniency. The character of the Lollard teaching was thus
+described (perhaps in somewhat exaggerated language) in the preamble of
+the act of 1401.[24]
+
+[Sidenote: Act _de Heretico comburendo_.]
+
+[Sidenote: Political character of the teaching.]
+
+"Divers false and perverse people," so runs the act _De Heretico
+comburendo_, "of a certain new sect, damnably thinking of the faith of
+the sacraments of the church, and of the authority of the same, against
+the law of God and of the church, usurping the office of preaching, do
+perversely and maliciously, in divers places within the realm, preach
+and teach divers new doctrines, and wicked erroneous opinions, contrary
+to the faith and determination of Holy Church. And of such sect and
+wicked doctrines they make unlawful conventicles, they hold and exercise
+schools, they make and write books, they do wickedly instruct and inform
+people, and excite and stir them to sedition and insurrection, and make
+great strife and division among the people, and other enormities
+horrible to be heard, daily do perpetrate and commit. The diocesans
+cannot by their jurisdiction spiritual, without aid of the King's
+Majesty, sufficiently correct these said false and perverse people, nor
+refrain their malice, because they do go from diocese to diocese, and
+will not appear before the said diocesans; but the jurisdiction
+spiritual, the keys of the church, and the censures of the same, do
+utterly contemn and despise; and so their wicked preachings and
+doctrines they do from day to day continue and exercise, to the
+destruction of all order and rule, right and reason."
+
+Something of these violent accusations is perhaps due to the horror
+with which false doctrine in matters of faith was looked upon in the
+Catholic church, the grace by which alone an honest life was made
+possible being held to be dependent upon orthodoxy. But the Lollards had
+become political revolutionists as well as religious reformers; the
+revolt against the spiritual authority had encouraged and countenanced a
+revolt against the secular; and we cannot be surprised, therefore, that
+these institutions should have sympathized with each other, and have
+united to repress a danger which was formidable to both.
+
+[Sidenote: Power conferred upon the bishops of arresting _ex officio_.]
+
+[Sidenote: The stake and the orthodox faith.]
+
+The bishops, by this act, received arbitrary power to arrest and
+imprison on suspicion, without check or restraint of law, at their will
+and pleasure. Prisoners who refused to abjure their errors, who
+persisted in heresy, or relapsed into it after abjuration, were
+sentenced to be burnt at the stake,--a dreadful punishment, on the
+wickedness of which the world has long been happily agreed. Yet we must
+remember that those who condemned teachers of heresy to the flames,
+considered that heresy itself involved everlasting perdition; that they
+were but faintly imitating the severity which orthodoxy still ascribes
+to Almighty God Himself.
+
+[Sidenote: The Commons petition the Crown for a secularization of church
+property.]
+
+[Sidenote: Accession of Henry V.]
+
+The tide which was thus setting back in favour of the church did not
+yet, however, flow freely, and without a check. The Commons consented to
+sacrifice the heretics, but they still cast wistful looks on the lands
+of the religious houses. On two several occasions, in 1406, and again
+1410, spoliation was debated in the Lower House, and representations
+were made upon the subject to the king.[25] The country, too, continued
+to be agitated with war and treason; and when Henry V. became king, in
+1412, the church was still uneasy, and the Lollards were as dangerous as
+ever. Whether by prudent conduct they might have secured a repeal of the
+persecuting act is uncertain; it is more likely, from their conduct,
+that they had made their existence incompatible with the security of any
+tolerable government.
+
+[Sidenote: Insurrection of Sir John Oldcastle.]
+
+[Sidenote: Oldcastle tried and executed.]
+
+[Sidenote: Fresh act against heresy.]
+
+A rumour having gone abroad that the king intended to enforce the laws
+against heresy, notices were found fixed against the doors of the London
+churches, that if any such measure was attempted, a hundred thousand men
+would be in arms to oppose it. These papers were traced to Sir John
+Oldcastle, otherwise called Lord Cobham, a man whose true character is
+more difficult to distinguish, in the conflict of the evidence which has
+come down to us about him, than that of almost any noticeable person in
+history. He was perhaps no worse than a fanatic. He was certainly
+prepared, if we may trust the words of a royal proclamation (and Henry
+was personally intimate with Oldcastle, and otherwise was not likely to
+have exaggerated the charges against him), he was prepared to venture a
+rebellion, with the prospect of himself becoming the president of some
+possible Lollard commonwealth.[26] The king, with swift decisiveness,
+annihilated the incipient treason. Oldcastle was himself arrested. He
+escaped out of the Tower into Scotland; and while Henry was absent in
+France he seems to have attempted to organize some kind of Scotch
+invasion; but he was soon after again taken on the Welsh Border, tried
+and executed. An act which was passed in 1414 described his proceedings
+as an "attempt to destroy the king, and all other manner of estates of
+the realm as well spiritual as temporal, and also all manner of policy,
+and finally the laws of the land." The sedition was held to have
+originated in heresy, and for the better repression of such mischiefs in
+time to come, the lord chancellor, the judges, the justices of the
+peace, the sheriffs, mayors, bailiffs, and every other officer having
+government of people, were sworn on entering their office to use their
+best power and diligence to detect and prosecute all persons suspected
+of so heinous a crime.[27]
+
+[Sidenote: Final termination of the Lollard movement.]
+
+Thus perished Wycliffe's labour,--not wholly, because his translation of
+the Bible still remained a rare treasure; a seed of future life, which
+would spring again under happier circumstances. But the sect which he
+organized, the special doctrines which he set himself to teach, after a
+brief blaze of success, sank into darkness; and no trace remained of
+Lollardry except the black memory of contempt and hatred with which the
+heretics of the fourteenth century were remembered by the English
+people, long after the actual Reformation had become the law of the
+land.[28]
+
+[Sidenote: Causes of Wycliffe's failure,]
+
+[Sidenote: Which is not to be regretted, for the times were not ripe.]
+
+So poor a close to a movement of so fair promise was due partly to the
+agitated temper of the times; partly, perhaps, to a want of judgment in
+Wycliffe; but chiefly and essentially because it was an untimely birth.
+Wycliffe saw the evil; he did not see the remedy; and neither in his
+mind nor in the mind of the world about him had the problem ripened
+itself for solution. England would have gained little by the premature
+overthrow of the church, when the house out of which the evil spirit was
+cast out could have been but swept and garnished for the occupation of
+the seven devils of anarchy.
+
+[Sidenote: The reaction.]
+
+[Sidenote: New birth of Protestantism.]
+
+The fire of heresy continued to smoulder, exploding occasionally in
+insurrection,[29] occasionally blazing up in nobler form, when some poor
+seeker for the truth, groping for a vision of God in the darkness of the
+years which followed, found his way into that high presence through the
+martyr's fire. But substantially, the nation relapsed into
+obedience,--the church was reprieved for a century. Its fall was delayed
+till the spirit in which it was attacked was winnowed clean of all
+doubtful elements--until Protestantism had recommenced its enterprise
+in a desire, not for a fairer adjustment of the world's good things, but
+in a desire for some deeper, truer, nobler, holier insight into the will
+of God. It recommenced not under the auspices of a Wycliffe, not with
+the partial countenance of a government which was crossing swords with
+the Father of Catholic Christendom, and menacing the severance of
+England from the unity of the faith, but under a strong dynasty of
+undoubted Catholic loyalty, with the entire administrative power,
+secular as well as spiritual, in the hands of the episcopate. It sprung
+up spontaneously, unguided, unexcited, by the vital necessity of its
+nature, among the masses of the nation.
+
+[Sidenote: Association of Christian Brethren enrolled in London.]
+
+[Sidenote: Spirit of the country.]
+
+Leaping over a century, I pass to the year 1525, at which time, or about
+which time, a society was enrolled in London calling itself "The
+Association of Christian Brothers."[30] It was composed of poor men,
+chiefly tradesmen, artisans, a few, a very few of the clergy; but it was
+carefully organized, it was provided with moderate funds, which were
+regularly audited; and its paid agents went up and down the country
+carrying Testaments and tracts with them, and enrolling in the order all
+persons who dared to risk their lives in such a cause. The harvest had
+been long ripening. The records of the bishops' courts[31] are filled
+from the beginning of the century with accounts of prosecutions for
+heresy--with prosecutions, that is, of men and women to whom the
+masses, the pilgrimages, the indulgences, the pardons, the effete
+paraphernalia of the establishment, had become intolerable; who had
+risen up in blind resistance, and had declared, with passionate anger,
+that whatever was the truth, all this was falsehood. The bishops had not
+been idle; they had plied their busy tasks with stake and prison, and
+victim after victim had been executed with more than necessary cruelty.
+But it was all in vain: punishment only multiplied offenders, and "the
+reek" of the martyrs, as was said when Patrick Hamilton was burnt at St.
+Andrews, "infected all that it did blow upon."[32]
+
+[Sidenote: Absence of definite guidance.]
+
+[Sidenote: Difficulty from the want of books.]
+
+There were no teachers, however, there were no books, no unity of
+conviction, only a confused refusal to believe in lies. Copies of
+Wycliffe's Bible remained, which parties here and there, under death
+penalties if detected, met to read:[33] copies, also, of some of his
+tracts[34] were extant; but they were unprinted transcripts, most rare
+and precious, which the watchfulness of the police made it impossible to
+multiply through the press, and which remained therefore necessarily in
+the possession of but a few fortunate persons.
+
+The Protestants were thus isolated in single groups or families, without
+organization, without knowledge of each other, with nothing to give them
+coherency as a party; and so they might have long continued, except for
+an impulse from some external circumstances. They were waiting for
+direction, and men in such a temper are seldom left to wait in vain.
+
+[Sidenote: General condition of the Teutonic nations.]
+
+[Sidenote: The theses on the church-door at Wittenberg,]
+
+[Sidenote: And the kindling of Europe.]
+
+[Sidenote: The gathering under the banner of the Cross.]
+
+[Sidenote: Tyndal's first appearance and character.]
+
+[Sidenote: The translation of the Bible, and the press at Antwerp.]
+
+The state of England did but represent the state of all Northern Europe.
+Wherever the Teutonic language was spoken, wherever the Teutonic nature
+was in the people, there was the same weariness of unreality, the same
+craving for a higher life. England rather lagged behind than was a
+leader in the race of discontent. In Germany, all classes shared the
+common feeling; in England it was almost confined to the lowest. But,
+wherever it existed, it was a free, spontaneous growth in each separate
+breast, not propagated by agitation, but springing self-sown, the
+expression of the honest anger of honest men at a system which had
+passed the limits of toleration, and which could be endured no longer.
+At such times the minds of men are like a train of gunpowder, the
+isolated grains of which have no relation to each other, and no effect
+on each other, while they remain unignited; but let a spark kindle but
+one of them, and they shoot into instant union in a common explosion.
+Such a spark was kindled in Germany, at Wittenberg, on the 31st of
+October, 1517. In the middle of that day Luther's denunciation of
+Indulgences was fixed against the gate of All Saints church, Wittenberg,
+and it became, like the brazen serpent in the wilderness, the sign to
+which the sick spirits throughout the western world looked hopefully and
+were healed. In all those millions of hearts the words of Luther found
+an echo, and flew from lip to lip, from ear to ear. The thing which all
+were longing for was done, and in two years from that day there was
+scarcely perhaps a village from the Irish Channel to the Danube in
+which the name of Luther was not familiar as a word of hope and promise.
+Then rose a common cry for guidance. Books were called for,--above all
+things, the great book of all, the Bible. Luther's inexhaustible
+fecundity flowed with a steady stream, and the printing-presses in
+Germany and in the Free Towns of the Netherlands multiplied Testaments
+and tracts in hundreds of thousands. Printers published at their own
+expense as Luther wrote.[35] The continent was covered with disfrocked
+monks who had become the pedlars of these precious wares;[36] and as the
+contagion spread, noble young spirits from other countries, eager
+themselves to fight in God's battle, came to Wittenberg to learn from
+the champion who had struck the first blow at their great enemy how to
+use their weapons. "Students from all nations came to Wittenberg," says
+one, "to hear Luther and Melancthon. As they came in sight of the town
+they returned thanks to God with clasped hands; for from Wittenberg, as
+heretofore from Jerusalem, proceeded the light of evangelical truth, to
+spread thence to the utmost parts of the earth."[37] Thither came young
+Patrick Hamilton from Edinburgh, whose "reek" was of so much potency, a
+boy-enthusiast of nature as illustrious as his birth; and thither came
+also from England, which is here our chief concern, William Tyndal, a
+man whose history is lost in his work and whose epitaph is the
+Reformation. Beginning life as a restless Oxford student, he moved
+thence to Cambridge, thence to Gloucestershire, to be tutor in a
+knight's family, and there hearing of Luther's doings, and expressing
+himself with too warm approval to suit his patron's conservatism,[38]
+he fell into disgrace. From Gloucestershire he removed to London, where
+Cuthbert Tunstall had lately been made bishop, and from whom he looked
+for countenance in an intention to translate the New Testament. Tunstall
+showed little encouragement to this enterprise; but a better friend rose
+where he was least looked for; and a London alderman, Humfrey Monmouth
+by name, hearing the young dreamer preach on some occasion at St.
+Dunstan's, took him to his home for half a year, and kept him there:
+where "the said Tyndal," as the alderman declared, "lived like a good
+priest, studying both night and day; he would eat but sodden meat, by
+his good will, nor drink but small single beer; nor was he ever seen to
+wear linen about him all the time of his being there."[39] The half year
+being passed, Monmouth gave him ten pounds, with which provision he went
+off to Wittenberg; and the alderman, for assisting him in that business,
+went to the Tower--escaping, however, we are glad to know, without worse
+consequences than a short imprisonment. Tyndal saw Luther,[40] and under
+his immediate direction translated the Gospels and Epistles while at
+Wittenberg. Thence he returned to Antwerp, and settling there under the
+privileges of the city, he was joined by Joy, who shared his great work
+with him. Young Frith from Cambridge came to him also, and Barnes, and
+Lambert, and many others of whom no written record remains, to concert a
+common scheme of action.
+
+In Antwerp, under the care of these men, was established the
+printing-press, by which books were supplied, to accomplish for the
+teaching of England what Luther and Melancthon were accomplishing for
+Germany. Tyndal's Testament was first printed, then translations of the
+best German books, reprints of Wycliffe's tracts or original
+commentaries. Such volumes as the people most required were here
+multiplied as fast as the press could produce them; and for the
+dissemination of these precious writings the brave London Protestants
+dared, at the hazard of their lives, to form themselves into an
+organized association.
+
+[Sidenote: The London Protestants.]
+
+[Sidenote: The opposing powers.]
+
+[Sidenote: The Protestant armoury.]
+
+It is well to pause and look for a moment at this small band of heroes;
+for heroes they were, if ever men deserved the name. Unlike the first
+reformers who had followed Wycliffe, they had no earthly object,
+emphatically none; and equally unlike them, perhaps, because they had
+no earthly object, they were all, as I have said, poor men--either
+students, like Tyndal, or artisans and labourers who worked for their
+own bread, and in tough contact with reality had learnt better than the
+great and the educated the difference between truth and lies. Wycliffe
+had royal dukes and noblemen for his supporters--knights and divines
+among his disciples--a king and a House of Commons looking upon him, not
+without favour. The first Protestants of the sixteenth century had for
+their king the champion of Holy Church, who had broken a lance with
+Luther; and spiritual rulers over them alike powerful and imbecile,
+whose highest conception of Christian virtue was the destruction of
+those who disobeyed their mandates. The masses of the people were
+indifferent to a cause which promised them no material advantage; and
+the Commons of Parliament, while contending with the abuses of the
+spiritual authorities, were laboriously anxious to wash their hands of
+heterodoxy. "In the crime of heresy, thanked be God," said the bishops
+in 1529, "there hath no notable person fallen in our time;" no chief
+priest, chief ruler, or learned Pharisee--not one. "Truth it is that
+certain apostate friars and monks, lewd priests, bankrupt merchants,
+vagabonds and lewd idle fellows of corrupt nature, have embraced the
+abominable and erroneous opinions lately sprung in Germany, and by them
+have been some seduced in simplicity and ignorance. Against these, if
+judgment have been exercised according to the laws of the realm, we be
+without blame. If we have been too remiss or slack, we shall gladly do
+our duty from henceforth."[41] Such were the first Protestants in the
+eyes of their superiors. On one side was wealth, rank, dignity, the
+weight of authority, the majority of numbers, the prestige of centuries;
+here too were the phantom legions of superstition and cowardice; and
+here were all the worthier influences so preeminently English, which
+lead wise men to shrink from change, and to cling to things established,
+so long as one stone of them remains upon another. This was the army of
+conservatism. Opposed to it were a little band of enthusiasts, armed
+only with truth and fearlessness; "weak things of the world," about to
+do battle in God's name; and it was to be seen whether God or the world
+was the stronger. They were armed, I say, with the truth. It was that
+alone which could have given them victory in so unequal a struggle. They
+had returned to the essential fountain of life; they reasserted the
+principle which has lain at the root of all religions, whatever their
+name or outward form, which once burnt with divine lustre in that
+Catholicism which was now to pass away: the fundamental axiom of all
+real life, that the service which man owes to God is not the service of
+words or magic forms, or ceremonies or opinions; but the service of
+holiness, of purity, of obedience to the everlasting laws of duty.
+
+[Sidenote: The early Protestants did not bring forward any new scheme of
+doctrine,]
+
+[Sidenote: But protested only against a false superstition, and insisted
+on the principle of obedience.]
+
+When we look through the writings of Latimer, the apostle of the English
+Reformation, when we read the depositions against the martyrs, and the
+lists of their crimes against the established faith, we find no opposite
+schemes of doctrine, no "plans of salvation;" no positive system of
+theology which it was held a duty to believe; these things were of later
+growth, when it became again necessary to clothe the living spirit in a
+perishable body. We find only an effort to express again the old
+exhortation of the Wise Man--"Will you hear the beginning and the end of
+the whole matter? Fear God and keep his commandments; for that is the
+whole duty of man."
+
+Had it been possible for mankind to sustain themselves upon this single
+principle without disguising its simplicity, their history would have
+been painted in far other colours than those which have so long
+chequered its surface. This, however, has not been given to us; and
+perhaps it never will be given. As the soul is clothed in flesh, and
+only thus is able to perform its functions in this earth, where it is
+sent to live; as the thought must find a word before it can pass from
+mind to mind; so every great truth seeks some body, some outward form in
+which to exhibit its powers. It appears in the world, and men lay hold
+of it, and represent it to themselves, in histories, in forms of words,
+in sacramental symbols; and these things which in their proper nature
+are but illustrations, stiffen into essential fact, and become part of
+the reality. So arises in era after era an outward and mortal expression
+of the inward immortal life; and at once the old struggle begins to
+repeat itself between the flesh and the spirit, the form and the
+reality. For a while the lower tendencies are held in check; the meaning
+of the symbolism is remembered and fresh; it is a living language,
+pregnant and suggestive. By and bye, as the mind passes into other
+phases, the meaning is forgotten; the language becomes a dead language;
+and the living robe of life becomes a winding-sheet of corruption. The
+form is represented as everything, the spirit as nothing; obedience is
+dispensed with; sin and religion arrange a compromise; and outward
+observances, or technical inward emotions, are converted into jugglers'
+tricks, by which men are enabled to enjoy their pleasures and escape
+the penalties of wrong. Then such religion becomes no religion, but a
+falsehood; and honourable men turn away from it, and fall back in haste
+upon the naked elemental life.
+
+[Sidenote: The last form of the corruption of Catholicism.]
+
+This, as I understand it, was the position of the early Protestants.
+They found the service of God buried in a system where obedience was
+dissipated into superstition; where sin was expiated by the vicarious
+virtues of other men; where, instead of leading a holy life, men were
+taught that their souls might be saved through masses said for them, at
+a money rate, by priests whose licentiousness disgraced the nation which
+endured it; a system in which, amidst all the trickery of the pardons,
+pilgrimages, indulgences,--double-faced as these inventions are, wearing
+one meaning in the apologies of theologians, and quite another to the
+multitude who live and suffer under their influence,--one plain fact at
+least is visible. The people substantially learnt that all evils which
+could touch either their spirits or their bodies might be escaped by
+means which resolved themselves, scarcely disguised, into the payment of
+moneys.
+
+[Sidenote: The Protestants turn to the Bible and to the life of Christ.]
+
+The superstition had lingered long; the time had come when it was to pass
+away. Those in whom some craving lingered for a Christian life turned to
+the heart of the matter, to the book which told them who Christ was, and
+what he was; and finding there that holy example for which they longed,
+they flung aside in one noble burst of enthusiastic passion the disguise
+which had concealed it from them. They believed in Christ, not in the
+bowing rood, or the pretended wood of the cross on which he suffered; and
+when that saintly figure had once been seen,--the object of all love, the
+pattern of all imitation,--thenceforward neither form nor ceremony should
+stand between them and their God.
+
+[Sidenote: The dangers which they had to encounter.]
+
+[Sidenote: Henry VIII. their only and very doubtful friend.]
+
+[Sidenote: Two thousand books out against transubstantiation.]
+
+Under much confusion of words and thoughts, confusion pardonable in all
+men, and most of all in them, this seems to me to be transparently
+visible in the aim of these "Christian Brothers"; a thirst for some
+fresh and noble enunciation of the everlasting truth, the one essential
+thing for all men to know and believe. And therefore they were strong;
+and therefore they at last conquered. Yet if we think of it, no common
+daring was required in those who would stand out at such a time in
+defence of such a cause. The bishops might seize them on mere suspicion;
+and the evidence of the most abandoned villains sufficed for their
+conviction.[42] By the act of Henry V., every officer, from the lord
+chancellor to the parish constable, was sworn to seek them out and
+destroy them; and both bishops and officials had shown no reluctance to
+execute their duty. Hunted like wild beasts from hiding-place to
+hiding-place, decimated by the stake, with the certainty that however
+many years they might be reprieved, their own lives would close at last
+in the same fiery trial; beset by informers, imprisoned, racked, and
+scourged; worst of all, haunted by their own infirmities, the flesh
+shrinking before the dread of a death of agony,--thus it was that they
+struggled on; earning for _themselves_ martyrdom,--for _us_, the free
+England in which we live and breathe. Among the great, until Cromwell
+came to power, they had but one friend, and he but a doubtful one, who
+long believed the truest kindness was to kill them. Henry VIII. was
+always attracted towards the persons of the reformers. Their open
+bearing commanded his respect. Their worst crime in the bishops'
+eyes--the translating the Bible--was in his eyes not a crime, but a
+merit; he had himself long desired an authorized English version, and at
+length compelled the clergy to undertake it; while in the most notorious
+of the men themselves, in Tyndal and in Frith, he had more than once
+expressed an anxious interest.[43] But the convictions of his early
+years were long in yielding. His feeling, though genuine, extended no
+further than to pity, to a desire to recover estimable heretics out of
+errors which he would endeavour to pardon. They knew, and all the
+"brethren" knew, that if they persisted, they must look for the worst
+from the king and from every earthly power; they knew it, and they made
+their account with it. An informer deposed to the council, that he had
+asked one of the society "how the King's Grace did take the matter
+against the sacrament; which answered, the King's Highness was extreme
+against their opinions, and would punish them grievously; also that my
+Lords of Norfolk and Suffolk, my Lord Marquis of Exeter, with divers
+other great lords, were very extreme against them. Then he (the
+informer) asked him how he and his fellows would do seeing this, the
+which answered they had two thousand books out against the Blessed
+Sacrament, in the commons' hands; and if it were once in the commons'
+heads, they would have no further care."[44]
+
+[Sidenote: Resolution to persecute systematically.]
+
+Tyndal then being at work at Antwerp, and the society for the dispersion
+of his books thus preparing itself in England, the authorities were not
+slow in taking the alarm. The isolated discontent which had prevailed
+hitherto had been left to the ordinary tribunals; the present danger
+called for measures of more systematic coercion. This duty naturally
+devolved on Wolsey, and the office of Grand Inquisitor, which he now
+assumed, could not have fallen into more competent hands.
+
+[Sidenote: The conduct of the persecution undertaken by Wolsey; who,
+however, used his powers with unusual leniency.]
+
+[Sidenote: Heretics outlawed by a common consent of the great Powers.]
+
+Wolsey was not cruel. There is no instance, I believe, in which he of
+his special motion sent a victim to the stake:--it would be well if the
+same praise could be allowed to Cranmer. There was this difference
+between the cardinal and other bishops, that while they seemed to desire
+to punish, Wolsey was contented to silence; while they, in their conduct
+of trials, made escape as difficult as possible, Wolsey sought rather to
+make submission easy. He was too wise to suppose that he could cauterize
+heresy, while the causes of it, in the corruption of the clergy,
+remained unremoved; and the remedy to which he trusted, was the infusing
+new vigour into the constitution of the church.[45] Nevertheless, he was
+determined to repress, as far as outward measures could repress it, the
+spread of the contagion; and he set himself to accomplish his task with
+the full energy of his nature, backed by the whole power, spiritual and
+secular, of the kingdom. The country was covered with his secret police,
+arresting suspected persons and searching for books. In London the
+scrutiny was so strict that at one time there was a general flight and
+panic; suspected butchers, tailors, and carpenters, hiding themselves in
+the holds of vessels in the river, and escaping across the Channel.[46]
+Even there they were not safe. Heretics were outlawed by a common
+consent of the European governments. Special offenders were hunted
+through France by the English emissaries with the permission and
+countenance of the court,[47] and there was an attempt to arrest Tyndal
+at Brussels, from which, for that time, he happily escaped.[48]
+
+[Sidenote: Barnes and Latimer summoned before Wolsey.]
+
+Simultaneously the English universities fell under examination, in
+consequence of the appearance of dangerous symptoms among the younger
+students. Dr. Barnes, returning from the continent, had used violent
+language in a pulpit at Cambridge; and Latimer, then a neophyte in
+heresy, had grown suspect, and had alarmed the heads of houses.
+Complaints against both of them were forwarded to Wolsey, and they were
+summoned to London to answer for themselves.
+
+[Sidenote: Latimer is dismissed.]
+
+[Sidenote: Barnes is committed to the Fleet and abjures.]
+
+Latimer, for some cause, found favour with the cardinal, and was
+dismissed, with a hope on the part of his judge that his accusers might
+prove as honest as he appeared to be, and even with a general licence to
+preach.[49] Barnes was less fortunate; he was far inferior to Latimer; a
+noisy, unwise man, without reticence or prudence. In addition to his
+offences in matters of doctrine, he had attacked Wolsey himself with
+somewhat vulgar personality; and it was thought well to single him out
+for a public, though not a very terrible admonition. His house had been
+searched for books, which he was suspected, and justly suspected, of
+having brought with him from abroad. These, however, through a timely
+warning of the danger, had been happily secreted,[50] or it might have
+gone harder with him. As it was, he was committed to the Fleet on the
+charge of having used heretical language. An abjuration was drawn up by
+Wolsey, which he signed; and while he remained in prison preparations
+were made for a ceremony, in which he was to bear a part, in St. Paul's
+church, by which the Catholic authorities hoped to produce some salutary
+effect on the disaffected spirits of London.
+
+[Sidenote: Preparation for a ceremony in St. Paul's church.]
+
+Vast quantities of Tyndal's publications had been collected by the
+police. The bishops, also, had subscribed among themselves[51] to buy up
+the copies of the New Testament before they left Antwerp;--an
+unpromising method, like an attempt to extinguish fire by pouring oil
+upon it; they had been successful, however, in obtaining a large
+immediate harvest, and a pyramid of offending volumes was ready to be
+consumed in a solemn _auto da fe_.
+
+[Sidenote: Procession from the Fleet.]
+
+[Sidenote: Barnes and five Stillyard men taken to St. Paul's.]
+
+In the morning of Shrove Sunday, then, 1527, we are to picture to
+ourselves a procession moving along London streets from the Fleet prison
+to St. Paul's Cathedral. The warden of the Fleet was there, and the
+knight marshal, and the tipstaffs, and "all the company they could
+make," "with bills and glaives;" and in the midst of these armed
+officials, six men marching in penitential dresses, one carrying a
+lighted taper five pounds' weight, the others with symbolic fagots,
+signifying to the lookers-on the fate which their crimes had earned for
+them, but which this time, in mercy, was remitted. One of these was
+Barnes; the other five were "Stillyard men," undistinguishable by any
+other name, but detected members of the brotherhood.
+
+It was eight o'clock when they arrived at St. Paul's. The people had
+flocked in crowds before them. The public seats and benches were filled.
+All London had hurried to the spectacle. A platform was erected in the
+centre of the nave, on the top of which, enthroned in pomp of purple and
+gold and splendour, sate the great cardinal, supported on each side with
+eighteen bishops, mitred abbots, and priors--six-and-thirty in all; his
+chaplains and "spiritual doctors" sitting also where they could find
+place, "in gowns of damask and satin." Opposite the platform, over the
+north door of the cathedral, was a great crucifix--a famous image, in
+those days called the Rood of Northen; and at the foot of it, inside a
+rail, a fire was burning, with the sinful books, the Tracts and
+Testaments, ranged round it in baskets, waiting for the execution of
+sentence.
+
+[Sidenote: And exposed for a public penance.]
+
+Such was the scene into the midst of which the six prisoners entered. A
+second platform stood in a conspicuous place in front of the cardinal's
+throne, where they could be seen and heard by the crowd; and there upon
+their knees, with their fagots on their shoulders, they begged pardon of
+God and the Holy Catholic Church for their high crimes and offences.
+When the confession was finished, Fisher, Bishop of Rochester, preached
+a sermon: and the sermon over, Barnes turned to the people, declaring
+that "he was more charitably handled than he deserved, his heresies were
+so heinous and detestable."
+
+[Sidenote: They are led round a fire, and throw in their fagots. The
+Bible burning.]
+
+There was no other religious service: mass had perhaps been said
+previous to the admission into the church of heretics lying under
+censure; and the knight marshal led the prisoners down from the stage to
+the fire underneath the crucifix. They were taken within the rails, and
+three times led round the blazing pile, casting in their fagots as they
+passed. The contents of the baskets were heaped upon the fagots, and the
+holocaust was complete. This time, an unbloody sacrifice was deemed
+sufficient. The church was satisfied with penance, and Fisher pronounced
+the prisoners absolved, and received back into communion.[52]
+
+So ended this strange exhibition, designed to work great results on the
+consciences of the spectators. It may be supposed, however, that men
+whom the tragedies of Smithfield failed to terrify, were not likely to
+be affected deeply by melodrame and blazing paper.
+
+[Sidenote: Story of Anthony Dalaber.]
+
+A story follows of far deeper human interest, a story in which the
+persecution is mirrored with its true lights and shadows, unexaggerated
+by rhetoric; and which, in its minute simplicity, brings us face to face
+with that old world, where men like ourselves lived, and worked, and
+suffered, three centuries ago.
+
+[Sidenote: Cardinal's College founded by Wolsey,]
+
+[Sidenote: Who introduces into Oxford a number of Cambridge students of
+unusual promise, but lying under suspicion of heresy.]
+
+Two years before the time at which we have now arrived, Wolsey, in
+pursuance of his scheme of converting the endowments of the religious
+houses to purposes of education, had obtained permission from the pope
+to suppress a number of the smaller monasteries. He had added largely to
+the means thus placed at his disposal from his own resources, and had
+founded the great college at Oxford, which is now called Christ
+church.[53] Desiring his magnificent institution to be as perfect as art
+could make it, he had sought his professors in Rome, in the Italian
+universities, wherever genius or ability could be found; and he had
+introduced into the foundation several students from Cambridge, who had
+been reported to him as being of unusual promise. Frith, of whom we have
+heard, was one of these. Of the rest, John Clark, Sumner, and Taverner
+are the most noticeable. At the time at which they were invited to
+Oxford, they were tainted, or some of them were tainted, in the eyes of
+the Cambridge authorities, with suspicion of heterodoxy;[54] and it is
+creditable to Wolsey's liberality, that he set aside these
+unsubstantiated rumours, not allowing them to weigh against ability,
+industry, and character. The church authorities thought only of crushing
+what opposed them, especially of crushing talent, because talent was
+dangerous. Wolsey's noble anxiety was to court talent, and if possible
+to win it.
+
+[Sidenote: They infect Oxford; and the first Protestant divinity class
+is formed at Wolsey's college.]
+
+The young Cambridge students, however, ill repaid his confidence (so, at
+least, it must have appeared to him), and introduced into Oxford the
+rising epidemic. Clark, as was at last discovered, was in the habit of
+reading St. Paul's Epistles to young men in his rooms; and a gradually
+increasing circle of undergraduates, of three or four years'
+standing,[55] from various colleges, formed themselves into a spiritual
+freemasonry, some of them passionately insisting on being admitted to
+the lectures, in spite of warnings from Clark himself, whose wiser
+foresight knew the risk which they were running, and shrank from
+allowing weak giddy spirits to thrust themselves into so fearful
+peril.[56]
+
+[Sidenote: Garret, fellow of Magdalen, and member of the London
+Society,]
+
+[Sidenote: Introduces into Oxford the forbidden books from Germany.]
+
+This little party had been in the habit of meeting for about six
+months,[57] when at Easter, 1527, Thomas Garret, a fellow of
+Magdalen,[58] who had gone out of residence, and was curate at All
+Hallows church, in London, reappeared in Oxford. Garret was a secret
+member of the London Society, and had come down at Clark's instigation,
+to feel his way in the university. So excellent a beginning had already
+been made, that he had only to improve upon it. He sought out all such
+young men as were given to Greek, Hebrew, and the polite Latin;[59] and
+in this visit met with so much encouragement, that the Christmas
+following he returned again, this time bringing with him treasures of
+forbidden books, imported by "the Christian Brothers"; New Testaments,
+tracts and volumes of German divinity, which he sold privately among the
+initiated.
+
+[Sidenote: Orders for his arrest are sent down from London.]
+
+He lay concealed, with his store, at "the house of one Radley,"[60] the
+position of which cannot now be identified; and there he remained for
+several weeks, unsuspected by the university authorities, till orders
+were sent by Wolsey to the Dean of Christchurch for his arrest. Precise
+information was furnished at the same time respecting himself, his
+mission in Oxford, and his place of concealment.[61]
+
+[Sidenote: Tuesday, Feb. 17, 1528. He is warned by a proctor to escape.]
+
+The proctors were put upon the scent, and directed to take him; but one
+of them, Arthur Cole, of Magdalen, by name, not from any sympathy with
+Garret's objects, as the sequel proved, but probably from old
+acquaintance, for they were fellows at the same college, gave him
+information of his danger, and warned him to escape.
+
+His young friends, more alarmed for their companion than for themselves,
+held a meeting instantly to decide what should be done; and at this
+meeting was Anthony Dalaber, an undergraduate of Alban Hall, and one of
+Clark's pupils, who will now tell the story of what followed.
+
+[Sidenote: Dalaber's narrative.]
+
+"The Christmas before that time, I, Anthony Dalaber, the scholar of
+Alban Hall, who had books of Master Garret, had been in my country, at
+Dorsetshire, at Stalbridge, where I had a brother, parson of this
+parish, who was very desirous to have a curate out of Oxford, and willed
+me in any wise to get him one there, if I could. This just occasion
+offered, it was thought good among the brethren (for so we did not only
+call one another, but were indeed one to another), that Master Garret,
+changing his name, should be sent forth with my letters into
+Dorsetshire, to my brother, to serve him there for a time, until he
+might secretly convey himself from thence some whither over the sea.
+According hereunto I wrote my letters in all haste possible unto my
+brother, for Master Garret to be his curate; but not declaring what he
+was indeed, for my brother was a rank papist, and afterwards was the
+most mortal enemy that ever I had, for the Gospel's sake.
+
+[Sidenote: Feb. 18. Garret leaves Oxford.]
+
+"So on Wednesday (Feb. 18), in the morning before Shrovetide, Master
+Garret departed out of Oxford towards Dorsetshire, with my letter, for
+his new service."
+
+[Sidenote: Anthony Dalaber, of Alban Hall, who has been concerned in the
+escape, takes measures to avoid suspicion,]
+
+[Sidenote: And moves to Gloucester College.]
+
+The most important person being thus, as was supposed, safe from
+immediate danger, Dalaber was at leisure to think a little about
+himself; and supposing, naturally, that the matter would not end there,
+and that some change of residence might be of advantage for his own
+security, he moved off from Alban Hall (as undergraduates it seems were
+then at liberty to do) to Gloucester College,[62] under pretence that he
+desired to study civil law, for which no facilities existed at the hall.
+This little matter was effected on the Thursday; and all Friday and
+Saturday morning he "was so much busied in setting his poor stuff in
+order, his bed, his books, and such things else as he had," that he had
+no leisure to go forth anywhere those two days, Friday and Saturday.
+
+[Sidenote: Garret returns to Oxford, Friday, Feb. 20.]
+
+"Having set up my things handsomely," he continues, "that same day,
+before noon, I determined to spend that whole afternoon, until evensong
+time, at Frideswide College,[63] at my book in mine own study; and so
+shut my chamber door unto me, and my study door also, and took into my
+head to read Francis Lambert upon the Gospel of St. Luke, which book
+only I had then within there. All my other books written on the
+Scriptures, of which I had great numbers, I had left in my chamber at
+Alban's Hall, where I had made a very secret place to keep them safe
+in, because it was so dangerous to have any such books. And so, as I was
+diligently reading in the same book of Lambert upon Luke, suddenly one
+knocked at my chamber door very hard, which made me astonished, and yet
+I sat still and would not speak; then he knocked again more hard, and
+yet I held my peace; and straightway he knocked again yet more fiercely;
+and then I thought this: peradventure it is somebody that hath need of
+me: and therefore I thought myself bound to do as I would be done unto;
+and so, laying my book aside, I came to the door and opened it, and
+there was Master Garret, as a man amazed, whom I thought to have been
+with my brother, and one with him."
+
+[Sidenote: He is taken, and shut up at Lincoln.]
+
+[Sidenote: From whence he escapes, Saturday, Feb. 21,]
+
+Garret had set out on his expedition into Dorsetshire, but had been
+frightened, and had stolen back into Oxford on the Friday, to his old
+hiding-place, where, in the middle of the night, the proctors had taken
+him. He had been carried to Lincoln, and shut up in a room in the
+rector's house, where he had been left all day. In the afternoon the
+rector went to chapel, no one was stirring about the college, and he had
+taken advantage of the opportunity to slip the bolt of the door and
+escape. He had a friend at Gloucester College, "a monk who had bought
+books of him;" and Gloucester lying on the outskirts of the town, he had
+hurried down there as the readiest place of shelter. The monk was out;
+and as no time was to be lost, Garret asked the servant on the staircase
+to show him Dalaber's rooms.
+
+[Sidenote: And goes to Dalaber's rooms.]
+
+As soon as the door was opened, "he said he was undone, for he was
+taken." "Thus he spake unadvisedly in the presence of the young man,
+who at once slipped down the stairs," it was to be feared, on no good
+errand. "Then I said to him," Dalaber goes on, "alas, Master Garret, by
+this your uncircumspect coming here and speaking so before the young
+man, you have disclosed yourself and utterly undone me. I asked him why
+he was not in Dorsetshire. He said he had gone a day's journey and a
+half; but he was so fearful, his heart would none other but that he must
+needs return again unto Oxford. With deep sighs and plenty of tears, he
+prayed me to help to convey him away; and so he cast off his hood and
+gown wherein he came to me, and desired me to give him a coat with
+sleeves, if I had any; and he told me that he would go into Wales, and
+thence convey himself, if he might, into Germany. Then I put on him a
+sleeved coat of mine. He would also have had another manner of cap of
+me, but I had none but priestlike, such as his own was.
+
+[Sidenote: Dalaber lends him a disguise, and he again leaves Oxford.]
+
+"Then kneeled we both down together upon our knees, and lifting up our
+hearts and hands to God our heavenly Father, desired him, with plenty of
+tears, so to conduct and prosper him in his journey, that he might well
+escape the danger of all his enemies, to the glory of His Holy Name, if
+His good pleasure and will so were. And then we embraced and kissed the
+one the other, the tears so abundantly flowing out from both our eyes,
+that we all bewet both our faces, and scarcely for sorrow could we speak
+one to another. And so he departed from me, apparelled in my coat, being
+committed unto the tuition of our Almighty and merciful Father.
+
+"When he was gone down the stairs from my chamber, I straightways did
+shut my chamber door, and went into my study; and taking the New
+Testament in my hands, kneeled down on my knees, and with many a deep
+sigh and salt tear, I did, with much deliberation, read over the tenth
+chapter of St. Matthew's Gospel,[64] praying that God would endue his
+tender and lately-born little flock in Oxford with heavenly strength by
+his Holy Spirit; that quietly to their own salvation, with all godly
+patience, they might bear Christ's heavy cross, which I now saw was
+presently to be laid on their young and weak backs, unable to bear so
+huge a burden without the great help of his Holy Spirit.
+
+[Sidenote: Dalaber goes to Frideswide.]
+
+"This done, I laid aside my book safe, folded up Master Garret's gown
+and hood, and so, having put on my short gown, and shut my doors, I went
+towards Frideswide (Christchurch), to speak with that worthy martyr of
+God, Master Clark. But of purpose I went by St. Mary's church, to go
+first unto Corpus Christi College, to speak with Diet and Udal, my
+faithful brethren and fellows in the Lord. By chance I met by the way a
+brother of ours, one Master Eden, fellow of Magdalen, who, as soon as he
+saw me, said, we were all undone, for Master Garret was returned, and
+was in prison. I said it was not so; he said it was. I heard, quoth he,
+our Proctor, Master Cole, say and declare the same this day. Then I told
+him what was done; and so made haste to Frideswide, to find Master
+Clark, for I thought that he and others would be in great sorrow.
+
+[Sidenote: Vespers at the cathedral.]
+
+"Evensong was begun; the dean and the canons were there in their grey
+amices; they were almost at Magnificat before I came thither. I stood in
+the choir door and heard Master Taverner play, and others of the chapel
+there sing, with and among whom I myself was wont to sing also; but now
+my singing and music were turned into sighing and musing. As I there
+stood, in cometh Dr. Cottisford,[65] the commissary, as fast as ever he
+could go, bareheaded, as pale as ashes (I knew his grief well enough);
+and to the dean he goeth into the choir, where he was sitting in his
+stall, and talked with him, very sorrowfully: what, I know not; but
+whereof I might and did truly guess. I went aside from the choir door to
+see and hear more. The commissary and dean came out of the choir,
+wonderfully troubled as it seemed. About the middle of the church, met
+them Dr. London,[66] puffing, blustering, and blowing like a hungry and
+greedy lion seeking his prey. They talked together awhile, but the
+commissary was much blamed by them, insomuch that he wept for sorrow.
+
+[Sidenote: The brothers meet.]
+
+"The doctors departed, and sent abroad their servants and spies
+everywhere. Master Clark, about the middle of the compline,[67] came
+forth of the choir. I followed him to his chamber, and declared what had
+happened that afternoon of Master Garret's escape. Then he sent for one
+Master Sumner and Master Bets, fellows and canons there. In the meantime
+he gave me a very godly exhortation, praying God to give us all the
+wisdom of the serpent and the harmlessness of doves, for we should
+shortly have much need thereof. When Master Sumner and Master Bets came,
+he caused me to declare again the whole matter to them two. Then
+desiring them to tell our other brethren in that college, I went to
+Corpus Christi College, to comfort our brethren there, where I found in
+Diet's chamber, looking for me, Fitzjames, Diet, and Udal. They all knew
+the matter before by Master Eden, whom I had sent unto Fitzjames. So I
+tarried there and supped with them, where they had provided meat and
+drink for us before my coming; and when we had ended, Fitzjames would
+needs have me to lie that night with him in my old lodging at Alban's
+Hall. But small rest and little sleep took we both there that night."
+
+[Sidenote: Sunday, Feb. 22.]
+
+[Sidenote: Dalaber's rooms searched by the commissary and the police.]
+
+The next day, which was Sunday, Dalaber rose at five o'clock, and as
+soon as he could leave the Hall, hastened off to his rooms at
+Gloucester. The night had been wet and stormy, and his shoes and
+stockings were covered with mud. The college gates, when he reached
+them, were still closed, an unusual thing at that hour; and he walked up
+and down under the walls in the bleak grey morning, till the clock
+struck seven, "much disquieted, his head full of forecasting cares,"
+but resolved, like a brave man, that come what would, he would accuse no
+one, and declare nothing but what he saw was already known. The gates
+were at last opened; he went to his rooms, and for some time his key
+would not turn in the door, the lock having been meddled with. At length
+he succeeded in entering, and found everything in confusion, his bed
+tossed and tumbled, his study-door open, and his clothes strewed about
+the floor. A monk who occupied the opposite rooms, hearing him return,
+came to him and said that the commissary and the two proctors had been
+there looking for Garret. Bills and swords had been thrust through the
+bed-straw, and every corner of the room searched for him. Finding
+nothing, they had left orders that Dalaber, as soon as he returned,
+should appear before the prior of the students.
+
+[Sidenote: Dalaber is arrested. He is examined about his friend's
+escape, and tells a lie.]
+
+"This so troubled me," Dalaber says, "that I forgot to make clean my
+hose and shoes, and to shift me into another gown; and all bedirted as I
+was, I went to the said prior's chamber." The prior asked him where he
+had slept that night. At Alban's Hall, he answered, with his old
+bedfellow, Fitzjames. The prior said he did not believe him, and asked
+if Garret had been at his rooms the day before. He replied that he had.
+Whither had he gone, then? the prior inquired; and where was he at that
+time? "I answered," says Dalaber, "that I knew not, unless he was gone
+to Woodstock; he told me that he would go there, because one of the
+keepers had promised him a piece or venison to make merry with at
+Shrovetide. This tale I thought meetest, though it were nothing so."[68]
+
+[Sidenote: He is taken to Lincoln College, and reexamined by the
+commissary and two other heads of houses.]
+
+At this moment the university beadle entered with two of the
+commissary's servants, bringing a message to the prior that he should
+repair at once to Lincoln, taking Dalaber with him. "I was brought into
+the chapel," the latter continues, "and there I found Dr. Cottisford,
+commissary; Dr. Higdon, Dean of Cardinal's College; and Dr. London,
+Warden of New College; standing together at the altar. They called for
+chairs and sate down, and then [ordered] me to come to them; they asked
+me what my name was, how long I had been at the university, what I
+studied," with various other inquiries: the clerk of the university,
+meanwhile, bringing pens, ink, and paper, and arranging a table with a
+few loose boards upon tressels. A mass book, he says, was then placed
+before him, and he was commanded to lay his hand upon it, and swear that
+he would answer truly such questions as should be asked him. At first he
+refused; but afterwards, being persuaded, "partly by fair words, and
+partly by great threats," he promised to do as they would have him; but
+in his heart he "meant nothing so to do." "So I laid my hand on the
+book," he goes on, "and one of them gave me my oath, and commanded me to
+kiss the book. They made great courtesy between them who should examine
+me; at last, the rankest Pharisee of them all took upon him to do it.
+
+[Sidenote: He again tells a lie.]
+
+[Sidenote: He is threatened with the rack,]
+
+"Then he asked me again, by my oath, where Master Garret was, and
+whither I had conveyed him. I said I had not conveyed him, nor yet wist
+where he was, nor whither he was gone, except he were gone to Woodstock,
+as I had before said. Surely, they said, I brought him some whither this
+morning, for they might well perceive by my foul shoes and dirty hosen
+that I had travelled with him the most part of the night. I answered
+plainly, that I lay at Alban's Hall with Sir Fitzjames, and that I had
+good witness thereof. They asked me where I was at evensong. I told them
+at Frideswide, and that I saw, first, Master Commissary, and then Master
+Doctor London, come thither to Master Dean. Doctor London and the Dean
+threatened me that if I would not tell the truth I should surely be sent
+to the Tower of London, and there be racked, and put into
+Little-ease.[69]
+
+[Sidenote: And is put in the stocks.]
+
+"At last when they could get nothing out of me whereby to hurt or accuse
+any man, or to know anything of that which they sought, they all three
+together brought me up a long stairs, into a great chamber, over Master
+Commissary's chamber, wherein stood a great pair of very high stocks.
+Then Master Commissary asked me for my purse and girdle, and took away
+my money and my knives; and then they put my legs into the stocks, and
+so locked me fast in them, in which I sate, my feet being almost as high
+as my head; and so they departed, locking fast the door, and leaving me
+alone.
+
+"When they were all gone, then came into my remembrance the worthy
+forewarning and godly declaration of that most constant martyr of God,
+Master John Clark, who, well nigh two years before that, when I did
+earnestly desire him to grant me to be his scholar, said unto me after
+this sort: 'Dalaber, you desire you wot not what, and that which you
+are, I fear, unable to take upon you; for though now my preaching be
+sweet and pleasant to you, because there is no persecution laid on you
+for it, yet the time will come, and that, peradventure, shortly, if ye
+continue to live godly therein, that God will lay on you the cross of
+persecution, to try you whether you can as pure gold abide the fire. You
+shall be called and judged a heretic; you shall be abhorred of the
+world; your own friends and kinsfolk will forsake you, and also hate
+you; you shall be cast into prison, and none shall dare to help you; you
+shall be accused before bishops, to your reproach and shame, to the
+great sorrow of all your friends and kinsfolk. Then will ye wish ye had
+never known this doctrine; then will ye curse Clark, and wish that ye
+had never known him because he hath brought you to all these troubles.'
+
+"At which words I was so grieved that I fell down on my knees at his
+feet, and with tears and sighs besought him that, for the tender mercy
+of God, he would not refuse me; saying that I trusted, verily, that he
+which had begun this in me would not forsake me, but would give me grace
+to continue therein to the end. When he heard me say so, he came to me,
+took me in his arms and kissed me, the tears trickling from his eyes;
+and said unto me: 'The Lord God Almighty grant you so to do; and from
+henceforth for ever, take me for your father, and I will take you for my
+son in Christ.'"
+
+[Sidenote: He still refuses to confess where Garret is gone.]
+
+In these meditations the long Sunday morning wore away. A little before
+noon the commissary came again to see if his prisoner was more amenable;
+finding him, however, still obstinate, he offered him some dinner--a
+promise which we will hope he fulfilled, for here Dalaber's own
+narrative abruptly forsakes us,[70] leaving uncompleted, at this point,
+the most vivid picture which remains to us of a fraction of English life
+in the reign of Henry VIII. If the curtain fell finally on the little
+group of students, this narrative alone would furnish us with rare
+insight into the circumstances under which the Protestants fought their
+way. The story, however, can be carried something further, and the
+strangest incident connected with it remains to be told.
+
+[Sidenote: Monday, Feb. 23.]
+
+[Sidenote: But acknowledges his own heresies.]
+
+Dalaber breaks off on Sunday at noon. The same day, or early the
+following morning, he was submitted once more to examination: this time,
+for the discovery of his own offences, and to induce him to give up his
+confederates. With respect to the latter he proved "marvellous
+obstinate." "All that was gotten of him was with much difficulty;" nor
+would he confess to any names as connected with heresy or heretics
+except that of Clark, which was already known. About himself he was more
+open. He wrote his "book of heresy," that is, his confession Of faith,
+"with his own hand,"--his evening's occupation, perhaps, in the stocks
+in the rector of Lincoln's house; and the next day he was transferred to
+prison.[71]
+
+[Sidenote: Search for books.]
+
+This offender being thus disposed of, and strict secresy being observed
+to prevent the spread of alarm, a rapid search was set on foot for books
+in all suspected quarters. The fear of the authorities was that "the
+infect persons would flee," and "convey" their poison "away with
+them."[72] The officials, once on the scent of heresy, were skilful in
+running down the game. No time was lost, and by Monday evening many of
+"the brethren" had been arrested, their rooms examined, and their
+forbidden treasures discovered and rifled. Dalaber's store was found
+"hid with marvellous secresy;" and in one student's desk a duplicate of
+Garret's list--the titles of the volumes with which the first "Religious
+Tract Society" set themselves to convert England.
+
+[Sidenote: The heads of houses consult one expert in astronomy to
+discover the track of Garret.]
+
+Information of all this was conveyed in haste by Dr. London to the
+Bishop of Lincoln, as the ordinary of the university; and the warden
+told his story with much self-congratulation. On one point, however, the
+news which he had to communicate was less satisfactory. Garret himself
+was gone--utterly gone. Dalaber was obstinate, and no clue to the track
+of the fugitive could be discovered. The police were at fault; neither
+bribes nor threats could elicit anything; and in these desperate
+circumstances, as he told the bishop, the three heads of houses
+conceived that they might strain a point of propriety for so good a
+purpose as to prevent the escape of a heretic. Accordingly, after a full
+report of the points of their success, Doctor London went on to relate
+the following remarkable proceeding:
+
+"After Master Garret escaped, _the commissary being in extreme
+pensiveness, knew no other remedy but this extraordinary, and caused a
+figure to be made by one expert in astronomy--and his judgment doth
+continually persist upon this, that he fled in a tawny coat
+south-eastward, and is in the middle of London, and will shortly to the
+sea side_. He was curate unto the parson of Honey Lane.[73] It is likely
+he is privily cloaked there. Wherefore, as soon as I knew the judgment
+of this astronomer, I thought it expedient and my duty with all speed to
+ascertain your good lordship of all the premises; that in time your
+lordship may advertise my lord his Grace, and my lord of London. It will
+be a gracious deed that he and all his pestiferous works, which he
+carrieth about, might be taken, to the salvation of his soul, opening of
+many privy heresies, and extinction of the same."[74]
+
+[Sidenote: Tuesday, Feb. 24.]
+
+We might much desire to know what the bishop's sensations were in
+reading this letter--to know whether it occurred to him that in this
+naive acknowledgment, the Oxford heresy hunters were themselves
+confessing to an act of heresy; and that by the law of the church, which
+they were so eager to administer, they were liable to the same death
+which they were so zealous to secure for the poor vendors of Testaments.
+So indeed they really were. Consulting the stars had been ruled from
+immemorial time to be dealing with the devil; the penalty of it was the
+same as for witchcraft; yet here was a reverend warden of a college
+considering it his duty to write eagerly of a discovery obtained by
+these forbidden means, to his own diocesan, begging him to communicate
+with the Cardinal of York and the Bishop of London, that three of the
+highest church authorities in England might become _participes
+criminis_, by acting on this diabolical information.
+
+[Sidenote: The principal ports set for Garret's capture.]
+
+Meanwhile, the commissary, not wholly relying on the astrologer, but
+resolving prudently to make use of the more earthly resources which were
+at his disposal, had sent information of Garret's escape to the
+corporations of Dover, Rye, Winchester, Southampton, and Bristol, with
+descriptions of the person of the fugitive; and this step was taken with
+so much expedition, that before the end of the week no vessel was
+allowed to leave either of those harbours without being strictly
+searched.
+
+[Sidenote: Garret goes to Bristol, and is taken by the father-in-law of
+the Oxford proctor.]
+
+The natural method proved more effectual than the supernatural, though
+again with the assistance of a singular accident. Garret had not gone to
+London; unfortunately for himself, he had not gone to Wales as he had
+intended. He left Oxford, as we saw, the evening of Saturday, February
+21st. That night he reached a village called Corkthrop,[75] where he lay
+concealed till Wednesday; and then, not in the astrologer's orange-tawny
+dress, but in "a courtier's coat and buttoned cap," which he had by some
+means contrived to procure, he set out again on his forlorn journey,
+making for the nearest sea-port, Bristol, where the police were looking
+out to receive him. His choice of Bristol was peculiarly unlucky. The
+"chapman" of the town was the step-father of Cole, the Oxford proctor:
+to this person, whose name was Master Wilkyns, the proctor had written a
+special letter, in addition to the commissary's circular; and the family
+connexion acting as a spur to his natural activity, a coast-guard had
+been set before Garret's arrival, to watch for him down the Avon banks,
+and along the Channel shore for fifteen miles. All the Friday night "the
+mayor, with the aldermen, and twenty of the council, had kept privy
+watch," and searched suspicious houses at Master Wilkyns's instance; the
+whole population were on the alert, and when the next afternoon, a week
+after his escape, the poor heretic, footsore and weary, dragged himself
+into the town, he found that he had walked into the lion's mouth.[76] He
+quickly learnt the danger to which he was exposed, and hurried off again
+with the best speed which he could command; but it was too late. The
+chapman, alert and indefatigable, had heard that a stranger had been
+seen in the street; the police were set upon his track, and he was taken
+at Bedminster, a suburb on the opposite bank of the Avon, and hurried
+before a magistrate, where he at once acknowledged his identity.
+
+[Sidenote: Saturday, Feb. 28.]
+
+[Sidenote: Master Wilkyns's triumph, hopes, and disappointment.]
+
+[Sidenote: Garret is sent to Ilchester, and thence to London,]
+
+With such happy success were the good chapman's efforts rewarded. Yet in
+this world there is no light without shadow; no pleasure without its
+alloy. In imagination, Master Wilkyns had thought of himself conducting
+the prisoner in triumph into the streets of Oxford, the hero of the
+hour. The sour formality of the law condemned him to ill-merited
+disappointment. Garret had been taken beyond the liberties of the city;
+it was necessary, therefore, to commit him to the county gaol, and he
+was sent to Ilchester. "Master Wilkyns offered himself to be bound to
+the said justice in three hundred pounds to discharge him of the said
+Garret, and to see him surely to Master Proctor's of Oxford; yet could
+he not have him, for the justice said that the order of the law would
+not so serve."[77] The fortunate captor had therefore to content himself
+with the consciousness of his exploit, and the favourable report of his
+conduct which was sent to the bishops; and Garret went first to
+Ilchester, and thence was taken by special writ, and surrendered to
+Wolsey.
+
+[Sidenote: Where he abjures.]
+
+Thus unkind had fortune shown herself to the chief criminal, guilty of
+the unpardonable offence of selling Testaments at Oxford, and therefore
+hunted down as a mad dog, and a common enemy of mankind. He escaped for
+the present the heaviest consequences, for Wolsey persuaded him to
+abjure. A few years later we shall again meet him, when he had recovered
+his better nature, and would not abjure, and died as a brave man should
+die. In the mean time we return to the university, where the authorities
+were busy trampling out the remains of the conflagration.
+
+[Sidenote: The investigation at Oxford continues.]
+
+Two days after his letter respecting the astrologer, the Warden of New
+College wrote again to the Diocesan, with an account of his further
+proceedings. He was an efficient inquisitor, and the secrets of the poor
+undergraduates had been unravelled to the last thread. Some of "the
+brethren" had confessed; all were in prison; and the doctor desired
+instructions as to what should be done with them. It must be said for
+Dr. London, that he was anxious that they should be treated leniently.
+Dalaber described him as a roaring lion, and he was a bad man, and came
+at last to a bad end. But it is pleasant to find that even he, a mere
+blustering arrogant official, was not wholly without redeeming points of
+character; and as little good will be said for him hereafter, the
+following passage in his second letter may be placed to the credit side
+of his account. The tone in which he wrote was at least humane, and must
+pass for more than an expression of natural kindness, when it is
+remembered that he was addressing a person with whom tenderness for
+heresy was a crime.
+
+[Sidenote: Doctor London writes to the Bishop of Lincoln, advising a
+general pardon.]
+
+"These youths," he said, "have not been long conversant with Master
+Garret, nor have greatly perused his mischievous books; and long before
+Master Garret was taken, divers of them were weary of these works, and
+delivered them to Dalaber. I am marvellous sorry for the young men. If
+they be openly called upon, although they appear not greatly infect, yet
+they shall never avoid slander, because my Lord's Grace did send for
+Master Garret to be taken. I suppose his Grace will know of your good
+lordship everything. Nothing shall be hid, I assure your good lordship,
+an every one of them were my brother; and I do only make this moan for
+these youths, for surely they be of the most towardly young men in
+Oxford; and as far as I do yet perceive, not greatly infect, but much to
+blame for reading any part of these works."[78]
+
+[Sidenote: The bishop insists on punishment.]
+
+Doctor London's intercession, if timid, was generous; he obviously
+wished to suggest that the matter should be hushed up, and that the
+offending parties should be dismissed with a reprimand. If the decision
+had rested with Wolsey, it is likely that this view would have been
+readily acted upon. But the Bishop of Lincoln was a person in whom the
+spirit of humanity had been long exorcised by the spirit of an
+ecclesiastic. He was staggering along the last years of a life against
+which his own register[79] bears dreadful witness, and he would not
+burden his conscience with mercy to heretics. He would not mar the
+completeness of his barbarous career. He singled out three of the
+prisoners--Garret, Clark, and Ferrars[80]--and especially entreated that
+they should be punished. "They be three perilous men," he wrote to
+Wolsey, "and have been the occasion of the corruption of youth. They
+have done much mischief, and for the love of God let them be handled
+thereafter."[81]
+
+[Sidenote: Clark dies in prison.]
+
+[Sidenote: His last words.]
+
+Wolsey had Garret in his own keeping, and declined to surrender him.
+Ferrars had been taken at the Black Friars, in London,[82] and making
+his submission, was respited, and escaped with abjuration. But Clark was
+at Oxford, in the bishop's power, and the wicked old man was allowed to
+work his will upon him. A bill of heresy was drawn, which the prisoner
+was required to sign. He refused, and must have been sent to the stake,
+had he not escaped by dying prematurely of the treatment which he had
+received in prison.[83] His last words only are recorded. He was
+refused the communion, not perhaps as a special act of cruelty, but
+because the laws of the church would not allow the holy thing to be
+profaned by the touch of a heretic. When he was told that it would not
+be suffered, he said "_crede et manducasti_"--"faith is the communion;"
+and so passed away; a very noble person, so far as the surviving
+features of his character will let us judge; one who, if his manhood had
+fulfilled the promise of his youth, would have taken no common part in
+the Reformation.
+
+[Sidenote: Dalaber and his friends carry fagots in High-street.]
+
+The remaining brethren were then dispersed. Some were sent home to their
+friends,--others, Anthony Dalaber among them, were placed on their
+trial, and being terrified at their position, recanted, and were
+sentenced to do penance. Ferrars was brought to Oxford for the occasion,
+and we discern indistinctly (for the mere fact is all which survives) a
+great fire at Carfax; a crowd of spectators, and a procession of
+students marching up High-street with fagots on their shoulders, the
+solemn beadles leading them with gowns and maces. The ceremony was
+repeated to which Dr. Barnes had been submitted at St. Paul's. They were
+taken three times round the fire, throwing in each first their fagot,
+and then some one of the offending books, in token that they repented
+and renounced their errors.
+
+[Sidenote: Oxford is purged.]
+
+Thus was Oxford purged of heresy. The state of innocence which Dr.
+London pathetically lamented[84] was restored, and the heads of houses
+had peace till their rest was broken by a ruder storm.
+
+[Sidenote: The early history of Protestantism is the history of its
+martyrs and confessors,]
+
+[Sidenote: And its evidences, their endurance and suffering.]
+
+In this single specimen we may see a complete image of Wolsey's
+persecution, as with varying details it was carried out in every town
+and village from the Tweed to the Land's End. I dwell on the stories of
+individual suffering, not to colour the narrative, or to reawaken
+feelings of bitterness which may well rest now and sleep for ever, but
+because, through the years in which it was struggling for recognition,
+the history of Protestantism is the history of its martyrs. No rival
+theology, as I have said, had as yet shaped itself into formulas. We
+have not to trace any slow growing elaboration of opinion.
+Protestantism, before it became an establishment, was a refusal to live
+any longer in a lie. It was a falling back upon the undefined
+untheoretic rules of truth and piety which lay upon the surface of the
+Bible, and a determination rather to die than to mock with unreality any
+longer the Almighty Maker of the world. We do not look in the dawning
+manifestations of such a spirit for subtleties of intellect. Intellect,
+as it ever does, followed in the wake of the higher virtues of manly
+honesty and truthfulness. And the evidences which were to effect the
+world's conversion were no cunningly arranged syllogistic
+demonstrations, but once more those loftier evidences which lay in the
+calm endurance by heroic men of the extremities of suffering, and which
+touched, not the mind with conviction, but the heart with admiring
+reverence.
+
+[Sidenote: Wolsey falls, but the persecution is continued by the
+bishops.]
+
+In the concluding years of his administration, Wolsey was embarrassed
+with the divorce. Difficulties were gathering round him, from the
+failure of his hopes abroad and the wreck of his popularity at home; and
+the activity of the persecution was something relaxed, as the guiding
+mind of the great minister ceased to have leisure to attend to it. The
+bishops, however, continued, each in his own diocese, to act with such
+vigour as they possessed. Their courts were unceasingly occupied with
+vexatious suits, commenced without reason, and conducted without
+justice. They summoned arbitrarily as suspected offenders whoever had
+the misfortune to have provoked their dislike; either compelling them to
+criminate themselves by questions on the intricacies of theology,[85] or
+allowing sentence to be passed against them on the evidence of abandoned
+persons, who would not have been admissible as witnesses before the
+secular tribunals.[86]
+
+[Sidenote: The House of Commons, in checking causeless prosecutions, has
+no wish to protect those who are really heretical.]
+
+[Sidenote: The Protestants rather lose than gain in the revolution which
+followed on the fall of Wolsey.]
+
+[Sidenote: Sir Thomas More's chancellorship.]
+
+[Sidenote: The true test of sincerity in a Catholic.]
+
+It might have been thought that the clear perception which was shown by
+the House of Commons of the injustice with which the trials for heresy
+were conducted, the disregard, shameless and flagrant, of the provisions
+of the statutes under which the bishops were enabled to proceed, might
+have led them to reconsider the equity of persecution in itself; or, at
+least, to remove from the office of judges persons who had shown
+themselves so signally unfit to exercise that office. It would have been
+indecent, however, if not impossible, to transfer to a civil tribunal
+the cognizance of opinion; and, on the other hand, there was as yet
+among the upper classes of the laity no kind of disposition to be
+lenient towards those who were really unorthodox. The desire so far was
+only to check the reckless and random accusations of persons whose
+offence was to have criticised, not the doctrine, but the moral conduct
+of the church authorities. The Protestants, although from the date of
+the meeting of the parliament and Wolsey's fall their ultimate triumph
+was certain, gained nothing in its immediate consequences. They suffered
+rather from the eagerness of the political reformers to clear themselves
+from complicity with heterodoxy; and the bishops were even taunted with
+the spiritual dissensions of the realm as an evidence of their indolence
+and misconduct.[87] Language of this kind boded ill for the "Christian
+Brethren"; and the choice of Wolsey's successor for the office of
+chancellor soon confirmed their apprehensions: Wolsey had chastised them
+with whips; Sir Thomas More would chastise them with scorpions; and the
+philosopher of the _Utopia_, the friend of Erasmus, whose life was of
+blameless beauty, whose genius was cultivated to the highest attainable
+perfection, was to prove to the world that the spirit of persecution is
+no peculiar attribute of the pedant, the bigot, or the fanatic, but may
+coexist with the fairest graces of the human character. The lives of
+remarkable men usually illustrate some emphatic truth. Sir Thomas More
+may be said to have lived to illustrate the necessary tendencies of
+Romanism in an honest mind convinced of its truth; to show that the test
+of sincerity in a man who professes to regard orthodoxy as an essential
+of salvation, is not the readiness to endure persecution, but the
+courage which will venture to inflict it.
+
+The seals were delivered to the new chancellor in November, 1529. By his
+oath on entering office he was bound to exert himself to the utmost for
+the suppression of heretics:[88] he was bound, however, equally to obey
+the conditions under which the law allowed them to be suppressed.
+Unfortunately for his reputation as a judge, he permitted the hatred of
+"that kind of men," which he did not conceal that he felt,[89] to
+obscure his conscience on this important feature of his duty, and tempt
+him to imitate the worst iniquities of the bishops. I do not intend in
+this place to relate the stories of his cruelties in his house at
+Chelsea,[90] which he himself partially denied, and which at least we
+may hope were exaggerated. Being obliged to confine myself to specific
+instances, I choose rather those on which the evidence is not open to
+question; and which prove against More, not the zealous execution of a
+cruel law, for which we may not fairly hold him responsible, but a
+disregard, in the highest degree censurable, of his obligations as a
+judge.
+
+The acts under which heretics were liable to punishment, were the 15th
+of the 2d of Henry IV., and the 1st of the 2d of Henry V.
+
+[Sidenote: In cases of heresy, the legal period of imprisonment previous
+to trial was three months.]
+
+By the act of Henry IV., the bishops were bound to bring offenders to
+trial in open court, within three months of their arrest, if there were
+no lawful impediment. If conviction followed, they might imprison at
+their discretion. Except under these conditions, they were not at
+liberty to imprison.
+
+[Sidenote: In cases of indictments before the chancellor, the accused
+person was to be delivered to the bishops within ten days.]
+
+By the act of Henry V., a heretic, if he was first indicted before a
+secular judge, was to be delivered within ten days (or, if possible, a
+shorter period) to the bishop, "to be acquit or convict" by a jury in
+the spiritual court, and to be dealt with accordingly.[91]
+
+[Sidenote: More's carelessness in observing these provisions.]
+
+The secular judge might detain a heretic for ten days before delivering
+him to the bishop. The bishop might detain him for three months before
+his trial. Neither the secular judge nor the bishop had power to inflict
+indefinite imprisonment at will while the trial was delayed; nor, if on
+the trial the bishop failed in securing a conviction, was he at liberty
+to detain the accused person any longer on the same charge, because the
+result was not satisfactory to himself. These provisions were not
+preposterously lenient. Sir Thomas More should have found no difficulty
+in observing them himself, and in securing the observance of them by the
+bishops, at least in cases where he was himself responsible for the
+first committal. It is to be feared that he forgot that he was a judge
+in his eagerness to be a partisan, and permitted no punctilious legal
+scruples to interfere with the more important object of ensuring
+punishment to heretics.
+
+The first case which I shall mention is one in which the Bishop of
+London was principally guilty; not, however, without More's countenance,
+and, if Foxe is to be believed, his efficient support.
+
+[Sidenote: Case of Thomas Philips.]
+
+In December, 1529, the month succeeding his appointment as chancellor,
+More, at the instance of the Bishop of London,[92] arrested a citizen of
+London, Thomas Philips by name, on a charge of heresy.
+
+The prisoner was surrendered in due form to his diocesan, and was
+brought to trial on the 4th of February; a series of articles being
+alleged against him by Foxford, the bishop's vicar-general. The articles
+were of the usual kind. The prisoner was accused of having used
+unorthodox expressions on transubstantiation, on purgatory, pilgrimages,
+and confession. It does not appear whether any witnesses were produced.
+The vicar-general brought his accusations on the ground of general
+rumour, and failed to maintain them. Whether there were witnesses or
+not, neither the particular offences, nor even the fact of the general
+rumour, could be proved to the satisfaction of the jury. Philips himself
+encountered each separate charge with a specific denial, declaring that
+he neither was, nor ever had been, other than orthodox; and the result
+of the trial was, that no conviction could be obtained. The prisoner
+"was found so clear from all manner of infamous slanders and suspicions,
+that all the people before the said bishop, shouting in judgment as with
+one voice, openly witnessed his good name and fame, to the great reproof
+and shame of the said bishop, if he had not been ashamed to be
+ashamed."[93] The case had broken down; the proceedings were over, and
+by law the accused person was free. But the law, except when it was on
+their own side, was of little importance to the church authorities. As
+they had failed to prove Philips guilty of heresy, they called upon him
+to confess his guilt by abjuring it; "as if," he says, "there were no
+difference between a nocent and an innocent, between a guilty and a not
+guilty."[94]
+
+He refused resolutely, and was remanded to prison, in open violation of
+the law. The bishop, in conjunction with Sir Thomas More,[95] sent for
+him from time to time, submitting him to private examinations, which
+again were illegal; and urged the required confession, in order, as
+Philips says, "to save the bishop's credit."
+
+[Sidenote: He is imprisoned unconvicted for three years.]
+
+The further they advanced, the more difficult it was to recede; and the
+bishop at length, irritated at his failure, concluded the process with
+an arbitrary sentence of excommunication. From this sentence, whether
+just or unjust, there was then no appeal, except to the pope. The
+wretched man, in virtue of it, was no longer under the protection of the
+law, and was committed to the Tower, where he languished for three
+years, protesting, but protesting fruitlessly, against the tyranny which
+had crushed him, and clamouring for justice in the deaf ears of pedants
+who knew not what justice meant.
+
+[Sidenote: He appeals at length to the House of Commons, and recovers
+his liberty.]
+
+If this had occurred at the beginning of the century, the prisoner would
+have been left to die, as countless multitudes had already died,
+unheard, uncared for, unthought of; the victim not of deliberate
+cruelty, but of that frightfullest portent, folly armed with power.
+Happily the years of his imprisonment had been years of swift
+revolution. The House of Commons had become a tribunal where oppression
+would not any longer cry wholly unheard; Philips appealed to it for
+protection, and recovered his liberty.[96]
+
+[Sidenote: The Bishop of London responsible in the first degree; but
+More was severely censurable.]
+
+The weight of guilt in this instance presses essentially on Stokesley;
+yet a portion of the blame must be borne also by the chancellor, who
+first placed Philips in Stokesley's hands; who took part in the illegal
+private examinations, and who could not have been ignorant of the
+prisoner's ultimate fate. If, however, it be thought unjust to charge a
+good man's memory with an offence in which his part was only secondary,
+the following iniquity was wholly and exclusively his own. I relate the
+story without comment in the address of the injured person to More's
+successor.[97]
+
+[Sidenote: Case of John Field.]
+
+  "_To the Right Hon. the Lord Chancellor of England
+  (Sir T. Audeley) and other of the King's Council._
+
+[Sidenote: Illegally imprisoned by More.]
+
+"In most humble wise showeth unto your goodness your poor bedeman John
+Field, how that the next morrow upon twelfth day,[98] in the
+twenty-first year of our sovereign lord the King's Highness, Sir Thomas
+More, Knight, then being Lord Chancellor of England, did send certain of
+his servants, and caused your said bedeman, with certain others, to be
+brought to his place at Chelsea, and there kept him (after what manner
+and fashion it were now long to tell), by the space of eighteen
+days;[99] and then set him at liberty, binding him to appear before him
+again the eighth day following in the Star Chamber, which was Candlemas
+eve; at which day your said bedeman appeared, and was then sent to the
+Fleet, where he continued until Palm Sunday two years after, [in
+violation of both the statutes,] kept so close the first quarter that
+his keeper only might visit him; and always after closed up with those
+that were handled most straitly; often searched, sometimes even at
+midnight; besides snares and traps laid to take him in. Betwixt
+Michaelmas and Allhalloween tide next after his coming to prison there
+was taken from your bedeman a Greek vocabulary, price five shillings;
+Saint Cyprian's works, with a book of the same Sir Thomas More's making,
+named the _Supplication of Souls_. For what cause it was done he
+committeth to the judgment of God, that seeth the souls of all persons.
+The said Palm Sunday, which was also our Lady's day, towards night there
+came two officers of the Fleet, named George Porter and John Butler, and
+took your bedeman into a ward alone, and there, after long searching,
+found his purse hanging at his girdle; which they took, and shook out
+the money to the sum of ten shillings, which was sent him to buy such
+necessaries as he lacked, and delivered him again his purse, well and
+truly keeping the money to themselves, as they said for their fees; and
+forthwith carried him from the Fleet (where he lost such poor bedding as
+he then had, and could never since get it), and delivered him to the
+Marshalsea, under our gracious sovereign's commandment and Sir Thomas
+More's. When the Sunday before the Rogation week following, your bedeman
+fell sick; and the Whitsun Monday was carried out on four men's backs,
+and delivered to his friends to be recovered if it so pleased God. At
+which time the keeper took for your bedeman's fees other ten shillings,
+when four shillings should have sufficed if he had been delivered in
+good health.
+
+"Within three weeks it pleased God to set your bedeman on his feet, so
+that he might walk abroad. Whereof when Sir Thomas More heard (who went
+out of his chancellorship about the time your bedeman was carried out of
+prison), although he had neither word nor deed which he could ever truly
+lay to your bedeman's charge, yet made he such means by the Bishops of
+Winchester and London, as your bedeman heard say, to the Hon. Lord
+Thomas Duke of Norfolk, that he gave new commandment to the keeper of
+the Marshalsea to attach again your said bedeman; which thing was
+speedily done the Sunday three weeks after his deliverance. And so he
+continued in prison again until Saint Lawrence tide following; at which
+time money was given to the keeper, and some things he took which were
+not given, and then was your bedeman re-delivered through the king's
+goodness, under sureties bound in a certain sum, that he should appear
+the first day of the next term following, and then day by day until his
+dismission. And so hath your bedeman been at liberty now twelve months
+waiting daily from term to term, and nothing laid to his charge as
+before.
+
+"Wherefore, the premises tenderly considered, and also your said
+bedeman's great poverty, he most humbly beseecheth your goodness that he
+may now be clearly discharged; and if books, money, or other things seem
+to be taken or kept from him otherwise than justice would, eftsoons he
+beseecheth you that ye will command it to be restored.
+
+"As for his long imprisonment, with other griefs thereto appertaining,
+he looketh not to have recompense of man; but committeth his whole cause
+to God, to whom your bedeman shall daily pray, according as he is bound,
+that ye may so order and govern the realm that it may be to the honour
+of God and your heavenly and everlasting reward."
+
+I do not find the result of this petition, but as it appeared that Henry
+had interested himself in the story, it is likely to have been
+successful. We can form but an imperfect judgment on the merits of the
+case, for we have only the sufferer's _ex parte_ complaint, and More
+might probably have been able to make some counter-statement. But the
+illegal imprisonment cannot be explained away, and cannot be palliated;
+and when a judge permits himself to commit an act of arbitrary tyranny,
+we argue from the known to the unknown, and refuse reasonably to give
+him credit for equity where he was so little careful of law.
+
+[Sidenote: Contrast between Wolsey and More in the treatment of
+heretics.]
+
+[Sidenote: The Smithfield fires recommence.]
+
+[Sidenote: Troubles of Bilney.]
+
+Yet a few years of misery in a prison was but an insignificant
+misfortune when compared with the fate under which so many other poor
+men were at this time overwhelmed. Under Wolsey's chancellorship the
+stake had been comparatively idle; he possessed a remarkable power of
+making recantation easy; and there is, I believe, no instance in which
+an accused heretic was brought under his immediate cognizance, where he
+failed to arrange some terms by which submission was made possible. With
+Wolsey heresy was an error--with More it was a crime. Soon after the
+seals changed hands the Smithfield fires recommenced; and, the
+chancellor acting in concert with them, the bishops resolved to
+obliterate, in these edifying spectacles, the recollection of their
+general infirmities. The crime of the offenders varied,--sometimes it
+was a denial of the corporal presence, more often it was a reflection
+too loud to be endured on the character and habits of the clergy; but
+whatever it was, the alternative lay only between abjuration humiliating
+as ingenuity could make it, or a dreadful death. The hearts of many
+failed them in the trial, and of all the confessors those perhaps do not
+deserve the least compassion whose weakness betrayed them, who sank and
+died broken-hearted. Of these silent sufferers history knows nothing. A
+few, unable to endure the misery of having, as they supposed, denied
+their Saviour, returned to the danger from which they had fled, and
+washed out their fall in martyrdom. Latimer has told us the story of his
+friend Bilney--little Bilney, or Saint Bilney,[100] as he calls him, his
+companion at Cambridge, to whom he owed his own conversion. Bilney,
+after escaping through Wolsey's hands in 1527, was again cited in 1529
+before the Bishop of London. Three times he refused to recant. He was
+offered a fourth and last chance. The temptation was too strong, and he
+fell. For two years he was hopelessly miserable; at length his braver
+nature prevailed. There was no pardon for a relapsed heretic, and if he
+was again in the bishop's hands he knew well the fate which awaited him.
+
+[Sidenote: He "goes up to Jerusalem."]
+
+He told his friends, in language touchingly significant, that "he would
+go up to Jerusalem"; and began to preach in the fields. The journey
+which he had undertaken was not to be a long one. He was heard to say in
+a sermon, that of his personal knowledge certain things which had been
+offered in pilgrimage had been given to abandoned women. The priests, he
+affirmed, "take away the offerings, and hang them about their women's
+necks; and after that they take them off the women, if they please them
+not, and hang them again upon the images."[101] This was Bilney's
+heresy, or formed the ground of his arrest; he was orthodox on the mass,
+and also on the power of the keys; but the secrets of the sacred order
+were not to be betrayed with impunity. He was seized, and hurried before
+the Bishop of Norwich; and being found heterodox on the papacy and the
+mediation of the saints, by the Bishop of Norwich he was sent to the
+stake.
+
+[Sidenote: James Bainham,]
+
+Another instance of recovered courage, and of martyrdom consequent upon
+it, is that of James Bainham, a barrister of the Middle Temple. This
+story is noticeable from a very curious circumstance connected with it.
+
+[Sidenote: The latitudinarian martyr.]
+
+[Sidenote: On his first trial he recants.]
+
+Bainham had challenged suspicion by marrying the widow of Simon Fish,
+the author of the famous _Beggars' Petition_, who had died in 1528; and,
+soon after his marriage, was challenged to give an account of his
+faith. He was charged with denying transubstantiation, with questioning
+the value of the confessional, and the power of the keys; and the
+absence of authoritative Protestant dogma had left his mind free to
+expand to a yet larger belief. He had ventured to assert, that "if a
+Turk, a Jew, or a Saracen do trust in God and keep his law, he is a good
+Christian man,"[102]--a conception of Christianity, a conception of
+Protestantism, which we but feebly dare to whisper even at the present
+day. The proceedings against him commenced with a demand that he should
+give up his books, and also the names of other barristers with whom he
+was suspected to have held intercourse. He refused; and in consequence
+his wife was imprisoned, and he himself was racked in the Tower by order
+of Sir Thomas More. Enfeebled by suffering, he was then brought before
+Stokesley, and terrified by the cold merciless eyes of his judge, he
+gave way, not about his friends, but about himself: he abjured, and was
+dismissed heartbroken. This was on the seventeenth of February. He was
+only able to endure his wretchedness for a month. At the end of it, he
+appeared at a secret meeting of the Christian Brothers, in "a warehouse
+in Bow Lane," where he asked forgiveness of God and all the world for
+what he had done; and then went out to take again upon his shoulders the
+heavy burden of the cross.
+
+[Sidenote: He recovers his courage,]
+
+The following Sunday, at the church of St. Augustine, he rose in his
+seat with the fatal English Testament in his hand, and "declared openly,
+before all the people, with weeping tears, that he had denied God,"
+praying them all to forgive him, and beware of his weakness; "for if I
+should not return to the truth," he said, "this Word of God would damn
+me, body and soul, at the day of judgment." And then he prayed
+"everybody rather to die than to do as he did, for he would not feel
+such a hell again as he did feel for all the world's good."[103]
+
+[Sidenote: And is arrested again.]
+
+Of course but one event was to be looked for: he knew it, and himself
+wrote to the bishop, telling him what he had done. No mercy was
+possible: he looked for none, and he found none.
+
+[Sidenote: The mercy of the church authorities.]
+
+Yet perhaps he found what the wise authorities thought to be some act of
+mercy. They could not grant him pardon in this world upon any terms; but
+they would not kill him till they had made an effort for his soul. He
+was taken to the Bishop of London's coal-cellar at Fulham, the favourite
+episcopal penance-chamber, where he was ironed and put in the stocks;
+and there was left for many days, in the chill March weather, to bethink
+himself. This failing to work conviction, he was carried to Sir Thomas
+More's house at Chelsea, where for two nights he was chained to a post
+and whipped; thence, again, he was taken back to Fulham for another week
+of torture; and finally to the Tower, for a further fortnight, again
+with ineffectual whippings.
+
+[Sidenote: He is burnt April 20, 1532.]
+
+The demands of charity were thus satisfied. The pious bishop and the
+learned chancellor had exhausted their means of conversion; they had
+discharged their consciences; and the law was allowed to take its
+course. The prisoner was brought to trial on the 20th of April, as a
+relapsed heretic. Sentence followed; and on the last of the month the
+drama closed in the usual manner at Smithfield. Before the fire was
+lighted Bainham made a farewell address to the people, laying his death
+expressly to More, whom he called his accuser and his judge.[104]
+
+[Sidenote: The feelings with which these spectacles were witnessed by
+the people.]
+
+It is unfortunately impossible to learn the feelings with which these
+dreadful scenes were witnessed by the people. There are stories which
+show that, in some instances, familiarity had produced the usual effect;
+that the martyrdom of saints was at times of no more moment to an
+English crowd than the execution of ordinary felons,--that it was a mere
+spectacle to the idle, the hardened, and the curious. On the other hand,
+it is certain that the behaviour of the sufferers was the argument which
+at last converted the nation; and an effect which in the end was so
+powerful with the multitude must have been visible long before in the
+braver and better natures. The increasing number of prosecutions in
+London shows, also, that the leaven was spreading. There were five
+executions in Smithfield between 1529 and 1533, besides those in the
+provinces. The prisons were crowded with offenders who had abjured and
+were undergoing sentence; and the list of those who were "troubled" in
+various ways is so extensive, as to leave no doubt of the sympathy
+which, in London at least, must have been felt by many, very many, of
+the spectators of the martyrs' deaths. We are left, in this important
+point, mainly to conjecture; and if we were better furnished with
+evidence, the language of ordinary narrative would fail to convey any
+real notion of perplexed and various emotions. We have glimpses,
+however, into the inner world of men, here and there of strange
+interest; and we must regret that they are so few.
+
+[Sidenote: Suicide of a boy at Cambridge.]
+
+A poor boy at Cambridge, John Randall, of Christ's College, a relation
+of Foxe the martyrologist, destroyed himself in these years in religious
+desperation; he was found in his study hanging by his girdle, before an
+open Bible, with his dead arm and finger stretched pitifully towards a
+passage on predestination.[105]
+
+[Sidenote: Pavier, the town clerk of London, also destroys himself,
+under strange circumstances.]
+
+A story even more remarkable is connected with Bainham's execution.
+Among the lay officials present at the stake, was "one Pavier," town
+clerk of London. This Pavier was a Catholic fanatic, and as the flames
+were about to be kindled he burst out into violent and abusive language.
+The fire blazed up, and the dying sufferer, as the red flickering
+tongues licked the flesh from off his bones, turned to him and said,
+"May God forgive thee, and shew more mercy than thou, angry reviler,
+shewest to me." The scene was soon over; the town clerk went home. A
+week after, one morning when his wife had gone to mass, he sent all his
+servants out of his house on one pretext or another, a single girl only
+being left, and he withdrew to a garret at the top of the house, which
+he used as an oratory. A large crucifix was on the wall, and the girl
+having some question to ask, went to the room, and found him standing
+before it "bitterly weeping." He told her to take his sword, which was
+rusty, and clean it. She went away and left him; when she returned, a
+little time after, he was hanging from a beam, dead. He was a singular
+person. Edward Hall, the historian, knew him, and had heard him say,
+that "if the king put forth the New Testament in English, he would not
+live to bear it."[106] And yet he could not bear to see a heretic die.
+What was it? Had the meaning of that awful figure hanging on the
+torturing cross suddenly revealed itself? Had some inner voice asked him
+whether, in the prayer for his persecutors with which Christ had parted
+out of life, there might be some affinity with words which had lately
+sounded in his own ears? God, into whose hands he threw himself,
+self-condemned in his wretchedness, only knows the agony of that hour.
+Let the secret rest where it lies, and let us be thankful for ourselves
+that we live in a changed world.
+
+[Sidenote: The two orders of martyrs.]
+
+Thus, however, the struggle went forward; a forlorn hope of saints led
+the way up the breach, and paved with their bodies a broad road into the
+new era; and the nation the meanwhile was unconsciously waiting till the
+works of the enemy were won, and they could walk safely in and take
+possession. While men like Bilney and Bainham were teaching with words
+and writings, there were stout English hearts labouring also on the
+practical side of the same conflict, instilling the same lessons, and
+meeting for themselves the same consequences. Speculative superstition
+was to be met with speculative denial. Practical idolatry required a
+rougher method of disenchantment.
+
+[Sidenote: The worship of relics, in its origin and in its abuse.]
+
+[Sidenote: Bishop Shaxton's inventory.]
+
+[Sidenote: The wonder-working roods.]
+
+[Sidenote: The rood of Boxley.]
+
+[Sidenote: The rood of Dovercourt.]
+
+Every monastery, every parish church, had in those days its special
+relics, its special images, its special something, to attract the
+interest of the people. The reverence for the remains of noble and pious
+men, the dresses which they had worn, or the bodies in which their
+spirits had lived, was in itself a natural and pious emotion; but it had
+been petrified into a dogma; and like every other imaginative feeling
+which is submitted to that bad process, it had become a falsehood, a
+mere superstition, a substitute for piety, not a stimulus to it, and a
+perpetual occasion of fraud. The people brought offerings to the shrines
+where it was supposed that the relics were of greatest potency. The
+clergy, to secure the offerings, invented the relics, and invented the
+stories of the wonders which had been worked by them. The greatest
+exposure of these things took place at the visitation of the religious
+houses. In the meantime, Bishop Shaxton's unsavoury inventory of what
+passed under the name of relics in the diocese of Salisbury, will
+furnish an adequate notion of these objects of popular veneration. There
+"be set forth and commended unto the ignorant people," he said, "as I
+myself of certain which be already come to my hands, have perfect
+knowledge, stinking boots, mucky combes, ragged rochettes, rotten
+girdles, pyl'd purses, great bullocks' horns, locks of hair, and filthy
+rags, gobbetts of wood, under the name of parcels of the holy cross, and
+such pelfry beyond estimation."[107] Besides matters of this kind, there
+were images of the Virgin or of the Saints; above all, roods or
+crucifixes, of especial potency, the virtues of which had begun to grow
+uncertain, however, to sceptical Protestants; and from doubt to denial,
+and from denial to passionate hatred, there were but a few brief steps.
+The most famous of the roods was that of Boxley in Kent, which used to
+smile and bow, or frown and shake its head, as its worshippers were
+generous or closehanded. The fortunes and misfortunes of this image I
+shall by and bye have to relate. There was another, however, at
+Dovercourt, in Suffolk, of scarcely inferior fame. This image was of
+such power that the door of the church in which it stood was open at all
+hours to all comers, and no human hand could close it. Dovercourt
+therefore became a place of great and lucrative pilgrimage, much
+resorted to by the neighbours on all occasions of difficulty.
+
+[Sidenote: Its powers are submitted to trial,]
+
+Now it happened that within the circuit of a few miles there lived four
+young men, to whom the virtues of the rood had become greatly
+questionable. If it could work miracles, it must be capable, so they
+thought, of protecting its own substance; and they agreed to apply a
+practical test which would determine the extent of its abilities.
+Accordingly (about the time of Bainham's first imprisonment), Robert
+King of Dedham, Robert Debenham of Eastbergholt, Nicholas Marsh of
+Dedham, and Robert Gardiner of Dedham, "their consciences being burdened
+to see the honour of Almighty God so blasphemed by such an idol,"
+started off "on a wondrous goodly night" in February, with hard frost
+and a clear full moon, ten miles across the wolds, to the church.
+
+[Sidenote: And are found unequal to the emergency.]
+
+[Sidenote: The rood is burnt.]
+
+The door was open as the legend declared; but nothing daunted, they
+entered bravely, and lifting down the "idol" from its shrine, with its
+coat and shoes, and the store of tapers which were kept for the
+services, they carried it on their shoulders for a quarter of a mile
+from the place where it had stood, "without any resistance of the said
+idol." There setting it on the ground, they struck a light, fastened the
+tapers to the body, and with the help of them, sacrilegiously burnt the
+image down to a heap of ashes; the old dry wood "blazing so brimly,"
+that it lighted them a full mile of their way home.[108]
+
+[Sidenote: Execution of three of the perpetrators.]
+
+For this night's performance, which, if the devil is the father of lies,
+was a stroke of honest work against him and his family, the world
+rewarded these men after the usual fashion. One of them, Robert
+Gardiner, escaped the search which was made, and disappeared till better
+times; the remaining three were swinging in chains six months later on
+the scene of their exploit. Their fate was perhaps inevitable. Men who
+dare to be the first in great movements are ever self-immolated victims.
+But I suppose that it was better for them to be bleaching on their
+gibbets, than crawling at the feet of a wooden rood, and believing it to
+be God.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Sidenote: The Protestant Paladins.]
+
+[Sidenote: The two greatest men on the side of the Reformation.]
+
+[Sidenote: The approaching revulsion, and the use which was made of it.]
+
+These were the first Paladins of the Reformation, the knights who slew
+the dragons and the enchanters, and made the earth habitable for common
+flesh and blood. They were rarely, as we have said, men of great
+ability, still more rarely men of "wealth and station"; but men rather
+of clear senses and honest hearts. Tyndal was a remarkable person, and
+so Clark and Frith promised to become; but the two last were cut off
+before they had found scope to show themselves; and Tyndal remaining
+abroad, lay outside the battle which was being fought in England, doing
+noble work, indeed, and ending as the rest ended, with earning a
+martyr's crown; but taking no part in the actual struggle except with
+his pen. As yet but two men of the highest order of power were on the
+side of Protestantism--Latimer and Cromwell. Of them we have already
+said something; but the time was now fast coming when they were to step
+forward, pressed by circumstances which could no longer dispense with
+them, into scenes of far wider activity; and the present seems a fitting
+occasion to give some closer account of their history. When the breach
+with the pope was made irreparable, and the papal party at home had
+assumed an attitude of suspended insurrection, the fortunes of the
+Protestants entered into a new phase. The persecution ceased; and those
+who but lately were carrying fagots in the streets, or hiding for their
+lives, passed at once by a sudden alternation into the sunshine of
+political favour. The summer was but a brief one, followed soon by
+returning winter; but Cromwell and Latimer had together caught the
+moment as it went by; and before it was over, a work had been done in
+England which, when it was accomplished once, was accomplished for ever.
+The conservative party recovered their power, and abused it as before;
+but the chains of the nation were broken, and no craft of kings or
+priests or statesmen could weld the magic links again.
+
+It is a pity that of two persons to whom England owes so deep a debt, we
+can piece together such scanty biographies. I must attempt, however, to
+give some outline of the little which is known.
+
+[Sidenote: The family of Hugh Latimer. His father a Leicestershire
+yeoman.]
+
+The father of Latimer was a solid English yeoman, of Thurcaston, in
+Leicestershire. "He had no lands of his own," but he rented a farm "of
+four pounds by the year," on which "he tilled so much as kept half a
+dozen men;" "he had walk for a hundred sheep, and meadow ground for
+thirty cows."[109] The world prospered with him; he was able to save
+money for his son's education and his daughters' portions; but he was
+free-handed and hospitable; he kept open house for his poor neighbours;
+and he was a good citizen, too, for "he did find the king a harness with
+himself and his horse," ready to do battle for his country, if occasion
+called. His family were brought up "in godliness and the fear of the
+Lord;" and in all points the old Latimer seems to have been a worthy,
+sound, upright man, of the true English mettle.
+
+[Sidenote: The Reformer born about 1490,]
+
+[Sidenote: And brought up in the farmhouse as a brave English boy.]
+
+[Sidenote: He goes to Cambridge.]
+
+There were several children.[110] The Reformer was born about 1490, some
+five years after the usurper Richard had been killed at Bosworth.
+Bosworth being no great distance from Thurcaston, Latimer the father is
+likely to have been present in the battle, on one side or the
+other,--the right side in those times it was no easy matter to
+choose,--but he became a good servant of the new government,--and the
+little Hugh, when a boy of seven years old, helped to buckle[111] on his
+armour for him, "when he went to Blackheath field."[112] Being a soldier
+himself, the old gentleman was careful to give his sons, whatever else
+he gave them, a sound soldier's training. "He was diligent," says
+Latimer, "to teach me to shoot with the bow: he taught me how to draw,
+how to lay my body in the bow--not to draw with strength of arm, as
+other nations do, but with the strength of the body. I had my bows
+bought me according to my age and strength; as I increased in these, my
+bows were made bigger and bigger."[113] Under this education, and in the
+wholesome atmosphere of the farmhouse, the boy prospered well; and by
+and bye, showing signs of promise, he was sent to school. When he was
+fourteen, the promises so far having been fulfilled, his father
+transferred him to Cambridge.[114]
+
+[Sidenote: Is elected fellow of Clare Hall, and becomes a divinity
+student.]
+
+[Sidenote: Converted from "the shadow of death" by Bilney.]
+
+[Sidenote: Sources of Latimer's knowledge, as evidenced in his sermons.]
+
+He was soon known at the university as a sober, hard-working student. At
+nineteen, he was elected fellow of Clare Hall; at twenty, he took his
+degree, and became a student in divinity, when he accepted quietly, like
+a sensible man, the doctrines which he had been brought up to believe.
+At the time when Henry VIII. was writing against Luther, Latimer was
+fleshing his maiden sword in an attack upon Melancthon;[115] and he
+remained, he said, till he was thirty, "in darkness and the shadow of
+death." About this time he became acquainted with Bilney, whom he calls
+"the instrument whereby God called him to knowledge." In Bilney,
+doubtless, he found a sound instructor; but a careful reader of his
+sermons will see traces of a teaching for which he was indebted to no
+human master. His deepest knowledge was that which stole upon him
+unconsciously through the experience of life and the world. His words
+are like the clear impression of a seal; the account and the result of
+observations, taken first hand, on the condition of the English men and
+women of his time, in all ranks and classes, from the palace to the
+prison. He shows large acquaintance with books; with the Bible, most of
+all; with patristic divinity and school divinity; and history, sacred
+and profane: but if this had been all, he would not have been the
+Latimer of the Reformation, and the Church of England would not,
+perhaps, have been here to-day. Like the physician, to whom a year of
+practical experience in a hospital teaches more than a life of closet
+study, Latimer learnt the mental disorders of his age in the age itself;
+and the secret of that art no other man, however good, however wise,
+could have taught him. He was not an echo, but a voice; and he drew his
+thoughts fresh from the fountain--from the facts of the era in which God
+had placed him.
+
+[Sidenote: His early reputation as a preacher at Cambridge.]
+
+[Sidenote: Personal character of his addresses.]
+
+[Sidenote: He offends the Bishop of Ely.]
+
+[Sidenote: Wolsey's judgment on the bishop's complaint.]
+
+He became early famous as a preacher at Cambridge, from the first, "a
+seditious fellow," as a noble lord called him in later life, highly
+troublesome to unjust persons in authority. "None, except the
+stiff-necked and uncircumcised, ever went away from his preaching, it
+was said, without being affected with high detestation of sin, and moved
+to all godliness and virtue."[116] And, in his audacious simplicity, he
+addressed himself always to his individual hearers, giving his words a
+personal application, and often addressing men by name. This habit
+brought him first into difficulty in 1525. He was preaching before the
+university, when the Bishop of Ely came into the church, being curious
+to hear him. He paused till the bishop was seated; and when he
+recommenced, he changed his subject, and drew an ideal picture of a
+prelate as a prelate ought to be; the features of which, though he did
+not say so, were strikingly unlike those of his auditor. The bishop
+complained to Wolsey, who sent for Latimer, and inquired what he had
+said. Latimer repeated the substance of his sermon; and other
+conversation then followed, which showed Wolsey very clearly the nature
+of the person with whom he was speaking. No eye saw more rapidly than
+the cardinal's the difference between a true man and an impostor; and he
+replied to the Bishop of Ely's accusations by granting the offender a
+licence to preach in any church in England. "If the Bishop of Ely cannot
+abide such doctrine as you have here repeated," he said, "you shall
+preach it to his beard, let him say what he will."[117]
+
+[Sidenote: Practical character of Latimer's mind, which protected him
+from speculative difficulties.]
+
+Thus fortified, Latimer pursued his way, careless of the university
+authorities, and probably defiant of them. He was still orthodox in
+points of theoretic belief. His mind was practical rather than
+speculative, and he was slow in arriving at conclusions which had no
+immediate bearing upon action. No charge could be fastened upon him,
+definitely criminal; and he was too strong to be crushed by that
+compendious tyranny which treated as an act of heresy the exposure of
+imposture or delinquency.
+
+[Sidenote: On Wolsey's fall, he is appointed royal chaplain.]
+
+[Sidenote: Latimer addresses Henry in behalf of the Protestants.]
+
+On Wolsey's fall, however, he would have certainly been silenced: if he
+had fallen into the hands of Sir Thomas More, he would have perhaps
+been prematurely sacrificed. But, fortunately, he found a fresh
+protector in the king. Henry heard of him, sent for him, and, with
+instinctive recognition of his character, appointed him one of the royal
+chaplains. He now left Cambridge and removed to Windsor, but only to
+treat his royal patron as freely as he had treated the Cambridge
+doctors,--not with any absence of respect, for he was most respectful,
+but with that highest respect which dares to speak unwelcome truth where
+the truth seems to be forgotten. He was made chaplain in 1530--during
+the new persecution, for which Henry was responsible by a more than
+tacit acquiescence. Latimer, with no authority but his own conscience,
+and the strong certainty that he was on God's side, threw himself
+between the spoilers and their prey, and wrote to the king, protesting
+against the injustice which was crushing the truest men in his
+dominions. The letter is too long to insert; the close of it may show
+how a poor priest could dare to address the imperious Henry VIII.:
+
+"I pray to God that your Grace may take heed of the worldly wisdom which
+is foolishness before God; that you may do that [which] God commandeth,
+and not that [which] seemeth good in your own sight, without the word of
+God; that your Grace may be found acceptable in his sight, and one of
+the members of his church; and according to the office that he hath
+called your Grace unto, you may be found a faithful minister of his
+gifts, and not a defender of his faith: for he will not have it defended
+by man or man's power, but by his word only, by the which he hath
+evermore defended it, and that by a way far above man's power or
+reason.
+
+"Wherefore, gracious king, remember yourself; have pity upon your soul;
+and think that the day is even at hand when you shall give account for
+your office, and of the blood that hath been shed by your sword. In
+which day, that your Grace may stand steadfastly, and not be ashamed,
+but be clear and ready in your reckoning, and have (as they say), your
+_quietus est_ sealed with the blood of our Saviour Christ, which only
+serveth at that day, is my daily prayer to Him that suffered death for
+our sins, which also prayeth to his Father for grace for us continually;
+to whom be all honour and praise for ever. Amen. The Spirit of God
+preserve your Grace."[118]
+
+[Sidenote: His intercession was ineffectual,]
+
+[Sidenote: But earned the increased regard of the king.]
+
+These words, which conclude an address of almost unexampled grandeur,
+are unfortunately of no interest to us, except as illustrating the
+character of the priest who wrote them, and the king to whom they were
+written. The hand of the persecutor was not stayed. The rack and the
+lash and the stake continued to claim their victims. So far it was
+labour in vain. But the letter remains, to speak for ever for the
+courage of Latimer; and to speak something, too, for a prince that could
+respect the nobleness of the poor yeoman's son, who dared in such a
+cause to write to him as a man to a man. To have written at all in such
+a strain was as brave a step as was ever deliberately ventured. Like
+most brave acts, it did not go unrewarded; for Henry remained ever
+after, however widely divided from him in opinion, his unshaken friend.
+
+[Sidenote: He retires from the court to West Kingston, but preaches
+widely about the country.]
+
+In 1531, the king gave him the living of West Kingston, in Wiltshire,
+where for a time he now retired. Yet it was but a partial rest. He had
+a special licence as a preacher from Cambridge, which continued to him
+(with the king's express sanction)[119] the powers which he had received
+from Wolsey. He might preach in any diocese to which he was invited; and
+the repose of a country parish could not be long allowed in such stormy
+times to Latimer. He had bad health, being troubled with headache,
+pleurisy, colic, stone; his bodily constitution meeting feebly the
+demands which he was forced to make upon it.[120] But he struggled on,
+travelling up and down to London, to Kent, to Bristol, wherever
+opportunity called him; marked for destruction by the bishops, if he was
+betrayed into an imprudent word, and himself living in constant
+expectation of death.[121]
+
+[Sidenote: He is cited before Stokesley,]
+
+[Sidenote: And expects death.]
+
+At length the Bishop of London believed that Latimer was in his power.
+He had preached at St. Abb's, in the city, "at the request of a company
+of merchants,"[122] in the beginning of the winter of 1531; and soon
+after his return to his living, he was informed that he was to be cited
+before Stokesley. His friends in the neighbourhood wrote to him,
+evidently in great alarm, and more anxious that he might clear himself
+than expecting that he would be able to do so;[123] he himself, indeed,
+had almost made up his mind that the end was coming.[124]
+
+[Sidenote: January 10.]
+
+[Sidenote: Method of prosecution in cases of suspected heresy.]
+
+[Sidenote: The charge against Latimer submitted to convocation.]
+
+[Sidenote: The efforts for his conviction baffled by his skill in
+reply.]
+
+The citation was delayed for a few weeks. It was issued at last, on the
+10th of January, 1531-2,[125] and was served by Sir Walter Hungerford,
+of Farley.[126] The offences with which he was charged were certain
+"excesses and irregularities" not specially defined; and the practice of
+the bishops in such cases was not to confine the prosecution to the acts
+committed, but to draw up a series of articles, on which it was presumed
+that the orthodoxy of the accused person was open to suspicion, and to
+question him separately upon each. Latimer was first examined by
+Stokesley; subsequently at various times by the bishops collectively;
+and finally, when certain formulas had been submitted to him, which he
+refused to sign, his case was transferred to convocation. The
+convocation, as we know, were then in difficulty with their premunire;
+they had consoled themselves in their sorrow with burning the body of
+Tracy; and they would gladly have taken further comfort by burning
+Latimer.[127] He was submitted to the closest cross-questionings, in
+the hope that he would commit himself. They felt that he was the most
+dangerous person to them in the kingdom, and they laboured with unusual
+patience to ensure his conviction.[128] With a common person they would
+have rapidly succeeded. But Latimer was in no haste to be a martyr; he
+would be martyred patiently when the time was come for martyrdom; but he
+felt that no one ought "to consent to die," as long as he could honestly
+live;[129] and he baffled the episcopal inquisitors with their own
+weapons. He has left a most curious account of one of his interviews
+with them.
+
+[Sidenote: Latimer before the bishops.]
+
+"I was once in examination," he says,[130] "before five or six bishops,
+where I had much turmoiling. Every week, thrice, I came to examination,
+and many snares and traps were laid to get something. Now, God knoweth,
+I was ignorant of the law; but that God gave me answer and wisdom what I
+should speak. It was God indeed, for else I had never escaped them. At
+the last, I was brought forth to be examined into a chamber hanged with
+arras, where I was before wont to be examined, but now, at this time,
+the chamber was somewhat altered: for whereas before there was wont ever
+to be a fire in the chimney,[131] now the fire was taken away, and an
+arras hanging hanged over the chimney; and the table stood near the
+chimney's end, so that I stood between the table and the chimney's end.
+There was among these bishops that examined me one with whom I had been
+very familiar, and took him for my great friend, an aged man, and he
+sate next the table end. Then, among all other questions, he put forth
+one, a very subtle and crafty one, and such one indeed as I could not
+think so great danger in. And when I would make answer, 'I pray you,
+Master Latimer,' said he, 'speak out; I am very thick of hearing, and
+here be many that sit far off.' I marvelled at this, that I was bidden
+to speak out, and began to misdeem, and gave an ear to the chimney; and,
+sir, there I heard a pen walking in the chimney, behind the cloth. They
+had appointed one there to write all mine answers; for they made sure
+work that I should not start from them: there was no starting from them:
+God was my good Lord, and gave me answer; I could never else have
+escaped it. The question was this: 'Master Latimer, do you not think, on
+your conscience, that you have been suspected of heresy?'--a subtle
+question--a very subtle question. There was no holding of peace would
+serve. To hold my peace had been to grant myself faulty. To answer was
+every way full of danger. But God, which hath always given me answer,
+helped me, or else I could never have escaped it. _Ostendite mihi
+numisma census._ Shew me, said he, a penny of the tribute money. They
+laid snares to destroy him, but he overturneth them in their own
+traps."[132]
+
+[Sidenote: He appeals to the king, and is saved.]
+
+The bishops, however, were not men who were nice in their adherence to
+the laws; and it would have gone ill with Latimer, notwithstanding his
+dialectic ability. He was excommunicated and imprisoned, and would soon
+have fallen into worse extremities; but at the last moment he appealed
+to the king, and the king, who knew his value, would not allow him to be
+sacrificed. He had refused to subscribe the articles proposed to
+him.[133] Henry intimated to the convocation that it was not his
+pleasure that the matter should be pressed further; they were to content
+themselves with a general submission, which should be made to the
+archbishop, without exacting more special acknowledgments. This was the
+reward to Latimer for his noble letter. He was absolved, and returned to
+his parish, though snatched as a brand out of the fire.
+
+Soon after, the tide turned, and the Reformation entered into a new
+phase.
+
+[Sidenote: Thomas Cromwell.]
+
+Such is a brief sketch of the life of Hugh Latimer, to the time when it
+blended with the broad stream of English history. With respect to the
+other very great man whom the exigencies of the state called to power
+simultaneously with him, our information is far less satisfactory.
+Though our knowledge of Latimer's early story comes to us in fragments
+only, yet there are certain marks in it by which the outline can be
+determined with certainty. A cloud rests over the youth and early
+manhood of Thomas Cromwell, through which, only at intervals, we catch
+glimpses of authentic facts; and these few fragments of reality seem
+rather to belong to a romance than to the actual life of a man.
+
+[Sidenote: His father, one of the Cromwells of Lincolnshire, dies
+early.]
+
+[Sidenote: His mother re-marries, and her son becomes a vagabond.]
+
+[Sidenote: Wild story of his journey to Rome.]
+
+[Sidenote: His Italian wanderings.]
+
+[Sidenote: The Florentine banker.]
+
+Cromwell, the malleus monachorum, was of good English family, belonging
+to the Cromwells of Lincolnshire. One of these, probably a younger
+brother, moved up to London and conducted an ironfoundry, or other
+business of that description, at Putney. He married a lady of
+respectable connexions, of whom we know only that she was sister of the
+wife of a gentleman in Derbyshire, but whose name does not appear.[134]
+The old Cromwell dying early, the widow was remarried, to a
+cloth-merchant; and the child of the first husband, who made himself so
+great a name in English story, met with the reputed fortune of a
+stepson, and became a vagabond in the wide world. The chart of his
+course wholly fails us. One day in later life he shook by the hand an
+old bellringer at Sion House before a crowd of courtiers, and told them
+that "this man's father had given him many a dinner in his necessities."
+And a strange random account is given by Foxe of his having joined a
+party in an expedition to Rome to obtain a renewal from the pope of
+certain immunities and indulgences for the town of Boston; a story which
+derives some kind of credibility from its connexion with Lincolnshire,
+but is full of incoherence and unlikelihood. Following still the popular
+legend, we find him in the autumn of 1515 a ragged stripling at the door
+of Frescobaldi's banking-house in Florence, begging for help.
+Frescobaldi had an establishment in London,[135] with a large connexion
+there; and seeing an English face, and seemingly an honest one, he asked
+the boy who and what he was. "I am, sir," quoth he, "of England, and my
+name is Thomas Cromwell; my father is a poor man, and by occupation a
+clothshearer; I am strayed from my country, and am now come into Italy
+with the camp of Frenchmen that were overthrown at Garigliano, where I
+was page to a footman, carrying after him his pike and burganet."
+Something in the boy's manner was said to have attracted the banker's
+interest; he took him into his house, and after keeping him there as
+long as he desired to stay, he gave him a horse and sixteen ducats to
+help him home to England.[136] Foxe is the first English authority for
+the story; and Foxe took it from Bandello, the novelist; but it is
+confirmed by, or harmonizes with, a sketch of Cromwell's early life in a
+letter of Chappuys, the imperial ambassador, to Chancellor Granvelle.
+"Master Cromwell," wrote Chappuys in 1535, "is the son of a poor
+blacksmith, who lived in a small village four miles from London, and is
+buried in a common grave in the parish churchyard. In his youth, for
+some offence, he was imprisoned, and had to leave the country. He went
+to Flanders, and thence to Rome and other places in Italy."[137]
+
+[Sidenote: He finds his way into the service of Wolsey.]
+
+Returning to England, he married the daughter of a woollen-dealer, and
+became a partner in the business, where he amassed or inherited a
+considerable fortune.[138] Circumstances afterwards brought him, while
+still young, in contact with Wolsey, who discovered his merit, took him
+into service, and in 1525 employed him in the most important work of
+visiting and breaking up the small monasteries, which the pope had
+granted for the foundation of the new colleges. He was engaged with this
+business for two years, and was so efficient that he obtained an
+unpleasant notoriety, and complaints of his conduct found their way to
+the king. Nothing came of these complaints, however, and Cromwell
+remained with the cardinal till his fall.[139]
+
+[Sidenote: Cromwell's noble conduct on Wolsey's fall.]
+
+[Sidenote: Scene at Esher.]
+
+[Sidenote: Cromwell's common saying, that he would either make or mar.]
+
+[Sidenote: He defeats the attempted impeachment of Wolsey in the House
+of Commons,]
+
+It was then that the truly noble nature which was in him showed itself.
+He accompanied his master through his dreary confinement at Esher,[140]
+doing all that man could do to soften the outward wretchedness of it;
+and at the meeting of parliament, in which he obtained a seat, he
+rendered him a still more gallant service. The Lords had passed a bill
+of impeachment against Wolsey, violent, vindictive, and malevolent. It
+was to be submitted to the Commons, and Cromwell prepared to attempt an
+opposition. Cavendish has left a most characteristic description of his
+leaving Esher at this trying time. A cheerless November evening was
+closing in with rain and storm. Wolsey was broken down with sorrow and
+sickness; and had been unusually tried by parting with his retinue, whom
+he had sent home, as unwilling to keep them attached any longer to his
+fallen fortunes. When they were all gone, "My lord," says Cavendish,
+"returned to his chamber, lamenting the departure of his servants,
+making his moan unto Master Cromwell, who comforted him the best he
+could, and desired my lord give him leave to go to London, where he
+would either make or mar before he came again; which was always his
+common saying. Then after long communication with my lord in secret, he
+departed, and took his horse and rode to London; at whose departing I
+was by, whom he bade farewell, and said, ye shall hear shortly of me,
+and if I speed well I will not fail to be here again within these two
+days."[141] He did speed well. "After two days he came again with a much
+pleasanter countenance, and meeting with me before he came to my lord,
+said unto me, that he had adventured to put in his foot where he trusted
+shortly to be better regarded or all were done." He had stopped the
+progress of the impeachment in the Lower House, and was answering the
+articles one by one. In the evening he rode down to Esher for
+instructions. In the morning he was again at his place in Parliament;
+and he conducted the defence so skilfully, that finally he threw out the
+bill, saved Wolsey, and himself "grew into such estimation in every
+man's opinion, for his honest behaviour in his master's cause, that he
+was esteemed the most faithfullest servant, [and] was of all men greatly
+commended."[142]
+
+[Sidenote: And passes into the service of the king.]
+
+Henry admired his chivalry, and perhaps his talent. The loss of Wolsey
+had left him without any very able man, unless we may consider Sir
+Thomas More such, upon his council, and he could not calculate on More
+for support in his anti-Roman policy; he was glad, therefore, to avail
+himself of the service of a man who had given so rare a proof of
+fidelity, and who had been trained by the ablest statesman of the
+age.[143]
+
+To Wolsey Cromwell could render no more service except as a friend, and
+his warm friend he remained to the last. He became the king's secretary,
+representing the government in the House of Commons, and was at once on
+the high road to power. I cannot call him ambitious; an ambitious man
+would scarcely have pursued so refined a policy, or have calculated on
+the admiration which he gained by adhering to a fallen minister. He did
+not seek greatness,--greatness rather sought him as the man in England
+most fit to bear it. His business was to prepare the measures which were
+to be submitted to Parliament by the government. His influence,
+therefore, grew necessarily with the rapidity with which events were
+ripening; and when the conclusive step was taken, and the king was
+married, the virtual conduct of the Reformation passed into his hands.
+His Protestant tendencies were unknown as yet, perhaps, even to his own
+conscience; nor to the last could he arrive at any certain speculative
+convictions. He was drawn towards the Protestants as he rose into power
+by the integrity of his nature, which compelled him to trust only those
+who were honest like himself.
+
+
+NOTES:
+
+[1] The origin of the word Lollards has been always a disputed question.
+I conceive it to be from Lolium. They were the "tares" in the corn of
+Catholicism.
+
+[2] 35 Ed. I.; Statutes of Carlisle, cap. 1-4.
+
+[3] 35 Ed. I. cap. 1-4.
+
+[4] 25 Ed. III. stat. 4. A clause in the preamble of this act bears a
+significantly Erastian complexion: _come seinte Eglise estoit founde en
+estat de prelacie deins le royaulme Dengleterre par le dit Roi et ses
+progenitours, et countes, barons, et nobles de ce Royaulme et lours
+ancestres, pour eux et le poeple enfourmer de la lei Dieu._ If the
+Church of England was held to have been founded not by the successors of
+the Apostles, but by the king and the nobles, the claim of Henry VIII to
+the supremacy was precisely in the spirit of the constitution.
+
+[5] 38 Ed. III. stat. 2; 3 Ric. II. cap. 3; 12 Ric. II. cap. 15; 13 Ric.
+II. stat. 2. The first of these acts contains a paragraph which shifts
+the blame from the popes themselves to the officials of the Roman
+courts. The statute is said to have been enacted en eide et confort du
+pape qui moult sovent a estee trublez par tieles et semblables clamours
+et impetracions, et qui y meist voluntiers covenable remedie, si sa
+seyntetee estoit sur ces choses enfournee. I had regarded this passage
+as a fiction of courtesy like that of the Long Parliament who levied
+troops in the name of Charles I. The suspicious omission of the clause,
+however, in the translation of the statutes which was made in the later
+years of Henry VIII. justifies an interpretation more favourable to the
+intentions of the popes.
+
+[6] The abbots and bishops decently protested. Their protest was read in
+parliament, and entered on the Rolls. _Rot. Parl._ III. [264] quoted by
+Lingard, who has given a full account of these transactions.
+
+[7] 13 Ric. II. stat. 2.
+
+[8] See 16 Ric. II. cap. 5.
+
+[9] This it will be remembered was the course which was afterwards
+followed by the parliament under Henry VIII. before abolishing the
+payment of first-fruits.
+
+[10] Lingard says, that "there were rumours that if the prelates
+executed the decree of the king's courts, they would be
+excommunicated."--Vol. III. p. 172. The language of the act of
+parliament, 16 Ric. II. cap. 5, is explicit that the sentence was
+pronounced.
+
+[11] 16 Ric. II. cap. 5.
+
+[12] Ibid.
+
+[13] 16 Ric. II. cap. 5.
+
+[14] Lewis, _Life of Wycliffe_.
+
+[15] If such _scientia media_ might be allowed to man, which is beneath
+certainty and above conjecture, such should I call our persuasion that
+he was born in Durham.--Fuller's _Worthies_, Vol. I. p. 479.
+
+[16] _The Last Age of the Church_ was written in 1356. See Lewis, p. 3.
+
+[17] Leland.
+
+[18] Lewis, p. 287.
+
+[19] 1 Ric. II. cap. 13.
+
+[20] Walsingham, 206-7, apud Lingard. It is to be observed, however,
+that Wycliffe himself limited his arguments strictly to the property of
+the clergy. See Milman's _History of Latin Christianity_, Vol. V. p.
+508.
+
+[21] Walsingham, p. 275, apud Lingard.
+
+[22] 5 Ric. II. cap. 5
+
+[23] Wilkins, _Concilia_, III. 160-167.
+
+[24] _De Heretico comburendo._ 2 Hen. IV. cap. 15.
+
+[25] Stow, 330, 338.
+
+[26] _Rot. Parl._ IV. 24, 108, apud Lingard; Rymer, IX. 89, 119, 129,
+170, 193; Milman, Vol. V. p. 520-535.
+
+[27] 2 Hen. V. stat. 1, cap. 7.
+
+[28] There is no better test of the popular opinion of a man than the
+character assigned to him on the stage; and till the close of the
+sixteenth century Sir John Oldcastle remained the profligate buffoon of
+English comedy. Whether in life he bore the character so assigned to
+him, I am unable to say. The popularity of Henry V., and the splendour
+of his French wars served no doubt to colour all who had opposed him
+with a blacker shade than they deserved: but it is almost certain that
+Shakspeare, though not intending Falstaff as a portrait of Oldcastle,
+thought of him as he was designing the character; and it is altogether
+certain that by the London public Falstaff was supposed to represent
+Oldcastle. We can hardly suppose that such an expression as "my old lad
+of the castle" should be accidental; and in the epilogue to the Second
+Part of _Henry the Fourth_, when promising to reintroduce Falstaff once
+more, Shakspeare says, "where for anything I know he shall die of the
+sweat, for Oldcastle died a martyr, and this is not the man." He had,
+therefore, certainly been supposed to _be the man_, and Falstaff
+represented the English conception of the character of the Lollard hero.
+I should add, however, that Dean Milman, who has examined the records
+which remain to throw light on the character of this remarkable person
+with elaborate care and ability, concludes emphatically in his favour.
+
+[29] Two curious letters of Henry VI. upon the Lollards, written in
+1431, are printed in the _Archaeologia_, Vol. XXIII. p. 339, &c. "As God
+knoweth," he says of them, "never would they be subject to his laws nor
+to man's, but would be loose and free to rob, reve, and dispoil, slay
+and destroy all men of thrift and worship, as they proposed to have done
+in our father's days; and of lads and lurdains would make lords."
+
+[30] Proceedings of an organized Society in London called the Christian
+Brethren, supported by voluntary contributions, for the dispersion of
+tracts against the doctrines of the Church: _Rolls House MS._
+
+[31] Hale's _Precedents_. The London and Lincoln Registers, in Foxe,
+Vol. IV.; and the MS. Registers of Archbishops Morton and Warham, at
+Lambeth.
+
+[32] Knox's _History of the Reformation in Scotland_.
+
+[33] Also we object to you that divers times, and specially in Robert
+Durdant's house, of Iver Court, near unto Staines, you erroneously and
+damnably read in a great book of heresy, all [one] night, certain
+chapters of the Evangelists, in English, containing in them divers
+erroneous and damnable opinions and conclusions of heresy, in the
+presence of divers suspected persons.--Articles objected against Richard
+Butler--London Register: Foxe, Vol. IV. p. 178.
+
+[34] Foxe, Vol. IV. p. 176.
+
+[35] Michelet, _Life of Luther_, p. 71.
+
+[36] Ibid.
+
+[37] Ibid. p. 41.
+
+[38] Wood's _Athenae Oxonienses_.
+
+[39] Foxe, Vol. IV. p. 618.
+
+[40] The suspicious eyes of the Bishops discovered Tyndal's visit, and
+the result which was to be expected from it.
+
+On Dec. 2d, 1525, Edward Lee, afterwards Archbishop of York, then king's
+almoner, and on a mission into Spain, wrote from Bordeaux to warn Henry.
+The letter is instructive:
+
+"Please your Highness to understand that I am certainly informed as I
+passed in this country, that an Englishman, your subject, at the
+solicitation and instance of Luther, with whom he is, hath translated
+the New Testament into English; and within few days intendeth to return
+with the same imprinted into England. I need not to advertise your Grace
+what infection and danger may ensue hereby if it be not withstanded.
+This is the next way to fulfil your realm with Lutherians. For all
+Luther's perverse opinions be grounded upon bare words of Scripture, not
+well taken, ne understanded which your Grace hath opened in sundry
+places of your royal book. All our forefathers, governors of the Church
+of England, hath with all diligence forbid and eschewed publication of
+English Bibles, as appeareth in constitutions provincial of the Church
+of England. Nowe, sire, as God hath endued your Grace with Christian
+courage to sett forth the standard against these Philistines and to
+vanquish them, so I doubt not but that he will assist your Grace to
+prosecute and perform the same--that is, to undertread them that they
+shall not now lift up their heads; which they endeavour by means of
+English Bibles. They know what hurt such books hath done in your realm
+in times past."--Edward Lee to Henry VIII.: Ellis, third series, Vol.
+II. p. 71.
+
+[41] Answer of the Bishops: _Rolls House MS._ See cap. 3.
+
+[42] Answer of the Bishops, Vol. I. cap. 3.
+
+[43] See, particularly, _State Papers_, Vol. VII. p. 302.
+
+[44] Proceedings of the Christian Brethren: _Rolls House MS._
+
+[45] See the letter of Bishop Fox to Wolsey: Strype's _Memorials_, Vol.
+I. Appendix.
+
+[46] Particulars of Persons who had dispersed Anabaptist and Lutheran
+Tracts: _Rolls House MS._
+
+[47] Dr. Taylor to Wolsey: _Rolls House MS._ Clark to Wolsey: _State
+Papers_, Vol. VII. pp. 80, 81.
+
+[48] Ellis, third series, Vol. II. p. 189.
+
+[49] Memoirs of Latimer prefixed to Sermons, pp. 3, 4; and see Strype's
+_Memorials_, Vol. I.
+
+[50] Foxe, Vol. V. p. 416.
+
+[51] Tunstall, Bishop of London, has had the credit hitherto of this
+ingenious folly, the effect of which, as Sir Thomas More warned him,
+could only be to supply Tyndal with money.--Hall, 762, 763. The
+following letter from the Bishop of Norwich to Warham shows that
+Tunstall was only acting in canonical obedience to the resolution of his
+metropolitan:--
+
+"In right humble manner I commend me unto your good Lordship, doing the
+same to understand that I lately received your letters, dated at your
+manor of Lambeth, the 26th day of the month of May, by the which I do
+perceive that your Grace hath lately gotten into your hands all the
+books of the New Testament, translated into English, and printed beyond
+the sea; as well those with the glosses joined unto them as those
+without the glosses.
+
+"Surely, in myn opinion, you have done therein a gracious and a blessed
+deed; and God, I doubt not, shall highly reward you therefore. And when,
+in your said letters, ye write that, insomuch as this matter and the
+danger thereof, if remedy had not been provided, should not only have
+touched you, but all the bishops within your province; and that it is no
+reason that the holle charge and cost thereof should rest only in you;
+but that they and every of them, for their part, should advance and
+contribute certain sums of money towards the same: I for my part will be
+contented to advance in this behalf, and to make payment thereof unto
+your servant, Master William Potkyn.
+
+"Pleaseth it you to understand, I am well contented to give and advance
+in this behalf ten marks, and shall cause the same to be delivered
+shortly, the which sum I think sufficient for my part, if every bishop
+within your province make like contribution, after the rate and
+substance of their benefices. Nevertheless, if your Grace think this sum
+not sufficient for my part in this matter, your further pleasure known,
+I shall be as glad to conform myself thereunto in this, or any other
+matter concerning the church, as any your subject within your province;
+as knows Almighty God, who long preserve you. At Hoxne in Suffolk, the
+14th day of June, 1527. Your humble obedience and bedeman,
+
+  R. NORWICEN."
+
+[52] Foxe, Vol. IV.
+
+[53] The papal bull, and the king's licence to proceed upon it are
+printed in _Rymer_, Vol. VI. Part II. pp. 8 and 17. The latter is
+explicit on Wolsey's personal liberality in establishing this
+foundation. Ultro et ex propria liberalitate et munificentia, nec sine
+gravissimo suo sumptu et impensis collegium fundare conatur.
+
+[54] Would God my Lord his Grace had never been motioned to call any
+Cambridge man to his most towardly college. It were a gracious deed if
+they were tried and purged and restored unto their mother from whence
+they came, if they be worthy to come thither again. We were clear
+without blot or suspicion till they came, and some of them, as Master
+Dean hath known a long time, hath had a shrewd name.--Dr. London to
+Archbishop Warham: _Rolls House MS._
+
+[55] Dr. London to Warham: _Rolls House MS._
+
+[56] Dalaber's _Narrative_.
+
+[57] Clark seems to have taken pupils in the long vacation. Dalaber at
+least read with him all one summer in the country.--Dr. London to
+Warham: _Rolls House MS._
+
+[58] The Vicar of Bristol to the Master of Lincoln College, Oxford:
+_Rolls House MS._
+
+[59] Dr. London to Warham: _Rolls House MS._
+
+[60] Radley himself was one of the singers at Christchurch. London to
+Warham. _MS._
+
+[61] Dr. London to Warham: _Rolls House MS._
+
+[62] On the site of the present Worcester College. It lay beyond the
+walls of the town, and was then some distance from it across the field.
+
+[63] Christchurch, where Dalaber occasionally sung in the quire. Vide
+infra.
+
+[64] Some part of which let us read with him. "I send you forth as sheep
+in the midst of wolves; be ye therefore wise as serpents and harmless as
+doves. But beware of men, for they will deliver you up to the councils,
+and they will scourge you in their synagogues; and ye shall be brought
+before governors and kings for my sake, for a testimony against them and
+the gentiles. But when they deliver you up, take no thought how or what
+ye shall speak, for it shall be given you in that same hour what ye
+shall speak; for it is not ye that speak, but the Spirit of your Father
+which speaketh in you. And the brother shall deliver up the brother to
+death; and the father the child; and the children shall rise up against
+their parents, and cause them to be put to death. And ye shall be hated
+of all men for my name's sake: but he that endureth to the end shall be
+saved. Whosoever shall confess me before men, him will I confess also
+before my Father which is in heaven. Whosoever shall deny me before men,
+him will I also deny before my Father which is in heaven. Think not that
+I am come to send peace on earth; I came not to send peace, but a sword.
+For I am come to set a man at variance against his father, and the
+daughter against her mother, and the daughter-in-law against her
+mother-in-law. And a man's foes shall be they of his own household. He
+that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me. He that
+loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. He that taketh
+not his cross and followeth after me is not worthy of me. He that
+findeth his life shall lose it, and he that loseth his life for my sake
+shall find it."
+
+[65] Rector of Lincoln.
+
+[66] Warden of New College.
+
+[67] The last prayer.
+
+[68] Dr. Maitland, who has an indifferent opinion of the early
+Protestants, especially on the point of veracity, brings forward this
+assertion of Dalaber as an illustration of what he considers their
+recklessness. It seems obvious, however, that a falsehood of this kind
+is something different in kind from what we commonly mean by unveracity,
+and has no affinity with it. I do not see my way to a conclusion; but I
+am satisfied that Dr. Maitland's strictures are unjust. If Garret was
+taken, he was in danger of a cruel death, and his escape could only be
+made possible by throwing the bloodhounds off the scent. A refusal to
+answer would not have been sufficient; and the general laws by which our
+conduct is ordinarily to be directed cannot be made so universal in
+their application as to meet all contingencies. It is a law that we may
+not strike or kill other men, but occasions rise in which we may
+innocently do both. I may kill a man in defence of my own life or my
+friend's life, or even of my friend's property; and surely the
+circumstances which dispense with obedience to one law may dispense
+equally with obedience to another. _If_ I may kill a man to prevent him
+from robbing my friend, why may I not deceive a man to save my friend
+from being barbarously murdered? It is possible that the highest
+morality would forbid me to do either. I am unable to see why, if the
+first be permissible, the second should be a crime. Rahab of Jericho did
+the same thing which Dalaber did, and on that very ground was placed in
+the catalogue of saints.
+
+[69] A cell in the Tower, the nature of which we need not inquire into.
+
+[70] Foxe, Vol. V. p. 421.
+
+[71] Dr. London to the Bishop of Lincoln: _Rolls House MS._
+
+[72] Ibid.
+
+[73] Dr. Forman, rector of All Hallows, who had himself been in trouble
+for heterodoxy.
+
+[74] Dr. London to the Bishop of Lincoln, Feb. 20. 1528: _Rolls House
+MS._
+
+[75] Now Cokethorpe Park, three miles from Stanton Harcourt, and about
+twelve from Oxford. The village has disappeared.
+
+[76] Vicar of All Saints, Bristol, to the Rector of Lincoln: _Rolls
+House MS._
+
+[77] The Vicar of All Saints to the Rector of Lincoln: _Rolls House MS._
+
+[78] Dr. London to the Bishop of Lincoln: _Rolls House MS._
+
+[79] Long extracts from it are printed in Foxe, Vol. IV.
+
+[80] Another of the brethren, afterwards Bishop of St. David's, and one
+of the Marian victims.
+
+[81] Bishop of Lincoln to Wolsey, March 5, 1527-8: _Rolls House MS._;
+and see Ellis, third series, Vol. II. p. 77.
+
+[82] Ellis, third series, Vol. II. p. 77.
+
+[83] With some others he "was cast into a prison where the salt-fish
+lay, through the stink whereof the most part of them were infected; and
+the said Clark, being a tender young man, died in the same
+prison."--Foxe, Vol. IV. p. 615.
+
+[84] London to Warham: _Rolls House MS._
+
+[85] Petition of the Commons, Vol. I. cap. 3.
+
+[86] Ibid. And, as we saw in the bishops' reply, they considered their
+practice in these respects wholly defensible.--See _Reply of the
+Bishops_, cap. 3.
+
+[87] Petition of the Commons, cap 3.
+
+[88] 2 Hen. V. stat. 1.
+
+[89] He had been "troublesome to heretics," he said, and he had "done it
+with a little ambition;" for "he so hated this kind of men, that he
+would be the sorest enemy that they could have, if they would not
+repent."--More's _Life of More_, p. 211.
+
+[90] See Foxe, Vol. IV. pp. 689, 698, 705.
+
+[91] 2 Hen V. stat 1.
+
+[92] John Stokesley.
+
+[93] Petition of Thomas Philips to the House of Commons: _Rolls House
+MS._
+
+[94] Ibid.
+
+[95] Foxe, Vol. V. pp. 29, 30.
+
+[96] The circumstances are curious. Philips begged that he might have
+the benefit of the king's writ of corpus cum causa, and be brought to
+the bar of the House of Commons, where the Bishop of London should be
+subpoenaed to meet him. [Petition of Thomas Philips: _Rolls House
+MS._] The Commons did not venture on so strong a measure; but a digest
+of the petition was sent to the Upper House, that the bishop might have
+an opportunity of reply. The Lords refused to receive or consider the
+case: they replied that it was too "frivolous an affair" for so grave an
+assembly, and that they could not discuss it. [_Lords' Journals_, Vol.
+I. p. 66.] A deputation of the Commons then waited privately upon the
+bishop, and being of course anxious to ascertain whether Philips had
+given a true version of what had passed, they begged him to give some
+written explanation of his conduct, which might be read in the Commons'
+House. [_Lords' Journals_, Vol. I. p. 71.] The request was reasonable,
+and we cannot doubt that, if explanation had been possible, the bishop
+would not have failed to offer it; but he preferred to shield himself
+behind the judgment of the Lords. The Lords, he said, had decided that
+the matter was too frivolous for their own consideration; and without
+their permission, he might not set a precedent of responsibility to the
+Commons by answering their questions.
+
+This conduct met with the unanimous approval of the Peers. [_Lords'
+Journals_, Vol. I. p. 71. Omnes proceres tam spirituales quam temporales
+una voce dicebant, quod non consentaneum fuit aliquem procerum
+praedictorum alicui in eo loco responsurum.] The demand for explanation
+was treated as a breach of privilege, and the bishop was allowed to
+remain silent. But the time was passed for conduct of this kind to be
+allowed to triumph. If the bishop could not or would not justify
+himself, his victim might at least be released from unjust imprisonment.
+The case was referred to the king and by the king and the House of
+Commons Philips was set at liberty.
+
+[97] Petition of John Field: _Rolls House MS._
+
+[98] Jan 1529-30.
+
+[99] Illegal. See 2 Hen. V. Stat. 2.
+
+[100] Seventh Sermon before King Edward. First Sermon before the Duchess
+of Suffolk.
+
+[101] Foxe, Vol. IV. p. 649.
+
+[102] Articles against James Bainham: Foxe, Vol. IV. p. 703.
+
+[103] Foxe, Vol. IV. p. 702.
+
+[104] Foxe, Vol. IV. p. 705.
+
+[105] Foxe, Vol. IV. p. 694.
+
+[106] Hall, p. 806; and see Foxe, Vol. IV. p. 705.
+
+[107] Instructions given by the Bishop of Salisbury: Burnet's
+_Collectanea_, p. 493.
+
+[108] From a Letter of Robert Gardiner: Foxe, Vol. IV. p. 706.
+
+[109] Latimer's _Sermons_, p. 101.
+
+[110] Latimer speaks of sons and daughters.--_Sermons_, p. 101.
+
+[111] Ibid.
+
+[112] Where the Cornish rebels came to an end in 1497.--Bacon's _History
+of Henry the Seventh_.
+
+[113] Latimer's _Sermons_, p. 197.
+
+[114] On which occasion, old relations perhaps shook their heads, and
+made objection to the expense. Some such feeling is indicated in the
+following glimpse behind the veil of Latimer's private history:--
+
+"I was once called to one of my kinsfolk," he says ("it was at that time
+when I had taken my degree at Cambridge); I was called, I say, to one of
+my kinsfolk which was very sick, and died immediately after my coming.
+Now, there was an old cousin of mine, which, after the man was dead,
+gave me a wax candle in my hand, and commanded me to make certain
+crosses over him that was dead; for she thought the devil should run
+away by and bye. Now, I took the candle, but I could not cross him as
+she would have me to do; for I had never seen it before. She, perceiving
+I could not do it, with great anger took the candle out of my hand,
+saying, 'It is pity that thy father spendeth so much money upon thee;'
+and so she took the candle, and crossed and blessed him; so that he was
+sure enough."--Latimer's _Sermons_, p. 499.
+
+[115] "I was as obstinate a papist as any was in England, insomuch that,
+when I should be made Bachelor of Divinity, my whole oration went
+against Philip Melancthon and his opinions."--Latimer's _Sermons_, p.
+334.
+
+[116] _Jewel of Joy_, p. 224, et seq.: Parker Society's edition.
+Latimer's _Sermons_, p. 3.
+
+[117] Latimer's _Remains_, pp. 27-31.
+
+[118] Latimer's _Remains_, pp. 308-9.
+
+[119] Latimer to Sir Edward Baynton: _Letters_, p. 329.
+
+[120] _Letters_, p. 323.
+
+[121] He thought of going abroad. "I have trust that God will help me,"
+he wrote to a friend; "if I had not, I think the ocean sea should have
+divided my Lord of London and me by this day."--_Remains_, p. 334.
+
+[122] Latimer to Sir Edward Baynton.
+
+[123] See Latimer's two letters to Sir Edward Baynton: _Remains_, pp.
+322-351.
+
+[124] "As ye say, the matter is weighty, and ought substantially to be
+looked upon, even as weighty as my life is worth; but how to look
+substantially upon it otherwise know not I, than to pray my Lord God,
+day and night, that, as he hath emboldened me to preach his truth, so he
+will strengthen me to suffer for it.
+
+"I pray you pardon me that I write no more distinctly, for my head is
+(so) out of frame, that it would be too painful for me to write it
+again. If I be not prevented shortly, I intend to make merry with my
+parishioners, this Christmas, for all the sorrow, _lest perchance I
+never return to them again_; and I have heard say that a doe is as good
+in winter as a buck in summer."--Latimer to Sir Edward Baynton, p. 334.
+
+[125] Latimer's _Remains_, p. 334.
+
+[126] Ibid. p. 350.
+
+[127] "I pray you, in God's name, what did you, so great fathers, so
+many, so long season, so oft assembled together? What went you about?
+What would ye have brought to pass? Two things taken away--the one that
+ye (which I heard) burned a dead man,--the other, that ye (which I felt)
+went about to burn one being alive. Take away these two noble acts, and
+there is nothing else left that ye went about that I know," &c.
+&c.--Sermon preached before the Convocation: Latimer's _Sermons_, p. 46.
+
+[128] "My affair had some bounds assigned to it by him who sent for me
+up, but is now protracted by intricate and wily examinations, as if it
+would never find a period; while sometimes one person, sometimes
+another, ask me questions, without limit and without end."--Latimer to
+the Archbishop of Canterbury: _Remains_, p. 352.
+
+[129] _Remains_, p. 222.
+
+[130] _Sermons_, p. 294.
+
+[131] The process lasted through January, February, and March.
+
+[132] _Sermons_, p. 294.
+
+[133] He subscribed all except two--one apparently on the power of the
+pope, the other I am unable to conjecture. Compare the Articles
+themselves--printed in Latimer's _Remains_, p. 466--with the Sermon
+before the Convocation.--_Sermons_, p. 46; and Burnet, Vol. III. p. 116.
+
+[134] Nicholas Glossop to Cromwell: Ellis, third series, Vol. II. p.
+237.
+
+[135] Where he was known among the English of the day as Master
+Friskyball.
+
+[136] See Foxe, Vol. V. p. 392.
+
+[137] Eustace Chappuys to Chancellor Granvelle: _MS. Archiv. Brussels:
+Pilgrim_, p. 106.
+
+[138] See Cromwell's will in an appendix to this chapter. This document,
+lately found in the Rolls House, furnishes a clue at last to the
+connexions of the Cromwell family.
+
+[139] Are we to believe Foxe's story that Cromwell was with the Duke of
+Bourbon at the storming of Rome in May, 1527? See Foxe, Vol. V. p. 365.
+He was with Wolsey in January, 1527. See Ellis, third series, Vol. II.
+p. 117. And he was again with him early in 1528. Is it likely that he
+was in Italy on such an occasion in the interval? Foxe speaks of it as
+one of the random exploits of Cromwell's youth, which is obviously
+untrue; and the natural impression which we gather is, that he was
+confusing the expedition of the Duke of Bourbon with some earlier
+campaign. On the other hand Foxe's authority was Cranmer, who was likely
+to know the truth: and it is not impossible that, in the critical state
+of Italian politics, the English government might have desired to have
+some confidential agent in the Duke of Bourbon's camp. Cromwell, with
+his knowledge of Italy and Italian, and his adventurous ability, was a
+likely man to have been sent on such an employment; and the story gains
+additional probability from another legend about him, that he once saved
+the life of Sir John Russell, in some secret affair at Bologna. See
+Foxe, Vol. V. p. 367. Now, although Sir John Russell had been in Italy
+several times before (he was at the Battle of Pavia, and had been
+employed in various diplomatic missions), and Cromwell might thus have
+rendered him the service in question on an earlier occasion, yet he
+certainly was in the Papal States, on a most secret and dangerous
+mission, in the months preceding the capture of Rome. _State Papers_,
+Vol. VI. p. 560, &c. The probabilities may pass for what they are worth
+till further discovery.
+
+[140] A damp, unfurnished house belonging to Wolsey, where he was
+ordered to remain till the government had determined upon their course
+towards him. See Cavendish.
+
+[141] Cavendish, pp. 269, 270.
+
+[142] Cavendish, p. 276.
+
+[143] Chappuys says, that a quarrel with Sir John Wallop first
+introduced Cromwell to Henry. Cromwell, "not knowing how else to defend
+himself, contrived with presents and entreaties to obtain an audience of
+the king, whom he promised to make the richest sovereign that ever
+reigned in England."--Chappuys to Granvelle: _The Pilgrim_, p. 107.
+
+
+
+
+APPENDIX TO CHAPTER VI.
+
+WILL OF THOMAS CROMWELL.--1529.
+
+
+In the name of God, Amen. The 12th day of July, in the year of our Lord
+God MCCCCCXXIX., and in the 21st year of the reign of our Sovereign
+Lord, King Henry VIII., I, Thomas Cromwell, of London, Gentleman, being
+whole in body and in good and perfect memory, lauded be the Holy
+Trinity, make, ordain, and declare this my present testament, containing
+my last will, in manner as following:--First I bequeath my soul to the
+great God of heaven, my Maker, Creator, and Redeemer, beseeching the
+most glorious Virgin and blessed Lady Saint Mary the Virgin and Mother,
+with all the holy company of heaven to be mediators and intercessors for
+me to the Holy Trinity, so that I may be able, when it shall please
+Almighty God to call me out of this miserable world and transitory life,
+to inherit the kingdom of heaven amongst the number of good Christian
+people; and whensoever I shall depart this present life I bequeath my
+body to be buried where it shall please God to ordain me to die, and to
+be ordered after the discretion of mine executors undernamed. And for my
+goods which our Lord hath lent me in this world, I will shall be ordered
+and disposed in manner and form as hereafter shall ensue. First I give
+and bequeath unto my son Gregory Cromwell six hundred threescore six
+pounds, thirteen shillings, and fourpence, of lawful money of England,
+with the which six hundred threescore six pounds, thirteen shillings,
+and fourpence, I will mine executors undernamed immediately or as soon
+as they conveniently may after my decease, shall purchase lands,
+tenements, and hereditaments to the clear yearly value of 33_l._ 6_s._
+8_d._ by the year above all charges and reprises to the use of my said
+son Gregory, for term of his life; and after the decease of the said
+Gregory to the heirs male of his body lawfully to be begotten, and for
+lack of heirs male of the body of the said Gregory, lawfully begotten,
+to the heirs general of his body lawfully begotten. And for lack of such
+heirs to the right heirs of me the said Thomas Cromwell, in fee. I will
+also that immediately and as soon as the said lands, tenements, and
+hereditaments shall be so purchased after my death as is aforesaid by
+mine executors, that the yearly profits thereof shall be wholly spent
+and employed in and about the education and finding honestly of my said
+son Gregory, in virtue, good learning, and manners, until such time as
+he shall come to the full age of 24 years. During which time I heartily
+desire and require my said executors to be good unto my said son
+Gregory, and to see he do lose no time, but to see him virtuously
+ordered and brought up according to my trust.
+
+Item. I give and bequeath to my said son Gregory, (when he shall come to
+his full age of 24 years,) two hundred pounds of lawful English money to
+order them as our Lord shall give him grace and discretion, which
+200_l._ I will shall be put in surety to the intent the same may come to
+his hands at his said age of 24 years. Item. I give and bequeath to my
+said son Gregory of such household stuff as God hath lent me, three of
+my best featherbeds with their bolsters; 2_d._, the best pair of
+blankets of fustian, my best coverlet of tapestry, and my quilt of
+yellow Turkey satin; one pair of my best sheets, four pillows of down,
+with four pair of the best pillowberes, four of my best table-cloths,
+four of my best towels, two dozen of my finest napkins, and two dozen of
+my other napkins, two garnish of my best vessel, three of my best brass
+pots, three of my best brass pans, two of my best kettles, two of my
+best spits, my best joined bed of Flanders work, with the best ---- and
+tester, and other the appurtenances thereto belonging; my best press,
+carven of Flanders work, and my best cupboard, carven of Flanders work,
+with also six joined stools of Flanders work, and six of my best
+cushions. Item. I give and bequeath to my said son Gregory a basin with
+an ewer parcel-gilt, my best salt gilt, my best cup gilt, three of my
+best goblets; three other of my goblets parcel-gilt, twelve of my best
+silver spoons, three of my best drinking alepots gilt; all the which
+parcels of plate and household stuff I will shall be safely kept to the
+use of my said son Gregory till he shall come to his said full age of
+24. And all the which plate, household stuff, napery, and all other the
+premises, I will mine executors do put in safe keeping until my said son
+come to the said years or age of 24. And if he die before the age of 24,
+then I will all the said plate, vessel, and household stuff shall be
+sold by mine executors. And the money thereof coming to be given and
+equally divided amongst my poor kinsfolk, that is to say, amongst the
+children as well of mine own sisters Elizabeth and Katherine, as of my
+late wife's sister Joan, wife to John Williamson;[144] and if it happen
+that all the children of my said sisters and sister-in-law do die before
+the partition be made, and none of them be living, then I will that all
+the said plate, vessel, and household stuff shall be sold and given to
+other my poor kinsfolk then being in life, and other poor and indigent
+people, in deeds of charity for my soul, my father and mother their
+souls, and all Christian souls.
+
+[[145]Item. I give and bequeath to my daughter Anne an hundred marks of
+lawful money of England when she shall come to her lawful age or happen
+to be married, and 40_l._ toward her finding until the time that she
+shall be of lawful age or be married, which 40_l._ I will shall be
+delivered to my friend John Cook, one of the six Clerks of the King's
+Chancery, to the intent he may order the same and cause the same to be
+employed in the best wise he can devise about the virtuous education and
+bringing up of my said daughter till she shall come to her lawful age or
+marriage. Then I will that the said 100 marks, and so much of the said
+40_l._ as then shall be unspent and unemployed at the day of the death
+of my said daughter Anne, I will it shall remain to Gregory my son, if
+he then be in life; and if he be dead, the same hundred marks, and also
+so much of the said 40_l._ as then shall be unspent, to be departed
+amongst my sisters' children, in manner and form aforesaid. And if it
+happen my said sisters' children then to be all dead, then I will the
+said 100 marks and so much of the said 40_l._ as shall be unspent, shall
+be divided amongst my kinsfolk, such as then shall be in life.] Item. I
+give and bequeath unto my sister Elizabeth Wellyfed 40_l._, three
+goblets without a cover, a mazer, and a nut. Item. I give and bequeath
+to my nephew Richard Willyams [[146] servant with my Lord Marquess
+Dorset, 66_l._ 13_s._ 4_d._], 40_l._ sterling, my [[146] fourth] best
+gown, doublet, and jacket. Item. I give and bequeath to my nephew
+Christopher Wellyfed 40_l._, [[146] 20_l._] my fifth gown, doublet, and
+jacket. Item. I give and bequeath to my nephew William Wellyfed the
+younger 20_l._, [[146] 40_l._] Item. I give and bequeath to my niece Alice
+Wellyfed, to her marriage, 20_l._ And if it happen, her to die before
+marriage, then I will that the said 20_l._ shall remain to her brother
+Christopher. And if it happen him to die, the same 20_l._ to remain to
+Wm. Wellyfed the younger, his brother. And if it happen them all to die
+before their lawful age or marriage, then I will that all their parts
+shall remain to Gregory my son. And if it happen him to die before them,
+then I will all the said parts shall remain [[146] to Anne and Grace, my
+daughters] to Richard Willyams and Walter Willyams, my nephews. And if
+it happen them to die, then I will that all the said parts shall be
+distributed in deeds of charity for my soul, my father's and mother's
+souls, and all Christian souls. Item. I give and bequeath to my
+mother-in-law Mercy Prior 40_l._ of lawful English money, and her
+chamber, with certain household stuff; that is to say, a featherbed, a
+bolster, two pillows with their beres, six pair of sheets, a pair of
+blankets, a garnish of vessel, two pots, two pans, two spits, with such
+other of my household stuff as shall be thought meet for her by the
+discretion of mine executors, and such as she will reasonably desire,
+not being bequeathed to other uses in this my present testament and last
+will. Item. I give and bequeath to my said mother-in-law a little salt
+of silver, a mazer, six silver spoons, and a drinking-pot of silver. And
+also I charge mine executors to be good unto her during her life. Item.
+I give and bequeath to my brother-in-law William Wellyfed, 20_l._, my
+third gown, jacket, and doublet. Item. I give and bequeath to John
+Willyams my brother-in-law, 100 marks, a gown, a doublet, a jacket, a
+featherbed, a bolster, six pair of sheets, two table-cloths, two dozen
+napkins, two towels, two brass pots, two brass pans, a silver pot, a nut
+parcel-gilt; and to Joan, his wife, 40_l._ Item. I give and bequeath to
+Joan Willyams, their daughter, to her marriage, 20_l._, and to every
+other of their children 12_l._ 13_s._ 4_d._ Item. I bequeath to Walter
+Willyams, my nephew, 20_l._ Item. I give and bequeath to Ralph Sadler,
+my servant, 200 marks of lawful English money, my second gown, jacket,
+and doublet, and all my books. Item. I give and bequeath to Hugh
+Whalley, my servant, 6_l._ 13_s._ 4_d._ Item. I give and bequeath to
+Stephen Vaughan, sometime my servant, 100 marks, a gown, jacket, and
+doublet. Item. I give and bequeath to Page, my servant, otherwise called
+John De Pount, 6_l._ 13_s._ 4_d._ [[146] Item. I give and bequeath to
+Elizabeth Gregory, sometime my servant, 20_l._, six pair of sheets, a
+featherbed, a pair of blankets, a coverlet, two table-cloths, one dozen
+napkins, two brass pots, two pans, two spits.] And also to Thomas
+Averey, my servant, 6_l._ 13_s._ 4_d._ [[146] Item. I give and bequeath to
+John Cooke, one of the six Master Clerks of the Chancery, 10_l._, my
+second gown, doublet, and jacket. Item. I give and bequeath to Roger
+More, servant of the King's bakehouse, 6_l._ 13_s._ 4_d._, three yards
+of satin; and to Maudelyn, his wife, 3_l._ 6_s._ 8_d._] Item. I give and
+bequeath to John Horwood, 6_l._ 13_s._ 4_d._ [[146] Item. I give and
+bequeath to my little daughter Grace 100 marks of lawful English money
+when she shall come to her lawful age or marriage; and also 40_l._
+towards her exhibition and finding until such time she shall be of
+lawful age or be married, which 40_l._ I will shall be delivered to my
+brother-in-law, John Willyams, to the intent he may order and cause the
+same to be employed in and about the virtuous education and bringing up
+of my said daughter, till she shall come to her lawful age or marriage.
+And if it happen my said daughter to die before she come to her lawful
+age or marriage, then I will that the said 100 marks, and so much of the
+said 40_l._ as shall then be unspent and unemployed about the finding of
+my said daughter at the day of the death of my said daughter shall
+remain and be delivered to Gregory my son, if he then shall happen to be
+in life; and if he be dead, then the said 100 marks, and the said
+residue of the said 40_l._, to be evenly departed among my grown
+kinsfolk--that is to say, my sisters' children aforesaid.] Item. That
+the rest of mine apparel before not given or bequeathed in this my
+testament and last will shall be given and equally departed amongst my
+servants after the order and discretion of mine executors. Item. I will
+also that mine executors shall take the yearly profits above the charges
+of my farm of Carberry, and all other things contained in my said lease
+of Carberry, in the county of Middlesex, and with the profits thereof
+shall yearly pay unto my brother-in-law William (Wellyfed) and Elizabeth
+his wife, mine only sister, twenty pounds; give and distribute for my
+soul quarterly 40 shillings during their lives and the longer of them;
+and after the decease of the said William and Elizabeth, the profits of
+the said farm over and above the yearly rent to be kept to the use of my
+son Gregory till he be come to the age of 24 years. And at the years of
+24 the said lease and farm of Carberry, I do give and bequeath to my son
+Gregory, to have the same to him, his executors and assigns. And if it
+fortune the said Gregory my son to die before, my said brother-in-law
+and sister being dead, he shall come to the age of 24 years, then I will
+my said cousin Richard Willyams shall have the farm with the
+appurtenances to him and to his executors and assigns; and if it happen
+my said brother-in-law, my sister, my son Gregory, and my said cousin
+Richard, to die before the accomplishment of this my will touching the
+said farm, then I will mine executors shall sell the said farm, and the
+money thereof coming to employ in deeds of charity, to pray for my soul
+and all Christian souls. Item. I will mine executors shall conduct and
+hire a priest, being an honest person of continent and good living, to
+sing for my soul by the space of seven years next after my death, and to
+give him for the same 6_l._ 13_s._ 4_d._ for his stipend. Item. I give
+and bequeath towards the making of highways in this realm, where it
+shall be thought most necessary, 20_l._ to be disposed by the discretion
+of mine executors. Item. I give and bequeath to every the five orders of
+Friars within the City of London, to pray for my soul, 20 shillings.
+Item. I give and bequeath to 60 poor maidens in marriage, 40_l._, that
+is to say, 13_s._ 4_d._ to every of the said poor maidens, to be given
+and distributed by the discretion of mine executors. Item. I will that
+there shall be dealt and given after my decease amongst poor people
+householders, to pray for my soul, 20_l._, such as by mine executors
+shall be thought most needful. Item. I give and bequeath to the poor
+parishioners of the parish where God shall ordain me to have my
+dwellingplace at the time of my death, 10_l._, to be truly distributed
+amongst them by the discretion of mine executors. Item. I give and
+bequeath to my parish church for my tithes forgotten, 20 shillings.
+Item. To the poor prisoners of Newgate, Ludgate, King's Bench, and
+Marshalsea, to be equally distributed amongst them, 10_l._ Willing,
+charging, and desiring mine executors underwritten, that they shall see
+this my will performed in every point according to my true meaning and
+intent as they will answer to God, and discharge their consciences. The
+residue of all my goods, chattels, and debts not bequeathed, my funeral
+and burial performed, which I will shall be done without any earthly
+pomp, and my debts paid, I will shall be sold, and the money thereof
+coming, to be distributed in works of charity and pity, after the good
+discretion of mine executors undernamed. Whom I make and ordain, Stephen
+Vaughan, Ralph Sadler, my servants, and John Willyams my brother-in-law.
+Praying and desiring the same mine executors to be good unto my son
+Gregory, and to all other my poor friends and kinsfolk and servants
+aforenamed in this my testament. And of this my present testament and
+last will I make Roger More mine overseer; unto whom and also to every
+of the other mine executors I give and bequeath 6_l._ 13_s._ 4_d._ for
+their pains to be taken in the execution of this my last will and
+testament, over and above such legacies as herebefore I have bequeathed
+them in this same testament and will. In witness whereof, to this my
+present testament and last will I have set to my hand in every leaf
+contained in this book, the day and year before limited.
+
+  THOMAS CROMWELL.
+
+Item. I give and bequeath to William Brabazon, my servant, 20_l._ 8_s._,
+a gun, a doublet, a jacket, and my second gelding.
+
+It. to John Avery, Yeoman of the Bedchamber with the King's Highness,
+6_l._ 13_s._ 4_d._, and a doublet of satin.
+
+It. to Thurston, my cook, 6_l._ 13_s._ 4_d._
+
+It. to William Body, my servant, 6_l._ 13_s._ 4_d._
+
+It. to Peter Mewtas, my servant, 6_l._ 13_s._ 4_d._
+
+It. to Ric. Sleysh, my servant, 6_l._ 13_s._ 4_d._
+
+It. to George Wilkinson, my servant, 6_l._ 13_s._ 4_d._
+
+It. to my friend, Thomas Alvard, 10_l._, and my best gelding.
+
+It. to my friend, Thomas Bush, 10_l._
+
+It. to my servant, John Hynde, my horsekeeper, 3_l._ 6_s._ 8_d._
+
+Item. I will that mine executors shall safely keep the patent of the
+manor of Romney to the use of my son Gregory, and the money growing
+thereof, till he shall come to his lawful age, to be yearly received to
+the use of my said son, and the whole revenue thereof coming to be truly
+paid unto him at such time as he shall come to the age of 24 years.
+
+
+NOTES:
+
+[144] Or Willyams. The words are used indifferently.
+
+[145] The clause enclosed between brackets is struck through.
+
+[146] Struck through.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+THE LAST EFFORTS OF DIPLOMACY.
+
+
+I have now to resume the thread of the political history where it was
+dropped at the sentence of divorce pronounced by Cranmer, and the
+coronation of the new queen. The effect was about to be ascertained of
+these bold measures upon Europe; and of what their effect would be, only
+so much could be foretold with certainty, that the time for trifling was
+past, and the pope and Francis of France would be compelled to declare
+their true intentions. If these intentions were honest, the
+subordination of England to the papacy might be still preserved in a
+modified form. The papal jurisdiction was at end, but the spiritual
+supremacy of the Bishop of Rome, with a diminished but considerable
+revenue attached to it, remained unaffected; and it was for the pope to
+determine whether, by fulfilling at last his original engagements, he
+would preserve these remnants of his power and privileges, or boldly
+take up the gage, excommunicate his disobedient subjects, and attempt by
+force to bring them back to their allegiance.
+
+[Sidenote: April 22.]
+
+[Sidenote: The king's marriage compels Clement to declare himself.]
+
+The news of what had been done did not take him wholly by surprise. It
+was known at Brussels at the end of April that the king had married. The
+queen regent[147] spoke of it to the ambassador sternly and
+significantly, not concealing her expectation of the mortal resentment
+which would be felt by her brothers;[148] and the information was
+forwarded with the least possible delay to the cardinals of the imperial
+faction at Rome. The true purposes which underlay the contradiction of
+Clement's language are undiscoverable. Perhaps in the past winter he had
+been acting out a deep intrigue--perhaps he was drifting between rival
+currents, and yielded in any or all directions as the alternate pressure
+varied; yet whatever had been the meaning of his language, whether it
+was a scheme to deceive Henry, or was the expression only of weakness
+and good-nature desiring to avoid a quarrel to the latest moment, the
+decisive step which had been taken in the marriage, even though it was
+nominally undivulged, obliged him to choose his course and openly
+adhere to it. After the experience of the past, there could be no doubt
+what that course would be.
+
+[Sidenote: May 12. The king is cited to appear at Rome.]
+
+[Sidenote: The censures of the church suspended only till the emperor
+can execute them.]
+
+[Sidenote: The pope's resolution and the explanation of it.]
+
+On the 12th of May a citation was issued against the King of England,
+summoning him to appear by person or proxy at a stated day. It had been
+understood that no step of such a kind was to be taken before the
+meeting of the pope and Francis; Bennet, therefore, Henry's faithful
+secretary, hastily inquired the meaning of this measure. The pope told
+him that it could not be avoided, and the language which he used
+revealed to the English agent the inevitable future. The king, he said,
+had defied the inhibitory brief which had been lately issued, and had
+incurred excommunication; the imperialists insisted that he should be
+proceeded against for contempt, and that the excommunication should at
+once be pronounced. However great might be his own personal reluctance,
+it was not possible for him to remain passive; and if he declined to
+resort at once to the more extreme exercise of his power, the hesitation
+was merely until the emperor was prepared to enforce the censures of the
+church with the strong hand. It stood not "with his honour to execute
+such censures," he said, "and the same not to be regarded."[149] But
+there was no wish to spare Henry; and if Francis could be detached from
+his ally, and if the condition of the rest of Christendom became such as
+to favour the enterprise, England might evidently look for the worst
+which the pope, with the Catholic powers, could execute. If the papal
+court was roused into so menacing a mood by the mere intimation of the
+secret marriage, it was easy to foresee what would ensue when the news
+arrived of the proceedings at Dunstable. Bennet entreated that the
+process should be delayed till the interview; but the pope answered
+coldly that he had done his best and could do no more; the imperialists
+were urgent, and he saw no reason to refuse their petition.[150] This
+was Clement's usual language, but there was something peculiar in his
+manner. He had been often violent, but he had never shown resolution,
+and the English agents were perplexed. The mystery was soon explained.
+He had secured himself on the side of France; and Francis, who at Calais
+had told Henry that his negotiations with the see of Rome were solely
+for the interests of England, that for Henry's sake he was marrying his
+son into a family beneath him in rank, that Henry's divorce was to form
+the especial subject of his conference with the pope, had consented to
+allow these dangerous questions to sink into a secondary place, and had
+relinquished his intention, if he had ever seriously entertained it, of
+becoming an active party in the English quarrel.
+
+[Sidenote: Delay of the interview between the pope and Francis.]
+
+[Sidenote: The true purposes of that interview.]
+
+The long talked-of interview was still delayed. First it was to have
+taken place in the winter, then in the spring; June was the date last
+fixed for it, and now Bennet had to inform the king that it would not
+take place before September; and that, from the terms of a communication
+which had just passed between the parties who were to meet, the subjects
+discussed at the conference would not be those which he had been led to
+expect. Francis, in answer to a question from the pope, had specified
+three things which he proposed particularly to "intreat." The first
+concerned the defence of Christendom against the Turks, the second
+concerned the general council, and the third concerned "the extinction
+of the Lutheran sect."[151] These were the points which the Most
+Christian king was anxious to discuss with the pope. For the latter good
+object especially, "he would devise and treat for the provision of an
+army." In the King of England's cause, he trusted "some means might be
+found whereby it might be compounded;"[152] but if persuasion failed,
+there was no fear lest he should have recourse to any other method.
+
+It was this which had given back to the pope his courage. It was this
+which Bennet had now to report to Henry. The French alliance, it was too
+likely, would prove a broken reed, and pierce the hand that leant upon
+it.
+
+[Sidenote: Probable isolation of England.]
+
+[Sidenote: Policy of Francis.]
+
+Henry knew the danger; but danger was not a very terrible thing either
+to him or to his people. If he had conquered his own reluctance to risk
+a schism in the church, he was not likely to yield to the fear of
+isolation; and if there was something to alarm in the aspect of affairs,
+there was also much to encourage. His parliament was united and
+resolute. His queen was pregnant. The Nun of Kent had assigned him but a
+month to live after his marriage; six months had passed, and he was
+alive and well; the supernatural powers had not declared against him;
+and while safe with respect to enmity from above, the earthly powers he
+could afford to defy. When he finally divorced Queen Catherine, he must
+have foreseen his present position at least as a possibility, and if
+not prepared for so swift an apostasy in Francis, and if not yet wholly
+believing it, we may satisfy ourselves he had never absolutely trusted a
+prince of metal so questionable.
+
+The Duke of Norfolk was waiting at the French court, with a magnificent
+embassy, to represent the English king at the interview. The arrival of
+the pope had been expected in May. It was now delayed till September;
+and if Clement came after all, it would be for objects in which England
+had but small concern. It was better for England that there should be no
+meeting at all, than a meeting to devise schemes for the massacre of
+Lutherans. Henry therefore wrote to the Duke, telling him generally what
+he had heard from Rome; he mentioned the three topics which he
+understood were to form the matter of discussion; but he skilfully
+affected to regard them as having originated with the imperialists, and
+not with the French king. In a long paper of instructions, in which
+earnestness and irony were strangely blended, he directed the ambassador
+to treat his good brother as if he were still exclusively devoted to the
+interests of England; and to urge upon him, on the ground of this fresh
+delay, that the interview should not take place at all.[153]
+
+[Sidenote: The king's instructions to the Duke of Norfolk to "disappoint
+the interview."]
+
+[Sidenote: The "Three Articles" proposed for discussion will be wholly
+to the advantage of the Imperialists]
+
+"Our pleasure is," he wrote, "that ye shall say ------ that we be not a
+little moved in our heart to see our good brother and us, being such
+princes or Christendom, to be so handled with the pope, so much to our
+dishonour, and to the pope's and the emperor's advancement; seeming to
+be at the pope's commandment to come or tarry as he or his cardinals
+shall appoint; and to depend upon his pleasure when to meet--that is to
+say, when he list or never. If our good brother and we were either
+suitors to make request, the obtaining whereof we did much set by, or
+had any particular matter of advantage to entreat with him, these
+proceedings might be the better tolerated; but our good brother having
+no particular matter of his own, and being ... that [no] more glory nor
+surety could happen to the emperour than to obtain the effect of the
+three articles moved by the pope and his cardinals, we think it not
+convenient to attend the pleasure of the pope, to go or to abyde. We
+could have been content to have received and taken at the pope's hand,
+jointly with our good brother, pleasure and friendship in our great
+cause; [but] on the other part, we cannot esteem the pope's part so
+high, as to have our good brother an attendant suitor therefore ...
+desiring him, therefore, in anywise to disappoint for his part the said
+interview; and if he have already granted thereto--upon some new good
+occasion, which he now undoubtedly hath--to depart from the same.
+
+[Sidenote: He has found by experience that the friendship of the pope is
+not vital to England.]
+
+[Sidenote: King Henry knows the pope and himself also.]
+
+"For we, ye may say, having the justness of our cause for us, with such
+an entire and whole consent of our nobility and commons of our realm and
+subjects, and being all matters passed, and in such terms as they now
+be, do not find such lack and want of that the pope might do, with us or
+against us, as we would for the obtaining thereof be contented to have a
+French king our so perfect a friend, to be not only a mediator but a
+suitor therein, and a suitor attendant to have audience upon liking and
+after the advice of such cardinals as repute it among pastymes to play
+and dally with kings and princes; whose honour, ye may say, is above
+all things, and more dear to us in the person of our good brother, than
+is any piece of our cause at the pope's hands. And therefore, if there
+be none other thing but our cause, and the other causes whereof we be
+advertised, our advice, counsel, special desire also and request is,
+[that our good brother shall] break off the interview, unless the pope
+will make suit to him; and [unless] our said good brother hath such
+causes of his own as may particularly tend to his own benefit, honour
+and profit--wherein he shall do great and singular pleasure unto us;
+_giving to understand to the pope, that we know ourselves and him both
+and look to be esteemed accordingly_."
+
+Should it appear that on receipt of this communication, Francis was
+still resolved to persevere, and that he had other objects in view to
+which Henry had not been made privy, the ambassadors were then to remind
+him of the remaining obligations into which he had entered; and to
+ascertain to what degree his assistance might be calculated upon, should
+the pope pronounce Henry deposed, and the emperor attempt to enforce the
+sentence.
+
+[Sidenote: Intended appeal to a general council.]
+
+[Sidenote: The advantages of this measure.]
+
+[Sidenote: June 29.]
+
+After forwarding these instructions, the king's next step was to
+anticipate the pope by an appeal which would neutralize his judgment
+should he venture upon it; and which offered a fresh opportunity of
+restoring the peace of Christendom, if there was true anxiety to
+preserve that peace. The hinge of the great question, in the form which
+at last it assumed, was the validity or invalidity of the dispensation
+by which Henry had married his brother's widow. Being a matter which
+touched the limit of the pope's power, the pope was himself unable to
+determine it in his own favour; and the only authority by which the law
+could be ruled, was a general council. In the preceding winter, the pope
+had volunteered to submit the question to this tribunal; but Henry
+believing that it was on the point of immediate solution in another way,
+had then declined, on the ground that it would cause a needless delay.
+He was already married, and he had hoped that sentence might be given in
+his favour in time to anticipate the publication of the ceremony. But he
+was perfectly satisfied that justice was on his side; and was equally
+confident of obtaining the verdict of Europe, if it could be fairly
+pronounced. Now, therefore, under the altered circumstances, he accepted
+the offered alternative. He anticipated with tolerable certainty the
+effect which would be produced at Rome, when the news should arrive
+there of the Dunstable divorce; and on the 29th of June he appealed
+formally, in the presence of the Archbishop of York, from the pope's
+impending sentence, to the next general council.[154]
+
+[Sidenote: Terms of the appeal. The king has no intention of derogating
+from the lawful privileges of the See of Rome.]
+
+Of this curious document the substance was as follows:--It commenced
+with a declaration that the king had no intention of acting otherwise
+than became a good Catholic prince; or of injuring the church or
+attacking the privileges conceded by God to the Holy See. If his words
+could be lawfully shown to have such a tendency, he would revoke, emend,
+and correct them in a Catholic spirit.
+
+[Sidenote: But Europe having declared in his favour in his great matter,
+"by the inspiration of the Most High," he has married another wife.]
+
+[Sidenote: He fears that the pope, who has injured him throughout, may
+now pass the censures of the church against him.]
+
+The general features of the case were then recapitulated. His marriage
+with his brother's wife had been pronounced illegal by the principal
+universities of Europe, by the clergy of the two provinces of the Church
+of England, by the most learned theologians and canonists, and finally,
+by the public judgment of the church.[155] He therefore had felt himself
+free; and, "by the inspiration of the Most High, had lawfully married
+another woman." Furthermore, "for the common weal and tranquillity of
+the realm of England, and for the wholesome rule and government of the
+same, he had caused to be enacted certain statutes and ordinances, by
+authority of parliaments lawfully called for that purpose." "Now,
+however," he continued, "we fearing that his Holyness the Pope ...
+having in our said cause treated us far otherwise than either respect
+for our dignity and desert, or the duty of his own office required at
+his hands, and having done us many injuries which we now of design do
+suppress, but which hereafter we shall be ready, should circumstances so
+require, to divulge ... may now proceed to acts of further injustice,
+and heaping wrong on wrong, may pronounce the censures and other
+penalties of the spiritual sword against ourselves, our realm, and
+subjects, seeking thereby to deprive us of the use of the sacraments,
+and to cut us off, in the sight of the world, from the unity of the
+church, to the no slight hurt and injury of our realm and subjects:
+
+[Sidenote: He appeals from any such censures to the next general
+council.]
+
+"Fearing these things, and desiring to preserve from detriment not only
+ourselves, our own dignity and estimation, but also our subjects,
+committed to us by Almighty God; to keep them in the unity of the
+Christian faith, and in the wonted participation in the sacraments;
+that, when in truth they be not cut off from the integrity of the
+church, nor can nor will be so cut off in any manner, they may not
+appear to be so cut off in the estimation of men; [desiring further] to
+check and hold back our people whom God has given to us, lest, in the
+event of such injury, they refuse utterly to obey any longer the Roman
+Pontiff, as a hard and cruel pastor: [for these causes] and believing,
+from reasons probable, conjectures likely, and words used to our injury
+by his Holiness the Pope, which in divers manners have been brought to
+our ears, that some weighty act may be committed by him or others to the
+prejudice of ourselves and of our realm;--We, therefore, in behalf of
+all and every of our subjects, and of all persons adhering to us in this
+our cause, do make our appeal to the next general council, which shall
+be lawfully held, in place convenient, with the consent of the Christian
+princes, and of such others as it may concern--not in contempt of the
+Holy See, but for defence of the truth of the Gospel, and for the other
+causes afore rehearsed. And we do trust in God that it shall not be
+interpreted as a thing ill done on our part, if preferring the salvation
+of our soul and the relief of our conscience to any mundane respects or
+favours, we have in this cause regarded more the Divine law than the
+laws of man, and have thought it rather meet to obey God than to obey
+man."[156]
+
+By the appeal and the causes which were assigned for it, Henry
+preoccupied the ground of the conflict; he entrenched himself in the
+"debatable land" of legal uncertainty; and until his position had been
+pronounced untenable by the general voice of Christendom, any sentence
+which the pope could issue would have but a doubtful validity. It was,
+perhaps, but a slight advantage; and the niceties of technical fencing
+might soon resolve themselves into a question of mere strength; yet, in
+the opening of great conflicts, it is well, even when a resort to force
+is inevitable, to throw on the opposing party the responsibility of
+violence; and Henry had been led, either by a refinement of policy, or
+by the plain straightforwardness of his intentions, into a situation
+where he could expect without alarm the unrolling of the future.
+
+[Sidenote: The news of the divorce pronounced at Dunstable arrives at
+Rome.]
+
+[Sidenote: General indignation in the consistory.]
+
+[Sidenote: Bonner is impertinent. The pope threatens to boil him in
+lead. He writes in terror to England.]
+
+[Sidenote: Henry comforts him.]
+
+The character of that future was likely soon to be decided. The appeal
+was published on the 29th of June; and as the pope must have heard, by
+the middle of the month at latest, of the trial and judgment at
+Dunstable, a few days would bring an account of the manner in which he
+had received the intelligence. Prior to the arrival of the couriers,
+Bennet, with the assistance of Cardinal Tournon, had somewhat soothed
+down his exasperation. Francis, also, having heard that immediate
+process was threatened, had written earnestly to deprecate such a
+measure;[157] and though he took the interference "very
+displeasantly,"[158] the pope could not afford to lose, by premature
+impatience, the fruit of all his labour and diplomacy, and had yielded
+so far as to promise that nothing of moment should be done. To this
+state of mind he had been brought one day in the second week of June.
+The morning after, Bennet found him "sore altered." The news of "my Lord
+of Canterbury's proceedings" had arrived the preceding night; and "his
+Holiness said that [such] doings were too sore for him to stand still at
+and do nothing."[159] It was "against his duty towards God and the world
+to tolerate them." The imperialist cardinals, impatient before,
+clamoured that the evil had been caused by the dilatory timidity with
+which the case had been handled from the first.[160] The consistory sate
+day after day with closed doors;[161] and even such members of it had
+before inclined to the English side, joined in the common indignation.
+"Some extreme process" was instantly looked for, and the English agents,
+in their daily interviews with the pope, were forced to listen to
+language which it was hard to bear with equanimity. Bennet's well-bred
+courtesy carried him successfully through the difficulty; his companion
+Bonner was not so fortunate. Bonner's tongue was insolent, and under bad
+control. He replied to menace by impertinence; and on one occasion was
+so exasperating, that Clement threatened to burn him alive, or boil him
+in a caldron of lead.[162] When fairly roused, the old man was
+dangerous; and the future Bishop of London wrote to England in
+extremity of alarm. His letter has not been found, but the character of
+it may be perceived from the reassuring reply of the king. The agents,
+Henry said, were not to allow themselves to be frightened; they were to
+go on calmly, with their accustomed diligence and dexterity, disputing
+the ground from point to point, and trust to him. Their cause was good,
+and, with God's help, he would be able to defend them from the malice of
+their adversaries.[163]
+
+[Sidenote: The consistory cools into prudence.]
+
+[Sidenote: July 12. The pope declares the divorce illegal, and commands
+Henry to cancel the process. If he fails to obey, he is declared
+excommunicated.]
+
+Fortunately for Bonner, the pope's passion was of brief duration, and
+the experiment whether Henry's arm could reach to the dungeons of the
+Vatican remained untried. The more moderate of the cardinals, also,
+something assuaged the storm; and angry as they all were, the majority
+still saw the necessity of prudence. In the heat of the irritation,
+final sentence was to have been pronounced upon the entire cause, backed
+by interdict, excommunication, and the full volume of the papal
+thunders. At the close of a month's deliberation they resolved to
+reserve judgment on the original question, and to confine themselves for
+the present to revenging the insult to the pope by "my Lord of
+Canterbury." Both the king and the archbishop had disobeyed a formal
+inhibition. On the 12th of July, the pope issued a brief, declaring
+Cranmer's judgment to have been illegal, the English process to have
+been null and void, and the king, by his disobedience, to have incurred,
+_ipso facto_, the threatened penalties of excommunication. Of his
+clemency he suspended these censures till the close of the following
+September, in order that time might be allowed to restore the respective
+parties to their old positions: if within that period the parties were
+not so restored, the censures would fall.[164] This brief was sent into
+Flanders, and fixed in the usual place against the door of a church in
+Dunkirk.
+
+[Sidenote: Henry again urges Francis to decline to meet the pope.]
+
+Henry was prepared for a measure which was no more than natural. He had
+been prepared for it as a possibility when he married. Both he and
+Francis must have been prepared for it on their meeting at Calais, when
+the French king advised him to marry, and promised to support him
+through the consequences. His own measures had been arranged beforehand,
+and he had secured himself in technical entrenchments by his appeal.
+After the issue of the brief, however, he could allow no English embassy
+to compliment Clement by its presence on his visit to France. He "knew
+the pope," as he said. Long experience had shown him that nothing was to
+be gained by yielding in minor points; and the only chance which now
+remained of preserving the established order of Christendom, was to
+terrify the Vatican court into submission by the firmness of his
+attitude. For the present complications, the court of Rome, not he, was
+responsible. The pope, with a culpable complacency for the emperor, had
+shrunk from discharging a duty which his office imposed upon him; and
+the result had been that the duty was discharged by another. Henry
+could not blame himself for the consequences of Clement's delinquency.
+He rather felt himself wronged in having been driven to so extreme a
+measure against his will. He resolved, therefore, to recal the embassy,
+and once more, though with no great hope that he would be successful, to
+invite Francis to fulfil his promise, and to unite with himself in
+expressing his resentment at the pope's conduct.
+
+[Sidenote: August 8.]
+
+His despatch to the Duke of Norfolk on this occasion was the natural
+sequel of what he had written a few weeks previously. That letter had
+failed wholly of its effect. The interview was resolved upon for quite
+other reasons than those which were acknowledged, and therefore was not
+to be given up. A promise, however, had been extracted, that it should
+be given up, if in the course of the summer the pope "innovated
+anything" against the King of England; and Henry now required, formally,
+that this engagement should be observed. "A notorious and notable
+innovation" had been made, and Francis must either deny his words, or
+adhere to them. It would be evident to all the world, if the interview
+took place under the present circumstances, that the alliance with
+England was no longer of the importance with him which it had been; that
+his place in the struggle, when the struggle came, would be found on the
+papal side.
+
+[Sidenote: The cause at issue is the independence of princes.]
+
+[Sidenote: He has been required to repeal the Act of Appeals,]
+
+[Sidenote: Which is impossible.]
+
+[Sidenote: He, therefore, and the pope are as far asunder as yea and
+nay,]
+
+[Sidenote: And he trusts that Francis will agree with him as to the
+pope's conduct.]
+
+[Sidenote: For himself, he is satisfied that he can retract nothing
+which he has justly done,]
+
+The language of Henry throughout this paper was very fine and noble. He
+reminded Francis that substantially the cause at issue was the cause of
+all princes; the pope claiming a right to summon them to plead in the
+courts of Rome, and refusing to admit their exemption as sovereign
+rulers. He had been required not only to undo his marriage, and cancel
+the sentence of divorce, but, as a condition of reconciliation with the
+Holy See, to undo also the Act of Appeals, and to restore the papal
+jurisdiction. He desired it to be understood, with emphasis, that these
+points were all equally sacred, and the repeal of the act was as little
+to be thought of as the annulling the marriage. "The pope," he said,
+"did inforce us to excogitate some new thing, whereby we might be healed
+and relieved of that continual disease, to care for our cause at Rome,
+where such defence was taken from us, as by the laws of God, nature, and
+man, is due unto us. Hereupon depended the wealth of our realm; hereupon
+consisted the surety of our succession, which by no other means could be
+well assured." "And therefore," he went on, "you [the Duke] shall say to
+our good brother, that the pope persisting in the ways he hath entered,
+ye must needs despair in any meeting between the French king and the
+pope, to produce any such effect as to cause us to meet in concord with
+the pope; but we shall be even as far asunder as is between yea and nay.
+For to the pope's enterprise to revoke or put back anything that is done
+here, either in marriage, statute, sentence, or proclamation[165]--of
+which four members is knit and conjoined the surety of our matter, nor
+any can be removed from the other, lest thereby the whole edifice should
+be destroyed--we will and shall, by all ways and means say nay, and
+declare our nay in such sort as the world shall hear, and the pope feel
+it. Wherein ye may say our firm trust, perfect hope, and assured
+confidence is, that our good brother will agree with us: as well for
+that it should be partly dishonourable for him to see decay the thing
+that was of his own foundation and planting; as also that it should be
+too much dishonourable for us--having travelled so far in this matter,
+and brought it to this point, that all the storms of the year passed, it
+is now come to harvest, trusting to see shortly the fruit of our
+marriage, to the wealth, joy, and comfort of all our realm, and our own
+singular consolation--that anything should now be done by us to impair
+the same, and to put our issue either in peril of bastardy, or otherwise
+disturb that [which] is by the whole agreement of our realm established
+for their and our commodity, wealth, and benefit. And in this
+determination ye know us to be so fixed, and the contrary hereof to be
+so infeasible, either at our hands, or by the consent of the realm, that
+ye must needs despair of any order to be taken by the French king with
+the pope. For if any were by him taken wherein any of these four pieces
+should be touched--that is to say, the marriage of the queen our wife,
+the revocation of the Bishop of Canterbury's sentence, the statute of
+our realm, or our late proclamation, which be as it were one--and as
+walls, covering, and foundation make a house, so they knit together,
+establish, and make one matter--ye be well assured, and be so
+ascertained from us, that in no wise we will relent, but will, as we
+have before written, withstand the same. Whereof ye may say that ye have
+thought good to advertise him, to the intent he make no farther promise
+to the pope therein than may be performed."
+
+[Sidenote: And the pope must be made to understand his folly.]
+
+The ambassadors were the more emphatically to insist on the king's
+resolution, lest Francis, in his desire for conciliation, might hold
+out hopes to the pope which could not be realized. They were to say,
+however, that the King of England still trusted that the interview would
+not take place. The see of Rome was asserting a jurisdiction which, if
+conceded, would encourage an unlimited usurpation. If princes might be
+cited to the papal courts in a cause of matrimony, they might be cited
+equally in other causes at the pope's pleasure; and the free kingdoms of
+Europe would be converted into dependent provinces of the see of Rome.
+It concerned alike the interest and the honour of all sovereigns to
+resist encroachments which pointed to such an issue; and, therefore,
+Henry said he hoped that his good brother would use the pope as he had
+deserved, "doing him to understand his folly, and [that] unless he had
+first made amends, he could not find in his heart to have further amity
+with him."
+
+[Sidenote: If the meeting is to go on, and the ambassadors cannot induce
+Francis to "break" it, they are to return home.]
+
+If notwithstanding, the instructions concluded, "all these persuasions
+cannot have place to let the said meeting, and the French king shall say
+it is expedient for him to have in his hands the duchess,[166] under
+pretence of marriage for his son, which he cannot obtain but by this
+means, ye shall say that ye remember ye heard him say once he would
+never conclude that marriage but to do us good, which is now infaisible;
+and now in the voice of the world shall do us both more hurt in the
+diminution of the reputation of our amity than it should do otherwise
+profit. Nevertheless, [if] ye cannot let his precise determination, [ye]
+can but lament and bewail your own chance to depart home in this sort;
+and that yet of the two inconvenients, it is to you more tolerable to
+return to us nothing done, than to be present at the interview and to be
+compelled to look patiently upon your master's enemy."
+
+After having entered thus their protest against the French king's
+conduct, the embassy was to return to England, leaving a parting
+intimation of the single condition under which Henry would consent to
+treat. If the pope would declare that "the matrimony with the Lady
+Catherine was and is nought, he should do somewhat not to be refused;"
+except with this preliminary, no offer whatever could be
+entertained.[167]
+
+[Sidenote: The remonstrance fails.]
+
+[Sidenote: The effect upon the world's opinion.]
+
+[Sidenote: Intended Catholic triumvirate--the Pope, the Emperor, and the
+King of France.]
+
+This communication, as Henry anticipated, was not more effectual than
+the former in respect of its immediate object. At the meeting of Calais
+the interests of Francis had united him with England, and in pursuing
+the objects of Henry he was then pursuing his own. The pope and the
+emperor had dissolved the coalition by concessions on the least
+dangerous side. The interests of Francis lay now in the other direction,
+and there are few instances in history in which governments have adhered
+to obligations against their advantage from a spirit of honour, when the
+purposes with which they contracted those obligations have been
+otherwise obtained. The English embassy returned as they were ordered;
+the French court pursued their way to Marseilles; not quarrelling with
+England; intending to abide by the alliance, and to give all proofs of
+amity which did not involve inconvenient sacrifices; but producing on
+the world at large by their conduct the precise effect which Henry had
+foretold. The world at large, looking at acts rather than to words,
+regarded the interview as a contrivance to reconcile Francis and the
+emperor through the intervention of the pope, as a preliminary for a
+packed council, and for a holy war against the Lutherans,[168]--a
+combination of ominous augury to Christendom, from the consequences or
+which, if Germany was to be the first sufferer, England would be
+inevitably the second.
+
+[Sidenote: September 6. Henry, against his will, looks towards Germany.]
+
+[Sidenote: Unfortunate want of union among Protestants.]
+
+[Sidenote: Mission of Stephen Vaughan to the Court of the Elector of
+Saxe,]
+
+[Sidenote: Which is not welcome.]
+
+[Sidenote: The Elector had no anxiety to compromise himself with the
+Emperor.]
+
+Meanwhile, as the French alliance threatened to fail, the English
+government found themselves driven at last to look for a connexion among
+those powers from whom they had hitherto most anxiously disconnected
+themselves. At such a time Protestant Germany, not Catholic France, was
+England's natural friend. The Reformation was essentially a Teutonic
+movement; the Germans, English, the Scotch, the Swedes, the Hollanders,
+all were struggling on their various roads towards an end essentially
+the same. The same dangers threatened them, the same inspiration moved
+them; and in the eyes of the orthodox Catholics they were united in a
+black communion of heresy. Unhappily, though this identity was obvious
+to their enemies, it was far from obvious to themselves. The odium
+theologicum is ever hotter between sections of the same party which are
+divided by trifling differences, than between the open representatives
+of antagonist principles; and Anglicans and Lutherans, instead of
+joining hands across the Channel, endeavoured only to secure each a
+recognition of themselves at the expense of the other. The English
+plumed themselves on their orthodoxy. They were "not as those
+publicans," heretics, despisers of the keys disobedient to authority;
+they desired only the independence of their national church, and they
+proved their zeal for the established faith with all the warmth of
+persecution. To the Germans national freedom was of wholly minor moment,
+in comparison with the freedom of the soul; the orthodoxy of England was
+as distasteful to the disciples of Luther as the orthodoxy of Rome--and
+the interests of Europe were sacrificed on both sides to this foolish
+and fatal disunion. Circumstances indeed would not permit the division
+to remain in its first intensity, and their common danger compelled the
+two nations into a partial understanding. Yet the reconciliation,
+imperfect to the last, was at the outset all but impossible. Their
+relations were already embittered by many reciprocal acts of hostility.
+Henry VIII. had won his spurs as a theologian by an attack on Luther.
+Luther had replied by a hailstorm of invectives. The Lutheran books had
+been proscribed, the Lutherans themselves had been burnt by Henry's
+bishops. The Protestant divines in Germany had attempted to conciliate
+the emperor by supporting the cause of Catherine; and Luther himself had
+spoken loudly in condemnation of the king. The elements of disunion were
+so many and so powerful, that there was little hope of contending
+against them successfully. Nevertheless, as Henry saw, the coalition of
+Francis and the emperor, if the pope succeeded in cementing it, was a
+most serious danger, to which an opposite alliance would alone be an
+adequate counterpoise; and the experiment might at least be tried
+whether such an alliance was possible. At the beginning of August,
+therefore, Stephen Vaughan was sent on a tentative mission to the
+Elector of Saxe, John Frederick, at Weimar.[169] He was the bearer of
+letters containing a proposal for a resident English ambassador; and if
+the elector gave his consent, he was to proceed with similar offers to
+the courts of the Landgrave of Hesse and the Duke of Lunenberg.[170]
+Vaughan arrived in due time at the elector's court, was admitted to
+audience, and delivered his letters. The prince read them, and in the
+evening of the same day returned for answer a polite but wholly absolute
+refusal. Being but a prince elector, he said, he might not aspire to so
+high an honour as to be favoured with the presence of an English
+ambassador. It was not the custom in Germany, and he feared that if he
+consented he should displease the emperor.[171] The meaning of such a
+reply delivered in a few hours was not to be mistaken, however disguised
+in courteous language. The English emissary saw that he was an unwelcome
+visitor, and that he must depart with the utmost celerity. "The
+elector," he wrote,[172] "thirsted to have me gone from him, which I
+right well perceived by evident tokens which declared unto me the
+same." He had no anxiety to expose to hazard the toleration which the
+Protestant dukedoms as yet enjoyed from the emperor, by committing
+himself to a connexion with a prince with whose present policy he had no
+sympathy, and whose conversion to the cause of the Reformation he had as
+yet no reason to believe sincere.[173]
+
+The reception which Vaughan met with at Weimar satisfied him that he
+need go no further; neither the Landgrave nor the Duke of Lunenberg
+would be likely to venture on a course which the elector so obviously
+feared. He, therefore, gave up his mission, and returned to England.
+
+[Sidenote: The failure a not unprofitable lesson to England.]
+
+The first overtures in this direction issued in complete failure, nor
+was the result wholly to be regretted. It taught Henry (or it was a
+first commencement of the lesson) that so long as he pursued a merely
+English policy he might not expect that other nations would embroil
+themselves in his defence. He must allow the Reformation a wider scope,
+he must permit it to comprehend within its possible consequences the
+breaking of the chains by which his subjects' minds were bound--not
+merely a change of jailors. Then perhaps the German princes might return
+some other answer.
+
+[Sidenote: September 7. Birth of the Princess Elizabeth.]
+
+[Sidenote: Exultation in London.]
+
+[Sidenote: Light and shadow.]
+
+The disappointment, however, fell lightly; for before the account of the
+failure had reached England, an event had happened, which, poor as the
+king might be in foreign alliances, had added most material strength to
+his position in England. The full moment of that event he had no means
+of knowing. In its immediate bearing it was matter for most abundant
+satisfaction. On the seventh of September, between three and four in the
+afternoon, at the palace of Greenwich, was born a princess, named three
+days later in her baptism, after the king's mother, Elizabeth.[174] A
+son had been hoped for. The child was a daughter only; yet at least
+Providence had not pronounced against the marriage by a sentence of
+barrenness; at least there was now an heir whose legitimacy the nation
+had agreed to accept. Te Deums were sung in all the churches; again the
+river decked itself in splendour; again all London steeples were musical
+with bells. A font of gold was presented for the christening. Francis,
+in compensation for his backslidings, had consented to be godfather; and
+the infant, who was soon to find her country so rude a stepmother, was
+received with all the outward signs of exulting welcome. To Catherine's
+friends the offspring of the rival marriage was not welcome, but was an
+object rather of bitter hatred; and the black cloud of a sister's
+jealousy gathered over the cradle whose innocent occupant had robbed her
+of her title and her expectations. To the king, to the parliament, to
+the healthy heart of England, she was an object of eager hope and an
+occasion for thankful gratitude; but the seeds were sown with her birth
+of those misfortunes which were soon to overshadow her, and to form the
+school of the great nature which in its maturity would re-mould the
+world.
+
+[Sidenote: Preparations for the interview at Marseilles.]
+
+Leaving Elizabeth for the present, we return to the continent, and to
+the long-promised interview, which was now at last approaching. Henry
+made no further attempt to remonstrate with Francis; and Francis assured
+him, and with all sincerity, that he would use his best efforts to move
+the pope to make the necessary concessions. The English embassy
+meanwhile was withdrawn. The excommunication had been received as an act
+of hostility, of which Henry would not even condescend to complain; and
+it was to be understood distinctly that in any exertions which might be
+made by the French king, the latter was acting without commission on his
+own responsibility. The intercession was to be the spontaneous act of a
+mutual friend, who, for the interests of Christendom, desired to heal a
+dangerous wound; but neither directly nor indirectly was it to be
+interpreted as an expression of a desire for a reconciliation on the
+English side.
+
+[Sidenote: The pope arrives under the conduct of the Duke of Albany.]
+
+[Sidenote: Oct. 25th. Marriage of Henry Duke of Orleans, and Catherine
+de Medici.]
+
+[Sidenote: Amicable differences between the pope and Francis on the
+English question.]
+
+[Sidenote: General distrust.]
+
+It was determined further, on the recal of the Duke of Norfolk, that the
+opportunity of the meeting should be taken to give a notice to the pope
+of the king's appeal to the council; and for this purpose, Bennet and
+Bonner were directed to follow the papal court from Rome. Bennet never
+accomplished this journey, dying on the route, worn out with much
+service.[175] His death delayed Bonner, and the conferences had opened
+for many days before his arrival. Clement had reached Marseilles by ship
+from Genoa, about the 20th of October. As if pointedly to irritate
+Henry, he had placed himself under the conduct of the Duke of
+Albany.[176] He was followed two days later by his fair niece, Catherine
+de Medici; and the preparations for the marriage were commenced with the
+utmost swiftness and secrecy. The conditions of the contract were not
+allowed to transpire, but they were concluded in three days; and on the
+25th of October the pope bestowed his precious present on the Duke of
+Orleans, he himself performing the nuptial ceremony, and accompanying it
+with his paternal benediction on the young pair, and on the happy
+country which was to possess them for its king and queen. France being
+thus securely riveted to Rome, other matters could be talked of more
+easily. Francis made all decent overtures to the pope in behalf of
+Henry; if the pope was to be believed indeed, he was vehemently
+urgent.[177] Clement in turn made suggestions for terms of alliance
+between Francis and Charles, "to the advantage of the Most Christian
+king;"[178] and thus parried the remonstrances. The only point
+positively clear to the observers, was the perfect understanding which
+existed between the King of France and his spiritual father.[179]
+Unusual activity was remarked in the dockyards; Italian soldiers of
+fortune were about the court in unusual numbers, and apparently in
+favour.[180] An invasion of Lombardy was talked of among the palace
+retinue; and the emperor was said to distrust the intentions of the
+conference. Possibly experience had taught all parties to doubt each
+other's faith. Possibly they were all in some degree waiting upon
+events; and had not yet resolved upon their conduct.
+
+[Sidenote: Bonner at Marseilles.]
+
+[Sidenote: Character of Bonner.]
+
+In the midst of this scene arrived Doctor Bonner, in the beginning of
+November, with Henry's appeal. He was a strange figure to appear in such
+a society. There was little probity, perhaps, either in the court of
+France, or in their Italian visitors: but of refinement, of culture, of
+those graces which enable men to dispense with the more austere
+excellences of character,--which transform licentiousness into elegant
+frailty, and treachery and falsehood into pardonable finesse,--of these
+there was very much: and when a rough, coarse, vulgar Englishman was
+plunged among these delicate ladies and gentlemen, he formed an element
+which contrasted strongly with the general environment. Yet Bonner,
+perhaps, was not without qualifications which fitted him for his
+mission. He was not, indeed, virtuous; but he had a certain downright
+honesty about him, joined with an entire insensibility to those finer
+perceptions which would have interfered with plain speaking, where plain
+speaking was desirable; he had a broad, not ungenial humour, which
+showed him things and persons in their genuine light, and enabled him to
+picture them for us with a distinctness for which we owe him lasting
+thanks.
+
+[Sidenote: November 7.]
+
+He appeared at Marseilles on the 7th of November, and had much
+difficulty in procuring an interview. At length, weary of waiting, and
+regardless of the hot lead with which he had been lately threatened, he
+forced his way into the room where "the pope was standing, with the
+Cardinals De Lorraine and Medici, ready apparelled with his stole to go
+to the consistory."
+
+[Sidenote: Bonner's letter to the king.]
+
+"Incontinently upon my coming thither," he wrote to Henry,[181] "the
+pope, whose sight is incredulous quick, eyed me, and that divers times;
+making a good pause in one place; at which time I desired the datary to
+advertise his Holiness that I would speak with him; and albeit the
+datary made no little difficulty therein, yet perceiving that upon
+refusal I would have gone forthwith to the pope, he advertised the pope
+of my said desire. His Holiness dismissing as then the said cardinals,
+and letting his vesture fall, went to a window in the said chamber,
+calling me unto him. At which time I showed unto his Holiness how that
+your Highness had given me express and strait commandment to intimate
+unto him how that your Grace had solemnly provoked and appealed unto the
+general council; submitting yourself to the tuition and defence thereof;
+which provocation and appeal I had under authentic writings then with
+me, to show for that purpose. And herewithal I drew out the said
+writing, showing his said Holiness that I brought the same in proof of
+the premises, and that his Holiness might see and perceive all the same.
+The pope having this for a breakfast, only pulled down his head to his
+shoulders, after the Italian fashion, and said that because he was as
+then fully ready to go into the consistory, he would not tarry to hear
+or see the said writings, but willed me to come at afternoon."
+
+[Sidenote: The king's appeal is delivered to the pope.]
+
+The afternoon came, and Bonner returned, and was admitted. There was
+some conversation upon indifferent matters; the pope making good-natured
+inquiries about Bennet, and speaking warmly and kindly of him.
+
+"Presently," Bonner continues, "falling out of that, he said that he
+marvelled your Highness would use his Holiness after such sort as it
+appears ye did. I said that your Highness no less did marvel that his
+Holiness having found so much benevolence and kindness at your hands in
+all times past, would for acquittal show such unkindness as of late he
+did. And here we entered in communication upon two points: one was that
+his Holiness, having committed in times past, and in most ample form,
+the cause into the realm, promising not to revoke the said commission,
+and over that, to confirm the process and sentence of the commissaries,
+should not at the point of sentence have advoked the cause, retaining it
+at Rome--forasmuch as Rome was a place whither your Highness could not,
+ne yet ought, personally to come unto, and also was not bound to send
+thither your proctor. The second point was, that your Highness's cause
+being, in the opinion of the best learned men in Christendom, approved
+good and just, and so [in] many ways known unto his Holiness, the same
+should not so long have retained it in his hands without judgment.
+
+"His Holiness answering the same, as touching the first point, said that
+if the queen (meaning the late wife of Prince Arthur, calling her always
+in his conversation the queen) had not given an oath refusing the judges
+as suspect, he would not have advoked the matter at all, but been
+content that it should have been determined and ended in your realm. But
+seeing she gave that oath, appealing also to his court, he might and
+ought to hear her, his promise made to your Highness, which was
+qualified, notwithstanding. As touching the second point, his Holiness
+said that your Highness only was the default thereof, because ye would
+not send a proxy to the cause. These matters, however, he said, had been
+many times fully talked upon at Rome; and therefore [he] willed me to
+omit further communication thereupon, and to proceed to the doing of
+such things that I was specially sent for.
+
+[Sidenote: The pope's anger.]
+
+"Whereupon making protestation of your Highness's mind and intent
+towards the see apostolic--not intending anything to do in contempt of
+the same--I exhibited unto his Holiness the commission which your
+Highness had sent unto me; and his Holiness delivering it to the datary,
+commanded him to read it; and hearing in the same the words (referring
+to the injuries which he had done to your Highness), he began to look up
+after a new sort, and said, 'O questo et multo vero! (this is much
+true!)' meaning that it was not true indeed. And verily, sure not only
+in this, but also in many parts of the said commission, he showed
+himself grievously offended; insomuch that, when those words, 'To the
+next general council which shall be lawfully held in place convenient,'
+were read, he fell in a marvellous great choler and rage, not only
+declaring the same by his gesture and manner, but also by words:
+speaking with great vehemence, and saying, 'Why did not the king, when I
+wrote to my nuncio this year past, to speak unto him for this general
+council, give no answer unto my said nuncio, but referred him for answer
+to the French king? at what time he might perceive by my doing, that I
+was very well disposed, and much spake for it.' 'The thing so standing,
+now to speak of a general council! Oh, good Lord! but well! his
+commission and all his other writings cannot be but welcome unto me;'
+which words methought he spake willing to hide his choler, and make me
+believe that he was nothing angry with their doings, when in very deed I
+perceived, by many arguments, that it was otherwise. And one among
+others was taken here for infallible with them that knoweth the pope's
+conditions, that he was continually folding up and unwinding of his
+handkerchief, which he never doth but when he is tickled to the very
+heart with great choler."
+
+At length the appeal was read through; and at the close of it Francis
+entered, and talked to the pope for some time, but in so low a voice
+that Bonner could not hear what was passing. When he had gone, his
+Holiness said that he would deliberate upon the appeal with the
+consistory, and after hearing their judgments would return his answer.
+
+[Sidenote: The appeal is rejected.]
+
+Three days passed, and then the English agent was informed that he might
+again present himself. The pope had recovered his calmness. When he had
+time to collect himself, Clement could speak well and with dignity; and
+if we could forget that his conduct was substantially unjust, and that
+in his conscience he knew it to be unjust, he would almost persuade us
+to believe him honest. "He said," wrote Bonner, "that his mind towards
+your Highness always had been to minister justice, and to do pleasure to
+you; albeit it hath not been so taken: and he never unjustly grieved
+your Grace that he knoweth, nor intendeth hereafter to do. As concerning
+the appeal, he said that, forasmuch as there was a constitution of Pope
+Pius, his predecessor, that did condemn and reprove all such appeals, he
+did therefore reject your Grace's appeal as frivolous, forbidden, and
+unlawful." As touching the council, he said generally, that he would do
+his best that it should meet; but it was to be understood that the
+calling a general council belonged to him, and not to the King of
+England.
+
+The audience ended, and Bonner left the pope convinced that he intended,
+on his return to Rome, to execute the censures and continue the process
+without delay. That the sentence which he would pronounce would be
+against the king appeared equally certain.
+
+[Sidenote: Yet on Bonner's departure Clement assures Francis that the
+King of England's cause is just,]
+
+[Sidenote: And if he will only acknowledge the Papal authority, he will
+give sentence in his favour.]
+
+It appeared certain, yet after all no certain conclusion is possible.
+Francis I., though not choosing to quarrel with the see of Rome to do a
+pleasure to Henry, was anxious to please his ally to the extent of his
+convenience; at any rate, he would not have gratuitously deceived him;
+and still less would he have been party to an act of deliberate
+treachery. When Bonner was gone he had a last interview with the pope,
+in which he urged upon him the necessity of complying with Henry's
+demands; and the pope on this occasion said that he was satisfied that
+the King of England was right; that his cause was good; and that he had
+only to acknowledge the papal jurisdiction by some formal act, to find
+sentence immediately pronounced in his favour. Except for his
+precipitation, and his refusal to depute a proxy to plead for him, his
+wishes would have been complied with long before. In the existing
+posture of affairs, and after the measures which had been passed in
+England with respect to the see of Rome, he himself, the pope said,
+could not make advances without some kind of submission; but a single
+act of acknowledgment was all which he required.[182]
+
+[Sidenote: Was the pope honest? or treacherous? or merely weak.]
+
+[Sidenote: Let us try to judge him charitably.]
+
+Extraordinary as it must seem, the pope certainly bound himself by this
+engagement: and who can tell with what intention? To believe him sincere
+and to believe him false seems equally impossible. If he was persuaded
+that Henry's cause _was_ good, why did he in the following year
+pronounce finally for Catherine? why had he imperilled so needlessly the
+interests of the papacy in England? why had his conduct from the
+beginning pointed steadily to the conclusion at which he at last
+arrived? and why throughout Europe were the ultramontane party, to a
+man, on Catherine's side? On the other hand, what object at such a time
+can be conceived for falsehood? Can we suppose that he designed to dupe
+Henry into submission by a promise which he had predetermined to break?
+It is hard to suppose even Clement capable of so elaborate an act of
+perfidy; and it is, perhaps, idle to waste conjectures on the motives of
+a weak, much-agitated man. He was, probably, but giving a fresh example
+of his disposition to say at each moment whatever would be most
+agreeable to his hearers. This was his unhappy habit, by which he earned
+for himself a character for dishonesty, I labour to think, but half
+deserved.
+
+[Sidenote: Proposal that the cause should be referred to a commission,
+to sit at Cambray.]
+
+[Sidenote: Francis implores Henry to consent.]
+
+If, however, Clement meant to deceive, he succeeded, undoubtedly, in
+deceiving the French king, Francis, in communicating to Henry the
+language which the pope had used, entreated him to reconsider his
+resolution. The objection to pleading at Rome might be overcome; for
+the pope would meet him in a middle course. Judges could be appointed,
+who should sit at Cambray, and pass a sentence in condemnation of the
+original marriage; with a definite promise that their sentence should
+not again be called in question. To this arrangement there could be no
+reasonable objection; and Francis implored that a proposal so liberal
+should not be rejected. Sufficient danger already threatened
+Christendom, from heretics within and from the Turks without; and
+although the English parliament were agreed to maintain the second
+marriage, it was unwise to provoke the displeasure of foreign princes.
+To allow time for the preliminary arrangements, the execution of the
+censures had been further postponed; and if Henry would make up the
+quarrel, the French monarch was commissioned to offer a league,
+offensive and defensive, between England, France, and the Papacy. He
+himself only desired to be faithful to his engagements to his good
+brother; and as a proof of his good faith, he said that he had been
+offered the Duchy of Milan, if he would look on while the emperor and
+the pope attacked England.[183]
+
+This language bears all the character of sincerity, and when we remember
+that it followed immediately upon a close and intimate communication of
+three weeks with Clement, it is not easy to believe that he could have
+mistaken the extent of the pope's promises. We may suppose Clement for
+the moment to have been honest, or wavering between honesty and
+falsehood; we may suppose further that Francis trusted him because it
+was undesirable to be suspicious, in the belief that he was discharging
+the duty of a friend to Henry and of a friend to the church, in offering
+to mediate upon these terms.
+
+[Sidenote: Suspicions of Henry.]
+
+[Sidenote: His disgust with Clement.]
+
+But Henry was far advanced beyond the point at which fair words could
+move him. He had trusted many times, and had been many times deceived.
+It was not easy to entangle him again. It mattered little whether
+Clement was weak or false; the result was the same--he could not be
+trusted. To an open English understanding there was something monstrous
+in the position of a person professing to be a judge, who admitted that
+a cause which lay before him was so clear that he could bind himself to
+a sentence upon it, and could yet refuse to pronounce that sentence,
+except upon conditions. It was scarcely for the interests of justice to
+leave the distribution of it in hands so questionable.
+
+Instead, therefore, of coming forward, as Francis hoped, instead of
+consenting to entangle himself again in the meshes of diplomatic
+intrigue, the king returned a peremptory refusal.
+
+The Duke of Norfolk, and such of the council as dreaded the completion
+of the schism, assured d'Inteville, the French ambassador, that for
+themselves they considered Francis was doing the best for England which
+could be done, and that they deprecated violent measures as much as
+possible; but in all this party there was a secret leaning to Queen
+Catherine, a dislike of Queen Anne and the whole Boleyn race, and a
+private hope and belief that the pope would after all be firm. Their
+tongues were therefore tied. They durst not speak except alone in
+whispers to each other, and the French ambassador, who did dare, only
+drew from Henry a more determined expression of his resolution.
+
+As to his measures in England, the king said, the pope had begun the
+quarrel by issuing censures and by refusing to admit his reasons for
+declining to plead at Rome. He was required to send a proctor, and was
+told that the cause should be decided in favour of whichever party was
+so represented there. For the sake of all other princes as well as
+himself, he would send no proctor, nor would he seem to acquiesce in the
+pretences of the papal see. The King of France told him that the pope
+admitted the justice of his cause. Let the pope do justice, then. The
+laws passed in parliament were for the benefit of the commonwealth, and
+he would never revoke them. He demanded no reparation, and could make no
+reparation. He asked only for his right, and if he could not obtain it,
+he had God and truth on his side, and that was enough. In vain
+d'Inteville answered feebly, that his master had done all that was in
+his power; the king replied that the French council wished to entangle
+him with the pope; but for his own part he would never more acknowledge
+the pope in his pretended capacity. He might be bishop of Rome, or pope
+also, if he preferred the name; but the see of Rome should have no more
+jurisdiction in England, and he thought he would be none the worse
+Christian on that account, but rather the better. Jesus Christ he would
+acknowledge, and him only, as the true Lord of Christian men, and
+Christ's word only should be preached in England. The Spaniards might
+invade him as they threatened. He did not fear them. They might come,
+but they might not find it so easy to return.[184]
+
+The King had taken his position and was prepared for the consequences.
+He had foreseen for more than a year the possibility of an attempted
+invasion; and since his marriage, he had been aware that the chances of
+success in the adventure had been discussed on the Continent by the
+papal and imperial party. The pope had spoken of his censures being
+enforced, and Francis had revealed to Henry the nature of the dangerous
+overtures which had been made to himself. The Lutheran princes had
+hurriedly declined to connect themselves in any kind of alliance with
+England: and on the 25th of September, Stephen Vaughan had reported that
+troops were being raised in Germany, which rumour destined for
+Catherine's service.[185] Ireland, too, as we shall hear in the next
+chapter, was on the verge of an insurrection, which had been fomented by
+papal agents.
+
+[Sidenote: The conditions under which invasion might be dangerous.]
+
+[Sidenote: Apparent tranquillity of England.]
+
+[Sidenote: The Nun of Kent's conspiracy.]
+
+Nevertheless, there was no real danger from an invasion, unless it was
+accompanied with an insurrection at home, or with a simultaneous attack
+from Scotland; and while of the first there appeared upon the surface no
+probability, with Scotland a truce for a year had been concluded on the
+1st of October.[186] The king, therefore, had felt himself reasonably
+secure. Parliament had seemed unanimous; the clergy were submissive;
+the nation acquiescent or openly approving;[187] and as late as the
+beginning of November, 1533, no suspicion seems to have been entertained
+of the spread of serious disaffection. A great internal revolution had
+been accomplished; a conflict of centuries between the civil and
+spiritual powers had been terminated without a life lost or a blow
+struck. Partial murmurs there had been, but murmurs were inevitable,
+and, so far as the government yet knew, were harmless. The Scotch war
+had threatened to be dangerous, but it had been extinguished. Impatient
+monks had denounced the king from the pulpits, and disloyal language had
+been reported from other quarters, which had roused vigilance, but had
+not created alarm. The Nun of Kent had forced herself into the royal
+presence with menacing prophecies; but she had appeared to be a harmless
+dreamer, who could only be made of importance by punishment. The surface
+of the nation was in profound repose. Cromwell, like Walsingham after
+him, may perhaps have known of the fire which was smouldering below, and
+have watched it silently till the moment came at which to trample it
+out; but no symptom of uneasiness appears either in the conduct of the
+government or in the official correspondence. The organization of the
+friars, the secret communication of the Nun with Catherine and the
+Princess Mary, with the papal nuncio, or with noble lords and reverend
+bishops, was either unknown, or the character of those communications
+was not suspected. That a serious political conspiracy should have
+shaped itself round the ravings of a seeming lunatic, to all appearance
+had not occurred as a possibility to a single member of the council,
+except to those whose silence was ensured by their complicity.
+
+[Sidenote: The first occasion of suspicion.]
+
+So far as we are able to trace the story (for the links of the chain
+which led to the discovery of the designs which were entertained, are
+something imperfect), the suspicions of the government were first roused
+in the following manner:
+
+[Sidenote: On the birth of Elizabeth, the Princess Mary is called upon
+to surrender her title.]
+
+Queen Catherine, as we have already seen, had been called upon, at the
+coronation of Anne Boleyn, to renounce her title, and she had refused.
+Mary had been similarly deprived of her rank as princess; but either her
+disgrace was held to be involved in that of her mother, or some other
+cause, perhaps the absence of immediate necessity, had postponed the
+demand for her own personal submission. As, however, on the publication
+of the second marriage, it had been urged on Catherine that there could
+not be two queens in England, so on the birth of the Princess Elizabeth,
+an analogous argument required the disinheritance of Mary. It was a hard
+thing; but her mother's conduct obliged the king to be peremptory. She
+might have been legitimatized by act of parliament, if Catherine would
+have submitted. The consequences of Catherine's refusal might be cruel,
+but they were unavoidable.
+
+Mary was not with her mother. It had been held desirable to remove her
+from an influence which would encourage her in a useless opposition; and
+she was residing at Beaulieu, afterwards New Hall, in Essex, under the
+care of Lord Hussey and the Countess of Salisbury. Lord Hussey was a
+dangerous guardian, he was subsequently executed for his complicity in
+the Pilgrimage of Grace, the avowed object of which was the restoration
+of Mary to her place as heir-apparent. We may believe, therefore, that
+while under his surveillance she experienced no severe restraint, nor
+received that advice with respect to her conduct which prudence would
+have dictated. Lord Hussey, however, for the present enjoyed the
+confidence of the king, and was directed to inform his charge, that for
+the future she was to consider herself not as princess, but as the
+king's natural daughter, the Lady Mary Tudor. The message was a painful
+one; painful, we will hope, more on her mother's account than on her
+own; but her answer implied that, as yet, Henry VIII. was no object of
+especial terror to his children.
+
+[Sidenote: She replies haughtily and violently.]
+
+"Her Grace replied," wrote Lord Hussey to the council in communicating
+the result of his undertaking,[188] that "she could not a little marvel
+that I being alone, and not associate with some other the king's most
+honourable council, nor yet sufficiently authorized neither by
+commission nor by any other writing from the King's Highness, would
+attempt to declare such a high enterprise and matter of no little weight
+and importance unto her Grace, in diminishing her said estate and name;
+her Grace not doubting that she is the king's true and legitimate
+daughter and heir procreate in good and lawful matrimony; [and] further
+adding, that unless she were advertised from his Highness by his writing
+that his Grace was so minded to diminish her estate, name, and dignity,
+which she trusteth his Highness will never do, she would not believe
+it."
+
+[Sidenote: She writes to the king in a similar tone.]
+
+Inasmuch as Mary was but sixteen at this time, the resolution which she
+displayed in sending such a message was considerable. The early English
+held almost Roman notions on the nature of parental authority, and the
+tone of a child to a father was usually that of the most submissive
+reverence. Nor was she contented with replying indirectly through her
+guardian. She wrote herself to the king, saying that she neither could
+nor would in her conscience think the contrary, but that she was his
+lawful daughter born in true matrimony, and that she thought that he in
+his own conscience did judge the same.[189]
+
+[Sidenote: Danger to the nation of Mary's attitude.]
+
+Such an attitude in so young a girl was singular, yet not necessarily
+censurable. Henry was not her only parent, and if we suppose her to have
+been actuated by affection for her mother, her conduct may appear not
+pardonable only, but spirited and creditable. In insisting upon her
+legitimacy, nevertheless, she was not only asserting the good name and
+fame of Catherine of Arragon, but unhappily her own claim to the
+succession to the throne. It was natural that under the circumstances
+she should have felt her right to assert that claim; for the injury
+which she had suffered was patent not only to herself, but to Europe.
+Catherine might have been required to give way that the king might have
+a son, and that the succession might be established in a prince; but so
+long as the child of the second marriage was a daughter only, it seemed
+substantially monstrous to set aside the elder for the younger. Yet the
+measure was a harsh necessity; a link in the chain which could not be
+broken. The harassed nation insisted above all things that no doubt
+should hang over the future, and it was impossible in the existing
+complications to recognise the daughter of Catherine without excluding
+Elizabeth, and excluding the prince who was expected to follow her. By
+asserting her title, Mary was making herself the nucleus of sedition,
+which on her father's death would lead to a convulsion in the realm. She
+might not mean it, but the result would not be affected by a want of
+purpose in herself; and it was possible that her resolution might create
+immediate and far more painful complications. The king's excommunication
+was imminent, and if the censures were enforced by the emperor, she
+would be thrust into the unpermitted position of her father's rival.
+
+[Sidenote: The king treats her as a petulant child.]
+
+The political consequences of her conduct, notwithstanding, although
+evident to statesmen, might well be concealed from a headstrong,
+passionate girl. There was no suspicion that she herself was encouraging
+any of these dangerous thoughts, and Henry looked upon her answer to
+Lord Hussey and her letter to himself as expressions of petulant folly.
+Lord Oxford, the Earl of Essex, and the Earl of Sussex were directed to
+repair to Beaulieu, and explain to her the situation in which she had
+placed herself.
+
+[Sidenote: His letter explaining to her the true nature of her
+position.]
+
+"Considering," wrote the king to them, "how highly such contempt and
+rebellion done by our daughter and her servants doth touch not only us,
+and the surety of our honour and person, but also the tranquillity of
+our realm; and not minding to suffer the pernicious example hereof to
+spread far abroad, but to put remedy to the same in due time, we have
+given you commandment to declare to her the great folly, temerity, and
+indiscretion that she hath used herein, with the peril she hath
+incurred by reason of her so doing. By these her ungodly doings hitherto
+she hath most worthily deserved our high indignation and displeasure,
+and thereto no less pain and punition than by the order of the laws of
+our realm doth appertain in case of high treason, unless our mercy and
+clemency should be shewed in that behalf. [If, however, after]
+understanding our mind and pleasure, [she will] conform herself humbly
+and obediently to the observation of the same, according to the office
+and duty of a natural daughter, and of a true and faithful subject, she
+may give us cause hereafter to incline our fatherly pity to her
+reconciliation, her benefit and advancement."[190]
+
+The reply of Mary to this message is not discoverable; but it is certain
+that she persisted in her resolution, and clung either to her mother's
+"cause" or to her own rank and privilege, in sturdy defiance of her
+father. To punish her insubordination or to tolerate it was equally
+difficult; and the government might have been in serious embarrassment
+had not a series of discoveries, following rapidly one upon the other,
+explained the mystery of these proceedings, and opened a view with
+alarming clearness into the undercurrents of the feeling of the country.
+
+[Sidenote: Correspondence between Queen Catherine, the Court of Rome,
+and the Emperor.]
+
+Information from time to time had reached Henry from Rome, relating to
+the correspondence between Catherine and the pope. Perhaps, too, he knew
+how assiduously she had importuned the emperor to force Clement to a
+decision.[191] No effort, however, had been hitherto made to interfere
+with her hospitalities, or to oblige her visitors to submit to scrutiny
+before they could be admitted to her presence. She was the mistress of
+her own court and of her own actions; and confidential agents, both from
+Rome, Brussels, and Spain, had undoubtedly passed and repassed with
+reciprocal instructions and directions.
+
+[Sidenote: Two suspicious friars at Bugden,]
+
+[Sidenote: "Followed" to London; arrested, and probably tortured.]
+
+The crisis which was clearly approaching had obliged Henry, in the
+course of this autumn, to be more watchful; and about the end of
+October, or the beginning of November,[192] two friars were reported as
+having been at Bugden, whose movements attracted suspicion from their
+anxiety to escape observation. Secret agents of the government, who had
+been "set" for the purpose, followed the friars to London, and
+notwithstanding "many wiles and cautells by them invented to escape,"
+the suspected persons were arrested and brought before Cromwell.
+Cromwell "upon examination, could gather nothing from them of any moment
+or great importance;" but, "entering on further communication," he said
+"he found one of them a very seditious person, and so committed them to
+ward." The king was absent from London, but had left directions that, in
+the event of any important occurrence of the kind, Archbishop Cranmer
+should be sent for; but Cranmer not being immediately at hand, Cromwell
+wrote to Henry for instructions; inasmuch as, he said, "it is undoubted
+that they (the monks) have intended, and would confess, some great
+matter, if they might be examined as they ought to be--that is to say,
+by pains."
+
+[Sidenote: Conspiracy, in which the Princess Mary was implicated, to
+dethrone the King.]
+
+The curtain here falls over the two prisoners; we do not know whether
+they were tortured, whether they confessed, or what they confessed; but
+we may naturally connect this letter, directly or indirectly, with the
+events which immediately followed. In the middle of November we find a
+commission sitting at Lambeth, composed of Cromwell, Cranmer, and
+Latimer, ravelling out the threads of a story, from which, when the
+whole was disentangled, it appeared that by Queen Catherine, the
+Princess Mary, and a large and formidable party in the country, the
+king, on the faith of a pretended revelation, was supposed to have
+forfeited the crown; that his death, either by visitation of God or by
+visitation of man, was daily expected; and that whether his death took
+place or not, a revolution was immediately looked for, which would place
+the princess on the throne.
+
+[Sidenote: Prophecies of the Nun of Kent.]
+
+[Sidenote: December.]
+
+The Nun of Kent, as we remember, had declared that if Henry persisted in
+his resolution of marrying Anne, she was commissioned by God to tell
+him that he should lose his power and authority. She had not specified
+the manner in which the sentence would be carried into effect against
+him. The form of her threats had been also varied occasionally; she said
+that he should die, but whether by the hands of his subjects, or by a
+providential judgment, she left to conjecture;[193] and the period
+within which his punishment was to fall upon him was stated variously at
+one month or at six.[194] She had attempted no secresy with these
+prophecies; she had confined herself in appearance to words; and the
+publicity which she courted having prevented suspicion of secret
+conspiracy, Henry quietly accepted the issue, and left the truth of the
+prophecy to be confuted by the event. He married. The one month passed;
+the six months passed: eight--nine months. His child was born and was
+baptized, and no divine thunder had interposed; only a mere harmless
+verbal thunder, from a poor old man at Rome. The illusion, as he
+imagined, had been lived down, and had expired of its own vanity.
+
+[Sidenote: The Nun half deceiver, and half herself deceived.]
+
+But the Nun and her friar advisers were counting on other methods of
+securing the fulfilment of the prophecy than supernatural assistance. It
+is remarkable that, hypocrites and impostors as they knew themselves to
+be, they were not without a half belief that some supernatural
+intervention was imminent; but the career on which they had entered was
+too fascinating to allow them to forsake it when their expectation
+failed them. They were swept into the stream which was swelling to
+resist the Reformation, and allowed themselves to be hurried forward
+either to victory or to destruction.
+
+The first revelation being apparently confuted by facts, a second was
+produced as an interpretation of it; which, however, was not published
+like the other, but whispered in secret to persons whose dispositions
+were known.[195]
+
+[Sidenote: On the failure of the first prophecy, an interpretation is
+discovered of a perilous kind. The king is declared to be in the
+condition of Saul after his rejection.]
+
+"When the King's Grace," says the report of the commissioners, "had
+continued in good health, honour, and prosperity more than a month, Dr.
+Bocking shewed the said Nun, that as King Saul, abjected from his
+kingdom by God, yet continued king in the sight of the world, so her
+said revelations might be taken. And therefore the said Nun, upon this
+information, forged another revelation, that her words should be
+understanded to mean that the King's Grace should not be king in the
+reputation or acceptation of God, not one month or one hour after that
+he married the Queen's Grace that now is. The first revelation had moved
+a great number of the king's subjects, both high and low, to grudge
+against the said marriage before it was concluded and perfected; and
+also induced such as were stiffly bent against that marriage, daily to
+look for the destruction of the King's Grace within a month after he
+married the Queen's Grace that now is. And when they were deluded in
+that expectation, the second revelation was devised not only as an
+interpretation of the former, but to the intent to induce the king's
+subjects to believe that God took the King's Grace for no king of this
+realm; and that they should likewise take him for no righteous king, and
+themselves not bounden to be his subjects; which might have put the King
+and the Queen's Grace in jeopardy of their crown and of their issue, and
+the people of this realm in great danger of destruction."[196]
+
+[Sidenote: The prophecies in extensive secret circulation in a written
+form.]
+
+[Sidenote: The Friars Mendicant.]
+
+It was no light matter to pronounce the king to be in the position of
+Saul after his rejection; and read by the light of the impending
+excommunication, the Nun's words could mean nothing but treason. The
+speaker herself was in correspondence with the pope; she had attested
+her divine commission by miracles, and had been recognised as a saint by
+an Archbishop of Canterbury; the regular orders of the clergy throughout
+the realm were known to regard her as inspired; and when the commission
+recollected that the king was threatened further with dying "a villain's
+death"; and that these and similar prophecies were carefully written
+out, and were in private circulation through the country, the matter
+assumed a dangerous complexion: it became at once essential to ascertain
+how far, and among what classes of the state, these things had
+penetrated. The Friars Mendicant were discovered to be in league with
+her, and these itinerants were ready-made missionaries of sedition. They
+had privilege of vagrancy without check or limit; and owing to their
+universal distribution and the freemasonry among themselves, the secret
+disposition of every family in England was intimately known to them. No
+movement, therefore, could be securely overlooked in which these orders
+had a share; the country might be undermined in secret; and the
+government might only learn their danger at the moment of explosion.
+
+[Sidenote: Arrest of the Nun and five monks.]
+
+[Sidenote: She confesses.]
+
+[Sidenote: A list is obtained of the persons who were implicated with
+her.]
+
+No sooner, therefore, were the commissioners in possession of the
+general facts, than the principal parties--that is to say, the Nun
+herself and five of the monks of Christ Church at Canterbury--with whom
+her intercourse was most constant, were sent to the Tower to be
+"examined,"--the monks it is likely by "torture," if they could not
+otherwise be brought to confession. The Nun was certainly not tortured.
+On her first arrest, she was obstinate in maintaining her prophetic
+character; and she was detected in sending messages to her friends, "to
+animate them to adhere to her and to her prophecies."[197] But her
+courage ebbed away under the hard reality of her position. She soon made
+a full confession, in which her accomplices joined her; and the
+half-completed web of conspiracy was ravelled out. They did not attempt
+to conceal that they had intended, if possible, to create an
+insurrection. The five monks--Father Bocking, Father Rich, Father Rysby,
+Father Dering, and Father Goold--had assisted the Nun in inventing her
+"Revelations": and as apostles, they had travelled about the country to
+communicate them in whatever quarters they were likely to be welcome.
+When we remember that Archbishop Warham had been a dupe of this woman,
+and that even Wolsey's experience and ability had not prevented him from
+believing in her power, we are not surprised to find high names among
+those who were implicated. Vast numbers of abbots and priors, and of
+regular and secular clergy, had listened eagerly; country gentlemen
+also, and London merchants. The Bishop of Rochester had "wept for joy"
+at the first utterances of the inspired prophetess; and Sir Thomas More,
+"who at first did little regard the said revelations, afterwards did
+greatly rejoice to hear of them."[198] We learn, also, that the Nun had
+continued to _communicate with "the Lady Princess Dowager" and "the Lady
+Mary, her daughter_."[199]
+
+[Sidenote: The Countess of Salisbury and the Marchioness of Exeter.]
+
+[Sidenote: Danger of a White Rose confederacy under the papal sanction.]
+
+[Sidenote: Arrest of the Nevilles.]
+
+These were names which might have furnished cause for regret, but little
+for surprise or alarm. The commissioners must have found occasion for
+other feelings, however, when among the persons implicated were found
+the Countess of Salisbury and the The Marchioness of Exeter, with their
+chaplains, households, and servants; Sir Thomas Arundel, Sir George
+Carew, and "many of the nobles of England."[200] A combination headed by
+the Countess of Salisbury, if she were supported even by a small section
+of the nobility, would under any circumstances have been dangerous; and
+if such a combination was formed in support of an invasion, and was
+backed by the blessings of the pope and the fanaticism of the clergy,
+the result might be serious indeed. So careful a silence is observed in
+the official papers on this feature of the Nun's conspiracy, that it is
+uncertain how far the countess had committed herself; but she had
+listened certainly to avowals of treasonable intentions without
+revealing them, which of itself was no slight evidence of disloyalty;
+and that the government were really alarmed may be gathered from the
+simultaneous arrest of Sir William and Sir George Neville, the brothers
+of Lord Latimer. The connexion and significance of these names I shall
+explain presently; in the meantime I return to the preparations which
+had been made by the Nun.
+
+[Sidenote: The Nun prophesies that the Lady Mary should have help when
+the time was come.]
+
+As the final judgment drew near,--which, unless the king submitted,
+would be accompanied with excommunication, and a declaration that the
+English nation was absolved from allegiance,--"the said false Nun," says
+the report, "surmised herself to have made a petition to God to know,
+when fearful war should come, whether any man should take my Lady Mary's
+part or no; and she feigned herself to have answer by revelation that no
+man should fear but that she should have succour and help enough; and
+that no man should put her from her right that she was born unto. And
+petitioning next to know when it was the pleasure of God that her
+revelations should be put forth to the world, she had answer that
+knowledge should be given to her ghostly father when it should be
+time."[201]
+
+[Sidenote: She communicates with Queen Catherine,]
+
+With this information Father Goold had hastened down to Bugden,
+encouraging Catherine to persevere in her resistance;[202] and while
+the imperialists at Rome were pressing the pope for sentence (we cannot
+doubt at Catherine's instance), the Nun had placed herself in readiness
+to seize the opportunity when it offered, and to blow the trumpet of
+insurrection in the panic which might be surely looked for when that
+sentence should be published.
+
+[Sidenote: And organizes a corps of Friars to preach insurrection.]
+
+For this purpose she had organized, with considerable skill, a corps of
+fanatical friars, who, when the signal was given, were simultaneously to
+throw themselves into the midst or the people, and call upon them to
+rise in the name of God. "To the intent," says the report, "to set forth
+this matter, certain spiritual and religious persons were appointed, as
+they had been chosen of God, to preach the false revelations of the said
+Nun, when the time should require, if warning were given them; and some
+of these preachers have confessed openly, and subscribed their names to
+their confessions, that if the Nun had so sent them word, they would
+have preached to the king's subjects that the pleasure of God was that
+they should take him no longer for their king; and some of these
+preachers were such as gave themselves to great fasting, watching, long
+prayers, wearing of shirts of hair and great chains of iron about their
+middle, whereby the people had them in high estimation of their great
+holiness,--and this strait life they took on them by the counsel and
+exhortation of the said Nun."[203]
+
+[Sidenote: First Catholic treason.]
+
+Here, then, was the explanation of the attitude of Catherine and Mary.
+Smarting under injustice, and most naturally blending their private
+quarrel with the cause of the church, they had listened to these
+disordered visions as to a message from heaven, and they had lent
+themselves to the first of those religious conspiracies which held
+England in chronic agitation for three quarters of a century. The
+innocent Saint at Bugden was the forerunner of the prisoner at
+Fotheringay; and the Observant friars, with their chain girdles and
+shirts of hair, were the antitypes of Parsons and Campion. How critical
+the situation of England really was, appears from the following letter
+of the French ambassador. The project for the marriage of the Princess
+Mary with the Dauphin had been revived by the Catholic party; and a
+private arrangement, of which this marriage was to form the connecting
+link, was contemplated between the Ultramontanes in France, the pope,
+and the emperor.
+
+  _D'Inteville to Cardinal Tournon._[204]
+
+"MY LORD,--You will be so good as to tell the Most Christian king that
+the emperor's ambassador has communicated with the old queen. The
+emperor sends a message to her and to her daughter, that he will not
+return to Spain till he has seen them restored to their rights.
+
+"The people are so much attached to the said ladies that they will rise
+in rebellion, and join any prince who will undertake their quarrel. You
+probably know from other quarters the intensity of this feeling. It is
+shared by all classes, high and low, and penetrates even into the royal
+household.
+
+"The nation is in marvellous discontent. Every one but the relations of
+the present queen, is indignant on the ladies' account. Some fear the
+overthrow of religion; others fear war and injury to trade. Up to this
+time, the cloth, hides, wool, lead, and other merchandize of England
+have found markets in Flanders, Spain, and Italy; now it is thought
+navigation will be so dangerous that English merchants must equip their
+ships for war if they trade to foreign countries; and besides the risk
+of losing all to the enemy, the expense of the armament will swallow the
+profits of the voyage. In like manner, the emperor's subjects and the
+pope's subjects will not be able to trade with England. The coasts will
+be blockaded by the ships of the emperor and his allies; and at this
+moment men's fears are aggravated by the unseasonable weather throughout
+the summer, and the failure of the crops. There is not corn enough for
+half the ordinary consumption.
+
+"The common people, foreseeing these inconveniences, are so violent
+against the queen, that they say a thousand shameful things of her, and
+of all who have supported her in her intrigues. On them is cast the
+odium of all the calamities anticipated from the war.
+
+"When the war comes, no one doubts that the people will rebel as much
+from fear of the dangers which I have mentioned, as from the love which
+is felt for the two ladies, and especially for the Princess. She is so
+entirely beloved that, notwithstanding the law made at the last
+Parliament, and the menace of death contained in it, they persist in
+regarding her as Princess. No Parliament, they say, can make her
+anything but the king's daughter, born in marriage; and so the king and
+every one else regarded her before that Parliament.
+
+"Lately, when she was removed from Greenwich, a vast crowd of women,
+wives of citizens and others, walked before her at their husbands'
+desire, weeping and crying that notwithstanding all she was Princess.
+Some of them were sent to the Tower, but they would not retract.
+
+"Things are now so critical, and the fear of war is so general, that
+many of the greatest merchants in London have placed themselves in
+communication with the emperor's ambassador, telling him, that if the
+emperor will declare war, the English nation will join him for the love
+they bear the Lady Mary.
+
+"You, my Lord, will remember that when you were here, it was said you
+were come to tell the king that he was excommunicated, and to demand the
+hand of the Princess for the Dauphin. The people were so delighted that
+they have never ceased to pray for you. We too, when we arrived in
+London, were told that the people were praying for us. They thought our
+embassy was to the Princess. They imagined her marriage with the Dauphin
+had been determined on by the two kings, and the satisfaction was
+intense and universal.
+
+"They believe that, except by this marriage, they cannot possibly escape
+war; whereas, can it be brought about, they will have peace with the
+emperor and all other Christian princes. They are now so disturbed and
+so desperate that, although at one time they would have preferred a
+husband for her from among themselves, that they might not have a
+foreign king, there now is nothing which they desire more. Unless the
+Dauphin will take her, they say she will continue disinherited; or, if
+she come to her rights, it can only be by battle, to the great
+incommodity of the country. The Princess herself says publicly that the
+Dauphin is her husband, and that she has no hope but in him. I have been
+told this by persons who have heard it from her own lips.
+
+"The emperor's ambassador inquired, after you came, whether we had seen
+her. He said he knew she was most anxious to speak with us; she thought
+we had permission to visit her, and she looked for good news. He told
+us, among other things, that she had been more strictly guarded of late,
+by the orders of the queen that now is, who, knowing her feeling for the
+Dauphin, feared there might be some practice with her, or some attempt
+to carry her off.
+
+"The Princess's ladies say that she calls herself the Dauphin's wife. A
+time will come, she says, when God will see that she has suffered pain
+and tribulation sufficient; the Dauphin will then demand her of the king
+her father, and the king her father will not be able to refuse.
+
+"The lady who was my informant heard, also, from the Princess, that her
+governess, and the other attendants whom the queen had set to watch her,
+had assured her that the Dauphin was married to the daughter of the
+emperor; but she, the Princess, had answered it was not true--the
+Dauphin could not have two wives, and they well knew that she was his
+wife: they told her that story, she said, to make her despair, and agree
+to give up her rights; but she would never part with her hopes.
+
+"You may have heard of the storm that broke out between her and her
+governess when we went to visit her little sister. She was carried off
+by force to her room, that she might not speak with us; and they could
+neither pacify her nor keep her still, till the gentleman who escorted
+us told her he had the king's commands that she was not to show herself
+while we were in the house. You remember the message the same gentleman
+brought to you from her, and the charge which was given by the queen.
+
+"Could the king be brought to consent to the marriage, it would be a
+fair union of two realms, and to annex Britain to the crown of France
+would be a great honour to our Sovereign; the English party desire
+nothing better; the pope will be glad of it; the pope fears that, if war
+break out again, France will draw closer to England on the terms which
+the King of England desires; and he may thus lose the French tribute as
+he has lost the English. He therefore will urge the emperor to agree,
+and the emperor will assist gladly for the love which he bears to his
+cousin.
+
+"If the emperor be willing, the King of England can then be informed;
+and he can be made to feel that, if he will avoid war, he must not
+refuse his consent. The king, in fact, has no wish to disown the
+Princess, and he knows well that the marriage with the Dauphin was once
+agreed on.
+
+"Should he be unwilling, and should his wife's persuasions still have
+influence with him, he will hesitate before he will defy, for her sake,
+the King of France and the emperor united. His regard for the queen is
+less than it was, and diminishes every day. He has a new fancy,[205] as
+you are aware."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The actual conspiracy, in the form which it had so far assumed, was
+rather an appeal to fanaticism than a plot which could have laid hold of
+the deeper mind of the country; but as an indication of the unrest
+which was stealing over the minds of men, it assumed an importance which
+it would not have received from its intrinsic character.
+
+[Sidenote: The Nun and the five monks brought to trial.]
+
+The guilt of the principal offenders admitted of no doubt. As soon as
+the commissioners were satisfied that there was nothing further to be
+discovered, the Nun, with the monks, was brought to trial before the
+Star Chamber; and conviction followed as a matter of course.[206]
+
+[Sidenote: They make their confessions at St. Paul's.]
+
+The unhappy girl finding herself at this conclusion, after seven years
+of vanity, in which she had played with popes, and queens, and
+princesses, and archbishops, now, when the dream was thus rudely broken,
+in the revulsion of feeling could see nothing in herself but a convicted
+impostor. We need not refuse to pity her. The misfortunes of her
+sickness had exposed her to temptations far beyond the strength of an
+ordinary woman; and the guilt which she passionately claimed for herself
+rested far more truly with the knavery of the Christ Church monks and
+the incredible folly of Archbishop Warham.[207] But the times were too
+stern to admit of nice distinctions. No immediate sentence was
+pronounced, but it was thought desirable for the satisfaction of the
+people that a confession should be made in public by the Nun and her
+companions. The Sunday following their trial they were placed on a
+raised platform at Paul's Cross by the side of the pulpit, and when the
+sermon was over they one by one delivered their "bills" to the preacher,
+which by him were read to the crowd.[208]
+
+After an acknowledgment of their imposture the prisoners were remanded
+to the Tower, and their ultimate fate reserved for the consideration of
+parliament, which was to meet in the middle of January.
+
+[Sidenote: The household of the Princess Mary is broken up.]
+
+[Sidenote: The inquiry is prosecuted further.]
+
+[Sidenote: The Countess of Salisbury.]
+
+The chief offenders being thus disposed of, the council resolved next
+that peremptory measures should be taken with respect to the Princess
+Mary.[209] Her establishment was broken up, and she was sent to reside
+as the Lady Mary in the household of the Princess Elizabeth--a hard but
+not unwholesome discipline.[210] As soon as this was done, being
+satisfied that the leading shoot of the conspiracy was broken, and that
+no immediate danger was now to be feared, they proceeded leisurely to
+follow the clue of the Nun's confession, and to extend their inquiries.
+The Countess of Salisbury was mentioned as one of the persons with whom
+the woman had been in correspondence. This lady was the daughter of the
+Duke of Clarence, brother of Edward IV. Her mother was a Neville, a
+child of Richard the King-maker, the famous Earl of Warwick, and her
+only brother had been murdered to secure the shaking throne of Henry
+VII. Margaret Plantagenet, in recompense for the lost honours of the
+house, was made Countess of Salisbury in her own right. The title
+descended from her grandfather, who was Earl of Salisbury and Warwick;
+but the prouder title had been dropped as suggestive of dangerous
+associations. The Earldom of Warwick remained in abeyance, and the
+castle and the estates attached to it were forfeited to the Crown. The
+countess was married after her brother's death to a Sir Richard Pole, a
+supporter and relation[211] of the king; and when left a widow she
+received from Henry VIII. the respectful honour which was due to the
+most nobly born of his subjects, the only remaining Plantagenet of
+unblemished descent. In his kindness to her children the king had
+attempted to obliterate the recollection of her brother's wrongs, and
+she had been herself selected to preside over the household of the
+Princess Mary. During the first twenty years of Henry's reign the
+countess seems to have acknowledged his attentions with loyal regard,
+and if she had not forgotten her birth and her childhood, she never
+connected herself with the attempts which during that time were made to
+revive the feuds of the houses. Richard de la Pole, nephew of Edward
+IV.,[212] and called while he lived "the White Rose," had more than once
+endeavoured to excite an insurrection in the eastern counties; but Lady
+Salisbury was never suspected of holding intercourse with him; she
+remained aloof from political disputes, and in lofty retirement she was
+contented to forget her greatness for the sake of the Princess Mary, to
+whom she and her family were deeply attached. Her relations with the
+king had thus continued undisturbed until his second marriage. As the
+representative of the House of York she was the object of the hopes and
+affections of the remnants of their party, but she had betrayed no
+disposition to abuse her influence, or to disturb the quiet of the
+nation for personal ambition of her own.
+
+[Sidenote: Reginald Pole.]
+
+[Sidenote: The Marquis of Exeter.]
+
+[Sidenote: The Nevilles.]
+
+[Sidenote: The strength of the White Rose faction.]
+
+If it be lawful to interpret symptoms in themselves trifling by the
+light of later events, it would seem as if her attitude now underwent a
+material change. Her son Reginald had already quarrelled with the king
+upon the divorce. He was in suspicious connexion with the pope, and
+having been required to return home upon his allegiance, had refused
+obedience. His mother, and his mother's attached friend, the Marchioness
+of Exeter, we now find among those to whom the Nun of Kent communicated
+her prophecies and her plans. It does not seem that the countess thought
+at any time of reviving her own pretensions; it does seem that she was
+ready to build a throne for the Princess Mary out of the ruined
+supporters of her father's family. The power which she could wield might
+at any moment become formidable. She had two sons in England, Lord
+Montague and Sir Geoffrey Pole. Her cousin, the Marquis of Exeter, a
+grandson himself of Edward IV.,[213] was, with the exception of the Duke
+of Norfolk, the most powerful nobleman in the realm; and he, to judge by
+events, was beginning to look coldly on the king.[214] We find her
+surrounded also by the representatives of her mother's family,--Lord
+Abergavenny, who had been under suspicion when the Duke of Buckingham
+was executed, Sir Edward Neville, afterwards executed, Lord Latimer, Sir
+George and Sir William Neville, all of them were her near connexions,
+all collateral heirs of the King-maker, inheriting the pride of their
+birth, and resentfully conscious of their fallen fortunes. The support
+of a party so composed would have added formidable strength to the
+preaching friars of the Nun of Kent; and as I cannot doubt that the Nun
+was endeavouring to press her intrigues in a quarter where disaffection
+if created would be most dangerous, so the lady who ruled this party
+with a patriarchal authority had listened to her suggestions; and the
+repeated interviews with her which, were sought by the Marchioness of
+Exeter were rendered more than suspicious by the secresy with which
+these interviews were conducted.[215]
+
+[Sidenote: Examination on suspicion, of Sir William and Sir George
+Neville.]
+
+These circumstances explain the arrest, to which I alluded above, of Sir
+William and Sir George Neville, brothers of Lord Latimer. They were not
+among "the many noblemen" to whom the commissioners referred; for their
+confessions remain, and contain no allusion to the Nun; but they were
+examined at this particular time on general suspicion; and the arrest,
+under such circumstances, of two near relatives of Lady Salisbury,
+indicates clearly an alarm in the council, lest she might be
+contemplating some serious movements. At any rate, either on her account
+or on their own, the Nevilles fell under suspicion, and while they had
+no crimes to reveal, their depositions, especially that of Sir William
+Neville, furnish singular evidence of the temper of the times.
+
+[Sidenote: Confession of Sir William Neville.]
+
+The confession of the latter begins with an account of the loss of
+certain silver spoons, for the recovery of which Sir William sent to a
+wizard who resided in Cirencester. The wizard took the opportunity of
+telling Sir William's fortune: his wife was to die, and he himself was
+to marry an heiress, and be made a baron; with other prospective
+splendours. The wizard concluded, however, with recommending him to pay
+a visit to another dealer in the dark art more learned than himself,
+whose name was Jones, at Oxford.
+
+[Sidenote: Jones, the Oxford conjuror.]
+
+"So after that," said Sir William [Midsummer, 1532], "I went to Oxford,
+intending that my brother George and I should kill a buck with Sir Simon
+Harcourt, which he had promised me; and there at Oxford, in the said
+Jones's chamber, I did see certain stillatories, alembics, and other
+instruments of glass, and also a sceptre and other things, which he said
+did appertain to the conjuration of the four kings; and also an image of
+white metal; and in a box, a serpent's skin, as he said, and divers
+books and things, whereof one was a book which he said was my Lord
+Cardinal's, having pictures in it like angels. He told me he could make
+rings of gold, to obtain favour of great men; and said that my Lord
+Cardinal had such; and promised my said brother and me, either of us,
+one of them; and also he showed me a round thing like a ball of crystal.
+
+"He said that if the King's Grace went over to France [the Calais visit
+of October, 1532], his Grace should marry my Lady Marchioness of
+Pembroke before that his Highness returned again; and that it would be
+dangerous to his Grace, and to the most part of the noblemen that should
+go with him; saying also that he had written to one of the king's
+council to advise his Highness not to go over, for if he did, it should
+not be for his Grace's profit."
+
+[Sidenote: The Nevilles to recover the Earldom of Warwick.]
+
+The wizard next pretended that he had seen a vision of a certain room in
+a tower, in which a spirit had appeared with a coat of arms in his hand,
+and had "delivered the same to Sir William Neville." The arms being
+described as those of the Warwick family, Sir William, his brother, and
+Jones rode down from Oxford to Warwick, where they went over the castle.
+The wizard professed to recognise in a turret chamber the room in which
+he had seen the spirit, and he prophesied that Sir William should
+recover the earldom, the long-coveted prize of all the Neville family.
+
+[Sidenote: Prophecy that none of Cadwallader's blood should reign more
+than twenty-four years.]
+
+On their return to Oxford, Jones, continues Sir William, said further,
+"That there should be a field in the north about a se'nnight before
+Christmas, in which my Lord my brother [Lord Latimer] should be slain;
+the realm should be long without a king; and much robbery would be
+within the realm, specially of abbeys and religious houses, and of rich
+men, as merchants, graziers, and others; so that, if I would, he at that
+time would advise me to find the means to enter into the said castle for
+mine own safeguard, and divers persons would resort unto me. _None of
+Cadwallader's blood_, he told me, _should reign more than twenty-four
+years_; and also that Prince Edward [son of Henry VI. and Margaret of
+Anjou, killed at Tewkesbury] had issue a son which was conveyed over
+sea; and there had issue a son which was yet alive, either in Saxony or
+Almayne; and that either he or the King of Scots should reign next after
+the King's Grace that now is. To all which I answered," Sir William
+concluded, "that there is nothing which the will of God is that a man
+shall obtain, but that he of his goodness will put in his mind the way
+whereby he shall come by it; and that surely I had no mind to follow any
+such fashion; and that, also, the late Duke of Buckingham and others had
+cast themselves away by too much trust in prophecies, and other
+jeoparding of themselves, and therefore I would in no wise follow any
+such way. He answered, if I would not, it would be long ere I obtained
+it. Then I said I believed that well, and if it never came, I trusted to
+God to live well enough."[216]
+
+Sir George Neville confirmed generally his brother's story, protesting
+that they had never intended treason, and that "at no time had he been
+of counsel" when any treason was thought of.[217]
+
+[Sidenote: The wizard summoned before the Council.]
+
+[Sidenote: He undertakes to make the philosopher's stone, and will
+jeopard his life upon it.]
+
+The wizard himself was next sent for. The prophecies about the king he
+denied wholly. He admitted that he had seen an angel in a dream giving
+Sir William Neville the shield of the earldom in Warwick Castle, and
+that he had accompanied the two brothers to Warwick, to examine the
+tower. Beyond that, he said that he knew nothing either of them or of
+their intentions. He declared himself a good subject, and he would
+"jeopard his life" to make the philosopher's stone for the king in
+twelve months if the king pleased to command him. He desired "no longer
+space than twelve months upon silver and twelve and a half upon gold ";
+to be kept in prison till he had done it; and it would be "better to the
+King's Grace than a thousand men."[218]
+
+[Sidenote: Evidence in these confessions of the unrest and agitation of
+the country.]
+
+The result of these examinations does not appear, except it be that the
+Nevilles were dismissed without punishment; and the story itself may be
+thought too trifling to have deserved a grave notice. I see in it,
+however, an illustration very noticeworthy of the temper which was
+working in the country. The suspicion of treason in the Neville family
+may not have been confirmed, although we see them casting longing looks
+on the lost inheritance of Warwick; but their confessions betray the
+visions of impending change, anarchy, and confusion, which were haunting
+the popular imagination. A craving after prophecies, a restless
+eagerness to search into the future by abnormal means, had infected all
+ranks from the highest to the lowest; and such symptoms, when they
+appear, are a sure evidence of approaching disorder, for they are an
+evidence of a present madness which has brought down wisdom to a common
+level with folly. At such times, the idlest fancy is more potent with
+the mind than the soundest arguments of reason. The understanding
+abdicates its functions; and men are given over, as if by magic, to the
+enchantments of insanity.
+
+Phenomena of this eccentric kind always accompany periods of
+intellectual change. Most men live and think by habit; and when habit
+fails them, they are like unskilful sailors who have lost the landmarks
+of their course, and have no compass and no celestial charts by which to
+steer. In the years which preceded the French Revolution, Cagliostro was
+the companion of princes,--at the dissolution of paganism the practicers
+of curious arts, the witches and the necromancers, were the sole objects
+of reverence in the Roman world; and so, before the Reformation,
+archbishops and cardinals saw an inspired prophetess in a Kentish
+servant-girl; Oxford heads of colleges sought out heretics with the help
+of astrology; Anne Boleyn blessed a basin of rings, her royal fingers
+pouring such virtue into the metal that no disorder could resist
+it;[219] Wolsey had a magic crystal; and Cromwell, while in Wolsey's
+household, "did haunt to the company of a wizard."[220] These things
+were the counterpart of a religion which taught that slips of paper,
+duly paid for, could secure indemnity for sin. It was well for England
+that the chief captain at least was proof against the epidemic--no
+random scandal seems ever to have whispered that such delusions had
+touched the mind of the king.[221]
+
+[Sidenote: The king incurs the censures of the church.]
+
+While the government were prosecuting these inquiries at home, the law
+at the Vatican had run its course; November passed, and as no submission
+had arrived, the sentence of the 12th of July came into force, and the
+king, the queen, and the Archbishop of Canterbury were declared to have
+incurred the threatened censures.
+
+[Sidenote: Measures of the Council.]
+
+[Sidenote: Renewed suggestion of a Protestant league.]
+
+The privy council met on the 2d of December, and was determined in
+consequence that copies of the "Act of Appeals," and of the king's
+"provocation" to a general council, should be fixed without delay on
+every church-door in England. Protests were at the same time to be drawn
+up and sent into Flanders, and to the other courts in Europe, "to the
+intent the falsehood and injustice of the Bishop of Rome might appear to
+all the world." The defences of the country were to be looked to; and
+"spies" to be sent into Scotland to see "what they intended there," "and
+whether they would confeder themselves with any outward princes."
+Finally, it was proposed that the attempt to form an alliance with the
+Lutheran powers should be renewed on a larger scale; that certain
+discreet and grave persons should be appointed to conclude "some league
+or amity with the princes of Germany,"--"that is to say, the King of
+Poland, the King of Hungary,[222] the Duke of Saxony, the Duke of
+Bavaria, the Duke of Brandenburg, the Landgrave of Hesse, and other
+potentates."[223] Vaughan's mission had been merely tentative, and had
+failed. Yet the offer of a league, offensive and defensive, the
+immediate and avowed object of which was a general council at which the
+Protestants should be represented, might easily succeed where vague
+offers of amity had come to nothing. The formation of a Protestant
+alliance, however, would have been equivalent to a declaration of war
+against Catholic Europe; and it was a step which could not be taken,
+consistently with the Treaty of Calais, without first communicating with
+Francis.
+
+[Sidenote: The King writes to Francis, menacing him with this
+expedient.]
+
+[Sidenote: December 2.]
+
+[Sidenote: A Protestant alliance highly desirable to put an end to the
+usurpation of the pope.]
+
+[Sidenote: He will not act, however, without first consulting his good
+brother.]
+
+Henry, therefore, by the advice of the council, wrote a despatch to Sir
+John Wallop, the ambassador at Paris, which was to be laid before the
+French court. He explained the circumstances in which he was placed,
+with the suggestion which the council had made to him. He gave a list of
+the princes with whom he had been desired by his ministers to connect
+himself,--and the object was nothing less than a coalition of Northern
+Europe. He recapitulated the injuries which he had received from the
+pope, who at length was studying "to subvert the rest and peace of the
+realm "; "yea, and so much as in him was, utterly to destroy the same."
+The nobles and council, he said, for their own sake as well as for the
+sake of the kingdom, had entreated him to put an end, once for all, to
+the pope's usurpation; and to invite the Protestant princes, for the
+universal weal of Christendom, to unite in a common alliance. In his
+present situation he was inclined to act upon this advice. "As
+concerning his own realm, he had already taken such order with his
+nobles and subjects, as he would shortly be able to give to the pope
+such a buffet as he never had heretofore; "but as a German alliance was
+a matter of great weight and importance, "although," he concluded, "we
+consider it to be right expedient to set forth the same with all
+diligence, yet we intend nothing to do therein without making our good
+brother first privy thereunto. And for this cause and consideration
+only, you may say that we have at this time addressed these letters unto
+you, commanding you to declare our said purpose unto our good brother,
+and to require of him on our behalf his good address and best advice. Of
+his answer we require you to advertise us with all diligence, for
+according thereunto we intend to attemper our proceedings. We have
+lately had advertisements how that our said good brother should, by the
+labour of divers affectionate Papists, be minded to set forth something
+with his clergy in advancement of the pope and his desires. This we
+cannot believe that he will do."[224]
+
+[Sidenote: Meaning of this letter. He will join Germany sooner than
+yield to the pope, but he trusts that Francis will not drive him to it.]
+
+The meaning of this letter lies upon the surface. If the European powers
+were determined to leave him no alternative, the king was prepared to
+ally himself with the Lutherans. But however he might profess to desire
+that alliance, it was evident that he would prefer, if possible, a less
+extreme resource. The pope had ceased to be an object of concern to him;
+but he could not contemplate, without extreme unwillingness, a
+separation from the orderly governments who professed the Catholic
+faith. The pope had injured him; Francis had deceived him; they had
+tempted his patience because they knew his disposition. The limit of
+endurance had been reached at length; yet, on the verge of the
+concluding rupture, he turned once more, as if to offer a last
+opportunity of peace.
+
+[Sidenote: Mission of the Bishop of Paris to England.]
+
+The reply of Francis was an immediate mission of the Bishop of Bayonne
+(now Bishop of Paris), first into England, and from England to Rome,
+where he was to endeavour, to the best of his ability, to seam together
+the already gaping rent in the church with fair words--a hopeless
+task--the results of which, however, were unexpectedly considerable, as
+will be presently seen.
+
+[Sidenote: Threatening attitude of the Court of Brussels.]
+
+[Sidenote: The English ambassador requests the queen-regent to forbid
+the publication of the papal censures in Flanders. She refuses.]
+
+[Sidenote: December 15.]
+
+[Sidenote: December 23.]
+
+[Sidenote: Proposal to make Catherine or Mary Regent of the
+Netherlands.]
+
+[Sidenote: Charles waiting upon events.]
+
+Meanwhile, on the side of Flanders, the atmosphere was dubious and
+menacing. The refugee friars, who were reported to be well supplied with
+money from England, were labouring to exasperate the people, Father Peto
+especially distinguishing himself upon this service.[225] The English
+ambassador, Sir John Hacket, still remained at Brussels, and the two
+governments were formally at peace; but when Hacket required the
+queen-regent to forbid the publication of the brief of July in the
+Netherlands, he was met with a positive refusal. "M. Ambassador," she
+said, "the Emperor, the King of Hungary, the Queen of France, the King
+of Portugal, and I, understand what are the rights of our aunt--our duty
+is to her--and such letters of the pope as come hither in her favour we
+shall obey. Your master has no right to complain either of the emperor
+or of myself, if we support our aunt in a just cause."[226] At the same
+time, formal complaints were made by Charles of the personal treatment
+of Queen Catherine, and the clouds appeared to be gathering for a storm.
+Yet here, too, there was an evident shrinking from extremities. A Welsh
+gentleman had been at Brussels to offer his services against Henry, and
+had met with apparent coldness. Sir John Hacket wrote, on the 15th of
+December, that he was assured by well-informed persons, that so long as
+Charles lived, he would never be the first to begin a war with England,
+"which would rebound to the destruction of the Low Countries."[227] A
+week later, when the queen-regent was suffering from an alarming
+illness, he said it was reported that, should she die, Catherine or
+Mary, if either of them was allowed to leave England, would be held
+"meet to have governance of the Low Countries."[228] This was a generous
+step, if the emperor seriously contemplated it. The failure of the Nun
+of Kent had perhaps taught him that there was no present prospect of a
+successful insurrection. In his conduct towards England, he was
+seemingly governing himself by the prospect which might open for a
+successful attack upon it. If occasion offered to strike the government
+in connexion with an efficient Catholic party in the nation itself, he
+would not fail to avail himself of it.[229] Otherwise, he would perhaps
+content himself with an attitude of inactive menace; unless menaced
+himself by a Protestant confederation.
+
+[Sidenote: January 15. Meeting of parliament.]
+
+Amidst these uneasy symptoms at home and abroad, parliament reassembled
+on the 15th of January. It was a changed England since these men first
+came together on the fall of Wolsey. Session after session had been
+spent in clipping the roots of the old tree which had overshadowed them
+for centuries. On their present meeting they were to finish their work,
+and lay it prostrate for ever. Negotiations were still pending with the
+See of Rome, and this momentous session had closed before the final
+catastrophe. The measures which were passed in the course of it are not,
+therefore, to be looked upon as adopted hastily, in a spirit of
+retaliation, but as the consistent accomplishment of a course which had
+been deliberately adopted, to reverse the positions of the civil and
+spiritual authority within the realm, and to withdraw the realm itself
+from all dependence on a foreign power.
+
+The Annates and Firstfruits' Bill had not yet received the royal assent;
+but the pope had refused to grant the bulls for bishops recently
+appointed, and he was no longer to receive payment for services which he
+refused to render. Peter's pence were still paid, and might continue to
+be paid, if the pope would recollect himself; but, like the Sibyl of
+Cuma, Henry destroyed some fresh privilege with each delay of justice,
+demanding the same price for the preservation of what remained. The
+secondary streams of tribute now only remained to the Roman See; and
+communion with the English church, which it was for Clement to accept or
+refuse.
+
+[Sidenote: Opening business of the session.]
+
+[Sidenote: Perils of the Reformation.]
+
+The circumstances under which the session opened were, however, grave
+and saddening. Simultaneously with the concluding legislation on the
+church, the succession to the throne was to be determined in terms which
+might, perhaps, be accepted as a declaration of war by the emperor; and
+the affair of the Nun of Kent had rendered necessary an inquiry into the
+conduct of honoured members of the two Houses, who were lying under the
+shadow of high treason. The conditions were for the first time to be
+plainly seen under which the Reformation was to fight its way. The road
+which lay before it was beset not merely with external obstacles, which
+a strong will and a strong hand could crush, but with the phantoms of
+dying faiths, which haunted the hearts of all living men; the
+superstitions, the prejudices, the hopes, the fears, the passions, which
+swayed stormily and fitfully through the minds of every actor in the
+great drama.
+
+[Sidenote: Cromwell only sees his way clearly.]
+
+The uniformity of action in the parliament of 1529, during the seven
+years which it continued, is due to the one man who saw his way
+distinctly, Thomas Cromwell. The nation was substantially united on the
+divorce question, could the divorce be secured without a rupture with
+the European powers. It was united also on the necessity of limiting the
+jurisdiction of the clergy, and cutting short the powers of the
+consistory courts. But in questions of "opinion" there was the most
+sensitive jealousy; and from the combined instincts of prejudice and
+conservatism, the majority of the country in a count of heads would
+undoubtedly have been against a separation from Rome.
+
+[Sidenote: Struggle in Henry's mind between light and darkness.]
+
+[Sidenote: Danger of reaction.]
+
+[Sidenote: Peculiarity of Cromwell's genius.]
+
+The clergy professed to approve the acts of the government, but it was
+for the most part with the unwilling acquiescence of men who were
+without courage to refuse. The king was divided against himself. Nine
+days in ten he was the clear-headed, energetic, powerful statesman; on,
+the tenth he was looking wistfully to the superstition which he had
+left, and the clear sunshine was darkened with theological clouds, which
+broke in lightning and persecution. Thus there was danger at any moment
+of a reaction, unless opportunity was taken at the flood, unless the
+work was executed too completely to admit of reconsideration, and the
+nation committed to a course from which it was impossible to recede. The
+action of the conservatives was paralysed for the time by the want of a
+fixed purpose. The various parts of the movement were so skilfully
+linked together, that partial opposition to it was impossible; and so
+long as the people had to choose between the pope and the king, their
+loyalty would not allow them to hesitate. But very few men actively
+adhered to Cromwell. Cromwell had struck the line on which the forces
+of nature were truly moving,--the resultant, not of the victory of
+either of the extreme parties, but of the joint action of their opposing
+forces. To him belonged the rare privilege of genius, to see what other
+men could not see; and therefore he was condemned to rule a generation
+which hated him, to do the will of God, and to perish in his success. He
+had no party. By the nobles he was regarded with the same mixed contempt
+and fear which had been felt for Wolsey. The Protestants, perhaps, knew
+what he was, but he could only purchase their toleration by himself
+checking their extravagance. Latimer was the only person of real power
+on whose friendship he could calculate, and Latimer was too plain-spoken
+on dangerous questions to be useful as a political supporter.
+
+The session commenced on the 15th of January.
+
+[Sidenote: The clergy make their final submission.]
+
+[Sidenote: Mixed Commission, intended for the revision of the Canon
+law.]
+
+The first step was to receive the final submission of convocation. The
+undignified resistance was at last over, and the clergy had promised to
+abstain for the future from unlicensed legislation. To secure their
+adherence to their engagements, an act[230] was passed to make the
+breach of that engagement penal; and a commission of thirty-two persons,
+half of whom were to be laymen, was designed for the revision of the
+Canon law.[231]
+
+[Sidenote: Reform in the law for the prosecution of heretics.]
+
+The next most important movement was to assimilate the trials for heresy
+with the trials for other criminal offences. I have already explained at
+length the manner in which the bishops abused their judicial powers.
+These powers were not absolutely taken away, but ecclesiastics were no
+longer permitted to arrest _ex officio_ and examine at their pleasure.
+Where a charge of heresy was to be brought against a man, presentments
+were to be made by lawful witnesses before justices of the peace; and
+then, and not otherwise, he might fall under the authority of the
+"ordinary." Secret examinations were declared illegal. The offender was
+to be tried in open court, and, previous to his trial, had a right to be
+admitted to bail, unless the bishop could show cause to the contrary to
+the satisfaction of two magistrates.[232]
+
+This was but a slight instalment of lenity; but it was an indication of
+the turning tide. Limited as it was, the act operated as an effective
+check upon persecution till the passing of the Six Articles Bill.
+
+[Sidenote: The Annates Act having received the royal assent,]
+
+[Sidenote: An alteration is necessary in the mode of electing bishops.]
+
+[Sidenote: The Chapters had gradually lost the privileges granted to
+them by the Great Charter.]
+
+[Sidenote: The nomination had virtually rested with the crown.]
+
+[Sidenote: Difficulty of re-arrangement. The _conge d'elire_.]
+
+Turning next to the relations between England and Rome, the parliament
+reviewed the Annates Act,[233] which had been left unratified in the
+hope that the pope might have consented to a compromise, and that "by
+some gentle ways the said exaction might have been redressed and
+reformed." The expectation had been disappointed. The pope had not
+condescended to reply to the communication which had been made to him,
+and the act had in consequence received the royal assent. An alteration
+had thus become necessary in the manner of presentation to vacant
+bishoprics. The anomalies of the existing practice have been already
+described. By the Great Charter the chapters had acquired the right of
+free election. A _conge d'elire_ was granted by the king on the
+occurrence of a vacancy, with no attempt at a nomination. The chapters
+were supposed to make their choice freely, and the name of the
+bishop-elect was forwarded to the pope, who returned the Pallium and the
+Bulls, receiving the Annates in exchange. The pope's part in the matter
+was now terminated. No Annates would be sent any longer to Rome, and no
+Bulls would be returned from Rome. The appointments lay between the
+chapters and the crown; and it might have seemed, at first sight, as if
+it would have been sufficient to omit the reference to the papacy, and
+as if the remaining forms might continue as they were. The chapters,
+however, had virtually long ceased to elect freely; the crown had
+absorbed the entire functions of presentation, sometimes appointing
+foreigners,[234] sometimes allowing the great ecclesiastical ministers
+to nominate themselves;[235] while the rights of the chapters, though
+existing in theory, were not officially recognised either by the pope or
+by the crown. The king affected to accept the names of the
+prelates-elect, when returned to him from Rome, as nominations by the
+pope; and the pope, in communicating with the chapters, presented them
+with their bishops as from himself.[236] The papal share in the matter
+was a shadow, but it was acknowledged under the forms of courtesy; the
+share of the chapters was wholly and absolutely ignored. The crisis of a
+revolution was not the moment at which their legal privileges could be
+safely restored to them. The problem of re-arrangement was a difficult
+one, and it was met in a manner peculiarly English. The practice of
+granting the _conge d'elire_ to the chapters on the occurrence of a
+vacancy, which had fallen into desuetude, was again adopted, and the
+church resumed the forms of liberty: but the licence to elect a bishop
+was to be accompanied with the name of the person whom the chapter was
+required to elect; and if within twelve days the person so named had not
+been chosen, the nomination of the crown was to become absolute, and the
+chapter would incur a Premunire.[237]
+
+[Sidenote: Peter's Pence and other forms of tribute paid to Rome
+abolished.]
+
+[Sidenote: Conditional abolition of the papal authority in England.]
+
+[Sidenote: Three months allowed to the pope to decide.]
+
+This act, which I conceive to have been more arbitrary in form than in
+intention, was followed by a closing attack upon the remaining
+"exactions" of the Bishop of Rome. The Annates were gone. There were yet
+to go, "Pensions, Censes, Peter's Pence, Procurations, Fruits, Suits for
+Provision, Delegacies and Rescripts in causes of Contention and Appeals,
+Jurisdictions legatine--also Dispensations, Licenses, Faculties, Grants,
+Relaxations, Writs called Perinde valere, Rehabilitations, Abolitions,"
+with other unnamed (the parliament being wearied of naming them)
+"infinite sorts of Rules, Briefs, and instruments of sundry natures,
+names, and kinds." All these were perennially open sluices, which had
+drained England of its wealth for centuries, returning only in showers
+of paper; and the Commons were determined that streams so unremunerative
+should flow no longer. They conceived that they had been all along
+imposed upon, and that the "Bishop of Rome was to be blamed for having
+allured and beguiled the English nation, persuading them that he had
+power to dispense with human laws, uses, and customs, contrary to right
+and conscience." If the king so pleased, therefore, they would not be so
+beguiled any more. These and all similar exactions should cease; and all
+powers claimed by the Bishop of Rome within the realm should cease, and
+should be transferred to the crown. At the same time they would not
+press upon the pope too hardly; they would repeat the same conditions
+which they had offered with the Annates. He had received these revenues
+as the supreme judge in the highest court in Europe, and he might retain
+his revenues or receive compensation for them, if he dared to be just.
+It was for himself to resolve, and three months allowed for a final
+decision.
+
+[Sidenote: The Commons make a general declaration that in separating
+from the pope, they are not separating from the unity of the faith.]
+
+In conclusion, the Commons thought it well to assert that they were
+separating, not from the church of Christ, but only from the papacy. A
+judge who allowed himself to be overawed against his conscience by a
+secular power, could not any longer be recognised; but no thing or
+things contained in the act should be afterwards "interpreted or
+expounded, that his Grace (the king), his nobles and subjects, intended
+by the same to decline or vary from the congregation of Christ's church
+in anything concerning the articles of the Catholic faith of
+Christendom, or in any other things declared by the Holy Scripture and
+the Word of God necessary for salvation; but only to make an ordinance,
+by policies necessary and convenient, to repress vice, and for the good
+conservation of the realm in peace, unity, and tranquillity, from ravin
+and spoil--ensuing much the old antient customs of the realm in that
+behalf."[238]
+
+[Sidenote: February 18.]
+
+[Sidenote: Bill of attainder against the Nun of Kent and her
+accomplices.]
+
+The most arduous business was thus finished--the most painful remained.
+The Nun of Kent and her accomplices were to be proceeded against by act
+of parliament; and the bill of their attainder was presented for the
+first time in the House of Lords, on the 18th of February. The offence
+of the principal conspirators was plainly high treason; their own
+confessions removed uncertainty; the guilt was clear--the sentence was
+inevitable. But the fault of those who had been listeners only was less
+easy of measurement, and might vary from comparative innocence to a
+definite breach of allegiance.
+
+[Sidenote: The Bishop of Rochester and Sir Thomas More]
+
+The government were unwilling to press with severity on the noble lords
+and ladies whose names had been unexpectedly brought to light; and there
+were two men of high rank only, whose complicity it was thought
+necessary to notice. The Bishop of Rochester's connexion with the Nun
+had been culpably encouraging; and the responsibility of Sir Thomas More
+was held also to be very great in having countenanced, however lightly,
+such perilous schemers.
+
+[Sidenote: Declared in the first reading of the bill guilty of
+misprision of treason.]
+
+[Sidenote: Private communications are made to them by Cromwell that the
+king will accept their apology.]
+
+In the bill, therefore, as it was first read, More and Fisher found
+themselves declared guilty of misprision of treason. But the object of
+this measure was rather to warn than to punish, nor was there any real
+intention of continuing their prosecution. Cromwell, under instructions
+from the king, had communicated privately with both of them. He had sent
+a message to Fisher through his brother, telling him that he had only to
+ask for forgiveness to receive it;[239] and he had begged More through
+his son-in-law, Mr. Roper, to furnish him with an explicit account of
+what had passed at any time between himself and the Nun,[240] with an
+intimation that, if honestly made, it would be accepted in his favour.
+
+[Sidenote: Sir Thomas More complies elaborately and reasonably.]
+
+[Sidenote: More is pardoned.]
+
+These advances were met by More in the spirit in which they were
+offered. He heartily thanked Cromwell, "reckoning himself right deeply
+beholden to him;"[241] and replied with a long, minute, and evidently
+veracious story, detailing an interview which he had held with the woman
+in the chapel of Sion Monastery. He sent at the same time a copy of a
+letter which he had written to her, and described various conversations
+with the friars who were concerned in the forgery. He did not deny that
+he had believed the Nun to have been inspired, or that he had heard of
+the language which she was in the habit of using respecting the king. He
+protested, however, that he had himself never entertained a treasonable
+thought. He told Cromwell that "he had done a very meritorious deed in
+bringing forth to light such detestable hypocrisy, whereby every other
+wretch might take warning, and be feared to set forth their devilish
+dissembled falsehoods under the manner and colour of the wonderful work
+of God."[242] More's offence had not been great. His acknowledgments
+were open and unreserved; and Cromwell laid his letter before the king,
+adding his own intercession that the matter might be passed over. Henry
+consented, expressing only his grief and concern that Sir Thomas More
+should have acted so unwisely.[243] He required, nevertheless, as
+Cromwell suggested, that a formal letter should be written, with a
+confession of fault, and a request for forgiveness. More obeyed; he
+wrote, gracefully reminding the king of a promise when he resigned the
+chancellorship, that in any suit which he might afterwards have to his
+Grace, either touching his honour or his profit, he should find his
+Highness his good and gracious lord.[244] Henry acknowledged his claim;
+his name was struck out of the bill, and the prosecution against him was
+dropped.
+
+[Sidenote: Fisher is obstinate. His fault had been deeper than More's;
+yet he undertakes to defend it.]
+
+[Sidenote: Folly of his position;]
+
+Fisher's conduct was very different; his fault had been far greater than
+More's, and promises more explicit had been held out to him of
+forgiveness. He replied to these promises by an elaborate and ridiculous
+defence,--not writing to the king, as Cromwell desired him, but
+vindicating himself as having committed no fault; although he had
+listened eagerly to language which was only pardonable on the assumption
+that it was inspired, and had encouraged a nest of fanatics by his
+childish credulity. The Nun "had showed him not," he said, "that any
+prince or temporal lord should put the king in danger of his crown." He
+knew nothing of the intended insurrection. He believed the woman to have
+been a saint; he supposed that she had herself told the king all which
+she had told to him; and therefore he said that he had nothing for which
+to reproach himself.[245] He was unable to see that the exposure of the
+imposture had imparted a fresh character to his conduct, which he was
+bound to regret. Knowingly or unknowingly, he had lent his countenance
+to a conspiracy; and so long as he refused to acknowledge his
+indiscretion, the government necessarily would interpret his actions in
+the manner least to his advantage.
+
+[Sidenote: Which Cromwell exposes,]
+
+[Sidenote: And once more urges him to apologize.]
+
+If he desired that his conduct should be forgotten, it was indispensable
+that he should change his attitude, and so Cromwell warned him. "Ye
+desire," the latter wrote, "for the passion of Christ, that ye be no
+more quickened in this matter; for if ye be put to that strait ye will
+not lose your soul, but ye will speak as your conscience leadeth you;
+with many more words of great courage. My Lord, if ye had taken my
+counsel sent unto you by your brother, and followed the same, submitting
+yourself by your letter to the King's Grace for your offences in this
+behalf, I would have trusted that ye should never be quickened in the
+matter more. But now where ye take upon you to defy the whole matter as
+ye were in no default, I cannot so far promise you. Wherefore, my Lord,
+I would eftsoons advise you that, laying apart all such excuses as ye
+have alleged in your letters, which in my opinion be of small effect, ye
+beseech the King's Grace to be your gracious lord, and to remit unto you
+your negligence, oversight, and offence committed against his Highness
+in this behalf; and I dare undertake that his Highness shall benignly
+accept you into his gracious favour, all matter of displeasure past
+afore this time forgotten and forgiven."[246]
+
+[Sidenote: Fisher again refuses, and sends in his defence to the House
+of Lords.]
+
+Fisher must have been a hopelessly impracticable person. Instead of
+following More's example, and accepting well-meant advice, he persisted
+in the same tone, and drew up an address to the House of Lords, in which
+he repeated the defence which he had made to Cromwell. He expressed no
+sorrow that he had been engaged in a criminal intrigue, no pleasure that
+the intrigue had been discovered; and he doggedly adhered to his
+assertions of his own innocence.[247]
+
+[Sidenote: March 6. The bill passes.]
+
+[Sidenote: The Nun and the monks to be executed. The Bishop of Rochester
+and Father Abel to be imprisoned with forfeiture of goods.]
+
+There was nothing to be done except to proceed with his attainder. The
+bill passed three readings, and the various prisoners were summoned to
+the Star Chamber to be heard in arrest of judgment. The Bishop of
+Rochester's attendance was dispensed with on the ground of illness, and
+because he had made his defence in writing.[248] Nothing of consequence
+was urged by either of the accused. The bill was most explicit in its
+details, going carefully through the history of the imposture, and
+dwelling on the separate acts of each offender. They were able to
+disprove no one of its clauses, and on the 12th of March it was read a
+last time. On the 21st it received the royal assent, and there remained
+only to execute the sentence. The Nun herself, Richard Masters, and the
+five friars being found guilty of high treason, were to die; the Bishop
+of Rochester, Father Abel, Queen Catherine's confessor, and four more,
+were sentenced for misprision of treason to forfeiture of goods and
+imprisonment. All other persons implicated, whose names did not appear,
+were declared pardoned at the intercession of Queen Anne.[249]
+
+[Sidenote: April 21.]
+
+The chief offenders suffered at Tyburn on the 21st of April, meeting
+death calmly, as it appears; receiving a fate most necessary and most
+deserved,[250] yet claiming from us that partial respect which is due to
+all persons who will risk their lives in an unselfish cause. For the
+Nun herself, we may feel even a less qualified regret. Before her death
+she was permitted to speak a few words to the people, which at the
+distance of three centuries will not be read without emotion.
+
+[Sidenote: Last words of the Nun at Tyburn.]
+
+"Hither am I come to die," she said, "and I have not been the only cause
+of mine own death, which most justly I have deserved; but also I am the
+cause of the death of all these persons which at this time here suffer.
+And yet I am not so much to be blamed, considering that it was well
+known unto these learned men that I was a poor wench without learning;
+and therefore they might have easily perceived that the things which
+were done by me could not proceed in no such sort; but their capacities
+and learning could right well judge that they were altogether feigned.
+But because the things which I feigned were profitable unto them,
+therefore they much praised me, and bare me in hand that it was the Holy
+Ghost and not I that did them. And I being puffed up with their praises,
+fell into a pride and foolish fantasye with myself, and thought I might
+feign what I would, which thing hath brought me to this case, and for
+the which I now cry God and the King's Highness most heartily mercy, and
+desire all you good people to pray to God to have mercy on me, and on
+all them that here suffer with me."[251]
+
+[Sidenote: Fisher, in spite of himself, is left unpunished.]
+
+The inferior confederates were committed to their prisons with the
+exception only of Fisher, who, though sentenced, found mercy thrust upon
+him, till by fresh provocation the miserable old man forced himself upon
+his fate.[252]
+
+[Sidenote: The Act of Succession.]
+
+[Sidenote: The necessity of it.]
+
+And now the closing seal was to be affixed to the agitation of the great
+question of the preceding years. I have said that throughout these years
+the uncertainty of the succession had been the continual anxiety of the
+nation. The birth of a prince or princess could alone provide an
+absolute security; and to beget a prince appeared to be the single feat
+which Henry was unable to accomplish. The marriage so dearly bought had
+been followed as yet only by a girl; and if the king were to die,
+leaving two daughters circumstanced as Mary and Elizabeth were
+circumstanced, a dispute would open which the sword only could decide.
+To escape the certainty of civil war, therefore, it was necessary to lay
+down the line of inheritance by a peremptory order; to cut off
+resolutely all rival claims; and, in legislating upon a matter so vital,
+and hitherto so uncertain and indeterminate, to enforce the decision
+with the most stringent and exacting penalties. From the Heptarchy
+downwards English history furnished no fixed rule of inheritance, but
+only a series of precedents of uncertainty; and while at no previous
+time had the circumstances of the succession been of a nature so
+legitimately embarrassing, the relations of England with the pope and
+with foreign powers doubly enhanced the danger. But I will not use my
+own language on so important a subject. The preamble of the Act of
+Succession is the best interpreter of the provisions of that act.
+
+[Sidenote: Inasmuch as the only unquestioned title to the throne lies in
+the king, and in his natural heirs;]
+
+[Sidenote: And inasmuch as in times past a disputed succession has on
+many occasions caused confusion and bloodshed in the realm,]
+
+[Sidenote: Because there has been no fixed order or rule of
+inheritance,]
+
+[Sidenote: And because the intrigues of the popes and of foreign princes
+have created sedition and confusion,]
+
+"In their most humble wise show unto your Majesty your most humble and
+obedient subjects, the Lords Spiritual and Temporal and the Commons, in
+this present parliament assembled; that since it is the natural
+inclination of every man gladly and willingly to provide for the safety
+of both his title and succession, although it touch only his private
+cause; we therefore, most rightful and dreadful Sovereign Lord, reckon
+ourselves much more bounden to beseech and intreat your Highness
+(although we doubt not of your princely heart and wisdom, mixed with a
+natural affection to the same) to foresee and provide for the most
+perfect surety of both you and of your most lawful successors and heirs,
+upon which dependeth all our joy and wealth; in whom also is united and
+knit the only mere true inheritance and title of this realm without any
+contradiction. We, your said most humble and obedient servants, call to
+our remembrance the great divisions which in times past hath been in
+this realm by reason of several titles pretended to the imperial crown
+of the same; which some time and for the most part ensued by occasion of
+ambiguity, and [by] doubts then not so perfectly declared but that men
+might upon froward intents expound them to every man's sinister appetite
+and affection after their senses; whereof hath ensued great destruction
+and effusion of man's blood, as well of a great number of the nobles as
+of other the subjects and specially inheritors in the same. The greatest
+occasion thereof hath been because no perfect and substantial provision
+by law hath been made within this realm itself when doubts and questions
+have been moved; by reason whereof the Bishops of Rome and See Apostolic
+have presumed in times past to invest who should please them to inherit
+in other men's kingdoms and dominions, which thing we your most humble
+subjects, both spiritual and temporal, do much abhor and detest. And
+sometimes other foreign princes and potentates of sundry degrees,
+minding rather dissension and discord to continue in the realm than
+charity, equity, or unity, have many times supported wrong titles,
+whereby they might the more easily and facilly aspire to the superiority
+of the same.
+
+[Sidenote: The king's subjects intreat his Highness for their better
+security after his death, that it may be enacted by authority of
+parliament:]
+
+"The continuance and sufferance of these things, deeply considered and
+pondered, is too dangerous and perilous to be suffered any longer; and
+too much contrary to unity, peace, and tranquillity, being greatly
+reproachable and dishonourable to the whole realm. And in consideration
+thereof, your said subjects, calling further to their remembrance, that
+the good unity, peace, and wealth of the realm, specially and
+principally, above all worldly things, consisteth in the surety and
+certainty of the procreation and posterity of your Highness, in whose
+most Royal person at this time is no manner of doubt, do therefore most
+humbly beseech your Highness that it may be enacted, with the consent of
+the Lords Spiritual and Temporal and the Commons in this present
+parliament assembled--
+
+[Sidenote: 1. That the marriage with the Lady Catherine was invalid from
+the beginning.]
+
+"1. That the marriage between your Highness and the Lady Catherine,
+widow of the late Prince Arthur, be declared to have been from the
+beginning, null, the issue of it illegitimate, the separation pronounced
+by the Archbishop of Canterbury good and valid.
+
+[Sidenote: 2. That the marriage with Queen Anne is good and sincere.]
+
+"2. That the marriage between your Highness and your most dear and
+entirely beloved wife, Queen Anne, be established and held good, and
+taken for undoubtful, true, sincere, and perfect, ever hereafter."[253]
+
+[Sidenote: That the issue of the king by Queen Anne shall succeed,]
+
+[Sidenote: And that whoever by word or deed impugned the legitimacy of
+that issue, shall be held guilty of treason.]
+
+The act then assumed a general character, laying down a table of
+prohibited degrees, within which marriage might not under any pretence
+be in future contracted; and demanding that any marriage which might
+already exist within those degrees should be at once dissolved. After
+this provision, it again returned to the king, and fixed the order in
+which his children by Queen Anne were to succeed. The details of the
+regulations were minute and elaborate, and the rule to be observed was
+the same as that which exists at present. First, the sons were to
+succeed with their heirs; if sons failed, then the daughters, with their
+heirs. And, in conclusion, it was resolved, that any person who should
+maliciously do anything by writing, printing, or other external act or
+deed to the peril of the king, or to the prejudice of his marriage with
+Queen Anne, or to the derogation of the issue of that marriage, should
+be held guilty of high treason; and whoever should speak against that
+marriage, should be held guilty of misprision of treason;--severe
+enactments, such as could not be justified at ordinary times, and such
+as, if the times had been ordinary, would not have been thought
+necessary; but the exigencies of the country could not tolerate an
+uncertainty of title in the heir to the crown; and the title could only
+be secured by prohibiting absolutely the discussion of dangerous
+questions.
+
+The mere enactment of a statute, whatever penalties were attached to the
+violation of it, was still, however, an insufficient safeguard. The
+recent investigation had revealed a spirit of disloyalty, where such a
+spirit had not been expected. The deeper the inquiry had penetrated, the
+more clearly appeared tokens, if not of conspiracy, yet of excitement,
+of doubt, of agitation, of alienated feeling, if not of alienated act.
+All the symptoms were abroad which provide disaffection with its
+opportunity; and in the natural confusion which attended the revolt from
+the papacy, the obligations of duty, both political and religious, had
+become indefinite and contradictory, pointing in all directions, like
+the magnetic needle in a thunderstorm.
+
+[Sidenote: All persons, at the king's pleasure, liable to be called upon
+to swear to this act.]
+
+It was thought well, therefore, to vest a power in the crown, of trying
+the tempers of suspected persons, and examining them upon oath, as to
+their willingness to maintain the decision of parliament. This measure
+was a natural corollary of the statute, and depended for its
+justification on the extent of the danger to which the state was
+exposed. If a difference of opinion on the legitimacy of the king's
+children, or of the pope's power in England, was not dangerous, it was
+unjust to interfere with the natural liberty of speech or thought. If it
+was dangerous, and if the state had cause for supposing that opinions of
+the kind might spread in secret so long as no opportunity was offered
+for detecting their progress, to require the oath was a measure of
+reasonable self-defence, not permissible only, but in a high degree
+necessary and right.
+
+[Sidenote: A commission appointed to take the examination.]
+
+Under the impression, then, that the circumstances of the country
+demanded extraordinary precautions, a commission was appointed,
+consisting of the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Lord Chancellor, the
+Duke of Norfolk, and the Duke of Suffolk; and these four, or any three
+of them, were empowered to administer, at the pleasure of the king, "to
+all and singular liege subjects of the realm," the following oath:--
+
+[Sidenote: March 30. Terms of the oath to the Statute of Succession.]
+
+"Ye shall swear to bear your faith, truth, and obedience only to the
+King's Majesty, and to the heirs of his body, according to the
+limitation and rehearsal within the statute of succession; and not to
+any other within this realm, or foreign authority, prince, or potentate:
+and in case any oath be made or hath been made by you to any other
+person or persons, that then you do repute the same as vain and
+annihilate: and that to your cunning, wit, and utmost of your power,
+without guile, fraud, or other undue means, ye shall observe, keep,
+maintain, and defend this act above specified, and all the whole
+contents and effects thereof; and all other acts and statutes made since
+the beginning of this present parliament, in confirmation or for due
+execution of the same, or of anything therein contained. And thus ye
+shall do against all manner of persons, of what estate, dignity, degree,
+or condition soever they be; and in no wise do or attempt, or to your
+power suffer to be done or attempted, directly or indirectly, any thing
+or things, privily or apertly, to the let, hindrance, damage, or
+derogation thereof, by any manner of means, or for any pretence or
+cause, so help you God and all saints."[254]
+
+[Sidenote: April 7. The news arrives in England that the pope has given
+sentence]
+
+With this last resolution the House rose, having sat seventy-five days,
+and despatched their business swiftly. A week later, the news arrived
+from Rome that there too all was at length over; that the cause was
+decided, and decided against the king. The history or the closing
+catastrophe is as obscure as it is strange, and the account of the
+manner in which it was brought about is unfortunately incomplete in many
+important particulars. The outline only can be apprehended, and that
+very imperfectly.
+
+[Sidenote: Mission of the Bishop of Paris to Rome.]
+
+[Sidenote: At first, with appearance of success.]
+
+[Sidenote: The bishop makes terms of which Henry approves, and
+despatches a courier with his consent.]
+
+On the receipt in Paris of the letter in which Henry threatened to
+organize a Protestant confederacy, Du Bellay, in genuine anxiety for the
+welfare of Christendom, had volunteered his services for a final effort.
+Not a moment was to be lost, for the courts at Rome were already busy
+with the great cause; but the king's evident reluctance to break with
+the Catholic powers gave room for hope that something might still be
+done; and going in person to England, the bishop had induced Henry, at
+the last extremity, either to entrust him with representative powers, or
+else to allow him after all to make some kind of concession. I am unable
+to learn the extent to which Henry yielded, but that an offer was made
+of some kind is evident from the form of the story.[255] The winter was
+very cold, but the bishop made his way to Rome with the haste of good
+will, and arrived in time to stay judgment, which was on the point of
+being pronounced. It seemed, for the moment, as if he would succeed. He
+was permitted to make engagements on the part of Henry; and that time
+might be allowed for communication with England, the pope agreed to
+delay sentence till the 23d of March. The bishop's terms were approved
+by the king, and a courier was sent off with letters of confirmation;
+Sir Edward Karne and Dr. Revett following leisurely, with a more ample
+commission. The stone which had been laboriously rolled to the summit of
+the hill was trembling on the brink, and in a moment might rebound into
+the plain.
+
+[Sidenote: The courier is delayed on the road. The conclave are divided;
+a majority decide against the king, and sentence is pronounced.]
+
+[Sidenote: Henry must either submit, or is excommunicated.]
+
+But this was not to be the end. Some accidental cause delayed the
+courier; the 23d of March came, and he had not arrived. Du Bellay
+implored a further respite. The King of England, he said, had waited six
+years; it was not a great thing for the papal council to wait six days.
+The cardinals were divided; but the Spanish party were the strongest,
+and when the votes were taken carried the day. The die was cast, and the
+pope, in spite of himself, his promises, and his conscience, drove at
+length upon the rocks to which he had been so long drifting.[256] In
+deference to the opinion of the majority of the cardinals, he pronounced
+the original marriage to have been valid, the dispensation by which it
+was permitted to have been legal; and, as a natural consequence, Henry,
+King of England, should he fail in obedience to this judgment, was
+declared to be excommunicate from the fellowship of the church, and to
+have forfeited the allegiance of his subjects.
+
+[Sidenote: The Imperialists engage that Charles shall enforce the
+sentence.]
+
+Lest the censures should be discredited by a blank discharge,
+engagements were entered into, that within four months of the
+promulgation of the sentence, the emperor would invade England, and
+Henry should be deposed.[257] The imperialists illuminated Rome; cannon
+were fired; bonfires blazed; and great bodies of men paraded the streets
+with shouts of "the Empire and Spain."[258] Already, in their eager
+expectation, England was a second Netherlands, a captured province under
+the regency of Catherine or Mary.
+
+Two days later, the courier arrived. The pope, at the entreaties of the
+Bishop of Paris, reassembled the consistory, to consider whether the
+steps which had been taken should be undone. They sat debating all
+night, and the result was nothing. No dependence could be placed on the
+cardinals, Du Bellay said, for they spoke one way, and voted
+another.[259]
+
+[Sidenote: Du Bellay says that the pope was "coacted" by the Spanish
+party against his judgment.]
+
+Thus all was over. In a scene of general helplessness the long drama
+closed, and, what we call accident, for want of some better word, cut
+the knot at last over which human incapacity had so vainly laboured. The
+Bishop of Paris retired from Rome in despair. On his way back, he met
+the English commissioners at Bologna, and told them that their errand
+was hopeless, and that they need not proceed. "When we asked him," wrote
+Sir Edward Karne to the king, "the cause of such hasty process, he made
+answer that the imperialists at Rome had strengthened themselves in such
+a manner, that they coacted the said Bishop of Rome to give sentence
+contrary to his own mind, and the expectation of himself and of the
+French king. He showed us also that the Lady Princess Dowager sent
+lately, in the month of March past, letters to the Bishop of Rome, and
+also to her proctors, whereby the Bishop of Rome was much moved for her
+part. The imperials, before the sentence was given, promised, in the
+emperor's behalf, that he would be the executor of the sentence."[260]
+
+This is all which we are able to say of the immediate catastrophe which
+decided the fate of England, and through England, of the world. The deep
+impenetrable falsehood of the Roman ecclesiastics prevents us from
+discovering with what intentions the game of the last few weeks or
+months had been played; it is sufficient for Englishmen to remember,
+that, whatever may have been the explanation of his conduct, the pope,
+in the concluding passage of his connexion with this country, furnished
+the most signal justification which was ever given for the revolt from
+an abused authority. The supreme judge in Christendom had for six years
+trifled with justice, out of fear of an earthly prince; he concluded
+these years with uniting the extreme of folly with the extreme of
+improbity, and pronounced a sentence, willingly or unwillingly, which he
+had acknowledged to be unjust.
+
+[Sidenote: Papal diplomacy.]
+
+Charity may possibly acquit Clement of conscious duplicity. He was one
+of those men who waited upon fortune, and waited always without success;
+who gave his word as the interest of the moment suggested, trusting that
+it might be convenient to observe it; and who was too long accustomed to
+break his promises to look with any particular alarm on that
+contingency. It is possible, also,--for of this Clement was
+capable,--that he knew from the beginning the conclusion to which he
+would at last be driven; that he had engaged himself with Charles to
+decide in Catherine's favour as distinctly as he had engaged himself
+with Francis to decide against her; and that all his tortuous scheming
+was intended either to weary out the patience of the King of England, or
+to entangle him in acknowledgments from which he would not be able to
+extricate himself.
+
+[Sidenote: Clement had formed a mistaken notion of the English temper,]
+
+[Sidenote: But his true intentions are inscrutable.]
+
+He was mistaken, certainly, in the temper of the English nation; he
+believed what the friars told him; and trusting to the promises of
+disaffection, insurrection, invasion--those _ignes fatui_ which for
+sixty years floated so delusively before the Italian imagination, he
+imagined, perhaps, that he might trifle with Henry with impunity. This
+only is impossible, that, if he had seriously intended to fulfil the
+promises which he had made to the French king, the accidental delay of a
+courier could have made so large a difference in his determination. It
+is not possible that, if he had assured himself, as he pretended, that
+justice was on the side against which he had declared, he would not have
+availed himself of any pretext to retreat from a position which ought to
+have been intolerable to him.
+
+[Sidenote: Francis warns Henry to prepare for danger.]
+
+[Sidenote: Preparation in Flanders for an invasion of England.]
+
+The question, however, had ended, "as all things in this world do have
+their end." The news of the sentence arrived in England at the beginning
+of April, with an intimation of the engagements which had been entered
+upon by the imperial ambassador for an invasion. Du Bellay returned to
+Paris at the same time, to report the failure of his undertaking; and
+Francis, disappointed, angry, and alarmed, sent the Duke of Guise to
+London with promises of support if an attempt to invade was really made,
+and with a warning at the same time to Henry to prepare for danger.
+Troops were gathering in Flanders; detachments were on their way out of
+Italy, Germany, and Bohemia, to be followed by three thousand Spaniards,
+and perhaps many more; and the object avowed for these preparations was
+wholly incommensurate with their magnitude.[261] For his own sake,
+Francis could not permit a successful invasion of England, unless,
+indeed, he himself was to take part in it; and therefore, with entire
+sincerity, he offered his services. The cordial understanding for which
+Henry had hoped was at an end; but the political confederacy remained,
+which the interests of the two countries combined for the present to
+preserve unbroken.
+
+[Sidenote: Proposal for a new meeting between Francis and Henry.]
+
+[Sidenote: Which Henry is afraid to accept, lest there should be a
+rising in his absence.]
+
+[Sidenote: The French fleet guard the Channel.]
+
+Guise proposed another interview at Calais between the sovereigns. The
+king for the moment was afraid to leave England,[262] lest the
+opportunity should be made use of for an insurrection; but prudence
+taught him, though disappointed in Francis, to make the best of a
+connexion too convenient to be sacrificed. The German league was left in
+abeyance till the immediate danger was passed, and till the effect of
+the shock in England itself had been first experienced. He gladly
+accepted, in lieu of it, an offer that the French fleet should guard the
+Channel through the summer; and meanwhile, he collected himself
+resolutely to abide the issue, whatever the issue was to be.
+
+[Sidenote: Effect of the sentence upon Henry.]
+
+[Sidenote: April 7. Convocation declares the pope's authority
+abolished.]
+
+[Sidenote: The garrisons are strengthened along the coasts.]
+
+The Tudor spirit was at length awake in the English sovereign. He had
+exhausted the resources of patience; he had stooped even to indignity to
+avoid the conclusion which had come at last. There was nothing left but
+to meet defiance by defiance, and accept the position to which the pope
+had driven him. In quiet times occasionally wayward and capricious,
+Henry, like Elizabeth after him, reserved his noblest nature for the
+moments of danger, and was ever greatest when peril was most immediate.
+Woe to those who crossed him now, for the time was grown stern, and to
+trifle further was to be lost. The suspended act of parliament was made
+law on the day (it would seem) of the arrival of the sentence.
+Convocation, which was still sitting, hurried through a declaration that
+the pope had no more power in England than any other bishop.[263] Five
+years before, if a heretic had ventured so desperate an opinion, the
+clergy would have shut their ears and run upon him: now they only
+contended with each other in precipitate obsequiousness. The houses of
+the Observants at Canterbury and Greenwich, which had been implicated
+with the Nun of Kent, were suppressed, and the brethren were scattered
+among monasteries where they could be under surveillance. The Nun and
+her friends were sent to execution.[264] The ordnance stores were
+examined, the repairs of the navy were hastened, and the garrisons were
+strengthened along the coast. Everywhere the realm armed itself for the
+struggle, looking well to the joints of its harness and to the temper of
+its weapons.
+
+[Sidenote: The commission sits to receive the oaths of allegiance.]
+
+The commission appointed under the Statute of Succession opened its
+sittings to receive the oaths of allegiance. Now, more than ever, was it
+necessary to try men's dispositions, when the pope had challenged their
+obedience. In words all went well: the peers swore; bishops, abbots,
+priors, heads of colleges, swore[265] with scarcely an exception,--the
+nation seemed to unite in an unanimous declaration of freedom. In one
+quarter only, and that a very painful one, was there refusal. It was
+found solely among the persons who had been implicated in the late
+conspiracy. Neither Sir Thomas More nor the Bishop of Rochester could
+expect that their recent conduct would exempt them from an obligation
+which the people generally accepted with good will. They had connected
+themselves, perhaps unintentionally, with a body of confessed traitors.
+An opportunity was offered them of giving evidence of their loyalty, and
+escaping from the shadow of distrust. More had been treated leniently;
+Fisher had been treated far more than leniently. It was both fair and
+natural that they should be called upon to give proof that their lesson
+had not been learnt in vain; and, in fact, no other persons, if they had
+been passed over, could have been called upon to swear, for no other
+persons had laid themselves open to so just suspicion.
+
+[Sidenote: Sir Thomas More is required to swear.]
+
+Their conduct so exactly tallied, that they must have agreed beforehand
+on the course which they would adopt; and in following the details, we
+need concern ourselves only with the nobler figure.
+
+[Sidenote: He confesses at Chelsea church,]
+
+[Sidenote: April 25. And goes by boat to Lambeth.]
+
+[Sidenote: The oath is read to him, and he refuses it.]
+
+[Sidenote: He is desired to retire and reconsider his answer. Fisher
+follows his example, and refuses also. More again refuses.]
+
+The commissioners sate at the archbishop's palace at Lambeth; and at the
+end of April, Sir Thomas More received a summons to appear before
+them.[266] He was at his house at Chelsea, where for the last two years
+he had lived in deep retirement, making ready for evil times. Those
+times at length were come. On the morning on which he was to present
+himself, he confessed and received the sacrament in Chelsea church; and
+"whereas," says his great-grandson, "at other times, before he parted
+from his wife and children, they used to bring him to his boat, and he
+there kissing them bade them farewell, at this time he suffered none of
+them to follow him forth of his gate, but pulled the wicket after him,
+and with a heavy heart he took boat with his son Roper."[267] He was
+leaving his home for the last time, and he knew it. He sat silent for
+some minutes, then, with a sudden start, said, "I thank our Lord, the
+field is won." Lambeth Palace was crowded with people who had come on
+the same errand with himself. More was called in early, and found
+Cromwell present with the four commissioners, and also the Abbot of
+Westminster. The oath was read to him. It implied that he should keep
+the statute of succession in all its parts, and he desired to see the
+statute itself. He read it through, and at once replied that others
+might do as they pleased; he would blame no one for taking the oath; but
+for himself it was impossible. He would swear willingly to the part of
+it which secured the succession to the children of Queen Anne.[268] That
+was a matter on which parliament was competent to decide, and he had no
+right to make objections. If he might be allowed to take an oath to this
+portion of the statute in language of his own, he would do it; but as
+the words stood, he would "peril his soul" by using them. The Lord
+Chancellor desired him to reconsider his answer. He retired to the
+garden, and in his absence others were called in; them the Bishop of
+Rochester, who refused in the same terms. More was then recalled. He was
+asked if he persisted in his resolution; and when he replied that he
+did, he was requested to state his reasons. He said that he was afraid
+of increasing the king's displeasure, but if he could be assured that
+he might explain himself safely, he was ready to do so. If his objection
+could then be answered to his satisfaction, he would swear; in the
+meantime, he repeated, very explicitly, that he judged no one--he spoke
+only for himself.
+
+[Sidenote: Cranmer tries to contrive an escape for him,]
+
+An opening seemed to be offered in these expressions which was caught at
+by Cranmer's kindhearted casuistry. If Sir Thomas More could not condemn
+others for taking the oath, the archbishop said, Sir Thomas More could
+not be sure that it was sin to take it; while his duty to his king and
+to the parliament was open and unquestioned.
+
+[Sidenote: But in vain.]
+
+More hesitated for an instant, but he speedily recovered his firmness.
+He had considered what he ought to do, he said; his conscience was clear
+about it, and he could say no more than he had said already. They
+continued to argue with him, but without effect; he had made up his
+mind; the victory, as he said, had been won.
+
+Cromwell was deeply affected. In his passionate regret, he exclaimed,
+that he had rather his only son had lost his head than that More should
+have refused the oath. No one knew better than Cromwell that
+intercession would be of no further use; that he could not himself
+advise the king to give way. The parliament, after grave consideration,
+had passed a law which they held necessary to secure the peace of the
+country; and two persons of high rank refused obedience to it, whose
+example would tell in every English household. Either, therefore, the
+act was not worth the parchment on which it was written, or the
+penalties of it must be enforced: no middle way, no compromise, no
+acquiescent reservations, could in such a case be admitted. The law must
+have its way.
+
+[Sidenote: More, with Fisher, is committed to the keeping of the Abbot
+of Westminster.]
+
+[Sidenote: Debate in the Council]
+
+[Sidenote: Cranmer urges that they may take the oath in a modified
+form.]
+
+The recusants were committed for four days to the keeping of the Abbot
+of Westminster; and the council met to determine on the course to be
+pursued. Their offence, by the act, was misprision of treason. On the
+other hand, they had both offered to acknowledge the Princess Elizabeth
+as the lawful heir to the throne; and the question was raised whether
+this offer should be accepted. It was equivalent to a demand that the
+form should be altered, not for them only, but for every man. If persons
+of their rank and notoriety were permitted to swear with a
+qualification, the same privilege must be conceded to all. But there was
+so much anxiety to avoid extremities, and so warm a regard was
+personally felt for Sir Thomas More, that this objection was not allowed
+to be fatal. It was thought that possibly an exception might be made,
+yet kept a secret from the world; and the fact that they had sworn under
+any form might go far to silence objectors and reconcile the better
+class of the disaffected.[269] This view was particularly urged by
+Cranmer, always gentle, hoping, and illogical.[270] But, in fact,
+secresy was impossible. If More's discretion could have been relied
+upon, Fisher's babbling tongue would have trumpeted his victory to all
+the winds. Nor would the government consent to pass censure on its own
+conduct by evading the question whether the act was or was not _just_.
+If it was not just, it ought not to be maintained at all, if it was
+just, there must be no respect of persons.
+
+[Sidenote: The government cannot yield.]
+
+The clauses to which the bishop and the ex-chancellor declined to bind
+themselves were those which declared illegal the marriage of the king
+with Catherine, and the marriage legal between the king and Queen Anne.
+To refuse these was to declare Mary legitimate, to declare Elizabeth
+illegitimate, and would do more to strengthen Mary's claims than could
+be undone by a thousand oaths. However large might be More's estimate of
+the power of parliament, he could have given no clear answer--and far
+less could Fisher have given a clear answer--if they had been required
+to say the part which they would take, should the emperor invade the
+kingdom under the pope's sanction. The emperor would come to execute a
+sentence which in their consciences they believed to be just; how could
+they retain their allegiance to Henry, when their convictions must be
+with the invading army?
+
+[Sidenote: Cromwell explains to Cranmer that concession is impossible.]
+
+What ought to have been done let those say who disapprove of what was
+actually done. The high character of the prisoners, while it increased
+the desire, increased the difficulty of sparing them; and to have given
+way would have been a confession of a doubtful cause, which at such a
+time would not have been dangerous, but would have been fatal. Anne
+Boleyn is said to have urged the king to remain peremptory;[271] but the
+following letter of Cromwell's explains the ultimate resolution of the
+council in a very reasonable manner. It was written to Cranmer, in reply
+to his arguments for concession.
+
+[Sidenote: And begs that he will not urge it further.]
+
+"My Lord, after mine humble commendation, it may please your Grace to be
+advertised that I have received your letter, and showed the same to the
+King's Highness; who, perceiving that your mind and opinion is, that it
+were good that the Bishop of Rochester and Master More should be sworn
+to the act of the king's succession, and not to the preamble of the
+same, thinketh that if their oaths should be taken, it were an occasion
+to all men to refuse the whole, or at least the like. For, in case they
+be sworn to the succession, and not to the preamble, it is to be thought
+that it might be taken not only as a confirmation of the Bishop of
+Rome's authority, but also as a reprobation of the king's second
+marriage. Wherefore, to the intent that no such things should be brought
+into the heads of the people, by the example of the said Bishop of
+Rochester and Master More, the King's Highness in no wise willeth but
+that they shall be sworn as well to the preamble as to the act.
+Wherefore his Grace specially trusteth that ye will in no wise attempt
+to move him to the contrary; for as his Grace supposeth, that manner of
+swearing, if it shall be suffered, may be an utter destruction to his
+whole cause, and also to the effect of the law made for the same."[272]
+
+[Sidenote: They are examined a last time, and again refusing, are sent
+to the Tower.]
+
+Thus, therefore, with much regret the council decided--and, in fact, why
+should they have decided otherwise? They were satisfied that they were
+right in requiring the oath; and their duty to the English nation
+obliged them to persevere. They must go their way; and those who thought
+them wrong must go theirs; and the great God would judge between them.
+It was a hard thing to suffer for an opinion; but there are times when
+opinions are as dangerous as acts; and liberty of conscience was a plea
+which could be urged with a bad grace for men who, while in power, had
+fed the stake with heretics. They were summoned for a last time, to
+return the same answer as they had returned before; and nothing remained
+but to pronounce against them the penalties of the statute, imprisonment
+at the king's pleasure, and forfeiture. The latter part of the sentence
+was not enforced. More's family were left in the enjoyment of his
+property. Fisher's bishoprick was not taken from him. They were sent to
+the Tower, where for the present we leave them.
+
+[Sidenote: Directions to the clergy to explain in their churches the
+changes which had taken place.]
+
+[Sidenote: Noblemen and gentlemen to teach their servants.]
+
+Meanwhile, in accordance with the resolution taken in council on the 2d
+of December,[273] but which seems to have been suspended till the issue
+of the trial at Rome was decided, the bishops, who had been examined
+severally on the nature of the papal authority, and whose answers had
+been embodied in the last act of parliament, were now required to
+instruct the clergy throughout their dioceses--and the clergy in turn to
+instruct the people--in the nature of the changes which had taken place.
+A bishop was to preach each Sunday at Paul's Cross, on the pope's
+usurpation. Every secular priest was directed to preach on the same
+subject week after week, in his parish church. Abbots and priors were to
+teach their convents; noblemen and gentlemen their families and
+servants; mayors and aldermen the boroughs. In town and in all houses,
+at all dinner-tables, the conduct of the pope and the causes of the
+separation from Rome were to be the one subject of conversation; that
+the whole nation might be informed accurately and faithfully of the
+grounds on which the government had acted. No wiser method could have
+been adopted. The imperial agents would be busy under the surface; and
+the mendicant friars, and all the missionaries of insurrection. The
+machinery of order was set in force to counteract the machinery of
+sedition.
+
+[Sidenote: Bishops sworn to the king as Head of the Church, and the
+pope's name blotted out of the Mass books.]
+
+Further, every bishop, in addition to the oath of allegiance, had sworn
+obedience to the king as Supreme Head of the Church;[274] and this was
+the title under which he was to be spoken of in all churches of the
+realm. A royal order had been issued, "that all manner of prayers,
+rubrics, canons of Mass books, and all other books in the churches
+wherein the Bishop of Rome was named, or his presumptuous and proud pomp
+and authority preferred, should utterly be abolished, eradicated, and
+rased out, and his name and memory should be never more, except to his
+contumely and reproach, remembered; but perpetually be suppressed and
+obscured."[275]
+
+Nor were these mere idle sounds, like the bellow of unshotted cannon;
+but words with a sharp, prompt meaning, which the king intended to be
+obeyed. He had addressed his orders to the clergy, because the clergy
+were the officials who had possession of the pulpits from which the
+people were to be taught; but he knew their nature too well to trust
+them. They were too well schooled in the tricks of reservation; and, for
+the nonce, it was necessary to reverse the posture of the priest and of
+his flock, and to set the honest laymen to overlook their pastors.
+
+[Sidenote: June 9. Circular order addressed to the sheriffs to see that
+the clergy do their duty.]
+
+[Sidenote: If they hear of any slackness, they are to report to the
+Council,]
+
+With the instructions to the bishops circulars went round to the
+sheriffs of the counties, containing a full account of these
+instructions, and an appeal to their loyalty to see that the royal
+orders were obeyed. "We," the king wrote to them, "seeing, esteeming,
+and reputing you to be of such singular and vehement zeal and affection
+towards the glory of Almighty God, and of so faithful, loving, and
+obedient heart towards us, as you will accomplish, with all power,
+diligence, and labour, whatsoever shall be to the preferment and setting
+forth of God's word, have thought good, not only to signify unto you by
+these our letters, the particulars of the charge given by us to the
+bishops, but also to require and straitly charge you, upon pain of your
+allegiance, and as ye shall avoid our high indignation and displeasure,
+[that] at your uttermost peril, laying aside all vain affections,
+respects, and other carnal considerations, and setting only before your
+eyes the mirrour of the truth, the glory of God, the dignity of your
+Sovereign Lord and King, and the great concord and unity, and
+inestimable profit and utility, that shall by the due execution of the
+premises ensue to yourselves and to all other faithful and loving
+subjects, ye make or cause to be made diligent search and wait, whether
+the said bishops do truly and sincerely, without all manner of cloke,
+colour, or dissimulation, execute and accomplish our will and
+commandment, as is aforesaid. And in case ye shall hear that the said
+bishops, or any other ecclesiastical person, do omit and leave undone
+any part or parcel of the premises, or else in the execution and setting
+forth of the same, do coldly and feignedly use any manner of sinister
+addition, wrong interpretation, or painted colour, then we straitly
+charge and command you that you do make, undelayedly, and with all speed
+and diligence, declaration and advertisement to us and to our council of
+the said default.
+
+[Sidenote: And if they themselves fail in this duty, after the
+confidence which the king has placed in them,]
+
+[Sidenote: He will make them an example to all the world.]
+
+"And forasmuch as we upon the singular trust which we have in you, and
+for the special love which we suppose you bear towards us, and the weal
+and tranquillity of this our realm, have specially elected and chosen
+you among so many for this purpose, and have reputed you such men as
+unto whose wisdom and fidelity we might commit a matter of such great
+weight and importance: if ye should, contrary to our expectation and
+trust which we have in you, and against your duty and allegiance towards
+us, neglect, or omit to do with all your diligence, whatsoever shall be
+in your power for the due performance of our pleasure to you declared,
+or halt or stumble at any part or specialty of the same; Be ye assured
+that we, like a prince of justice, will so extremely punish you for the
+same, that all the world beside shall take by you example, and beware
+contrary to their allegiance to disobey the lawful commandment of their
+Sovereign Lord and Prince.
+
+"Given under our signet, at our Palace of Westminster, the 9th day of
+June, 1534."[276]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+So Henry spoke at last. There was no place any more for nice
+distinctions and care of tender consciences. The general, when the shot
+is flying, cannot qualify his orders with dainty periods. Swift command
+and swift obedience can alone be tolerated; and martial law for those
+who hesitate.
+
+[Sidenote: Death of Clement VII.]
+
+This chapter has brought many things to a close. Before ending it we
+will leap over three months, to the termination of the career of the
+pope who has been so far our companion. Not any more was the distracted
+Clement to twist his handkerchief, or weep, or flatter or wildly wave
+his arms in angry impotence, he was to lie down in his long rest, and
+vex the world no more. He had lived to set England free--an exploit
+which, in the face of so persevering an anxiety to escape a separation,
+required a rare genius and a combination of singular qualities. He had
+finished his work, and now he was allowed to depart.
+
+[Sidenote: His character.]
+
+In him, infinite insincerity was accompanied with a grace of manner
+which regained confidence as rapidly as it was forfeited. Desiring
+sincerely, so far as he could be sincere in anything, to please every
+one by turns, and reckless of truth to a degree in which he was without
+a rival in the world, he sought only to escape his difficulties by
+inactivity, and he trusted to provide himself with a refuge against all
+contingencies by waiting upon time. Even when at length he was compelled
+to act, and to act in a distinct direction, his plausibility long
+enabled him to explain away his conduct; and, honest in the excess of
+his dishonesty, he wore his falsehood with so easy a grace that it
+assumed the character of truth. He was false, deceitful, treacherous;
+yet he had the virtue of not pretending to be virtuous. He was a real
+man, though but an indifferent one; and we can refuse to no one, however
+grave his faults, a certain ambiguous sympathy, when in his perplexities
+he shows us features so truly human in their weakness as those of
+Clement VII.
+
+
+NOTES:
+
+[147] Mary, widow of Louis of Hungary, sister of the emperor, and Regent
+of the Netherlands.
+
+[148] She was much affected when the first intimation of the marriage
+reached her. "I am informed of a secret friend of mine," wrote Sir John
+Hacket, "that when the queen here had read the letters which she
+received of late out of England, the tears came to her eyes with very
+sad countenance. But indeed this day when I spake to her she showed me
+not such countenance, but told me that she was not well pleased.
+
+"At her setting forward to ride at hunting, her Grace asked me if I had
+heard of late any tidings out of England. I told her Grace, as it is
+true, that I had none. She gave me a look as that she should marvel
+thereof, and said to me, 'Jay des nouvelles qui ne me semblent point
+trop bonnes,' and told me touching the King's Highness's marriage. To
+the which I answered her Grace and said, 'Madame, je ne me doute point
+syl est faict, et quand le veult prendre et entendre de bonne part et au
+sain chemyn, sans porter faveur parentelle que ung le trouvera tout
+lente et bien raysonnable par layde de Dieu et de bonne conscience.' Her
+Grace said to me again, 'Monsieur l'ambassadeur, c'est Dieu qui le scait
+que je vouldroye que le tout allysse bien, mais ne scaye comment
+l'empereur et le roy mon frere entendront l'affaire car il touche a eulx
+tant que a moy.' I answered and said, 'Madame, il me semble estre
+assuree que l'empereur et le roy vostre frere qui sont deux Prinssys
+tres prudens et sayges, quant ilz auront considere indifferentement tout
+l'affaire qu ilz ne le deveroyent prendre que de bonne part.' And
+hereunto her Grace made me answer, saying, 'Da quant de le prendre de
+bonne part ce la, ne sayge M. l'ambassadeur.'"--Hacket to the Duke of
+Norfolk: _State Papers_, Vol. VII. p. 452.
+
+[149] _State Papers_, Vol. VII. p. 457.
+
+[150] Sir Gregory Cassalis to the Duke of Norfolk. Ad pontificem
+accessi, et mei sermonis illa summa fuit, vellet id praestare ut
+serenissimum regem nostrum certiorem facere possemus, in sua causa nihil
+innovatum iri. Hic ille, sicut solet, respondit, nescire se quo pacto
+possit Caesarianis obsistere.--_State Papers_, Vol. VII. p. 461.
+
+[151] Bennet to Henry: _State Papers_, Vol. VII. p. 462.
+
+[152] Ibid.
+
+[153] Letter undated, but written about the middle of June: _State
+Papers_, Vol. VII. p. 474.
+
+[154] Of the Archbishop of York, not of Canterbury: which provokes a
+question. Conjectures are of little value in history, but inasmuch as
+there must have been some grave reason for the substitution, a
+suggestion of a possible reason may not be wholly out of place. The
+appeal in itself was strictly legal; and it was of the highest
+importance to avoid any illegality of form. Cranmer, by transgressing
+the inhibition which Clement had issued in the winter, might be
+construed by the papal party to have virtually incurred the censures
+threatened, and an escape might thus have been furnished from the
+difficulty in which the appeal placed them.
+
+[155] Publico ecclesiae judicio.
+
+[156] Rymer, Vol. VI. part 2, p. 188.
+
+[157] The French king did write unto Cardinal Tournon (not, however, of
+his own will, but under pressure from the Duke of Norfolk), very
+instantly, that he should desire the pope, in the said French king's
+name, that his Holyness would not innovate anything against your
+Highness any wise till the congress: adding, withal, that if his
+Holyness, notwithstanding his said desire, would proceed, he could not
+less do, considering the great and indissoluble amity betwixt your
+Highnesses, notorious to all the world, but take and recognise such
+proceeding for a fresh injury.--Bennet to Henry VIII.: _State Papers_,
+Vol. VII. p. 468.
+
+[158] _State Papers_, Vol. VII. p. 469.
+
+[159] Ibid.
+
+[160] Ibid. p. 470.
+
+[161] Ibid. p. 467, note, and p. 470.
+
+[162] Burnet, Vol. I. p. 221.
+
+[163] We only desire and pray you to endeavour yourselves in the
+execution of that your charge--casting utterly away and banishing from
+you such fear and timorousness, or rather despair, as by your said
+letters we perceive ye have conceived--reducing to your memories in the
+lieu and stead thereof, as a thing continually lying before your eyes
+and incessantly sounded in your ears, the justice of our cause, which
+cannot at length be shadowed, but shall shine and shew itself to the
+confusion of our adversaries. And we having, as is said, truth for us,
+with the help and assistance of God, author of the same, shall at all
+times be able to maintain you.--Henry VIII. to Bonner: _State Papers_,
+Vol. VII. p. 485.
+
+[164] Bonner to Cromwell. _State Papers_, Vol. VII. p. 481.
+
+[165] The proclamation ordering that Catherine should be called not
+queen, but Princess Dowager.
+
+[166] Catherine de Medici.
+
+[167] Henry VIII. to the Duke of Norfolk: _State Papers_, Vol. VII. p.
+493.
+
+[168] Sir John Hacket, writing from Ghent on the 6th of September,
+describes as the general impression that the Pope's "trust was to assure
+his alliance on both sides." "He trusts to bring about that his Majesty
+the French king and he shall become and remain in good, fast, and sure
+alliance together; and so ensuring that they three (the Pope, Francis,
+and Charles V.) shall be able to reform and set good order in the rest
+of Christendom. But whether his Unhappiness's--I mean his
+Holiness's--intention, is set for the welfare and utility of
+Christendom, or for his own insincerity and singular purpose, I remit
+that to God and to them that know more of the world than I do."--Hacket
+to Cromwell: _State Papers_, Vol. VII. p. 506.
+
+[169] John the Magnanimous, son of John the Steadfast, and nephew of the
+Elector Frederick, Luther's first protector.
+
+[170] _State Papers_, Vol. VII. pp. 499-501.
+
+[171] Princeps Elector ducit se imparem ut Regiae Celsitudinis vel
+aliorum regum oratores ea lege in aula sua degerent; vereturque ne ob id
+apud Caesaream majestatem unicum ejus Dominum et alios male audiret,
+possetque sinistre tale institutum interpretari.--Reply of the Elector:
+_State Papers_, Vol. VII. p. 503.
+
+[172] Vaughan to Cromwell: _State Papers_, Vol. VII. p. 509.
+
+[173] I consider the man, with other two--that is to say, the Landgrave
+von Hesse and the Duke of Lunenberg--to be the chief and principal
+defenders and maintainers of the Lutheran sect: who considering the same
+with no small difficulty to be defended, as well against the emperor and
+the bishops of Germany, his nigh and shrewd neighbours, as against the
+most opinion of all Christian men, feareth to raise any other new matter
+whereby they should take a larger and peradventure a better occasion to
+revenge the same. The King's Highness seeketh to have intelligence with
+them, as they conjecture to have them confederate with him; yea, and
+that against the emperor, if he would anything pretend against the
+king.--Here is the thing which I think feareth the duke.--Vaughan to
+Cromwell: _State Papers_, Vol VII. pp. 509, 510.
+
+[174] Hall, p. 805.
+
+[175] _State Papers_, Vol. VII. p. 512.
+
+[176] The Duke of Albany, during the minority of James V., had headed
+the party in Scotland most opposed to the English. He expelled the
+queen-mother, Margaret, sister of Henry; he seized the persons of the
+two young princes, whom he shut up in Stirling, where the younger
+brother died under suspicion of foul play (_Despatches of Giustiniani_,
+Vol. I. p. 157); and subsequently, in his genius for intrigue, he gained
+over the queen dowager herself in a manner which touched her
+honour.--Lord Thomas Dacre to Queen Margaret: Ellis, second series, Vol.
+I. p. 279.
+
+[177] Ex his tamen, qui haec a Pontifice, audierunt, intelligo regem
+vehementissime instare, ut vestrae majestatis expectationi satisfiat
+Pontifex.--Peter Vannes to Henry VIII.: _State Papers_, Vol. VII. p.
+518.
+
+[178] _State Papers_, Vol. VII. p. 520.
+
+[179] Hoc dico quod video inter regem et pontificem conjunctissime et
+amicissime hic agi.--Vannes to Cromwell: Ibid.
+
+[180] Vannes to Cromwell: _State Papers_, Vol. VII. pp. 522-3.
+
+[181] Burnet, _Collectanea_, p. 436.
+
+[182] Letter of the King of France: Legrand, Vol. III. Reply of Henry:
+Foxe, Vol. V. p. 110.
+
+[183] Commission of the Bishop of Paris: Legrand, Vol. III.; Burnet,
+Vol. III. p. 128; Foxe, Vol. V. p. 106-111. The commission of the Bishop
+of Bayonne is not explicit on the extent to which the pope had bound
+himself with respect to the sentence. Yet either in some other despatch,
+or verbally through the Bishop, Francis certainly informed Henry that
+the Pope had promised that sentence should be given in his favour. We
+shall find Henry assuming this in his reply; and the Archbishop of York
+declared to Catherine that the pope "said at Marseilles, that if his
+Grace would send a proxy thither he would give sentence for his Highness
+against her, because that he knew his cause to be good and
+just."--_State Papers_, Vol. I. p. 421.
+
+[184] MS. Bibl. Imper. Paris.--_The Pilgrim_, pp. 97, 98. Cf. Foxe, Vol.
+V. p. 110.
+
+[185] I hear of a number of Gelders which be lately reared; and the
+opinion of the people here is that they shall go into England. All men
+there speak evil of England, and threaten it in their foolish
+manner.--Vaughan to Cromwell: _State Papers_, Vol. VII. p. 511.
+
+[186] Rymer, Vol. VI. part 2, p. 189.
+
+[187] Parties were so divided in England that lookers-on who reported
+any one sentiment as general there, reported in fact by their own wishes
+and sympathies. D'Inteville, the French ambassador, a strong Catholic,
+declares the feeling to have been against the revolt. Chastillon, on the
+other hand, writing at the same time from the same place (for he had
+returned from France, and was present with d'Inteville at the last
+interview), says, "The King has made up his mind to a complete
+separation from Rome and the lords and the majority of the people go
+along with him."--Chastillon to the Bishop of Paris: _The Pilgrim_, p.
+99.
+
+[188] Strype, _Eccles. Memor._, Vol. I. p. 224.
+
+[189] Instructions to the Earls of Oxford, Essex, and Sussex, to
+remonstrate with the Lady Mary: _Rolls House MS._
+
+[190] Instructions to the Earls of Oxford, Essex, and Sussex, to
+remonstrate with the Lady Mary: _Rolls House MS._
+
+[191] On the 15th of November, Queen Catherine wrote to the Emperor and
+after congratulating him on his successes against the Turks, she
+continued,
+
+"And as our Lord in his mercy has worked so great a good for Christendom
+by your Highness's hands, so has he enlightened also his Holiness; and I
+and all this realm have now a sure hope that, with the grace of God, his
+Holiness will slay this second Turk, this affair between the King my
+Lord and me. Second Turk, I call it, from the misfortunes which, through
+his Holiness's long delay, have grown out of it, and are now so vast and
+of so ill example that I know not whether this or the Turk be the worst.
+Sorry am I to have been compelled to importune your Majesty so often in
+this matter, for sure I am you do not need my pressing. But I see delay
+to be so calamitous, my own life is so unquiet and so painful, and the
+opportunity to make an end now so convenient, that it seems as if God of
+his goodness had brought his Holiness and your Majesty together to bring
+about so great a good. I am forced to be importunate, and I implore your
+Highness for the passion of our Lord Jesus Christ, that in return for
+the signal benefits which God each day is heaping on you, you will
+accomplish for me this great blessing, and bring his Holiness to a
+decision. Let him remember what he promised you at Bologna. The truth
+here is known, and he will thus destroy the hopes of those who persuade
+the King my Lord that he will never pass judgment."--Queen Catherine to
+Charles V.: _MS. Simancas_, November 15, 1533.
+
+[192] Letter to the King, giving an account of certain Friars Observants
+who had been about the Princess Dowager: _Rolls House MS._
+
+[193] We remember the Northern prophecy, "In England shall be slain the
+decorate Rose in his mother's belly," which the monks of Furness
+interpreted as meaning that "the King's Grace should die by the hands of
+priests."--Vol. I. cap. 4.
+
+[194] Statutes of the Realm, 25 Henry VIII. cap. 12. State Papers
+relating to Elizabeth Barton: _Rolls House MS._ Prior of Christ Church,
+Canterbury, to Cromwell: _Suppression of the Monasteries_, p. 20.
+
+[195] Thus Cromwell writes to Fisher: "My Lord, [the outward evidences
+that she was speaking truth] moved you not to give credence to her, but
+only the very matter whereupon she made her false prophecies, to which
+matter ye were so affected--as ye be noted to be on all matters which ye
+once enter into--that nothing could come amiss that made for that
+purpose."--_Suppression of the Monasteries_, p. 30.
+
+[196] Papers relating to the Nun of Kent: _Rolls House MS._
+
+[197] Papers relating to the Nun of Kent: _Rolls House MS._
+
+[198] Papers relating to the Nun of Kent.
+
+[199] 25 Hen. VIII. cap. 12.
+
+[200] Papers relating to the Nun of Kent: _Rolls House MS._ 25 Hen.
+VIII. cap. 12. The "many" nobles are not more particularly designated in
+the official papers. It was not desirable to mention names when the
+offence was to be passed over.
+
+[201] Report of the Commissioners--Papers relating to the Nun of Kent:
+_Rolls House MS._
+
+[202] Goold, says the Act of the Nun's attainder, travelled to Bugden,
+"to animate the said Lady Princess to make commotion in the realm
+against our sovereign lord; surmitting that the said Nun should hear by
+revelation of God that the said Lady Catherine should prosper and do
+well, and that her issue, the Lady Mary, should prosper and reign in the
+realm."--25 Henry VIII. cap. 13.
+
+[203] Report of the Proceedings of the Nun of Kent: _Rolls House MS._
+
+[204] MS. Bibliot. Imper., Paris. The letter is undated, it was
+apparently written in the autumn of 1533.
+
+[205] Il a des nouvelles amours. In a paper at Simancas, containing
+Nuevas de Inglaterra, written about this time, is a similar account of
+the dislike of Anne and her family, as well as of the king's altered
+feelings towards her. Dicano anchora che la Anna e mal voluta degli Si
+di Inghilterra si per la sua superbia, si anche per l'insolentia e mali
+portamenti che fanno nel regno li fratelli e parenti di Anna; e che per
+questo il Re non la porta la affezione que soleva per che il Re
+festeggia una altra Donna della quale se mostra esser inamorato, e molti
+Si di Inghilterra lo ajutano nel seguir el preditto amor per deviar
+questo Re dalla pratica di Anna.
+
+[206] Hall.
+
+[207] "I, dame Elizabeth Barton," she said, "do confess that I, most
+miserable and wretched person, have been the original of all this
+mischief, and by my falsehood I have deceived all these persons (the
+monks who were her accomplices), and many more; whereby I have most
+grievously offended Almighty God, and my most noble sovereign the King's
+Grace. Wherefore I humbly, and with heart most sorrowful, desire you to
+pray to Almighty God for my miserable sins, and make supplication for me
+to my sovereign for his gracious mercy and pardon."--Confession of
+Elizabeth Barton: _Rolls House MS._
+
+[208] Papers relating to Elizabeth Barton: _Rolls House MS._
+
+[209] _State Papers_, Vol. I. p. 415.
+
+[210] A curious trait in Mary's character may be mentioned in connection
+with this transfer. She had a voracious appetite; and in Elizabeth's
+household expenses an extra charge was made necessary of 20_l._ a-year
+for the meat breakfasts and meat suppers "served into the Lady Mary's
+chamber."--Statement of the expenses of the Household of the Princess
+Elizabeth: _Rolls House MS._
+
+[211] He is called _frater consobrinus_. See Fuller's _Worthies_ Vol
+III. p. 128.
+
+[212] He was killed at the battle of Pavia.
+
+[213] Courtenay, Earl of Devonshire, married Catherine, daughter of
+Edward.
+
+[214] Believe me, my lord, there are some here, and those of the
+greatest in the land, who will be indignant if the Pope confirm the
+sentence against the late Queen.--D'Inteville to Montmorency: _The
+Pilgrim_, p. 97.
+
+[215] She once rode to Canterbury, disguised as a servant, with only a
+young girl for her companion.--Depositions of Sir Geoffrey Pole: _Rolls
+House MS._
+
+[216] Confession of Sir William Neville: _Rolls House MS._
+
+[217] Confession of Sir George Neville: Ibid.
+
+[218] Confession of the Oxford Wizard: Ibid.
+
+[219] Queen Anne Boleyn to Gardiner: Burnet's _Collectanea_, p. 355.
+Office for the Consecration of Cramp Rings: Ibid.
+
+[220] So at least the Oxford Wizard said that Sir William Neville had
+told him.--Confession of the Wizard: _Rolls House MS._ But the authority
+is not good.
+
+[221] Henry alone never listened seriously to the Nun of Kent.
+
+[222] John of Transylvania, the rival of Ferdinand. His designation by
+the title of king in an English state paper was a menace that, if driven
+to extremities, Henry would support him against the empire.
+
+[223] Acts of Council: _State Papers_, Vol. I. pp. 414, 415.
+
+[224] Henry VIII. to Sir John Wallop: _State Papers_, Vol. VII. p. 524.
+
+[225] Stephen Vaughan to Cromwell: _State Papers_, Vol. VII. p. 517.
+Vaughan describes Peto with Shakespearian raciness. "Peto is an ipocrite
+knave, as the most part of his brethren be; a wolf; a tiger clad in a
+sheep's skin. It is a perilous knave--a raiser of sedition--an evil
+reporter of the King's Highness--a prophecyer of mischief--a fellow I
+would wish to be in the king's hands, and to be shamefully punished.
+Would God I could get him by any policy--I will work what I can. Be sure
+he shall do nothing, nor pretend to do nothing, in these parts, that I
+will not find means to cause the King's Highness to know. I have laid a
+bait for him. He is not able to wear the clokys and cucullys that be
+sent him out of England, they be so many."
+
+[226] Hacket to Henry VIII.: _State Papers_, Vol. VII. p. 528.
+
+[227] Ibid. p. 530.
+
+[228] Hacket to Cromwell: _State Papers_, Vol. VII. p. 531.
+
+[229] So at least Henry supposed, if we may judge by the resolutions of
+the Council "for the fortification of all the frontiers of the realm, as
+well upon the coasts of the sea as the frontiers foreanenst Scotland."
+The fortresses and havens were to be "fortefyed and munited;" and money
+to be sent to York to be in readiness" if any business should
+happen."--Ibid. Vol. I. p. 411.
+
+[230] 25 Hen. VIII. cap. 19.
+
+[231] A design which unfortunately was not put in effect. In the hurry
+of the time it was allowed to drop.
+
+[232] 25 Henry VIII. cap. 14.
+
+[233] 23 Henry VIII. cap. 20.
+
+[234] At this very time Campeggio was Bishop of Salisbury, and Ghinucci,
+who had been acting for Henry at Rome, was Bishop of Worcester. The Act
+by which they were deprived speaks of these two appointments as
+_nominations_ by the king.--25 Henry VIII. cap. 27.
+
+[235] Wolsey held three bishoprics and one archbishopric, besides the
+abbey of St. Albans.
+
+[236] Thus when Wolsey was presented, in 1514, to the See of Lincoln,
+Leo X. writes to his beloved son Thomas Wolsey how that in his great
+care for the interests of the Church, "Nos hodie Ecclesiae Lincolniensi,
+te in episcopum et pastorem praeficere intendimus." He then informs the
+Chapter of Lincoln of the appointment; and the king, in granting the
+temporalities, continues the fiction without seeming to recognise
+it:--"Cum dominus summus Pontifex nuper vacante Ecclesia cathedrali
+personam fidelis clerici nostri Thomae Wolsey, in ipsius Ecclesiae
+episcopum praefecerit, nos," &c.--See the Acts in Rymer, Vol. VI. part I,
+pp. 55-57.
+
+[237] 25 Henry VIII. cap. 20. The preexisting unrealities with respect
+to the election of bishops explain the unreality of the new arrangement,
+and divest it of the character of wanton tyranny with which it appeared
+_prima facie_ to press upon the Chapters. The history of this statute is
+curious, and perhaps explains the intentions with which it was
+originally passed. It was repealed by the 2d of the 1st of Edward VI. on
+the ground that the liberty of election was merely nominal, and that the
+Chapters ought to be relieved of responsibility when they had no power
+of choice. Direct nomination by the crown was substituted for the _conge
+d'elire_, and remained the practice till the reaction under Mary, when
+the indefinite system was resumed which had existed before the
+Reformation. On the accession of Elizabeth, the statute of 25 Henry
+VIII. was again enacted. The more complicated process of Henry was
+preferred to the more simple one of Edward, and we are naturally led to
+ask the reason of so singular a preference. I cannot but think that it
+was this. The Council of Regency under Edward VI. treated the Church as
+an institution of the State, while Henry and Elizabeth endeavoured
+(under difficulties) to regard it under its more Catholic aspect of an
+organic body. So long as the Reformation was in progress, it was
+necessary to prevent the intrusion upon the bench of bishops of
+Romanizing tendencies, and the deans and chapters were therefore
+protected by a strong hand from their own possible mistakes. But the
+form of liberty was conceded to them, not, I hope, to place deliberately
+a body of clergymen in a degrading position, but in the belief that at
+no distant time the Church might be allowed without danger to resume
+some degree of self-government.
+
+[238] 25 Henry VIII. cap. 21.
+
+[239] I sent you no heavy words, but words of great comfort; willing
+your brother to shew you how benign and merciful the prince was; and
+that I thought it expedient for you to write unto his Highness, and to
+recognise your offence and to desire his pardon, which his Grace would
+not deny you now in your age and sickness.--Cromwell to Fisher:
+_Suppression of the Monasteries_, p. 27.
+
+[240] Sir Thomas More to Cromwell: Burnet's _Collectanea_, p. 350.
+
+[241] Sir Thomas More to Cromwell: Burnet's _Collectanea_, p. 350.
+
+[242] Ibid.
+
+[243] More to Cromwell: Strype's _Memorials_, Vol. I. Appendix, p. 195
+
+[244] More to the King: Ellis, first series, Vol. II. p. 47
+
+[245] Cromwell to Fisher: _Suppression of the Monasteries_, p. 27, et
+seq.
+
+[246] _Suppression of the Monasteries_, p. 27, et seq.
+
+[247] John Fisher to the Lords in Parliament: Ellis third series, Vol.
+II. p. 289.
+
+[248] _Lords' Journals_, p. 72.
+
+[249] 25 Hen. VIII. cap. 12.
+
+[250] In a tract written by a Dr. Moryson in defence of the government,
+three years later, I find evidence that a distinction was made among the
+prisoners, and that Dr. Bocking was executed with peculiar cruelty.
+"Solus in crucem actus est Bockingus," are Moryson's words, though I
+feel uncertain of the nature of the punishment which he meant to
+designate. "Crucifixion" was unknown to the English law: and an event so
+peculiar as the "crucifixion" of a monk would hardly have escaped the
+notice of the contemporary chroniclers. In a careful diary kept by a
+London merchant during these years, which is in MS. in the Library of
+Balliol College, Oxford, the whole party are said to have been
+hanged.--See, however, _Morysini Apomaxis_, printed by Berthelet, 1537.
+
+[251] Hall, p. 814.
+
+[252] Lord Herbert says he was pardoned; I do not find, however, on what
+authority: but he was certainly not imprisoned, nor was the sentence of
+forfeiture enforced against him.
+
+[253] This is the substance of the provisions, which are, of course,
+much abridged.
+
+[254] _Lords' Journals_, Vol. I. p. 82. An act was also passed in this
+session "against the usurped power of the Bishop of Rome." We trace it
+in its progress through the House of Lords. (_Lords' Journals_,
+Parliament of 1533-34.) It received the royal assent (ibid.), and is
+subsequently alluded to in the 10th of the 28th of Henry VIII., as well
+as in a Royal Proclamation dated June, 1534; and yet it is not on the
+Roll, nor do I anywhere find traces of it. It is not to be confounded
+with the act against payment of Peter's Pence, for in the _Lords'
+Journals_ the two acts are separately mentioned. It received the royal
+assent on the 30th of March, while that against Peter's Pence was
+suspended till the 7th of April. It contained, also, an indirect
+assertion that the king was Head of the English Church, according to the
+title which had been given him by Convocation. (King's Proclamation:
+Foxe, Vol. V. p. 69.) For some cause or other, the act at the last
+moment must have been withdrawn.
+
+[255] See Burnet, Vol. I. pp. 220, 221: Vol. III. p. 135; and Lord
+Herbert. Du Bellay's brother, the author of the memoirs, says that the
+king, at the bishop's entreaty, promised that if the pope would delay
+sentence, and send "judges to hear the matter, he would himself forbear
+to do what he proposed to do,"--that is, separate wholly from the See of
+Rome. If this is true, the sending "judges" must allude to the "sending
+them to Cambray," which had been proposed at Marseilles.
+
+[256] See the letter of the Bishop of Bayonne, dated March 23, in
+Legrand. A paraphrase is given by Burnet, Vol. III. p. 132.
+
+[257] Promisistis predecessori meo quod si sententiam contra regem
+Angliae tulisset, Caesar illum infra quatuor menses erat invasurus, et
+regno expulsurus.--_State Papers_, Vol. VII. p. 579.
+
+[258] Letter of Du Bellay in Legrand.
+
+[259] Ibid.
+
+[260] Sir Edward Karne and Dr. Revett to Henry VIII.: _State Papers_,
+Vol. VII. pp. 553, 554.
+
+[261] _State Papers_, Vol. VII. p. 560, et seq.
+
+[262] His Highness, considering the time and the malice of the emperour,
+cannot conveniently pass out of the realm--since he leaveth behind him
+another daughter and a mother, with their friends, maligning his
+enterprises in this behalf--who bearing no small grudge against his most
+entirely beloved Queen Anne, and his young daughter the princess, might
+perchance in his absence take occasion to excogitate and practise with
+their said friends matters of no small peril to his royal person, realm,
+and subjects.--_State Papers_, Vol. VII. p. 559.
+
+[263] Lord Herbert.
+
+[264] I mentioned their execution in connexion with their sentence; but
+it did not take place till the 20th of April, a month after their
+attainder: and delay of this kind was very unusual in cases of high
+treason. I have little doubt that their final sentence was in fact
+pronounced by the pope.
+
+[265] The oaths of a great many are in Rymer, Vol. VI. part 2, p. 195 et
+seq.
+
+[266] His great-grandson's history of him (_Life of Sir Thomas More_, by
+Cresacre More, written about 1620, published 1627, with a dedication to
+Henrietta Maria) is incorrect in so many instances that I follow it with
+hesitation; but the account of the present matter is derived from Mr.
+Roper, More's son-in-law, who accompanied him to Lambeth, and it is
+incidentally confirmed in various details by More himself.
+
+[267] More's _Life of More_, p. 232.
+
+[268] More held extreme republican opinions on the tenure of kings,
+holding that they might be deposed by act of parliament.
+
+[269] More's _Life of More_, p. 237.
+
+[270] Burnet, Vol. I. p. 255.
+
+[271] More's _Life of More_, p. 237.
+
+[272] Cromwell to the Archbishop of Canterbury: _Rolls House MS._
+
+[273] _State Papers_, Vol. I. p. 411, et seq.
+
+[274] Royal Proclamation, June, 1534.
+
+[275] Ibid.
+
+[276] Foxe, Vol. V. p. 70.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+THE IRISH REBELLION.
+
+
+[Sidenote: The vision of the Holy Brigitta.]
+
+"The Pander[277] sheweth, in the first chapter of his book, called
+_Salus Populi_, that the holy woman, Brigitta, used to inquire of her
+good angel many questions of secrets divine; and among all other she
+inquired, 'Of what Christian land was most souls damned?' The angel
+shewed her a land in the west part of the world. She inquired the cause
+why? The angel said, for there is most continual war, root of hate and
+envy, and of vices contrary to charity; and without charity the souls
+cannot be saved. And the angel did shew to her the lapse of the souls of
+Christian folk of that land, how they fell down into hell, as thick as
+any hail showers. And pity thereof moved the Pander to conceive his said
+book, as in the said chapter plainly doth appear; for after his opinion,
+this [Ireland] is the land that the angel understood; for there is no
+land in this world of so continual war within itself; ne of so great
+shedding of Christian blood; ne of so great robbing, spoiling, preying,
+and burning; ne of so great wrongful extortion continually, as Ireland.
+Wherefore it cannot be denied by very estimation of man but that the
+angel did understand the land of Ireland."[278]
+
+Nine hundred years had passed away since the vision of the Holy
+Brigitta, and four hundred since the custody of the unfortunate country
+had been undertaken by the most orderly nation in the world; yet, at the
+close of all those centuries, "it could not be denied by very estimation
+of man" that poor Irish souls were still descending, thick as hail
+showers, into the general abyss of worthlessness. The Pander's satire
+upon the English enterprise was a heavy one.
+
+[Sidenote: Rapid success of the first invasion of Ireland.]
+
+[Sidenote: The character of the country.]
+
+[Sidenote: The settlement of it under the Norman leaders.]
+
+When the wave of the Norman invasion first rolled across St. George's
+Channel, the success was as easy and appeared as complete as William's
+conquest of the Saxons. There was no unity of purpose among the Irish
+chieftains, no national spirit which could support a sustained
+resistance. The country was open and undefended,[279] and after a few
+feeble struggles the contest ceased. Ireland is a basin, the centre a
+fertile undulating plain, the edges a fringe of mountains that form an
+almost unbroken coast line. Into these highlands the Irish tribes were
+driven, where they were allowed to retain a partial independence, under
+condition of paying tribute; the Norman immigrants dividing among
+themselves the inheritance of the dispossessed inhabitants.[280]
+Strongbow and his companions became the feudal sovereigns of the island,
+holding their estates under the English crown. The common law of England
+was introduced; the king's writ passed current from the Giant's Causeway
+to Cape Clear;[281] and if the leading Norman families had remained on
+the estates which they had conquered, or if those who did remain had
+retained the character which they brought with them, the entire country
+would, in all likelihood, have settled down obediently, and at length
+willingly, under a rule which it would have been without power to
+resist.
+
+[Sidenote: Two causes of the decline of their authority.]
+
+[Sidenote: Absenteeism.]
+
+An expectation so natural was defeated by two causes, alike unforeseen
+and perplexing. The Northern nations, when they overran the Roman
+Empire, were in search of homes; and they subdued only to colonize. The
+feudal system bound the noble to the lands which he possessed; and a
+theory of ownership of estates, as consisting merely in the receipt of
+rents from other occupants, was alike unheard of in fact, and repugnant
+to the principles of feudal society. To Ireland belongs, among its other
+misfortunes, the credit of having first given birth to absentees. The
+descendants of the first invaders preferred to regard their inheritance,
+not as a theatre of duty on which they were to reside, but as a
+possession which they might farm for their individual advantage. They
+managed their properties by agents, as sources of revenue, leasing them
+even among the Irish themselves; and the tenantry, deprived of the
+supporting presence of their lords, and governed only in a merely
+mercenary spirit, transferred back their allegiance to the exiled chiefs
+of the old race.[282] This was one grave cause of the English failure,
+but serious as it was, it would not have sufficed alone to explain the
+full extent of the evil. Some most powerful families rooted themselves
+in the soil, and never forsook it; the Geraldines, of Munster and
+Kildare; the Butlers, of Kilkenny; the De Burghs, the Birminghams, the
+De Courcies, and many others. If these had been united among themselves,
+or had retained their allegiance to England, their influence could not
+have been long opposed successfully. Their several principalities would
+have formed separate centres of civilization; and the strong system of
+order would have absorbed and superseded the most obstinate resistance
+which could have been offered by the scattered anarchy of the Celts.
+
+[Sidenote: The assimilation of the Norman Irish to the native Celts.]
+
+[Sidenote: Efforts of the government to repress the growing evil.]
+
+[Sidenote: Fresh colonists from England follow in the same course.]
+
+Unfortunately, the materials of good were converted into the worst
+instruments of evil. If an objection had been raised to the colonization
+of America, or to the conquest of India, on the ground that the
+character of Englishmen would be too weak to contend successfully
+against that of the races with whom they would be brought into contact,
+and that they would relapse into barbarism, such an alarm would have
+seemed too preposterous to be entertained; yet, prior to experience, it
+would have been equally reasonable to expect that the modern Englishman
+would adopt the habits of the Hindoo or the Mohican, as that the fiery
+knights of Normandy would have stooped to imitate a race whom they
+despised as slaves; that they would have flung away their very knightly
+names to assume a barbarous equivalent;[283] and would so utterly have
+cast aside the commanding features of their Northern extraction, that
+their children's children could be distinguished neither in soul nor
+body, neither in look, in dress, in language, nor in disposition, from
+the Celts whom they had subdued. Such, however, was the extraordinary
+fact. The Irish who had been conquered in the field revenged their
+defeat on the minds and hearts of their conquerors; and in yielding,
+yielded only to fling over their new masters the subtle spell of the
+Celtic disposition. In vain the government attempted to stem the evil.
+Statute was passed after statute forbidding the "Englishry" of Ireland
+to use the Irish language, or intermarry with Irish families, or copy
+Irish habits.[284] Penalties were multiplied on penalties; fines,
+forfeitures, and at last death itself, were threatened for such
+offences. But all in vain. The stealthy evil crept on irresistibly.[285]
+Fresh colonists were sent over to restore the system, but only for
+themselves or their children to be swept into the stream; and from the
+century which succeeded the Conquest till the reign of the eighth
+Henry, the strange phenomenon repeated itself, generation after
+generation, baffling the wisdom of statesmen, and paralysing every
+effort at a remedy.
+
+[Sidenote: Despair of English statesmen.]
+
+[Sidenote: The herbs did never grow which could cure the evils of
+Ireland.]
+
+[Sidenote: Causes of the corruption.]
+
+Here was a difficulty which no skill could contend against, and which
+was increased by the exertions which were made to oppose it. The healthy
+elements which were introduced to leaven the old became themselves
+infected, and swelled the mass of evil; and the clearest observers were
+those who were most disposed to despair. Popery has been the scapegoat
+which, for the last three centuries, has borne the reproach of Ireland;
+but before popery had ceased to be the faith of the world, the problem
+had long presented itself in all its hopelessness. "Some say" (this is
+the language of 1515), "and for the most part every man, that to find
+the antidotum for this disease is impossible--for what remedy can be had
+now more than hath been had unto this time? And there was never remedy
+found in this two hundred year that could prosper; and no medicine can
+be had now for this infirmity but such as hath been had afore this time.
+And folk were as wise that time as they be now; and since they could
+never find remedy, how should remedy be found by us? And the Pander
+maketh answer and saith, that it is no marvel that our fathers that were
+of more wit and wisdom than we, could not find remedy in the premises,
+_for the herbs did never grow_. And also he saith that the wealth and
+prosperity of every land is the commonwealth of the same, and not the
+private wealth; and all the English noble folk of this land passeth
+always their private weal; and in regard thereof setteth little or
+nought by the common weal; insomuch as there is no common folk in all
+this world so little set by, so greatly despised, so feeble, so poor,
+so greatly trodden under foot, as the king's poor common folk be of
+Ireland."[286] There was no true care for the common weal--that was the
+especial peculiarity by which the higher classes in Ireland were
+unfortunately distinguished. In England, the last consideration of a
+noble-minded man was his personal advantage; Ireland was a theatre for a
+universal scramble of selfishness, and the invaders caught the national
+contagion, and became, as the phrase went, _ipsis Hibernis Hiberniores_.
+
+[Sidenote: The outward circumstances of the chiefs.]
+
+[Sidenote: Inability of the English princes to maintain a standing
+army.]
+
+[Sidenote: Spasmodic character of their administration.]
+
+The explanation of this disastrous phenomenon lay partly in the
+circumstances in which they were placed, partly in the inherent
+tendencies of human nature itself. The Norman nobles entered Ireland as
+independent adventurers, who, each for himself, carved out his fortune
+with his sword; and, unsupported as they were from home, or supported
+only at precarious intervals, divided from one another by large tracts
+of country, and surrounded by Irish dependents, it was doubtless more
+convenient for them to govern by humouring the habits and traditions to
+which their vassals would most readily submit. The English government,
+occupied with Scotland and France, had no leisure to maintain a powerful
+central authority; and a central disciplinarian rule enforced by the
+sword was contrary to the genius of the age. Under the feudal system,
+the kings governed only by the consent and with the support of the
+nobility; and the maintenance at Dublin of a standing military force
+would have been regarded with extreme suspicion in England, as well as
+in Ireland. Hence the affairs of both countries were, for the most
+part, administered under the same forms, forms which were as ill suited
+to the waywardness of the Celt, as they met exactly the stronger nature
+of the Saxon. At intervals, when the government was exasperated by
+unusual outrages, some prince of the blood was sent across as viceroy;
+and half a century of acquiescence in disorder would be followed by a
+spasmodic severity, which irritated without subduing, and forfeited
+affection, while it failed to terrify. At all other times, Ireland was
+governed by the Norman Irish, and these, as the years went on, were
+tempted by their convenience to strengthen themselves by Irish
+alliances, to identify their interests with those of the native chiefs,
+in order to conciliate their support; to prefer the position of wild and
+independent sovereigns, resting on the attachment of a people whose
+affections they had gained by learning to resemble them, to that of
+military lords over a hostile population, the representatives of a
+distant authority, on which they could not rely.
+
+[Sidenote: Peculiar feature of the Irish temper.]
+
+[Sidenote: It possesses the counterfeit of every virtue.]
+
+[Sidenote: Their peculiar charm.]
+
+[Sidenote: The foster-nurses and the minstrels.]
+
+This is a partial account of the Irish difficulty. We must look deeper,
+however, for the full interpretation of it; and outward circumstances
+never alone suffice to explain a moral transformation. The Roman
+military colonists remained Roman alike on the Rhine and on the
+Euphrates. The Turkish conquerors caught no infection from Greece, or
+from the provinces on the Danube. The Celts in England were absorbed by
+the Saxon invaders; and the Mogul and the Anglo-Indian alike have shown
+no tendency to assimilate with the Hindoo. When a marked type of human
+character yields before another, the change is owing to some element of
+power in that other, which coming in contact with elements weaker than
+itself, subdues and absorbs them. The Irish spirit, which exercised so
+fatal a fascination, was enabled to triumph over the Norman in virtue of
+representing certain perennial tendencies of humanity, which are latent
+in all mankind, and which opportunity may at any moment develope. It was
+not a national spirit--the clans were never united, except by some
+common hatred; and the normal relation of the chiefs towards each other
+was a relation of chronic war and hostility. It was rather an impatience
+of control, a deliberate preference for disorder, a determination in
+each individual man to go his own way, whether it was a good way or a
+bad, and a reckless hatred of industry. The result was the inevitable
+one--oppression, misery, and wrong. But in detail faults and graces were
+so interwoven, that the offensiveness of the evil was disguised by the
+charm of the good; and even the Irish vices were the counterfeit of
+virtues, contrived so cunningly that it was hard to distinguish their
+true texture. The fidelity of the clansmen to their leaders was
+faultlessly beautiful; extravagance appeared like generosity, and
+improvidence like unselfishness; anarchy disguised itself under the name
+of liberty; and war and plunder were decorated by poetry as the
+honourable occupation of heroic natures. Such were the Irish with whom
+the Norman conquerors found themselves in contact; and over them all was
+thrown a peculiar imaginative grace, a careless atmosphere of humour,
+sometimes gay, sometimes melancholy, always attractive, which at once
+disarmed the hand which was raised to strike or punish them. These
+spirits were dangerous neighbours. Men who first entered the country at
+mature age might be fortified by experience against their influence, but
+on the young they must have exerted a charm of fatal potency. The
+foster-nurse first chanted the spell over the cradle in wild passionate
+melodies.[287] It was breathed in the ears of the growing boy by the
+minstrels who haunted the halls,[288] and the lawless attractions of
+disorder proved too strong for the manhood which was trained among so
+perilous associations.
+
+[Sidenote: A military despotism the only government which could have
+succeeded.]
+
+[Sidenote: The English statesmen see the necessity, but cannot act upon
+it.]
+
+[Sidenote: The island all but completely Irish in the 16th century.]
+
+For such a country, therefore, but one form of government could
+succeed--an efficient military despotism. The people could be
+wholesomely controlled only by an English deputy, sustained by an
+English army, and armed with arbitrary power, till the inveterate
+turbulence of their tempers had died away under repression, and they had
+learnt in their improved condition the value of order and rule. This was
+the opinion of all statesmen who possessed any real knowledge of
+Ireland, from Lord Talbot under Henry VI. to the latest viceroy who
+attempted a milder method and found it fail. "If the king were as wise
+as Solomon the Sage," said the report of 1515, "he shall never subdue
+the wild Irish to his obedience without dread of the sword and of the
+might and strength of his power. As long as they may resist and save
+their lives, they will not obey the king."[289] Unfortunately, although
+English statesmen were able to see the course which ought to be
+followed, it had been too inconvenient to pursue that course. They had
+put off the evil day, preferring to close their eyes against the
+mischief instead of grappling with it resolutely; and thus, at the
+opening of the sixteenth century, when the hitherto neglected barbarians
+were about to become a sword in the pope's hands to fight the battle
+against the Reformation, the "king's Irish enemies" had recovered all
+but absolute possession of the island, and nothing remained of
+Strongbow's conquests save the shadow of a titular sovereignty, and a
+country strengthened in hostility by the means which had been used to
+subdue it.
+
+[Sidenote: Division of the country.]
+
+[Sidenote: The English pale.]
+
+The events on which we are about to enter require for their
+understanding a sketch of the position of the various chiefs, as they
+were at this time scattered over the island. The English pale,
+originally comprising "the four shires," as they were called, of Dublin,
+Kildare, Meath, and Uriel, or Louth, had been shorn down to half its old
+dimensions. The line extended from Dundalk to Ardee; from Ardee by
+Castletown to Kells; thence through Athboy and Trim to the Castle of
+Maynooth; from Maynooth it crossed to Claine upon the Liffey, and then
+followed up the line of the river to Ballimore Eustace, from which place
+it skirted back at the rear of the Wicklow and Dublin mountains to the
+forts at Dalkey, seven miles south of Dublin.[290] This narrow strip
+alone, some fifty miles long and twenty broad, was in any sense English.
+Beyond the borders the common law of England was of no authority; the
+king's writ was but a strip of parchment; and the country was parcelled
+among a multitude of independent chiefs, who acknowledged no sovereignty
+but that of strength, who levied tribute on the inhabitants of the pale
+as a reward for a nominal protection of their rights, and as a
+compensation for abstaining from the plunder of their farms.[291] Their
+swords were their sceptres; their codes of right, the Brehon
+traditions,--a convenient system, which was called law, but which in
+practice was a happy contrivance for the composition of felonies.[292]
+
+[Sidenote: Ireland beyond the pale absolutely governed by the Irish
+chiefs. Their distribution.]
+
+These chiefs, with their dependent clans, were distributed over the four
+provinces in the following order. The Geraldines, the most powerful of
+the remaining Normans, were divided into two branches. The Geraldines of
+the south, under the Earls of Desmond, held Limerick, Cork, and Kerry;
+the Geraldines of Leinster lay along the frontiers of the English pale;
+and the heads of the house, the Earls of Kildare, were the feudal
+superiors of the greater portion of the English counties. To the
+Butlers, Earls of Ormond and Ossory, belonged Kilkenny, Carlow, and
+Tipperary. The De Burghs, or Bourkes, as they called themselves, were
+scattered over Galway, Roscommon, and the south of Sligo, occupying the
+broad plains which lie between the Shannon and the mountains of
+Connemara and Mayo. This was the relative position into which these
+clans had settled at the Conquest, and it had been maintained with
+little variation.
+
+[Sidenote: Recovery of the indigenous Irish.]
+
+The north, which had fallen to the Lacies and the De Courcies, had been
+wholly recovered by the Irish. The Lacies had become extinct. The De
+Courcies, once Earls of Ulster, had migrated to the south, and were
+reduced to the petty fief of Kinsale, which they held under the
+Desmonds. The Celtic chieftains had returned from the mountains to which
+they had been driven, bringing back with them, more intensely than ever,
+the Irish habits and traditions. Old men, who were alive in 1533,
+remembered a time when the Norman families attempted to live in
+something of an English manner,[293] and when there were towns in the
+middle of Ireland with decent municipal institutions. The wars of the
+Roses had destroyed the remnants of English influence by calling away a
+number of leading nobles, such especially as were least infected by the
+Irish character; and the native chiefs had reoccupied the lands of their
+ancestors, unresisted, if not welcomed as allies. The O'Neils and
+O'Donnells had spread down over Ulster to the frontiers of the pale. The
+O'Connors and O'Carrolls had recrossed the Shannon, and pushed forwards
+into Kildare; the O'Connor Don was established in a castle near
+Portarlington, said to be one of the strongest in Ireland; and the
+O'Carrolls had seized Leap, an ancient Danish fortress, surrounded by
+bog and forest, a few miles from Parsonstown. O'Brien of Inchiquin,
+Prince--as he styled himself--of Thomond, no longer contented with his
+principality of Clare, had thrown a bridge across the Shannon five miles
+above Limerick, and was thus enabled to enter Munster at his pleasure
+and spread his authority towards the south; while the M'Carties and
+O'Sullivans, in Cork and Kerry, were only not dangerous to the Earls of
+Desmond, because the Desmonds were more Irish than themselves, and were
+accepted as their natural chiefs.
+
+[Sidenote: The Earls of Ormond only continue to hold them in check.]
+
+[Sidenote: The desire of the Ormonds to maintain the English rule
+greater than their power.]
+
+In Tipperary and Kilkenny only the Celtic reaction was held in check.
+The Earls of Ormond, although they were obliged themselves to live as
+Irish chieftains, and to govern by the Irish law, yet partly from an
+inherent nobility of nature, partly through family alliances and a more
+sustained intercourse with their English kindred, partly perhaps from
+the inveterate feud of their house with the Geraldines of Kildare,
+remained true to their allegiance, and maintained the English authority
+so far as their power extended. That power, unfortunately, was
+incommensurate with their good will, and their situation prevented them
+from rendering the assistance to the crown which they desired. Wexford,
+Wicklow, and the mountains of Dublin, were occupied by the Highland
+tribes of O'Bryne and O'Toole, who, in their wild glens and dangerous
+gorges, defied attempts to conquer them, and who were able, at all
+times, issuing down out of the passes of the hills, to cut off
+communication with the pale. Thus the Butlers had no means of reaching
+Dublin except through the county of Kildare, the home of their
+hereditary rivals and foes.
+
+[Sidenote: Sixty chief lords in Ireland, who made war and peace for
+themselves, and obeyed only the sword.]
+
+[Sidenote: In each of these sixty districts divers petty captains, who
+claimed a like independence.]
+
+This is a general account of the situation of the various parties in
+Ireland at the beginning of the sixteenth century. I have spoken only of
+the leading families; and I have spoken of them as if they possessed
+some feudal supremacy,--yet even this slight thread of order was in many
+cases without real consistency, and was recognised only when fear, or
+passion, or interest, prompted. "There be sixty counties, called
+regions, in Ireland," says the report of 1515, "inhabited with the
+king's Irish enemies, some regions as big as a shire, some more, some
+less, where reigneth more than sixty chief captains, whereof some
+calleth themselves kings, some king's peers in their language, some
+princes, some dukes, that liveth only by the sword, and obeyeth to no
+other temporal person save only to himself that is strong. And every of
+the said captains maketh war and peace for himself, and holdeth by the
+sword, and hath imperial jurisdiction, and obeyeth no other person,
+English or Irish, except only to such persons as may subdue him by the
+sword.... Also, in every of the said regions, there be divers petty
+captains, and every of them maketh war and peace for himself, without
+licence of his chief captain.... And there be more than thirty of the
+English noble folk that followeth this same Irish order, and keepeth the
+same rule."[294] Every man, in short, who could raise himself to that
+dishonourable position, was captain of a troop of banditti, and counted
+it his chief honour to live upon the plunder of his neighbour.
+
+[Sidenote: Why anarchy did not work its own cure.]
+
+[Sidenote: Extreme misery of the people.]
+
+This condition of things might have been expected to work its own cure.
+The earth will not support human life uncultivated, and men will not
+labour without some reasonable hope that they will enjoy the fruit of
+their labour. Anarchy, therefore, is usually shortlived, and perishes of
+inanition. Unruly persons must either comply with the terms on which
+alone they are permitted to subsist, and consent to submit to some kind
+of order, or they must die. The Irish, however, were enabled to escape
+from this most wholesome provision by the recklessness of the people,
+who preferred any extremity of suffering to the endurance of the least
+restraint, and by the tyranny under which the labouring poor were
+oppressed. In England, the same hands were trained to hold the sword and
+to hold the plough. The labourers and the artisans in peace were the
+soldiers in war. In Ireland, labour was treated as disgraceful; the
+chiefs picked out the strongest and fiercest of their subjects, and
+trained them only to fight; the labourers were driven to the field as
+beasts of burden, and compelled to work on the chance that the harvest
+might be secured. By this precarious means, with the addition of the
+wild cattle which roamed in thousands among the woods and bogs,
+sufficient sustenance was extracted from the soil to support a scanty
+population, the majority of whom were supposed to be the most wretched
+specimens of human nature which could be found upon the globe. "What
+common folk in all this world," the report says, "is so poor, so feeble,
+so evil beseen in town and field, so bestial, so greatly oppressed and
+trodden under foot, fares so evil, with so great misery, and with so
+wretched life, as the common folk of Ireland? What pity is here, what
+ruth is to report, there is no tongue that can tell, ne person that can
+write. It passeth far the orators and muses all to shew the order of the
+nobles, and how cruel they entreateth the poor common people. What
+danger it is to the king against God to suffer his land, whereof he
+bears the charge and the cure temporal, to be in the said misorder so
+long without remedy. It were more honour to surrender his claim thereto,
+and to make no longer prosecution thereof, than to suffer his poor
+subjects always to be so oppressed, and all the nobles of the land to be
+at war within themselves, always shedding of Christian blood without
+remedy. The herd must render account for his fold; and the king for
+his."[295]
+
+[Sidenote: Irish and English estimate of the same phenomenon.]
+
+The English writer did not exaggerate the picture, for his description
+is too abundantly confirmed in every page of the Celtic Annalists, with
+only but a single difference. To the Englishman the perpetual
+disturbance appeared a dishonour and disgrace; to the Celt it was the
+normal and natural employment of human beings, in the pursuit of which
+lay the only glory and the only manly pleasure.
+
+A population of such a character presented in itself a difficulty
+sufficiently formidable; and this difficulty was increased by the
+character of the family on whom the circumstances of their position
+most obliged the English government to rely. There were two methods of
+maintaining the show of English sovereignty. Either an English deputy
+might reside in Dublin, supported by a standing army; or it was
+necessary to place confidence in one or other of the great Irish
+noblemen, and to govern through him. Either method had its
+disadvantages. The expense of the first was enormous, for the pay of the
+common soldier was sixpence or eightpence a-day--an equivalent of six or
+eight shillings; and as the arrival of an English deputy was the signal
+for a union throughout Ireland of all septs and clans against a common
+enemy, his presence was worse than useless, unless he could maintain a
+body of efficient troops numerous enough to cope with the coalition. At
+the same time the cost, great as it would have been, must have fallen
+wholly on the crown, for the parliaments would make no grants of money
+for the support of a mercenary army, except on extraordinary
+emergencies.
+
+On the other hand, to choose an Irish deputy was to acquiesce in
+disorder, and to lend a kind of official sanction to it. It was
+inexpensive, however, and therefore convenient; and evils which were not
+actually felt in perpetual demands for money, and in uncomfortable
+reports, could for a time be forgotten or ignored. In this direction lay
+all the temptations. The condition of the country was only made known to
+the English government through the deputy, who could represent it in
+such colours as he pleased; and the government could persuade themselves
+that evils no longer complained of had ceased to exist.
+
+[Sidenote: The government of Ireland conducted by Irish noblemen.]
+
+[Sidenote: Coyne and livery extorted by the deputies.]
+
+[Sidenote: The people unprotected even within the pale.]
+
+This latter method, therefore, found most favour in London. Irish
+noblemen were glad to accept the office of deputy, and to discharge it
+at a low salary or none; but it was in order to abuse their authority
+for their personal advantage. They indemnified themselves for their
+exertions to keep order, which was not kept, by the extortion which they
+practised in the name of the government which they represented; and thus
+deservedly made the English rule more than ever detested. Instead of
+receiving payment, they were allowed while deputies what was called
+"coyne and livery"; that is to say, they were allowed to levy military
+service, and to quarter their followers on the farmers and poor
+gentlemen of the pale; or else to raise fines in composition, under
+pretence that they were engaged in the service of the crown. The entire
+cost of this system was estimated at the enormous sum of a hundred
+pounds a day.[296] The exactions might have been tolerated if the people
+had been repaid by protection; but forced as they were to pay black
+mail at the same time to the Irish borderers, the double burdens had the
+effect of driving every energetic settler out of the pale, and his place
+was filled by some poor Irishman whom use had made acquainted with
+misery.[297]
+
+[Sidenote: The Geraldines of Kildare, from their position, the natural
+deputies.]
+
+[Sidenote: The policy of the Geraldines to make the government
+impossible except to themselves.]
+
+Nor was extortion the only advantage which the Irish deputies obtained
+from their office. They prosecuted their private feuds with the revenues
+of the state. They connived at the crimes of any chieftain who would
+join their faction. Every conceivable abuse in the administration of the
+government attended the possession of power by the Geraldines of
+Kildare, and yet by the Geraldines it was almost inevitable that the
+power should be held. The choice lay between the Kildares and the
+Ormonds. No other nobleman could pretend to compete with these two. The
+Earls of Desmond only could take rank as their equals; and the lordships
+of Desmond were at the opposite extremity of the island. The services of
+the Earls of Ormond were almost equally unavailable. When an Earl of
+Ormond was residing at Dublin as deputy, he was separated from his clan
+by fifty miles of dangerous road. The policy of the Geraldines was to
+secure the government for themselves by making it impossible for any
+other person to govern; and the appointment of their rival was a signal
+for the revolt of the entire clan, both in Leinster and Munster. The
+Butlers were too weak to resist this combination; and inasmuch as they
+were themselves always loyal when a Geraldine was in power, and the
+Geraldines were disloyal when a Butler was in power, the desire to hush
+up the difficulty, and to secure a show of quiet, led to the consistent
+preference of the more convenient chief.
+
+There were qualities also in the Kildare family which gave them peculiar
+influence, not in Ireland only, but at the English court. Living like
+wild Irish in their castle at Maynooth, they appeared in London with the
+address of polished courtiers. When the complaints against them became
+too serious to neglect, they were summoned to give account of their
+conduct. They had only to present themselves before the council, and it
+was at once impossible to believe that the frank, humorous, high-minded
+gentlemen at the bar could be the monsters who were charged with so
+fearful crimes. Their ever-ready wit and fluent words, their show of
+bluntness and pretence of simplicity, disarmed anger and dispersed
+calumny; and they returned on all such occasions to Ireland more trusted
+than ever, to laugh at the folly which they had duped.
+
+[Sidenote: The eighth Earl of Kildare in rebellion against Henry VII.]
+
+[Sidenote: He appears before the council,]
+
+[Sidenote: Who decide that since Ireland cannot govern him, he must
+govern Ireland.]
+
+The farce had already continued through two generations at the opening
+of the Reformation. Gerald, the eighth earl, was twice in rebellion
+against Henry VII. He crowned Lambert Simnel with his own hand; when
+Lambert Simnel fell, he took up Perkin Warbeck; and under pretence of
+supporting a competitor for the crown, carried fire and sword through
+Ireland. At length, when England was quiet, Sir Edward Poynings was sent
+to Dublin to put down this new King-maker. He took the earl prisoner,
+with some difficulty, and despatched him to London, where he appeared at
+the council-board, hot-handed from murder and treason. The king told him
+that heavy accusations would be laid to his charge, and that he had
+better choose some counsel to plead his cause. The earl looked at him
+with a smile of simplicity. "I will choose the ablest in England," he
+said; "your Highness I take for my counsel against these false
+knaves."[298] The accusations were proceeded with. Among other
+enormities, Kildare had burnt the cathedral at Cashel, and the
+archbishop was present as witness and prosecutor. The earl confessed his
+offence: "but by Jasus," he added, "I would not have done it if I had
+not been told that my lord archbishop was inside."[299] The insolent
+wit, and the danger of punishing so popular a nobleman, passed the reply
+as sufficient. The council laughed. "All Ireland cannot govern this
+earl," said one. "Then let this earl govern all Ireland," was the prompt
+answer of Henry VII.[300] He was sent over a convicted traitor,--he
+returned a knight of the Garter, lord deputy, and the representative of
+the crown. Rebellion was a successful policy, and a lesson which
+corresponded so closely to the Irish temper was not forgotten.
+
+[Sidenote: Rebellion prospers with the Geraldines]
+
+"What, thou fool," said Sir Gerald Shaneson to a younger son of this
+nobleman, thirty years later, when he found him slow to join the
+rebellion against Henry VIII. "What, thou fool, thou shalt be the more
+esteemed for it. For what hadst thou, if thy father had not done so?
+What was he until he crowned a king here, took Garth, the king's
+captain, prisoner, hanged his son, resisted Poynings and all deputies;
+killed them of Dublin upon Oxmantown Green; would suffer no man to rule
+here for the king but himself! Then the king regarded him, and made him
+deputy, and married thy mother to him;[301] or else thou shouldst never
+have had a foot of land, where now thou mayest dispend four hundred
+marks by the year."[302]
+
+These scornful words express too truly the position of the Earl of
+Kildare, which, however, he found it convenient to disguise under a
+decent exterior. The borders of the pale were partially extended; the
+O'Tooles were driven further into the Wicklow mountains, and an outlying
+castle was built to overawe them at Powerscourt. Some shadow of a
+revenue was occasionally raised; and by this show of service, and
+because change would involve the crown in expense, he was allowed to go
+his own way. He held his ground till the close of his life, and dying,
+he left behind him a son trained on his father's model, and who followed
+with the utmost faithfulness in his father's steps.
+
+[Sidenote: Gerald, ninth earl, becomes deputy, 1513.]
+
+[Sidenote: Is deposed in 1520, and the Earl of Surrey takes his place.]
+
+Gerald, son of Gerald, ninth earl, became deputy, almost it seemed by
+right of inheritance, in 1513; and things were allowed to continue in
+their old course for another five years; when at length Henry VIII.
+awoke to the disgrace which the condition of the country reflected upon
+him. The report of 1515 was the first step gained; the Earl of Ormond
+contributed to the effect produced by the report, with representations
+of the conduct of the deputy, who had been fortifying his own castle
+with government stores; and the result was a resolution to undertake
+measures of real vigour. In 1520, the Earl of Kildare was deprived of
+his office, and sent for to England. His place was taken by the Earl of
+Surrey, who of all living Englishmen combined in the highest degree the
+necessary qualities of soldier and statesman. It seemed as if the old
+weak forbearance was to last no longer, and as if Ireland was now
+finally to learn the needful lesson of obedience.
+
+[Sidenote: The report had said that the Irish could never be reformed
+except by force.]
+
+But the first efforts to cure an inveterate evil rarely succeed; and
+Henry VIII., like every other statesman who has undertaken to reform
+Ireland, was to purchase experience by failure. The report had declared
+emphatically that the Irish chiefs would never submit so long as they
+might resist, and escape with their lives; that conciliation would be
+only interpreted as weakness; and that the tyrannical lords and
+gentlemen must be coerced into equity by the sword freely used.
+
+[Sidenote: The king will not believe it.]
+
+The king, however, was young and sanguine; he was unable to accept so
+hard a conclusion; he could not believe that any body of human beings
+were so hopelessly inaccessible to the ordinary means of influence as
+the Irish gentlemen were represented to be. He would first try
+persuasion, and have recourse to extremity only if persuasion failed.
+
+[Sidenote: Lord Surrey is to lecture the chiefs on the principles of
+government.]
+
+His directions to the Earl of Surrey, therefore, were that at the
+earliest opportunity he should call an assembly of so many of the Irish
+chiefs as he could induce to come to him, and to discourse to them upon
+the elementary principles of social order and government.
+
+[Sidenote: He is to teach them that realms without justice be but
+tyrannies.]
+
+[Sidenote: He is not, however, to threaten,]
+
+[Sidenote: But he is to persuade,]
+
+[Sidenote: And they may obey their own laws if they prefer it, if those
+laws be good and reasonable, so only that they obey some law, and do not
+live at will.]
+
+"We think it expedient," he wrote, "that when ye shall call the lords
+and other captains of that our land before you, as of good congruence ye
+must needs do; ye, after and amongst other overtures by your wisdom then
+to be made, shall declare unto them the great decay, ruin, and
+desolation of that commodious and fertile land, for lack of politic
+governance and good justice; which can never be brought in order unless
+the unbridled sensualities of insolent folk be brought under the rule of
+the laws. For realms without justice be but tyrannies and robberies,
+more consonant to beastly appetites than to the laudable life of
+reasonable creatures. And whereas wilfulness doth reign by strength
+without law or justice, there is no distinction of propriety in
+dominion; ne yet any man may say this is mine, but by strength the
+weaker is subdued and oppressed, which is contrary to all laws, both of
+God and man.... Howbeit, our mind is, not that ye shall impress on them
+any opinion by fearful words, that we intend to expel them from their
+lands and dominions lawfully possessed; ne yet that we be minded to
+constrain them precisely to obey our laws, ministered by our justices
+there; but under good manner to show unto them that of necessity it is
+requisite that every reasonable creature be governed by a law. And
+therefore, if they shall allege that our laws there used be too extreme
+and rigorous; and that it should be very hard for them to observe the
+same; then ye may further ensearch of them under what manners, and by
+what laws, they will be ordered and governed, to the intent that if
+their laws be good and reasonable, they may be approved; and the rigour
+of our laws, if they shall think them too hard, be mitigated and brought
+to such moderation as they may conveniently live under the same. By
+which means ye shall finally induce them of necessity to conform their
+order of living to the observance of some reasonable law, and not to
+live at will as they have used heretofore."[303]
+
+[Sidenote: Surrey greeted with instant rebellion,]
+
+[Sidenote: instigated by Kildare.]
+
+[Sidenote: Advice of Surrey to do all or nothing.]
+
+So wrote Henry in 1520, being then twenty-eight years old, in his
+inexperience of human nature, and especially of the Irish form of it. No
+words could be truer, wiser, or more generous; but those only listen
+effectively to words of wisdom and generosity, who themselves possess
+something of the same qualities; and the Irish would not have required
+that such an address should be made to them if they had been capable of
+profiting by it. If Surrey was sanguine of any good result, he was soon
+undeceived. He had no sooner landed than the whole country was in arms
+against him,--O'Neile, O'Carroll, O'Connor, O'Brien, Desmond, broke into
+simultaneous rebellion, acting, as was proved by intercepted
+letters,[304] under instructions which Kildare had sent from England.
+Surrey saw at a glance the justice of the language of the report. He
+informed Wolsey briefly of the state of the country, and advised that
+unless the king was prepared for extreme measures, he should not waste
+money in partial efforts.[305] Writing subsequently to Henry himself, he
+said that the work to be done was a repetition of the conquest of Wales
+by Edward I, and it would prove at least, as tedious and as expensive.
+Nevertheless, if the king could make up his mind to desire it, there was
+no insuperable difficulty. He would undertake the work himself with six
+thousand men. The difficulty would be then, however, but half overcome,
+for the habits of the people were incurable. Strong castles must be
+built up and down the island, like those at Conway and Carnarvon; and a
+large immigration would be necessary of English colonists.[306] Either
+as much as this should be done, the earl thought, or nothing. Half
+measures only made bad into worse; and a policy of repression, if not
+consistently maintained, was unjust and pernicious. It encouraged the
+better affected of the inhabitants to show their good will to the
+government; and when the Irish were again in power, these persons were
+marked for vengeance.
+
+[Sidenote: The king persists in a middle way; and Surrey at length
+desires his recal.]
+
+Practical experience was thus laid against Henry's philosophy; and it
+would have been well if the king could have discerned clearly on which
+side the truth was likely to lie. For the misfortune of Ireland, this
+was not the case. It was inconvenient at the moment to undertake a
+costly conquest. Surrey was maintained with a short retinue, and from
+want of power could only enter upon a few partial expeditions. He
+inflicted a heavy defeat upon O'Neile; he stormed a castle of
+O'Connor's; and showed, with the small means at his disposal, what he
+might have done with far less support than he had required. He went
+where he pleased through the country. But his course was "as the way of
+a ship through the sea, or as the way of a bird through the air." The
+elements yielded without resistance, and closed in behind him; and,
+after eighteen months of manful exertion, feeling the uselessness of
+further enterprises conducted on so small a scale, to the sorrow and
+alarm of the Irish council, he desired and obtained his recal.[307]
+
+[Sidenote: Kildare finds favour.]
+
+[Sidenote: Kildare returns to Ireland. Lord Ormond deputy.]
+
+[Sidenote: The Geraldines rebel,]
+
+Meanwhile, in England, the Earl of Kildare had made good use of his
+opportunities. In spite of his detected letters, he had won his way into
+favour. He accompanied Henry to the Field of the Cloth of Gold, where he
+distinguished himself by his brilliant bearing; and instead of punishing
+him as a traitor, the king allowed him to marry Lady Elizabeth Grey,
+daughter of the Marquis of Dorset, and nearly related to the blood
+royal. He was permitted to return to Ireland; not, however, immediately
+as deputy. An intermediate effort was made to govern through Lord
+Ormond, whose intentions were excellent, but unfortunately the Irish
+refused to submit to him. The Earl of Desmond remained in rebellion, and
+invaded Kilkenny from the south; and two years followed of universal
+insurrection, pillage, and murder. Kildare accused Ormond to the English
+council as responsible;[308] Ormond retorted with similar charges
+against Kildare; and commissioners were sent over to "investigate," with
+instructions, if they saw reason, to replace Kildare in his old office.
+
+[Sidenote: And Kildare is restored.]
+
+[Sidenote: Desmond makes a league with Francis I.,]
+
+[Sidenote: Kildare secretly conniving at it, and preparing for a general
+insurrection.]
+
+[Sidenote: The state of Ireland becomes at last dangerous.]
+
+The permission was sufficient; in 1524 he was again deputy; and no
+deliberate purpose of misrule could have led to results more fatal. The
+earl, made bold by impunity, at once prepared for a revolt from the
+English crown. Hitherto he had been contented to make himself essential
+to the maintenance of the English sovereignty; he now launched out into
+bolder measures, and encouraged by Henry's weakness, resolved to dare
+the worst extremity. On the breaking out of the French war of 1523-24,
+his kinsman, the Earl of Desmond, opened a negotiation with Francis I.
+for the landing of a French army in Munster.[309] Kildare, while
+professing that he was endeavouring to take Desmond prisoner, was
+holding secret interviews with him to concert plans for a united
+move,[310] and was strengthening himself at the same time with alliances
+among the native chiefs. One of his daughters became the wife of the
+O'Connor; another married O'Carroll, of Leap Castle; and a third the
+Baron of Slane;[311] and to leave no doubt of his intentions, he
+transferred the cannon and military stores from Dublin Castle to his own
+fortress at Maynooth. Lord Ormond sent information to England of these
+proceedings, but he could gain no hearing. For three years the
+Geraldines were allowed to continue their preparations undisturbed; and
+perhaps they might have matured their plans at leisure, so odious had
+become the mention of Ireland to the English statesmen, had not the
+king's divorce, by embroiling him with the pope and emperor, made the
+danger serious.
+
+[Sidenote: Desmond applies to the emperor.]
+
+[Sidenote: Kildare again in London, and committed to the Tower.]
+
+[Sidenote: O'Connor invades the pale, and takes the vice-deputy
+prisoner.]
+
+The alliance of England and France had disconcerted the first scheme. No
+sooner was this new opportunity opened than, with Kildare's consent,
+Desmond applied to Charles V. with similar overtures.[312] This danger
+was too serious to be neglected; and in 1527, Kildare was a second time
+summoned to London. He went, so confident was he of the weakness of the
+government, and again he was found to have calculated justly. He was
+arraigned before the council, overwhelmed with invectives by
+Wolsey,[313] and sent to the Tower. But he escaped by his old art. No
+sooner was he committed, than Lady Elizabeth Fitzgerald, who had
+accompanied him to England, hurried back across the Channel to the
+castle of her brother-in-law, O'Connor.[314] The robber chief instantly
+rose and attacked the pale. The Marchers opened their lines to give his
+banditti free passage into the interior;[315] and he seized and carried
+off prisoner the Baron of Delvin, who had been made vice-deputy on
+Kildare's departure. Desmond meanwhile held Ormond in check at Kilkenny,
+and prevented him from sending assistance to Dublin; and the Irish
+council were at once prostrate and helpless.
+
+[Sidenote: The Duke of Richmond viceroy.]
+
+[Sidenote: Skeffington made deputy to govern with the help of Kildare.]
+
+Henry VIII., on receipt of this intelligence, instead of sending Kildare
+to the block and equipping an army, condescended to write a letter of
+remonstrance to O'Connor. "A letter from the king!" said the insolent
+chieftain when it was brought to him, "what king! If I may live one
+year, I trust to see Ireland in that case that there shall be no more
+mention here of the King of England than of the King of Spain,"[316]
+Still, however, it was thought inconvenient to venture extremities.
+Henry allowed himself to make use of Kildare's assistance to soothe the
+immediate storm.[317] An old desire of the Irish had been that some
+prince of the blood should govern them;[318] he nominated therefore, his
+natural son, the Duke of Richmond as viceroy; and having no adequate
+force in Ireland to resist an insurrection, and no immediate means of
+despatching any such force, he was once more obliged to pardon and
+restore the traitorous Geraldine; appointing, at the same time, Sir
+William Skeffington, a moderately able man, though too old for duty, as
+the Duke of Richmond's deputy, and directing him to govern with the
+advice and cooeperation of the Earl of Kildare.
+
+[Sidenote: John Allen appointed Archbishop of Dublin.]
+
+To this disastrous weakness there was but one counterpoise--that the
+English party in the council of Ireland was strengthened by the
+appointment of John Allen to the archbishopric of Dublin and the office
+of chancellor. Allen was one of the many men of talent who owed their
+elevation to Wolsey. He was now sent over to keep watch on Kildare, and
+to supply the government with accurate information which might be relied
+upon as a ground for action. Till this time (and the fact is one which
+ought to be borne in mind), the government had been forced to depend for
+their knowledge of the state of the country either on the
+representations of the deputy, or the private accusations of his
+personal enemies; both of them exceedingly untrustworthy sources.
+Henceforward there runs a clear stream of light through the fog and
+night of confusion, furnished either by the archbishop or by Allen,
+Master of the Rolls, who was most likely his kinsman.
+
+[Sidenote: Kildare a third time deputy.]
+
+[Sidenote: Saturnalia of madness.]
+
+[Sidenote: Despatch of the two Allens.]
+
+[Sidenote: Till great men suffered there would be no peace in Ireland.]
+
+The policy of conciliation, if conduct so feeble deserves to be called a
+policy at all, had now reached its limit; and it amounted to confessed
+imbecility. Twice deposed from power on clear evidence of high treason,
+Lord Kildare was once more restored. It cost him but a little time to
+deliver himself of the presence of Skeffington; and in 1532 he was again
+sole deputy. All which the Earl of Surrey had foretold came to pass.
+Archbishop Allen was deprived of the chancellorship, and the Archbishop
+of Armagh, a creature of the Geraldines, was substituted in his place.
+Those noblemen and gentlemen who had lent themselves to the interests of
+the English in the earl's absence were persecuted, imprisoned, or
+murdered. They had ventured to be loyal from a belief in the assurances
+which had been made to them; but the government was far off and Kildare
+was near; and such of them as he condescended to spare "were now driven
+in self-defence, maugre their wills, to follow with the rest."[319] The
+wind which filled the sails of the ship in which Kildare returned, blew
+into flames the fires of insurrection; and in a very Saturnalia of Irish
+madness the whole people, with no object that could be discovered but
+for very delight in disorder itself, began to tear themselves to pieces.
+Lord Thomas Butler was murdered by the Geraldines; Kildare himself was
+shot through the body in a skirmish; Powerscourt was burnt by the
+O'Tooles; and Dublin Castle was sacked in a sudden foray by O'Brien Oge.
+O'Neile was out in the north; Desmond in the south; and the English pale
+was overrun by brigands.[320] Ireland had found its way into its ideal
+condition--that condition towards which its instincts perpetually
+tended, and which at length it had undisputedly reached. The Allens
+furnished the king with a very plain report of the effect of his
+leniency. They dwelt boldly on the mistakes which had been made.
+Reechoing the words of the Report of 1515, they declared that the only
+hope for the country was to govern by English deputies; and that to
+grudge the cost seemed "consonant to the nature of him that rather than
+he will depart with fourpence he will jeopard to lose twenty
+shillings--which fourpence, disbursed in time, might have saved the
+other."[321] They spoke well of the common Irish. "If well governed,"
+they said, "the Irish would be found as civil, politic, and active, as
+any other nation. But what subjects under any prince in the world," they
+asked, "would love or defend the rights of that prince who,
+notwithstanding their true hearts and obedience, would afterwards put
+them under the governance of such as would persecute and destroy them?"
+Faith must be kept with those to whom promises had been made, and the
+habit of rewarding treason with concessions must be brought to an end.
+"Till great men suffer for their offences," they added, significantly,
+"your subjects within the English pale shall never live in quietness,
+nor stand sure of their goods and lives. Therefore, let your deputy have
+in commandment to do justice upon great thieves and malefactors, and to
+spare your pardons."[322]
+
+These were but words, and such words had been already spoken too often
+to deaf ears; but the circumstances of the time were each day growing
+more perilous, and necessity, the true mother of statesmanship, was
+doing its work at last.
+
+[Sidenote: Henry awakes at last.]
+
+The winter months passed away, bringing only an increase of
+wretchedness. At length opened the eventful year of 1534, and Henry
+learnt that excommunication was hanging over him--that a struggle for
+life or death had commenced--and that the imperial armies were preparing
+to strike in the quarrel. From that time onward the King of England
+became a new man. Hitherto he had hesitated, temporized, delayed--not
+with Ireland only, but with the manifold labours which were thrust upon
+him. At last he was awake. And, indeed, it was high time. With a
+religious war apparently on the eve of explosion, he could ill tolerate
+a hotbed of sedition at his door; and Irish sedition was about to
+receive into itself a new element, which was to make it trebly
+dangerous.
+
+[Sidenote: The religious element is introduced into Irish sedition.]
+
+Until that moment the disorders in Ireland had arisen out of a natural
+preference for anarchy. Every man's hand was against his neighbour, and
+the clans made war on each other only for revenge and plunder and the
+wild delight of the game. These private quarrels were now to be merged
+in a single cause--a cause which was to lend a fresh stimulus to their
+hatred of England, and was at once to create and consecrate a national
+Irish spirit.
+
+[Sidenote: The pope finds in the Irish a ready-made army.]
+
+The Irish were eminently Catholic; not in the high sense of the
+word,--for "the noble folk" could "oppress and spoil the prelates of the
+Church of Christ of their possessions and liberties" without particular
+scruple,[323]--but the country was covered with churches and monasteries
+in a proportion to the population far beyond what would have been found
+in any other country in Europe; and there are forms of superstition
+which can walk hand in hand with any depth of crime, when that
+superstition is provided with a talisman which will wash away the stains
+of guilt. The love of fighting was inherent, at the same time, in the
+Celtic nature. And such a people, when invited to indulge their humour
+in the cause or the church, were an army of insurrection ready made to
+the hands of the popes, the value of which their Holinesses were not
+slow to learn, as they have not been quick to forget.[324]
+
+Henry was aware of the correspondence of Desmond with the emperor. He,
+perhaps, also expected that the fiction might be retorted upon him (as
+it actually was) which had been invented to justify the first conquest
+of the island. If Ireland was a fief of the pope, the same power which
+had made a present of it to Henry II. might as justly take it away from
+Henry VIII.; and the peril of his position roused him at length to an
+effort. It was an effort still clogged by fatality, and less than the
+emergency required: but it was a beginning, and it was something.
+
+[Sidenote: February. Kildare a third time called to England.]
+
+[Sidenote: Kildare is sent to the Tower.]
+
+[Sidenote: Lord Thomas Fitzgerald vice-deputy.]
+
+In February, 1534, a month before Clement pronounced his sentence, the
+Earl of Kildare was required, for the third and last time, to appear and
+answer for his offences; and a third time he ventured to obey. But
+England had become a changed world in the four years which had passed
+since his last presence there, and the brazen face and fluent lips were
+to serve him no more. On his arrival in London he was sent to the Tower,
+and discovered that he had overstepped his limits at last.[325] He was
+now shrewd enough to see that, if a revolt was contemplated, no time was
+to be lost. He must play his last card, or his influence was gone for
+ever. Lord Thomas Fitzgerald, his eldest son, who in his boyhood had
+resided in England,[326] had been left as vice-deputy in his father's
+absence. The earl before his departure had taken precautions to place
+the fortresses of the pale, with the arms and ammunition belonging to
+the government, in the hands of dependents whom he could absolutely
+trust. No sooner was his arrest known than, in compliance with secret
+instructions which had been left with them, or were sent from England,
+his friends determined upon rebellion.[327]
+
+[Sidenote: June. The emperor sends an agent to the Earl of Desmond.]
+
+The opportunity was well chosen. The government of Ireland was in
+disorder. Skeffington was designed for Kildare's successor, but he was
+not yet appointed; nor was he to cross the Channel till he had collected
+a strong body of troops, which was necessarily a work of time. The
+conditional excommunication of the king was then freshly published; and
+counsels, there is reason to think, were guiding the Irish movement,
+which had originated in a less distempered brain than that of an Irish
+chieftain. Rumours were flying in the southern counties in the middle of
+June that a Spanish invasion might be immediately looked for, and the
+emperor's chaplain was with the Earl of Desmond. His mission, it was
+said, was to prepare the way for an imperial army; and Desmond himself
+was fortifying Dungarvan, the port at which an invading force could most
+conveniently land.[328] There is, therefore, a strong probability that
+Charles V., who had undertaken to execute the papal sentence in the
+course of the summer, was looking for the most vulnerable point at which
+to strike; and, not venturing to invade England, was encouraging an
+Irish rebellion, with a view to following up his success if the
+commencement proved auspicious.[329]
+
+[Sidenote: Lord Thomas Fitzgerald proclaims Henry accursed, and calls on
+the country to rise.]
+
+[Sidenote: June 11. He appears before the council in St. Mary's abbey,
+and declares formal war.]
+
+Simultaneously with the arrival of these unwelcome news, the English
+government were informed by letters from Dublin, that Lord Thomas
+Fitzgerald had thrown off his allegiance, and had committed infinite
+murders, burnings, and robbings in the English pale; making "his avaunt
+and boast that he was of the pope's sect and band, and that him he would
+serve, against the king and all his partakers; that the King of England
+was accursed, and as many as took his part."[330] The signal for the
+explosion was given with a theatrical bravado suited to the novel
+dignity of the cause. Never before had an Irish massacre been graced by
+a papal sanction, and it was necessary to mark the occasion by unusual
+form. The young lord, Silken Thomas, as he was called, was twenty-one
+years old, an accomplished Irish cavalier. He was vice-deputy, or so he
+considered himself: and unwilling to tarnish the honour of his loyal
+house by any action which could be interpreted into treachery, he
+commenced with a formal surrender of his office, and a declaration of
+war. On the eleventh of June the council were sitting in St. Mary's
+abbey, when a galloping of horses was heard, and Lord Thomas, at the
+head of a hundred and forty of the young Geraldines, dashed up to the
+gate, and springing off his horse, strode into the assembly. The council
+rose, but he ordered them to sit still, and taking the sword of state in
+his hand, he spoke in Irish to the following effect:--
+
+"However injuriously we be handled, and forced to defend ourselves in
+arms, when neither our service, nor our good meaning towards our
+prince's crown availeth, yet say not hereafter, but in this open
+hostility which we profess here, and proclaim, we have showed ourselves
+no villains nor churls, but warriors and gentlemen. This sword of state
+is yours, and not mine; I received it with an oath and have used it to
+your benefit. I should offend mine honour if I turned the same to your
+annoyance. Now I have need of mine own sword which I dare trust. As for
+this common sword, it flattereth me with a golden scabbard; but it hath
+in it a pestilent edge, and whetteth itself in hope of a destruction.
+Save yourselves from us, as from open enemies. I am none of Henry's
+deputy; I am his foe; I have more mind to conquer than to govern, to
+meet him in the field than to serve him in office. If all the hearts of
+England and Ireland that have cause thereto would join in this quarrel,
+as I trust they will, then should he be a byword, as I trust he shall,
+for his heresy, lechery, and tyranny; wherein the age to come may score
+him among the ancient princes of most abominable and hateful
+memory."[331] "With that," says Campion, "he rendered up his sword,
+adding to his shameful oration many other slanderous and foul terms."
+
+Cromer, Lord Chancellor and Archbishop of Armagh, a creature of Kildare,
+"more like his parish priest or chaplain, than king's chancellor,"[332]
+who had been prepared beforehand, rose, and affected remonstrance; but,
+speaking in English, his words were not understood by the crowd. A bard
+in the Geraldine train cut short his speech with an Irish battle chant;
+and the wild troop rushed, shouting, out of the abbey, and galloped from
+the town.
+
+[Sidenote: Pillage and massacre.]
+
+[Sidenote: The people of the pale join the rebels.]
+
+[Sidenote: He summons Dublin.]
+
+[Sidenote: Archbishop Cromer implores Sir John White, the English
+commander, to surrender.]
+
+In these mock heroics there need not have been anything worse than
+folly; but Irish heroism, like Irish religion, was unfortunately
+limited to words and feelings. The generous defiance in the cause of the
+Catholic faith was followed by pillage and murder, the usual
+accompaniments of Irish insurrection, as a sort of initial holocaust to
+propitiate success. The open country was at the mercy of the rebels.
+Fitzgerald, joined by O'Connor, proceeded to swear-in all such of the
+inhabitants of the pale as would unite against England; promising
+protection if they would consent, but inflicting fire and sword wherever
+he met refusal. The unfortunate people, warned by experience that no
+service was worse requited in Ireland than loyalty, had no spirit to
+resist. The few who were obnoxious were killed; the remainder submitted;
+and the growing corn was destroyed, and the farms were burnt, up to the
+gates of Dublin, that when the English army arrived, they might find
+neither food to maintain, nor houses to shelter them.[333] The first
+object of Fitzgerald, however, was to seize Dublin itself, where a
+portion of the citizens were in his favour. In the last week in July he
+appeared with his followers under the walls; a small force which had
+attempted to resist was defeated and driven in; and, under a threat of
+burning the city, if he was refused, he demanded the surrender of town
+and castle. The danger was immediate. The provident treachery of
+Kildare, in stripping the castle of its stores and cannon, had made
+defence all but impossible. Ormond was far off, and weeks must pass
+before relief could arrive from England. Sir John White, an English
+gentleman, with a handful of men-at-arms, had military command of the
+city; and the Archbishop of Armagh implored him to have pity on the
+citizens, and not to expose them to the consequences of a storm.[334]
+White was too stout a soldier to listen to such timid counsels; yet his
+position was one of extreme difficulty; his little garrison was too weak
+to defend the lines of the town, without the assistance of the citizens,
+and the citizens were divided and dispirited. He resolved at, length to
+surrender the city, and defend the castle to the last. Fitzgerald
+threatened that he would hold the townsmen responsible for the
+submission of the troops; but, savage as the English commander knew him
+to be, he calculated, with justice, that he would not ruin his
+popularity by cutting the throats of an unresisting crowd.
+
+[Sidenote: White surrenders the city, and withdraws into the castle.]
+
+[Sidenote: Siege of the castle, July 27.]
+
+[Sidenote: Archbishop Allen endeavours to escape into England.]
+
+[Sidenote: The ship is run ashore at Clontarf.]
+
+[Sidenote: The archbishop is taken to the village of Artayne,]
+
+[Sidenote: And murdered.]
+
+Hastily gathering together sufficient stores to enable him to hold out
+for a few weeks, and such arms and ammunition as could be collected in
+the emergency, White withdrew into the fortress, taking with him the
+Master of the Rolls, the Chief Baron, and such other of the council as
+desired to be his companions. The inhabitants of Dublin were then
+empowered to make terms with the rebels. The gates were opened on
+Fitzgerald's promise to respect life and property, the city was
+occupied, and siege was immediately laid to the castle. This was on the
+27th of July. The morning which followed was marked by one of those
+atrocities which have so often unfortunately distinguished Irish
+rebellions. Archbishop Allen, to whose exertions the exposure of
+Kildare's proceedings had been principally due, either fearing the
+possible consequences to himself if the castle was taken, as the Irish
+writers say,[335] or more probably to hasten in person the arrival of
+the deputy and his troops, instead of remaining with White, volunteered
+to cross to England; and before the gates were opened, he went on board
+a vessel and dropped down the river. He had placed himself unknowingly
+in the hands of traitors, for the ship was commanded by a
+Geraldine,[336] and in the night which followed was run aground at
+Clontarf, close to the mouth of the Liffey. The country was in
+possession of the insurgents, the crew were accomplices, and the
+stranded vessel, on the retreat of the tide, was soon surrounded. The
+archbishop was partly persuaded, partly compelled to go on shore, and
+was taken by two dependents of the Earl of Kildare to a farm house in
+the village of Artayne. Here he was permitted to retire to bed; but if
+he slept, it was for an early and a cruel wakening. The news of his
+capture was carried to Fitzgerald, who was then in the city, but a few
+miles distant, and the young lord, with three of his uncles, was on the
+spot by daybreak. They entered the house and ordered Allen to be brought
+before them. The archbishop was dragged from his bed; and in his shirt
+as he was, bare-legged and bare-headed, he dropt upon his knees, and
+begged for mercy. As well might the sheep have asked mercy of the
+famished wolf. He had but time to bequeath his soul to heaven, and his
+skull was cloven as he knelt; and, to make clean work, his chaplains,
+his servants, all of English blood who were with him, were slaughtered
+over his body.[337] Such was the pious offering to God and holy church
+on which the sun looked down as it rose that fair summer's morning over
+Dublin Bay; and such were the men whose cause the Mores and the Fishers,
+the saintly monks of the Charterhouse and the holy martyrs of the
+Catholic faith, believed to be the cause of the Almighty Father of the
+world.
+
+[Sidenote: Fitzgerald writes to the pope and the emperor to announce his
+exploit.]
+
+[Sidenote: Blockade of Dublin Bay.]
+
+[Sidenote: The Prior of Kilmainham crosses with the news from
+Waterford.]
+
+The morning's work was still but half completed. To massacre a heretic
+archbishop was a meritorious, or at least a venial act; but it was
+desirable that an opinion in favour of it should be pronounced by
+authority; or that the guilt, if guilt there was, should be washed off
+without delay. The Archdeacon of Kells,[338] therefore, was despatched
+to the pope and to the emperor, to press the latter to send assistance
+on this happy success, and to bring back absolution from his
+Holiness,[339] if the murder required it. The next object was to prevent
+news from reaching England before the castle should be taken. The river
+was watched, the timely assistance of an English pirate enabled
+Fitzgerald to blockade the bay; and Dublin was effectively sealed. But
+the report of the murder spread rapidly through Ireland. In three days
+it was known at Waterford; and the Prior of Kilmainham,[340] who had
+taken refuge there, crossed into Wales on the instant, intending to ride
+post to London.[341] He was delayed at St. David's by an attack of
+paralysis; but he sent forward a companion who had left Ireland with
+him; and the death of the archbishop was made known to Henry in the
+second week in August.
+
+[Sidenote: August. Skeffington is unprepared.]
+
+[Sidenote: Ormond invades Kildare.]
+
+[Sidenote: Fitzgerald is forced to retire from Dublin.]
+
+[Sidenote: He attacks Ormond.]
+
+[Sidenote: The citizens of Dublin return to their allegiance.]
+
+[Sidenote: Fitzgerald attempts to gain Ormond.]
+
+If Skeffington could set out on the instant, the castle might be saved,
+and Dublin recovered. Couriers were despatched to urge him to make
+haste; and others were sent to Ireland to communicate with Ormond, and,
+if possible, with the party in the castle. But Skeffington, who was too
+old for his work, had loitered over his preparations, and was not ready;
+and the delay would have been fatal, except for the Earl of Ormond, the
+loyalty of whose noble house at that crisis alone saved the English
+authority in Ireland. On the arrival of Henry's courier, he collected
+his people and invaded Kildare. The country was unenclosed--not a fence
+nor a hedge broke the broad surface of moor and meadow, save where at
+intervals a few small patches were enclosed for corn crops. Infinite
+herds of cattle grazed at will over the expanse of pasture, and these
+cattle were the chief dependence of the people. Ormond, by the
+suddenness of his inroad, and the absence of the owners, was enabled to
+sweep clear the whole tract which was occupied by the Geraldines; and
+Fitzgerald was forced to retire from Dublin to defend or recover his
+property. He left a detachment in the city, to prevent the troops in the
+castle from obtaining supplies,[342] and then hurried off to revenge the
+foray. Entering Carlow, he took a castle on the Slaney, and murdered the
+garrison. Thence he turned towards Kilkenny, and was bearing down upon
+Ormond with a strength which it would have been hard for the Butlers to
+resist, when he learnt that the citizens of Dublin, encouraged by the
+news that an English army was actually coming, had repented of their
+patriotism, and, to earn their pardon from Henry, had closed their
+gates, and had seized and imprisoned the party who were left before the
+castle. The prize for which he had played so deeply was slipping from
+his hands at the moment when it was all but won. He was forced to return
+in haste; but before he left Kilkenny, he made an effort to induce
+Ormond to join him. He promised, that, if the earl would assist him in
+driving out the English, he would "take him as his father," that he
+would make a present to his son, Lord James, of half the inheritance of
+the Kildares, and that they two should together rule Ireland.[343]
+
+[Sidenote: Ormond's reply.]
+
+[Sidenote: Fitzgerald's treachery.]
+
+[Sidenote: Dublin is again besieged.]
+
+[Sidenote: September.]
+
+[Sidenote: Skeffington does not arrive.]
+
+[Sidenote: October 4.]
+
+[Sidenote: Ormond again saves Dublin.]
+
+[Sidenote: Siege of Dublin raised, October 14.]
+
+Promises when extorted by presence of danger from a Geraldine were of
+indifferent value; but if Fitzgerald's engagements had been as sure as
+they were false and fleeting, they would have weighed little with this
+gallant old nobleman. Ormond replied, that, if the rebels would lay down
+their arms and sue for mercy, they might perhaps find it; but for
+himself, "if his country were wasted, his castles won or prostrate, and
+himself exiled, yet would he never shrink to persevere in his duty to
+the king to the death."[344] Failing here, and having at the same time
+received a check in a skirmish, Fitzgerald next endeavoured to gain
+time. The Irish clans were gathering, but they were still at a distance,
+and his own presence was instantly required elsewhere. He offered a
+truce, therefore; and to this Ormond, being hard pressed by the Earl of
+Desmond, was ready to consent. But it was only treachery. Ormond broke
+up his camp, and his people were scattered; and within three days,
+O'Neile having joined Fitzgerald, he was taken at a disadvantage; his
+son, Lord James, was severely wounded; and a cordon of Irish being drawn
+round him, to prevent him from relieving Dublin, the rebel army hastened
+back to renew the siege.[345] They had the cannon with them which
+Kildare had taken from the castle,[346] but were happily ill-provided
+with ammunition, or resistance would have been desperate. The siege
+opened at the beginning of September. The month passed away, and the
+place was still untaken. If the deputy would only arrive, there was
+still time to save it. Each hour he was looked for, yet through these
+priceless days he was loitering at Beaumaris. From the fatality which
+has for ever haunted the dealings of English statesmen with Ireland, an
+old man past work, weak in health, and with all the moral deficiencies
+of a failing constitution, had been selected to encounter a dangerous
+rebellion. The insurrection had broken out in June; every moment was
+precious, the loss of a day might be the loss of the whole country; yet
+it was now the fourth of October; the ships were loaded; the horses were
+on board; they had been on board a fortnight, and were sickening from
+confinement. The wind was fair, at that critical season of the year a
+matter of incalculable importance. Yet Skeffington was still "not
+ready."[347] All would have been lost but for the Earl of Ormond. The
+city was at the last extremity, when he contrived to force his way
+through the Irish into Kildare; he again laid waste the country, and
+destroyed the newly-gathered harvests.[348] On the 14th of October
+Fitzgerald was forced finally to raise the siege, that his followers
+might save the remnant of their property from destruction. The relief
+was but just in time, for the resources of Dublin were exhausted. Before
+retreating, the rebel lord exacted from the corporation an engagement
+that at the end of six weeks they should either have procured his pardon
+from the king, with the deputation of Ireland for his life, or else
+should surrender the city. For the fulfilment of these insolent terms he
+took as pledges sixteen of the children of the most important families
+of the city, with three of the corporation themselves.[349]
+
+[Sidenote: The English army sails at last.]
+
+And now, at length, on the same 14th of October, the English anchors
+were finally raised, and the deputy, with Sir William Brereton and Sir
+John Salisbury, several hundred Northumberland horse trained in the
+Border wars, and a number not specified, but probably from two to three
+thousand archers and men-at-arms,[350] were under way. Whether the blame
+of the delay lay with the incompetency of Skeffington, or the contempt
+of the English, which would not allow them to make haste into the
+presence of an enemy who never dared to encounter them in the field, but
+carried on war by perjury, and pillage, and midnight murder--whatever
+the cause was, they were at length on their way, and, through the
+devotion of Ormond, not too late to be of use.
+
+[Sidenote: They cross in a single night.]
+
+[Sidenote: Council of war at Lambay Island.]
+
+The fleet crossed the Channel in a single night, and the next morning
+were under Lambay Island,[351] where they had run in for shelter. Here
+news was brought them that Dublin Castle was taken. They did not believe
+it; but a council of war was held, and Skeffington resolved that for
+himself he might not risk the attempt to land; Brereton and Salisbury
+might try it, if they could do so "without casting themselves away"; the
+deputy would go on to Waterford with the body of the army, and join Sir
+John St. Loo, who had crossed to that port in the week preceding, from
+Bristol.
+
+[Sidenote: Sir William Brereton with 500 men enters the Liffey.]
+
+Accordingly, on the morning of the 17th of October, Sir William
+Brereton, with five hundred men, sailed into the mouth of the Liffey;
+and running up the river, instead of an enemy drawn up to oppose his
+landing, he found the mayor and corporation waiting at the quay, with
+drums, and flags, and trumpets to welcome him as a deliverer.[352]
+
+[Sidenote: An English detachment cut off through Skeffington's
+imprudence.]
+
+Skeffington was less successful; he remained under Lambay waiting for a
+wind for Waterford, and in the meantime Fitzgerald, hearing of the
+arrival of the fleet, was in force upon the hills overlooking the
+anchorage. The English commander, though aware that the insurgents were
+in the neighbourhood, allowed himself, with extreme imprudence, to land
+a detachment of troops, with directions to march to Dublin. He himself
+went with the fleet to the Skerries,[353] where he conceived, under
+false information, that a party of the rebels were lying. He found
+nothing there but a few fishing-boats; and while he was engaged in
+burning these, Fitzgerald attacked the division which had been sent on
+shore, and cut them off to a man. Nor was this the only misfortune. The
+pirate ships which had been watching Dublin Bay hovered round the fleet,
+cutting off straggling transports; and although one of them was chased
+and driven on shore, the small success poorly counterbalanced the injury
+which had been inflicted.[354]
+
+[Sidenote: October 21. Skeffington lands in Dublin,]
+
+[Sidenote: November. And resolves, the season being late, to do
+nothing.]
+
+After a week of this trifling, Skeffington consented to resign his
+intention of going to Waterford, and followed Brereton into Dublin. Why
+he had delayed a day after discovering that the river and the city were
+open to him, it is impossible to conjecture. But his presence was of
+little benefit, and only paralysed his abler subordinates. As soon as he
+had brought his army into the city, he conceived that he had done as
+much as the lateness of the season would allow. The November weather
+having set in wild and wet, he gave up all thought of active measures
+till the return of spring; and he wrote to inform the king, with much
+self-approbation, that he was busy writing letters to the Irish chiefs,
+and making arrangements for a better government; that Lord Thomas
+Fitzgerald had been proclaimed traitor at the market-cross; and that he
+hoped, as soon as the chancellor and the vicar-general could come to an
+understanding, the said traitor might be pronounced excommunicated.[355]
+All this was very well, and we learn to our comfort that in due time the
+excommunication was pronounced; but it was not putting down the
+rebellion--it was not the work for which he was sent to Ireland with
+three thousand English soldiers.
+
+[Sidenote: Fitzgerald burns Trim and Dunboyne, within six miles of
+Dublin.]
+
+[Sidenote: He again writes to the emperor.]
+
+Fitzgerald, as soon as the army was landed, retired into the interior;
+but finding that the deputy lay idle within the walls, he recovered
+heart, and at the head of a party of light horse reappeared within six
+miles of Dublin. Trim and Dunboyne, two populous villages, were sacked
+and burnt, and the blazing ruins must have been seen from the
+battlements of the Castle. Yet neither the insults of the rebels nor the
+entreaty of the inhabitants could move the imperturbable Skeffington. He
+lay still within the city walls;[356] and Fitzgerald, still further
+encouraged, despatched a fresh party of ecclesiastics to the pope and
+the emperor, with offers of allegiance and promises of tribute,[357]
+giving out meanwhile in Ireland that he would be supported in the spring
+or summer by the long talked-of Spanish army. Promises costing Charles
+V. nothing, he was probably liberal of them, and waited for the issue to
+decide how far they should be observed.
+
+[Sidenote: Skeffington ventures an expedition to Drogheda, and brings
+back the army in safety.]
+
+If this was so, the English deputy seemed to be determined to give the
+rebellion every chance of issuing as the emperor desired. The soldiers
+were eager for employment, but Skeffington refused to give his officers
+an opportunity for distinction in which he did not share,[358] and a few
+ineffectual skirmishes in the neighbourhood were the sole exploits which
+for five months they were allowed to achieve. One expedition, as far as
+Drogheda, the deputy indeed ventured, towards the end of November; and
+in the account of it which he sent to England, he wrote as if it were
+matter of congratulation that he had brought his army back in safety.
+Nor were his congratulations, at least to himself, without reason, for
+he owed that safety to God and to fortune. He had allowed the archers to
+neglect the old precaution of taking cases for their bows. They were
+overtaken by a storm, which wetted the strings and loosened the feathers
+of the arrows; and thus, at disadvantage, they were intercepted in a
+narrow defile,[359] and escaped only because the Irish were weak in
+numbers.
+
+[Sidenote: He excuses himself on the ground of bad health.]
+
+[Sidenote: Consequence of the deputy's inaction.]
+
+He excused himself for his shortcomings on the plea that he was in bad
+health--an adequate apology for his own inaction, but none for his
+appointment on a service so dangerous. Yet perhaps his failure is
+explained by the scene of it. Elsewhere, Sir William Skeffington may
+have been a gallant soldier and a reasonable man; but the fatal
+atmosphere of Ireland seems at all times to have had a power of
+prostrating English intellect. The Protector Cromwell alone was cased in
+armour which could defy its enchantments. An active officer might have
+kept the field without difficulty. The Master of the Rolls, to prove
+that the country, even in mid-winter, was practicable without danger,
+rode to Waterford in November with only three hundred horse, through the
+heart of the disturbed districts, and returned unmolested.[360] The Earl
+of Ossory, with Sir John St. Loo, made an appointment to meet
+Skeffington at Kilcaa,[361] where, if he brought cannon, they might
+recover the castles of the government which were held by the Geraldines.
+He promised to go, and he might have done so without danger or
+difficulty; but he neither went nor sent; only a rumour came that the
+deputy was ill;[362] and in these delays and with this ostentation of
+imbecility, the winter passed away, as if to convince every wavering
+Irishman that, strong as the English might be in their own land, the
+sword dropped from their nerveless hands when their feet were on Irish
+soil. Nor was this the only or the worst consequence. The army, lying
+idle in Dublin, grew disorganized; many of the soldiers deserted; and an
+impression spread abroad that Henry, after all, intended to return to
+the old policy, to pardon Fitzgerald, and to restore him to power.[363]
+
+[Sidenote: February 16.]
+
+The clear pen of the indefatigable Allen lays the state of affairs
+before us with the most painful distinctness. "My lord deputy," he wrote
+to Cromwell on the 16th of February, "now by the space of twelve or
+thirteen weeks hath continued in sickness, never once going out of his
+house; he as yet is not recovered. In the meantime the rebel hath burnt
+much of the country, trusting, if he may be suffered, to waste and
+desolate the Inglishry, [and thus] to enforce this army to depart. Sirs,
+as I heretofore advertised you, this rebel had been banished out of all
+these parts or now, if all men had done their duties. But, to be plain
+with you, except there be a marshal appointed, which must do strait
+correction, and the army prohibited from resorting to Dublin (but
+ordered to keep the field), the king shall never be well served, but his
+purpose shall long be delayed."[364]
+
+[Sidenote: The wages are ill-paid. The army is mutinous.]
+
+[Sidenote: The military stores worthless.]
+
+The wages, also, were ill-paid, though money in abundance had been
+provided. The men were mutinous, and indemnified themselves at the
+expense of the wretched citizens, whose houses they pillaged at will
+under pretence that the owners were in league with the rebels.[365] The
+arms, also, which had been supplied to the troops, were of the worst
+kind: they had been furnished out of ordnance which had been long on
+hand, and were worthless.[366]
+
+[Sidenote: The Irish council desire the recal of Skeffington. The king
+refuses.]
+
+[Sidenote: The army leave Dublin, and commence work.]
+
+The conduct of the king, when the representations of Allen were laid
+before him, was very unlike what the popular conception of his
+character would have led us to expect. We imagine him impatient and
+irritable; and supposing him to have been (as he certainly was) most
+anxious to see the rebellion crushed, we should have looked for some
+explosion of temper; or, at least, for some imperious or arbitrary
+message to the unfortunate deputy. He contented himself, however, with
+calmly sending some one whom he could trust to make inquiries; and even
+when the result confirmed the language of the Master of the Rolls, and
+the deputy's recal was in consequence urged upon him, he still refused
+to pass an affront upon an old servant. He appointed Lord Leonard Grey,
+brother-in-law of the Countess of Kildare, chief marshal of the army;
+but he would not even send Grey over till the summer, and he left
+Skeffington an opportunity of recovering his reputation in the campaign
+which was to open with the spring.[367] The army, however, was ordered
+to leave Dublin without delay; and the first move, which was made early
+in February, was followed by immediate fruits. Two of the pirates who
+had been acting with Fitzgerald were taken, and hanged.[368] Several
+other offenders of note were also caught and thrown into prison; and in
+two instances, as if the human ministers of justice had not been
+sufficiently prompt, the higher powers thought fit to inflict the
+necessary punishment. John Teling, one of the archbishop's murderers,
+died of a foul disorder at Maynooth;[369] and the Earl of Kildare, the
+contriver of the whole mischief, closed his evil career in the Tower of
+London "for thought and pain."[370] He was attainted by the parliament
+which sat in the autumn, and lay under sentence of death when death came
+unbidden to spare the executioner his labour.
+
+[Sidenote: Death of the Earl of Kildare.]
+
+[Sidenote: March 14. Skeffington takes the field. Siege of Maynooth
+Castle.]
+
+Meantime, the spring opened at last, and affairs further improved.
+Skeffington's health continued weak; but with the advance of the season
+he was able to take the field; and on the 14th of March he appeared
+under the walls of Maynooth. This castle was the strongest in the
+possession of the Geraldines. Vast labour had been recently expended on
+its fortifications, for which the king's subjects had been forced to
+pay. It was defended by the ordnance from Dublin, and held by a small
+but adequate garrison. It was thought to be impregnable, and in the
+earlier stages of the science of gunnery it might possibly have defied
+the ordinary methods of attack. Nay, with a retrospective confidence in
+the strength of its defences, the Irish historians have been unable to
+believe that it could have been fairly taken; they insist that it
+resisted the efforts of the besiegers, and was on the point of being
+saved by Fitzgerald,[371] when it was delivered to the English commander
+by treachery. A despatch to the king, which was written from the spot,
+and signed by the deputy and all the members of the Irish council,
+leaves but little remaining of this romance.
+
+[Sidenote: The walls are bombarded.]
+
+[Sidenote: March 23. The castle is stormed.]
+
+[Sidenote: Thirty-seven prisoners taken.]
+
+An authentic account of an attack by cannon on a fortified place at that
+era, will scarcely fail to be interesting. The castle, says this
+document, was so strongly defended both with men and ordnance, "as the
+like had not been seen in Ireland since the Conquest." The garrison
+consisted of a hundred men, of which sixty were gunners. On the third
+day of the siege the English batteries opened on the north-west side of
+the donjon, and destroying the battlements, buried the cannon on that
+part of the wall under the ruins. The siege lines were then moved "to
+the north side of the base court of the castle, at the north-east end
+whereof there was a new-made, very strong, and fast bulwark, well
+garrisoned with men and ordnance." Here a continual fire was sustained
+for five days, "on that wise that a breach and entry was made there."
+Whereupon, continues the despatch, "The twenty-third day, being Tuesday
+next before Easter day, there was a galiard assault given before five
+o'clock in the morning, and the base court entered; at which entry there
+were slain of the ward of the castle about sixty, and of your Grace's
+army no more but John Griffin, yeoman of your most honourable guard, and
+six others which were killed with ordnance of the castle at the entry.
+Howbeit, if it had not pleased God to preserve us, it were to be
+marvelled that we had no more slain. After the base court was thus won,
+we assaulted the great castle, which within a while yielded."
+Thirty-seven of the remaining garrison were taken prisoners, with two
+officers, two Irish ecclesiastics who had distinguished themselves in
+promoting the insurrection, and one of the murderers of the archbishop.
+
+The place was taken by fair fighting, it seems, without need of
+treachery; and the capture by storm of a fortified castle was a
+phenomenon altogether new to the Irish, who had yet to learn the effect
+of well-served cannon upon walls.[372]
+
+The work at length was begun in earnest, and in order to drive the
+lesson home into the understanding of the people, and to instruct them
+clearly that rebellion and murder were not any longer to be tolerated,
+the prisoners were promptly brought up before the provost-marshal, and
+twenty-six of them there and then, under the ruins of their own den,
+were hung up for sign to the whole nation.[373]
+
+[Sidenote: The Pardon of Maynooth. The effect of it upon the people.]
+
+[Sidenote: The rebellion vanishes.]
+
+A judicial operation of this kind had never before been witnessed in
+Ireland within the known cycle of its history, and the effect of it was
+proportionately startling. In the presence of this "Pardon of Maynooth,"
+as it was called, the phantom of rebellion vanished on the spot. It was
+the first serious blow which was struck in the war, and there was no
+occasion for a second. In a moment the noise and bravado which had
+roared from Donegal to Cork was hushed into a supplication for
+forgiveness. Fitzgerald was hastening out of Thomond to the relief of
+his fortress. When they heard of the execution, his army melted from him
+like a snowdrift. The confederacy of the chiefs was broken up; first
+one fell away from it, and then another; and before the summer had come,
+O'Brien of Inchiquin, O'Connor, who had married Fitzgerald's sister, and
+the few scattered banditti of the Wicklow mountains, were all who
+remained of the grand association which was to place the Island of
+Saints at the feet of the Father of Christendom.
+
+Sadder history in the compass of the world's great chronicle there is
+none than the history of the Irish: so courageous, yet so like cowards;
+so interesting, yet so resolute to forfeit all honourable claims to
+interest. In thinking of them, we can but shake our heads with Lord
+Chancellor Audeley, when meditating on this rebellion, and repeat after
+him, "they be a people of strange nature, and of much inconstancy."[374]
+
+[Sidenote: Fitzgerald retreats into Thomond, intending to sail for
+Spain.]
+
+[Sidenote: O'Brien persuades him to remain.]
+
+Lord Fitzgerald was now a fugitive, with a price upon his head. He
+retreated into Thomond, intending to sail for Spain, and to attempt with
+his own lips to work persuasion with the emperor.[375] There was an
+expectation, however, that the Spaniards might be already on their way:
+and O'Brien persuaded him to remain, to prevent the complete
+disintegration of his party. Sir James de la Hyde was therefore sent to
+Charles; and the wretched young nobleman himself wandered from place to
+place, venturing, while Skeffington still lay at Maynooth, into the
+neighbourhood of his home, among his own people, yet unable to do more
+than evade the attempts which were made to capture him. The life of the
+rebellion was gone from it.
+
+[Sidenote: Fidelity of the people.]
+
+There was no danger that he would be betrayed. The Irish had many
+faults--we may not refuse them credit for their virtues. However
+treacherous they were to their enemies, however inconstant in their
+engagements, uncertain, untrue in ordinary obligations, they were
+without rivals in the world in their passionate attachments among
+themselves; and of all the chiefs who fell from Fitzgerald's banner, and
+hastened with submission to the English deputy, there was perhaps not
+one who, though steeped in the blood of a hundred murders, would not
+have been torn limb from limb rather than have listened to a temptation
+to betray him.
+
+[Sidenote: Arrival of Lord Leonard Grey. Fitzgerald writes to him with
+an offer of surrender.]
+
+At length, after a narrow escape from a surprise, from which he rescued
+himself only by the connivance of the Irish kerne who were with the
+party sent to take him, the young earl, as he now called himself, weary
+of his wandering life, and when no Spaniards came, seeing that his cause
+was for the present hopeless offered to surrender. It was by this time
+August, and Lord Leonard Grey, his father's brother-in-law, was present
+with the army. To him he wrote from O'Connor's Castle, in King's County,
+apologizing for what he had done, desiring pardon "for his life and
+lands," and begging his kinsman to interest himself in his behalf. If he
+could obtain his forgiveness, he promised to deserve it. If it was
+refused, he said that he "must shift for himself the best that he
+could."[376]
+
+[Sidenote: Grey suggests an interview.]
+
+[Sidenote: August 18.]
+
+[Sidenote: Fitzgerald meets him,]
+
+[Sidenote: And surrenders on a dubious promise of pardon.]
+
+In reply to this overture, Grey suggested an interview. The appointment
+of so near a relative of the Kildare's to high office in Ireland had
+been determined, we may be sure, by the Geraldine influence in the
+English council. The marshal was personally acquainted with Fitzgerald,
+and it is to be observed that the latter in writing to him signed
+himself his "loving friend." That Lord Leonard was anxious to save him
+does not admit of a doubt; he had been his father's chief advocate with
+the king, and his natural sympathy with the representative of an ancient
+and noble house was strengthened by family connexion. He is not to be
+suspected, therefore, of treachery, at least towards his kinsman. The
+interview was agreed upon, and on the eighteenth of August, Grey, with
+Sir Rice Mansell, Chief Justice Aylmer, Lord James Butler, and Sir
+William St. Loo, rode from Maynooth into King's County, where, on the
+borders of the Bog of Allen, Fitzgerald met them. Here he repeated the
+conditions upon which he was ready to surrender. Lord Grey said that he
+had no authority to entertain such conditions; but he encouraged the
+hope that an unconditional surrender would tell in his favour, and he
+promised himself to accompany his prisoner to the king's presence.
+Fitzgerald interpreting expressions confessedly intended "to allure him
+to yield,"[377] in the manner most favourable to himself, placed himself
+in the hands of the marshal, and rode back with him to the camp.
+
+[Sidenote: Embarrassment of the government.]
+
+[Sidenote: If Fitzgerald was spared, the government of Ireland was
+impossible.]
+
+[Sidenote: Yet, were the English entitled to reap the benefit of his
+capture?]
+
+The deputy wrote immediately to announce the capture. Either the terms
+on which it had been effected had not been communicated to him, or he
+thought it prudent to conceal them, for he informed Henry that the
+traitor had yielded without conditions, either of pardon, life, lands,
+or goods, "but only submitting to his Grace's mercy."[378] The truth,
+however, was soon known; and it occasioned the gravest embarrassment.
+How far a government is bound at any time to respect the unauthorized
+engagements of its subordinates, is one of those intricate questions
+which cannot be absolutely answered;[379] and it was still less easy to
+decide, where the object of such engagements had run a career so
+infamous as Lord Thomas Fitzgerald. No pirate who ever swung on a
+well-earned gallows had committed darker crimes, and the king was called
+upon to grant a pardon in virtue of certain unpermitted hopes which had
+been held out in his name. He had resolved to forgive no more noble
+traitors in Ireland, and if the archbishop's murder was passed over, he
+had no right to affect authority in a country where he was so unable to
+exert it. On the other hand, the capture of so considerable a person was
+of great importance; his escape abroad, if he had desired to leave the
+country, could not have been prevented; and while the government
+retained the benefit which they derived from his surrender, their honour
+seemed to be involved in observing the conditions, however made, by
+which it had been secured.
+
+[Sidenote: The Duke of Norfolk advises delay of punishment.]
+
+[Sidenote: Fitzgerald is hanged the following year at Tyburn.]
+
+It is likely, though it is not certain, that Lord Leonard foresaw the
+dilemma in which Henry would be placed, and hoped by means of it to
+secure the escape of his kinsman. His own ultimate treason throws a
+shadow on his earlier loyalty; and his talent was fully equal to so
+ingenious a fraud. He had placed the king in a position from which no
+escape was possible that was not open to grave objection. To pardon so
+heavy an offender was to violate the first duty of government, and to
+grant a general licence to Irish criminality; to execute him was to
+throw a shadow indirectly on the king's good faith, and lay his generals
+open to a charge of treachery. Henry resolved to err on the side on
+which error was least injurious. The difficulty was submitted to the
+Duke of Norfolk, as of most experience in Irish matters. The duke
+advised that execution should be delayed; but added significantly, "quod
+defertur non aufertur."--Pardon was not to be thought of; the example
+would be fatal.[380] Immediate punishment would injure the credit of
+Lord Grey, and would give occasion for slander against the council.[381]
+The best course would be to keep "the traitor" in safe prison, and
+execute him, should it seem good, at a future time.[382] This advice was
+followed. Fitzgerald, with his uncles, who had all been implicated in
+the insurrection, was committed to the Tower; and in the year following
+they were hanged at Tyburn.
+
+So ended the rebellion in Ireland; significant chiefly because it was
+the first in which an outbreak against England assumed the features of a
+war of religion, the first which the pope was especially invited to
+bless, and the Catholic powers, as such, to assist. The features of it,
+on a narrow scale, were identical with those of the later risings.
+Fostered by the hesitation of the home authorities, it commenced in
+bravado and murder; it vanished before the first blows of substantial
+resistance. Yet the suppression of the insurrection was attended by the
+usual Irish fatality: mistake and incompleteness followed the
+proceedings from the beginning to the end; and the consciousness
+remained that a wound so closed would not heal, that the moral temper of
+the country remained unaffected, and that the same evils would again
+germinate.
+
+
+NOTES:
+
+[277] "Panderus, or the author of a book, _De Salute Populi_, flourished
+in the reigns of Edward IV., Edward V., Richard III., and Henry VII.;
+perhaps also in the reign of Henry VIII."--Sir James Ware, _Writers of
+Ireland_, p. 90.
+
+[278] State of Ireland, and plan for its reformation, 1515: _State
+Papers_, Vol. II. p. 11.
+
+[279] Some men have the opinion that this land is harder to be reformed
+now than it was to be conquered at the first Conquest; considering that
+Irishmen have more hardiness and policy and war, and more arms and
+artillery than they had at the Conquest. At that time there was not in
+all Ireland, out of cities, five Castles ne Piles, and now there be five
+hundred Castles and Piles.--Baron Finglas's _Breviate of Ireland_,
+written circa 1535. Harris's _Hibernica_, p. 88.
+
+[280] In every of the said five portions, Ulster, Connaught, Leinster,
+South Munster, and West Munster, that was conquered by King Henry
+Fitz-Empress, [there were] left under tribute certain Irishmen of the
+principal blood of the Irish nation, that were before the Conquest
+inhabitants within every of the said portions; as in Leinster, the
+Cavanaghs of the blood of M'Morough, sometime king of the same; in South
+Munster, the M'Carties, of the blood of the Carties, sometime kings of
+Cork; in the other portions of Munster, west of the river Shannon
+(Clare), where O'Brien is, which was never conquered in obedience to the
+king's laws, O'Brien and his blood have continued there still, which
+O'Brien gave tribute to King Henry Fitz-Empress, and to his heirs, by
+the space of one hundred years. In Connaught was left under tribute
+certain of the blood of O'Connor, sometime king of the same; certain of
+the Kellies, and others. In Ulster were left certain of the Neales, of
+the blood of the O'Neale. In Meath were left certain of the blood of
+O'Melaghlin, sometime king of the same; and divers others of Irish
+nations.--Baron Finglas's _Breviate_. Harris, p. 83.
+
+[281] Thomond seems to have been an exception.
+
+[282] See Finglas's _Breviate_. 23 Hen. VI. cap. 9: _Irish Statute
+Book_. 28 Hen. VIII. cap. 3: Ibid. It seems in many cases to have been
+the result of accident, Irish lands descending to heiresses who married
+into English families. In other instances, forfeited estates were
+granted by the crown to English favourites. The receiving rents,
+however, even though by unwilling absentees, was treated as a crime by
+Henry VIII.; and English noblemen, to whom estates in Ireland had
+fallen, either by marriage or descent, on which they were unable to
+reside, were expected to grant such estates to other persons who were
+able to reside upon them, and willing. The wording of the Act of
+Absentees, passed in 1536, is very remarkable. "Forasmuch as it is
+notorious and manifest that this the king's land of Ireland, heretofore
+being inhabited, and in due obedience and subjection unto the king's
+most noble progenitors, hath principally grown unto ruin, dissolution,
+rebellion, and decay, by occasion that great dominions, lands, and
+possessions within the same, as well by the king's grants as by course
+of inheritance and otherwise have descended to noblemen of the realm of
+England, who having the same, demouring within the said realm of England
+... taking the profits of their said lands and possessions for a season,
+without provision making for any defence or keeping thereof in good
+order ... in their absence, and by their negligence have suffered the
+wild Irishrie, being mortal and natural enemies to the Kings of England,
+to enter and hold the same without resistance; the conquest and winning
+whereof in the beginning not only cost the king's noble progenitors
+charges inestimable, but also those to whom the land was given, then and
+many years after abiding within the said land, nobly and valiantly
+defended the same, and kept such tranquillity and good order, as the
+Kings of England had due subjection of the inhabitants thereof, and the
+laws were obeyed ... and after the gift or descent of the lands to the
+persons aforesaid, they and their heirs absented themselves out of the
+said land of Ireland, not pondering nor regarding the preservation
+thereof ... the King's Majesty that now is, intending the reformation of
+the said land, to foresee that the like shall not ensue hereafter, with
+the consent of his parliament," pronounces FORFEITED the estates of all
+absentee proprietors, and their right and title gone.
+
+[283] "The MacMahons in the north were anciently English, to wit,
+descended from the Fitz-Ursulas, which was a noble family in England;
+and the same appeareth by the significance of their Irish names.
+Likewise the M'Sweenies, now in Ulster, were recently of the Veres in
+England; but that they themselves, for hatred of the English, so
+disguised their names." Spenser's _View of the State of Ireland_. So the
+De Burghs became Bourkes or Burkes; the Munster Geraldines merged their
+family names in that of Desmond; and a younger branch of them called
+themselves M'Shehies.
+
+[284] _Statutes of Kilkenny._ Printed by the Irish Antiquarian Society.
+Finglas's _Breviate_.
+
+[285] The phenomenon must have been observed, and the inevitable
+consequence of it foreseen, very close upon the Conquest, when the
+observation digested itself into a prophecy. No story less than three
+hundred years old could easily have been reported to Baron Finglas as
+having originated with St. Patrick and St. Columb. The Baron says--"The
+four Saints, St. Patrick, St. Columb, St. Braghan, and St. Moling, many
+hundred years agone, made prophecy that Englishmen should conquer
+Ireland; and said that the said Englishmen should keep the land in
+prosperity as long as they should keep their own laws; and as soon as
+they should leave and fall to Irish order, then they should
+decay."--Harris, p. 88.
+
+[286] Report on the State of Ireland, 1515: _State Papers_, Vol. II. pp.
+17, 18.
+
+[287] Some sayeth that the English noble folk useth to deliver their
+children to the king's Irish enemies to foster, and therewith maketh
+bands.--_State Papers_, Vol. II. p. 13.
+
+[288] "Harpers, rhymers, Irish chroniclers, bards, and ishallyn (ballad
+singers) commonly go with praises to gentlemen in the English pale,
+praising in rhymes, otherwise called 'danes,' their extortions,
+robberies, and abuses as valiantness; which rejoiceth them in their evil
+doings, and procures a talent of Irish disposition and conversation in
+them."--Cowley to Cromwell: Ibid. Vol. II. p. 450. There is a remarkable
+passage to the same effect in Spenser's _View of the State of Ireland_.
+
+[289] State of Ireland, and plan for its reformation: _State Papers_,
+Vol. II. p. 28.
+
+[290] Report on the State of Ireland: _State Papers_, Vol. II. p. 22.
+
+[291] Baron Finglas, in his suggestions for a reformation, urges that
+"no black rent be given ne paid to any Irishman upon any of the four
+shires from henceforward."--Harris, p. 101. "Many an Irish captain
+keepeth and preserveth the king's subjects in peace without hurt of
+their enemies; inasmuch as some of those hath tribute yearly of English
+men ... not to the intent that they should escape harmless; but to the
+intent to devour them, as the greedy hound delivereth the sheep from the
+wolf."--_State Papers_, Vol. II. pp. 16, 17.
+
+[292] _Eudoxus_--What is that which you call the Brehon Law? It is a
+word unto us altogether unknown.
+
+_Irenaeus_--It is a rule of right, unwritten, but delivered by tradition
+from one to another, in which oftentimes there appeareth great show of
+equity in determining the right between parties, but in many things
+repugning quite both to God's law and man's. As, for example, in the
+case of murder, the Brehon, that is, their judge, will compound between
+the murderer and the friends of the party murdered, which prosecute the
+action, that the malefactor shall give unto them or unto the child or
+wife of him that is slain, a recompence which they call an Eriarch. By
+which vile law of theirs many murders are made up and smothered. And
+this judge being, as he is called, the Lord's Brehon, adjudgeth, for the
+most part, a better share unto his Lord, that is the Lord of the soil,
+or the head of that sept, and also unto himself for his judgment, a
+greater portion than unto the plaintiffs or parties grieved.--Spenser's
+_View of the State of Ireland_. Spenser describes the system as he
+experienced it in active operation. Ancient written collections of the
+Brehon laws, however, existed and still exist.
+
+[293] By relation of ancient men in times past within remembrance, all
+the English lords and gentills within the pale heretofore kept retinues
+of English yeomen in their houses, after the English fashion, according
+to the extent of their lands, to the great strength and succour of their
+neighbours the king's subjects. And now for the most part they keep
+horsemen and knaves, which live upon the king's subjects; and keep in
+manner no hospitality, but live upon the poor.--The Council of Ireland
+to the Master of the Rolls, 1533: _State Papers_, Vol. II. p. 163.
+
+[294] _State Papers_, Vol. II. pp. 1, 5, 6.
+
+[295] _State Papers_, Vol. II. p. 14.
+
+[296] The deputy useth to make great rodes, journeys, and hostings, now
+in the north parts of Ulster, now in the south parts of Munster, now in
+the west parts of Connaught, and taketh the king's subjects with him by
+compulsion oft times, with victual for three or four weeks, and chargeth
+the common people with carriage of the same, and giveth licence to all
+the noble folk to cesse and rear their costs on the common people and on
+the king's poor subjects; and the end of that journey is commonly no
+other in effect, but that the deputy useth to receive a reward of one or
+two hundred kyne to himself, and so depart, without any more hurt to the
+king's enemies, after that he hath turned the king's subjects and the
+poor common folk to their charge and costs of two or three thousand
+pounds. And over that, the deputy, on his progress and regress,
+oppresseth the king's poor common folk with horse meat and man's meat to
+all his host. And over that, in summer, when grass is most plenty, they
+must have oats or malt to their horse at will, or else money therefor.
+
+The premises considered, some saith the king's deputy, by extortion,
+chargeth the king's poor subjects and common folk, in horse meat and
+man's meat, by estimation, to the value of a hundred pound every day in
+the year, one day counted with another, which cometh to the sum of
+36,000 pounds yearly.--_State Papers_, Vol. II. p. 13. Finglas says that
+coyne and livery would destroy hell itself, if it was used
+there.--Finglas's _Breviate_.
+
+[297] The wretchedness of the country drove the Irish to emigrate in
+multitudes. In 1524, twenty thousand of them had settled themselves in
+Pembrokeshire; and the majority of these had crossed in a single
+twelvemonth. They brought with them Irish manners, and caused no little
+trouble. "The king's town of Tenby," wrote a Welsh gentleman to Wolsey,
+"is almost clean Irish, as well the head men and rulers as the commons
+of the said town; and of their high and presumptuous minds [they] do
+disobey all manner the king's process that cometh to them out of the
+king's exchequer of Pembroke."--R. Gryffith to Cardinal Wolsey: Ellis,
+first series, Vol. I. p. 191, &c.
+
+[298] Leland, Vol. II. p. 110.
+
+[299] Campion's _History of Ireland_. Leland, Vol. II. p. 111.
+
+[300] Campion. Leland.
+
+[301] The earl married Elizabeth, daughter of Oliver St. John, while in
+London.
+
+[302] Report to Cromwell, apparently by Allen, Master of the Rolls:
+_State Papers_, Vol. II. p. 175.
+
+[303] Henry VIII. to the Earl of Surrey: _State Papers_, Vol. II. pp.
+52, 53.
+
+[304] This is one of them, and another of similar import was found to
+have been sent to O'Neile. "Life and health to O'Carroll, from the Earl
+of Kildare. There is none Irishman in Ireland that I am better content
+with than with you; and whenever I come into Ireland, I shall do you
+good for anything that ye shall do for me; and any displeasure that I
+have done to you, I shall make you amends therefore, desiring you to
+keep good peace to Englishmen till an English deputy shall come there;
+and when an English deputy shall come thither, do your best to make war
+upon Englishmen then, except such as be toward me, whom you know well
+yourself."--_State Papers_, Vol. II. p. 45.
+
+[305] _State Papers_, Vol. II. p. 62.
+
+[306] Surrey to Henry VIII.: _State Papers_, Vol. II. pp. 72-74.
+
+[307] Council of Ireland to Wolsey: _State Papers_, Vol. II. pp. 92, 93.
+
+[308] Campion says Kildare had a friend in the Duke of
+Suffolk.--_History of Ireland_, by Edward Campion, p. 161.
+
+[309] Act of Attainder of the Earl of Kildare: _Irish Statute Book_, 28
+Hen. VIII. cap. 1. An account of this negotiation is to be seen in a
+paper in the British Museum, Titus, B. xi. fol. 352.
+
+[310] Act of Attainder of the Earl of Kildare: Ibid.
+
+[311] The elder sisters of the "fair Geraldine" of Lord Surrey.
+
+[312] The emperor's chaplain, Gonzalo Fernandez, was the agent through
+whom the correspondence with Desmond was conducted.--_State Papers_,
+Vol. VII. p. 186. And see _Cotton MS._, Vespasian, c. iv. fol. 264, 276,
+285, 288, 297.--" He sent unto the emperour, provoking and enticing him
+to send an army into this said land."--Act of Attainder of the Earl of
+Kildare. See also Leland, Vol. II. p. 136.
+
+The account given by Gonzalo Fernandez of his visit to Desmond is among
+the Archives at Brussels, and supplies a curious picture of the state of
+the country.
+
+  _Report of Gonzalo Fernandez._
+
+  "April 28, 1529.
+
+"On arriving at the coast of Ireland we touched at a port belonging to
+the King of England named Cork. Many of the Irish people came on board
+the ship, and told me that the gentleman of the Earl of Desmond had just
+returned from Spain with presents from the Emperor to the earl.
+
+"Leaving Cork, we were driven by bad weather into another harbour called
+Beran,[A] from whence I sent one of my servants to inform the earl of my
+arrival. In four days the earl's answer came, telling me that I was
+welcome, and that he was at a place called Dingle, where he hoped to see
+me. He addressed his letter to me as 'Chaplain of our Sovereign Lord the
+Emperor;' and this, I understand, is his usual mode of expression when
+speaking of his Majesty. He had also sent to some of the other noblemen
+of the country, with whom he proposed to form a league, to tell them of
+my arrival.
+
+  [A] Beerhaven, perhaps.
+
+"I set out again, and on the way five of the earl's people came to me to
+say that their master had gone to a harbour a few miles off to capture
+some French and English vessels there, and would be glad of my
+assistance. This I declined, and the earl, I understand, was satisfied
+with my excuses.
+
+"The day after, the 21st of April, we reached the said harbour of
+Dingle, and were honourably received by the townspeople, and by a party
+of the earl's attendants. About four o'clock the earl returned himself,
+attended by fifty horse and as many halberdiers. He came at once to my
+quarters, and asked after the welfare of 'our Lord the Emperor.' I
+replied that, by the grace of God, his Majesty was well, and I had sent
+his commendations to his lordship.
+
+"We then dined; and afterwards the earl and his council repaired to my
+chamber, where we presented him with his Majesty's letter. He read it
+and his council read it. His Majesty, he said, referred him to me. I was
+commissioned to make known his Majesty's pleasure to him. I at once
+declared my instructions, first in English to the earl, and afterward in
+Latin to his council; which I said were to this effect.
+
+"'One Godfrey, a friend of their lord, had lately presented himself to
+the Emperor with their lord's letter, in which their lord, after
+speaking of the good-will and affection which he entertained towards the
+Emperor's Majesty, had expressed a desire to enter into close alliance
+with his Majesty, as friend to friend and enemy to enemy, declaring
+himself ready, in all things and at all times, to obey his Majesty's
+commands.
+
+"'Further, the said Godfrey had requested the Emperor to send a
+confidential person to Ireland, to learn more particularly their lord's
+intentions, and his resources and power; and further, to negotiate a
+treaty and establish a firm and complete alliance. For these purposes
+the Emperor commissioned myself. I was the bearer to them of his
+Majesty's thanks for their proposals, and I said I was so far in my
+master's confidence that I was assured their lord might expect all
+possible assistance at the Emperor's hands.'
+
+"When I had done, the earl spoke a few words to his council. He then
+took off his cap, and said he thanked his Majesty for his gracious
+condescension. He had addressed himself to his Majesty as to his
+sovereign lord, to entreat his protection. His Majesty was placed in
+this world in his high position, in order that no one prince might
+oppress or injure another. He related his descent to me. He said that,
+between his family and the English, there had ever existed a mortal
+enmity, and he explained the cause to me.
+
+"I replied that his Majesty never failed to support his allies and his
+subjects, and should he claim assistance in that capacity, his Majesty
+would help him as he helped all his other good friends. I advised the
+earl to put in writing the words which he had used to me. He thought it
+would be enough if I repeated them; but when I said the story was too
+long, and my memory might not retain it with accuracy, he said he would
+do as I desired.
+
+"We then spoke of the support for which he was looking, of his projects
+and resources, and of the places in which he proposed to serve. He said
+he wanted from his Majesty four large vessels, two hundred tons each,
+six pinnaces well provided with artillery, and five hundred Flemings to
+work them. I said at once and earnestly, that such a demand was out of
+all reason, before he, on his part, had achieved something in his
+Majesty's service. I remonstrated fully and largely, although, to avoid
+being tedious, I omit the details. In the end his council were satisfied
+that he must reduce his demands till his Majesty had more reason to know
+what was to be expected from him, and he consented, as will be seen by
+his own memoir.
+
+"Of all men in the world the earl hates most deeply the Cardinal of
+York. He told me he had been in alliance with France, and had a relation
+called De Quindel, now with the French army in Italy. In future, he said
+he would have no dealings with the French. As your Majesty's enemies,
+they were his enemies.
+
+"Your Majesty will be pleased to understand that there are in Ireland
+four principal cities. The city of Dublin is the largest and richest in
+the island, and neither in the town nor in the neighbourhood has the
+Earl of Desmond land or subjects. The Earl of Kildare is sovereign in
+that district, but that earl is a kinsman of the Earl of Desmond, and
+has married his cousin.
+
+"The Earl of Kildare, however, is at present a prisoner in the Tower of
+London.
+
+"Of the other three cities, one is called Waterford, the second Cork,
+the third Limerick; and in all of these the Earl of Desmond has
+lordships and vassals. He has dominions, also, among the wild tribes; he
+has lords and knights on his estates who pay him tribute. He has some
+allies, but not so many, by a great deal, as he has enemies.
+
+"He has ten castles of his own, some of which are strong and well built,
+especially one named Dungarvan, which the King has often attempted to
+take without success.
+
+"The earl himself is from thirty to forty years old, and is rather above
+the middle height. He keeps better justice throughout his dominions than
+any other chief in Ireland. Robbers and homicides find no mercy, and are
+executed out of hand. His people are in high order and discipline. They
+are armed with short bows and swords. The earl's guard are in a mail
+from neck to heel, and carry halberds. He has also a number of horse,
+some of whom know how to break a lance. They all ride admirably without
+saddle or stirrup."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+After the report of Gonzalvo Fernandez, Desmond himself continues in
+Latin.
+
+"Hereunto be added informations addressed to the invincible and most
+sacred Caesar, ever august, by the Earl of Desmond, Lord of Ogonyll and
+the liberties of Kilcrygge.
+
+"I, James Earl of Desmond, am of royal blood, and of the race of the
+Conqueror who did lawfully subdue Britain, great and small, and did
+reduce Scotland and Ireland under his yoke.
+
+"The first cause of the enmity between myself and the King of England is
+in ancient prophecy or prediction, believed by the English nation, and
+written in their books and chronicles, that all England will be
+conquered by an Earl of Desmond, which enterprise I have not yet
+undertaken.
+
+"The second cause is that, through fear of this prophecy, the King of
+England has committed his powers to my predecessors who have borne rule
+in Ireland; and when Thomas Earl of Desmond, my grandfather, in
+peaceable manner attended Parliament in Ireland, no cause being alleged
+against him, but merely in dread of the prophecy, they struck off his
+head.
+
+"The third cause is that, when Richard, son of the King of England
+[_sic_], heard that there were ancient feuds between the English and my
+predecessors, he came to Ireland with an army and a great fleet in the
+time of my father; and then did my father make all Ireland to be subdued
+unto himself, some few towns only excepted.
+
+"The fourth cause is that, by reason of the aforesaid feuds, the King of
+England did cause Gerald Earl of Kildare, my father's kinsman, to be
+destroyed in prison [_destrui in carceribus_] until that my father, by
+might and power, did liberate the said Earl of Kildare, and did obtain
+his own purposes, and did make his kinsman viceroy of Ireland.
+
+"The fifth cause is that, when peace was hardly begun between my
+aforesaid father and the King of England, a certain sickness fell upon
+my father, I myself being then eight years old.
+
+"The King, when he heard this, made a league of Irish and English to
+kill my father; he being then, as they thought, unable to take the
+field. They, being banded together, made war against my father for
+twenty-four years, wherein, by God's grace, they had small success.
+
+"The sixth cause is that, when peace was made at last between the King
+that now is and myself, I, in faith of the said peace, sent certain of
+my servants to the parts beyond the seas to Flanders and France, and the
+attorneys of the King of England did despoil my servants of the sum of
+9000l., and threw them into prison, where they now remain.
+
+"Hereon follows my supplication:--
+
+"These things premised, I, the aforesaid earl, do implore and entreat
+the invincible and most sacred Majesty of Caesar Augustus that he will
+deign to provide me with remedy, and I, with all my horses and people,
+do devote myself to your Majesty's service, seeing that your Majesty is
+appointed for the welfare of the oppressed, and to be lord paramount of
+all the earth.
+
+"To revenge the injuries done to myself and my family by the King of
+England, I have the following powers; that is to say, 16,500 foot and
+1500 horse. Also I have friends, confederate with me, whose names be
+these--
+
+  "1. The Prince O'Brien, who can make 600 horse and 1000 foot.
+   2. Trobal de Burgh             "    100      "     600  "
+   3. Sir Richard Poer            "     40      "     200  "
+   4. Lord Thomas Butler          "     60      "     240  "
+   5. Sir John Galty              "     80      "     400  "
+   6. Sir Gerald Fitzgerald       "     40      "     200  "
+   7. The White Knight            "    400      "     800  "
+   8. O'Donnell, Prince of Ulster "    800      "    4000  "
+   9. The Knight of the Valley    "     40      "     240  "
+  10. Baron MacMys                "     40      "     500  "
+  11. Captain Macguire            "     30      "     200  "
+
+"With divers others whose names be here omitted.
+
+"Moreover, I, the aforesaid James Earl of Desmond, do make known to the
+Majesty of Caesar august, that there is an alliance between me and the
+King of Scotland, and, by frequent embassies, we understand each other's
+purposes and intentions.
+
+"Finally, divine grace permitting, I intend to gather together my own
+and my friends' powers, and lead them in person against Piers Butler,
+deputy of the King of England, and against Limerick, Wexford, and
+Dublin, the cities which the King holds in Ireland.
+
+"For the aid for which I look from your Majesty, I desire especially
+cannon available for land service and fit for breaching castles. May it
+please your Majesty, therefore, to send me cannon, that I may be the
+better able to do your Majesty service.
+
+"And for myself, I promise on my faith to obey your Majesty in all
+things. I will be friend of your friends; enemy of your enemies; and
+your Majesty's especial and particular subject. If ever I chance to
+displease you, I will submit myself to your correction and chastisement.
+
+"Written in my town, this 28th day of April, 1529, in the presence of
+Gonzalvo Fernandez, Denys Mac D----c, Doctor of Arms and Medicine, Denys
+Tathe, Maurice Herly.
+
+  JAMES OF DESMOND."
+
+  --_The Pilgrim_, pp. 171-175.
+
+[313] "You remember how the lewd earl your kinsman," he said to him,
+"who passeth not whom he serve, might he change his master, sent his
+confederates with letters of credence to Francis the French King, and to
+Charles the Emperor, proffering the help of Munster and Connaught
+towards the conquest of Ireland, if either of them would help to win it
+from our king. What precepts, what messages have been sent you to
+apprehend him? and yet not done. Why so? Forsooth I could not catch him.
+Yea, sir, it will be sworn and deposed to your face, that for fear of
+meeting him, you have winked, wilfully shunned his sight, altered your
+course, warned his friends, stopped both eyes and ears against his
+detection. Surely this juggling and false play little became an honest
+man called to such honour, or a nobleman put in such trust."--Campion,
+p. 165.
+
+[314] _State Papers_, Vol. II. pp. 146, 147.
+
+[315] Norfolk to Wolsey: Ibid. p. 135.
+
+[316] _State Papers_, Vol. II. p. 146.
+
+[317] It had been partially subdued by Lord James Butler.--Irish
+statute, 28 Henry VIII. cap. 1.
+
+[318] O'Brien of Thomond to Henry VIII.: _State Papers_, Vol. II.
+
+[319] Report of 1533: _State Papers_, Vol. II. pp. 163-179.
+
+[320] _State Papers_, Vol. II. p. 180.
+
+[321] Ibid. p. 177.
+
+[322] _State Papers_, Vol. II. p. 192.
+
+[323] _State Papers_, Vol. III. p. 10.
+
+[324] It is remarkable that, as I believe, there is no instance of the
+act of heresy having been put in force in Ireland. The Irish Protestant
+church counts many martyrs; but they were martyrs who fell by murder in
+the later massacres. So far as I can learn, no Protestant was ever tried
+and executed there by form of law.
+
+[325] 28 Hen. VIII. cap. 1. Irish statutes.
+
+[326] Cowley to Cromwell: _State Papers_, Vol. II. p. 198.
+
+[327] Act of Attainder of the Earl of Kildare: 28 Hen. VIII. cap. 1. The
+act is explicit that the rebellion was in consequence of Kildare
+discovering that the king would not again trust him; and that he had
+carefully prepared for it before he left Ireland.
+
+[328] Cork and Waterford continued loyal. The mayor of the latter place
+wrote, on the 12th of July, to Cromwell as follows: "This instant day,
+report is made by the Vicar of Dungarvan, that the emperour hath sent
+certain letters unto the Earl of Desmond, by the same chaplain or
+ambassador that was sent to James the late earl. And the common bruit
+is, that his practice is to win the Geraltynes and the Breenes; and that
+the emperour intendeth shortly to send an army to invade the cities and
+towns by the sea coasts of this land. This thing was spoken by a
+Spaniard more than a month agone to one of the inhabitants of this city;
+and because I thought it then somewhat incredible, I forbare at that
+time to write unto your wisdom thereof. The chaplain arrived more than
+fifteen days past at the Dingle, in the dominion of the said Earl, which
+Earl hath, for the victualling of his castle of Dungarvan, taken a ship
+charged with Spanish wines, that was bound to the town of Galway; and
+albeit that his years requireth quietness and rest, yet intendeth he as
+much trouble as ever did any of his nation."--William Wise, Mayor of
+Waterford, to Cromwell, July 12, 1534: _State Papers_, Vol. II. p. 198.
+
+[329] On the 21st of July, O'Brien of Thomond wrote the following
+characteristic letter to Charles:--
+
+  _Corny O'Brien, Prince of Ireland, to the Emperor Charles V._
+
+  "July 21, 1534.
+
+"To the most sacred and most invincible Caesar, Charles Emperor of the
+Romans, Most Catholic King of Spain, health with all submission.--Most
+sacred Caesar, lord most clement, we give your Majesty to know that our
+predecessors for a long time quietly and peacefully occupied Ireland,
+with constancy, force, and courage, and without rebellion. They
+possessed and governed this country in manner royal, as by our ancient
+chronicles doth plainly appear. Our said predecessors and ancestry did
+come from your Majesty's realm of Spain, where they were of the blood of
+a Spanish prince, and many Kings of that lineage, in long succession,
+governed all Ireland happily, until it was conquered by the English. The
+last King of this land was of my blood and name; and ever since that
+time our ancestors, and we ourselves, have ceased not to oppose the
+English intruders; we have never been subject to English rule, or
+yielded up our ancient rights and liberties; and there is at this
+present, and for ever will be, perpetual discord between us, and we will
+harass them with continual war.
+
+"For this cause, we, who till this present, have sworn fealty to no man,
+submit ourselves, our lands, our families, our followers, to the
+protection and defence of your Majesty, and of free will and deliberate
+purpose we promise to obey your Majesty's orders and commands in all
+honest behests. We will serve your Majesty with all our force; that is
+to say, with 1660 horse and 2440 foot, equipped and armed. Further, we
+will levy and direct for your Majesty's use 13,000 men, well armed with
+harquebuss, bows, arrows, and swords. We will submit to your Majesty's
+will and jurisdiction more than a hundred castles, and they and all else
+shall be at your Majesty's disposition to be employed as you shall
+direct.
+
+"We can undertake also for the assistance and support of our good
+brother the Earl of Desmond, whose cousin, the daughter of the late Earl
+James, your Majesty's friend, is our wife.
+
+"Our further pleasure will be declared to you by our servants and
+friends, Robert and Dominic de Paul, to whom your Majesty will deign to
+give credence. May your Majesty be ever prosperous.
+
+"Written at our Castle at Clare, witness, our daughter, July 21, 1534,
+by your humble servant and unfailing friend,
+
+  "CORNY O'BRIEN, Prince of Ireland."
+
+--MS. Archives at Brussels: _The Pilgrim_, pp. 175, 176.
+
+[330] Cowley to Cromwell: _State Papers_, Vol. II p. 198.
+
+[331] Campion's _History of Ireland_, p. 175. Leland, Vol. II. p. 143.
+
+[332] _State Papers_, Vol. II. p. 168.
+
+[333] Thomas Finglas to Cromwell: _State Papers_, Vol. II. p. 200.
+
+[334] Agard to Cromwell: _State Papers_, Vol. II. p. 245.
+
+[335] Leland, Vol. II. p. 145.
+
+[336] Leland, Vol. II. p. 145.
+
+[337] Act of Attainder of the Earl of Kildare: 28 Henry VIII. cap. 1.
+The Prior of Kilmainham to Henry VIII.: _State Papers_, Vol. II. p. 501.
+Campion, p. 178
+
+[338] Call McGravyll, or Charles Reynolds: Act of Attainder, 28 Henry
+VIII. c. 1. Campion, p. 176.
+
+[339] Such, at least, one of Fitzgerald's attendants, who was present at
+the murder, understood to be one of the objects of the archdeacon's
+mission. (_State Papers_, Vol. II. p. 201, note.) The act of attainder
+says merely that he was sent to beg for assistance.
+
+[340] Rawson, one of the Irish Council.
+
+[341] _State Papers_, Vol. II. p. 201.
+
+[342] Leland, Vol. II. p. 146.
+
+[343] Instructions to Walter Cowley to be declared to the King's
+Highness in behalf of the Earl of Ossory: _State Papers_, Vol. II. p.
+250.
+
+[344] Ibid. Campion, pp. 177, 178.
+
+[345] M'Morrough, O'More, O'Connor, O'Brien, in September, with the
+greatest part of the gentlemen of the county of Kildare, were retained
+and sat at Carlow, Castledermot, Athye, Kilkea, and thereabout, with
+victualls during three weeks, to resist the Earl of Ossory from invading
+of the county of Kildare.--_State Papers_, Vol. II. p. 251.
+
+[346] The rebel chiefly trusteth in his ordnance, which he hath of the
+king's.--Allen to Cromwell: Ibid. p. 202.
+
+[347] Allen, Master of the Rolls, had gone over to quicken his sluggish
+movements, and wrote from Chester to Cromwell, in despair: "Please your
+goodness to be advertised, that as yet the deputy is at Beaumaris, and
+the Northern men's horses have been on shipboard these twelve days,
+which is the danger of their destruction. They have lost such a wind and
+fair weather, as I doubt they shall not have again for this winter
+season. Mr. Brereton (Sir William Brereton, Skeffington's second in
+command) lieth here at the sea side in a readiness. If their first
+appointment to Dublin had been kept, they might have been there; but now
+they tarry to pass with the deputy. Sir, for the love of God, let some
+aid be sent to Dublin; for the loss of that city and the castle were the
+plain subversion of the land."--Allen to Cromwell, Oct. 4: _State
+Papers_, Vol. II. p. 202.
+
+[348] Instructions to Walter Cowley on behalf of the Earl of Ossory:
+Ibid. p. 251.
+
+[349] Sir William Brereton to Henry VIII.: Ibid. p. 204.
+
+[350] Two thousand five hundred was the smallest number which Lord
+Surrey previously mentioned as sufficient to do good.--_State Papers_,
+Vol. II. p. 73.
+
+[351] Fifteen miles north of Dublin; immediately off Malahide.
+
+[352] Sir William Brereton and Sir John Salisbury to Henry VIII.: _State
+Papers_, Vol. II. p. 203.
+
+[353] A small harbour near Drogheda.
+
+[354] Skeffington was prudently reserved in his report of these things
+to Henry. He mentions having set a party on shore, but says nothing of
+their having been destroyed; and he could not have been ignorant of
+their fate, for he was writing three weeks after it, from Dublin. He was
+silent, too, of the injury which he had received from the pirates,
+though eloquent on the boats which he burnt at the Skerries.--_State
+Papers_, Vol. II. p. 205. On first reading Skeffington's despatch, I had
+supposed that the "brilliant victory" claimed by the Irish historians
+(see Leland, Vol. II. p. 148) must have been imaginary. The Irish
+Statute Book, however, is too explicit to allow of such a hope. "He
+[Fitzgerald] not only fortified and manned divers ships at sea, for
+keeping and letting, destroying and taking the king's deputy, army, and
+subjects, that they should not land within the said land; but also at
+the arrival of the said army, the same Thomas, accompanied with his
+uncles, servants, adherents, &c., falsely and traitorously assembled
+themselves together upon the sea coast, for keeping and resisting the
+king's deputy and army; and the same time they shamefully murdered
+divers of the said army coming to land. And Edward Rowkes, pirate at the
+sea, captain to the said Thomas, destroyed and took many of them."---
+Act of Attainder of the Earl of Kildare: 28 Hen. VIII. cap. 1.
+
+[355] Skeffington to Henry VIII.: _State Papers_, Vol. II. pp. 206, 207.
+
+[356] Accompanied with the number of sixty or eighty horsemen, and about
+three hundred kerne and gallowglass, the traitor came to the town of
+Trim, and there not only robbed the same, but also burnt a great part
+thereof, and took all the cattle of the country thereabouts; and after
+that assaulted Dunboyne, within six miles to Dublin; and the inhabitants
+of the town defending themselves by the space of two days, and sending
+for succour to Dublin ... in default of relief, he utterly destroyed and
+burnt the whole town.--Allen to Cromwell: _State Papers_, Vol. II. p.
+220.
+
+[357] He hath sent divers muniments and precedents which should prove
+that the king held this land of the See of Rome; alledging the king and
+his realm to be heretics digressed from the obedience of the same, and
+of the faith Catholic. Wherefore his desire is to the emperour and the
+Bishop of Rome, that they will aid him in defence of the faith Catholic
+against the king, promising that he will hold the said land of them, and
+pay tribute for the same yearly.--Ibid. p. 222.
+
+[358] My lord deputy desireth so much his own glory, that he would no
+man should make an enterprise except he were at it.--Ibid. p. 227.
+
+[359] Skeffington to Sir Edmund Walsingham: _State Papers_, Vol. II. p.
+233.
+
+[360] Allen to Cromwell: Ibid. p. 220.
+
+[361] In Kildare county, on the frontiers of the pale.
+
+[362] The captains and I, the Earl (of Ossory) directed letters to the
+deputy to meet us in the county of Kildare, at Kilcaa, bringing with him
+ordnance accordingly, when the deputy appointed without fail to meet. At
+which day and place the said Earl, with the army (of) Waterford failed
+not to be, and there did abide three days continually for the deputy;
+where he, neither any of the army, came not, ne any letter or word was
+had from him; but only that Sir James Fitzgerald told that he heard say
+he was sick.--Ossory to W. Cowley: _State Papers_, Vol. II. p. 251.
+
+[363] Allen certainly thought so, or at least was unable to assure
+himself that it was not so. "My simple advice shall be," he wrote, "that
+if ever the king intend to show him grace (which himself demandeth not
+in due manner) and to pardon him, to withdraw his charges and to pardon
+him out of hand; or else to send hither a proclamation under the Great
+Seal of England, that the king never intends to pardon him ne any that
+shall take part with him, but utterly to prosecute both him and them to
+their utter confusion. For the gentlemen of the country hath said
+plainly to divers of the council, that until this be done, they dare not
+be earnest in resisting him, in doubt, he should have his pardon
+hereafter, as his grandfather, his father, and divers his ancestors have
+had; and then would prosecute them for the same."--_State Papers_, Vol.
+II. p 222.
+
+[364] Allen to Cromwell: _State Papers_, Vol. II. p. 226.
+
+[365] "Restraint must be had that this army shall not spoil ne rob any
+person, but as the deputy and council shall appoint; and that the
+captains be obedient to their orders, or it shall not be well. Ne it is
+not meet that every soldier shall make a man a traitor for to have his
+goods. They be so nusselled in this robbery, that now they almost will
+not go forth to defend the country, except they may have gain."--Allen
+to Cromwell, Feb. 16.
+
+[366] "The bows which came out of the stores at Ludlow Castle were
+naught; many of them would not hold the bending."--_State Papers_, Vol.
+II. p. 228.
+
+[367] The king, a few months later, wrote to him a letter of warm thanks
+for his services, and admitted his plea of ill-health with peculiar
+kindness.--Henry VIII. to Skeffington: _State Papers_, Vol. II. p. 280.
+
+[368] Brabazon to Cromwell: Ibid. p. 224.
+
+[369] Allen to Cromwell: Ibid. p. 230.
+
+[370] Campion, p. 179.
+
+[371] Leland, Coxe, Ware.
+
+[372] Henry VIII. was one of the first men to foresee and value the
+power of artillery. Sebastiani mentions experiments on the range of guns
+which were made by him, in Southampton water; and it is likely that the
+cannon used in the siege of Maynooth were the large-sized brass guns
+which were first cast in England in the year of its capture.--Stow, p.
+572. When the history of artillery is written, Henry VIII.'s labours in
+this department must not be forgotten. Two foreign engineers whom he
+tempted into his service, first invented "shells." "One Peter Baud, a
+Frenchman born," says Stow, "and another alien, called Peter Van Collen,
+a gunsmith, both the king's feed men, conferring together, devised and
+caused to be made certain mortar pieces, being at the mouth from eleven
+inches unto nineteen inches wide, for the use whereof they [also] caused
+to be made certain hollow shot of cast iron, to be stuffed with
+fire-work or wildfire; whereof the bigger sort for the same had screws
+of iron to receive a match to carry fire kindled, that the firework
+might be set on fire for to break in pieces the same hollow shot,
+whereof the smallest piece hitting any man would kill or spoil
+him."--Stow, _Chronicle_, p. 584.
+
+[373] _State Papers_, Vol. II. p. 237.
+
+[374] _State Papers_, Vol. I. p. 446.
+
+[375] Ibid Vol. II. p. 253.
+
+[376] Lord Thomas Fitzgerald to Lord Leonard Grey: _State Papers_, Vol.
+II. p. 273.
+
+[377] The Lord Leonard repayreth at this season to your Majesty,
+bringing with him the said Thomas, beseeching your Highness most humbly,
+that according to the comfort of our words spoken to the same Thomas to
+allure him to yield him, ye would be merciful to the said Thomas,
+especially concerning his life.--The Council of Ireland to Henry VIII.:
+_State Papers_, Vol. II. p. 275.
+
+[378] _State Papers_, Vol. II. p. 274.
+
+[379] The conditions promised to Napoleon by the captain of the
+_Bellerophon_ created a similar difficulty. If Nana Sahib had by any
+chance been connected by marriage with an English officer, and had that
+officer induced him to surrender by a promise of pardon, would the
+English Government have respected that promise?
+
+[380] It were the worst example that ever was; and especially for these
+ungracious people of Ireland.--Norfolk to Cromwell: _State Papers_, Vol.
+II. p. 276.
+
+[381] Ibid.
+
+[382] Ibid. The duke, throughout his letter, takes a remarkably
+businesslike view of the situation. He does not allow the question of
+"right" to be raised, or suppose at all that the government could lie
+under any kind of obligation to a person in the position of Fitzgerald.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+
+THE CATHOLIC MARTYRS.
+
+
+[Sidenote: State of England in the summer of 1534.]
+
+While the disturbance in Ireland was at its height, affairs in England
+had been scarcely less critical. The surface indeed remained unbroken.
+The summer of 1534 passed away, and the threatened invasion had not
+taken place. The disaffection which had appeared in the preceding year
+had been smothered for a time; Francis I. held the emperor in check by
+menacing Flanders, and through French influence the rupture with
+Scotland had been seemingly healed. In appearance the excommunication
+had passed off as a _brutum fulmen_, a flash of harmless sheet
+lightning, serving only to dazzle feeble eyes. The oath of succession,
+too, had been taken generally through the country; Sir Thomas More and
+Bishop Fisher having alone ventured to refuse. The pope had been abjured
+by the universities and by the convocation in both the provinces, and to
+these collective acts the bishops and the higher clergy had added each
+their separate consent.
+
+[Sidenote: The clergy comply with the revolution, but inwardly have
+little heart for it.]
+
+[Sidenote: They bend before the storm, trusting to time.]
+
+[Sidenote: The clergy are called upon to explain to the people the
+changes which have taken place.]
+
+But the government knew too well the temper of the clergy to trust to
+outward compliance, or to feel assured that they acquiesced at heart
+either in the separation from Rome, or in the loss of their treasured
+privileges. The theory of an Anglican Erastianism found favour with
+some of the higher church dignitaries, and with a section perhaps of
+secular priests; but the transfer to the crown of the first-fruits,
+which in their original zeal for a free Church of England the
+ecclesiastics had hoped to preserve for themselves, the abrupt
+limitation of the powers of convocation, and the termination of so many
+time-honoured and lucrative abuses, had interfered with the popularity
+of a view which might have been otherwise broadly welcomed; and while
+growing vigorously among the country gentlemen and the middle classes in
+the towns, among the clergy it throve only within the sunshine of the
+court. The rest were overawed for the moment, and stunned by the
+suddenness of the blows which had fallen upon them. As far as they
+thought at all, they believed that the storm would be but of brief
+duration, that it would pass away as it had risen, and that for the
+moment they had only to bend. The modern Englishman looks back upon the
+time with the light of after history. He has been inured by three
+centuries of division to the spectacle of a divided church, and sees
+nothing in it either embarrassing or fearful. The ministers of a faith
+which had been for fifteen centuries as the seamless vesture of Christ,
+the priests of a church supposed to be founded on the everlasting rock
+against which no power could prevail, were in a very different position.
+They obeyed for the time the strong hand which was upon them, trusting
+to the interference of accident or providence. They comforted themselves
+with the hope that the world would speedily fall back into its old ways,
+that Christ and the saints would defend the church against sacrilege,
+and that in the meantime there was no occasion for them to thrust
+themselves upon voluntary martyrdom.[383] But this position, natural as
+it was, became difficult to maintain when they were called upon not only
+themselves to consent to the changes, but to justify their consent to
+their congregations, and to explain to the people the grounds on which
+the government had acted. The kingdom was by implication under an
+interdict,[384] yet the services went on as usual; the king was
+excommunicated; doubt hung over the succession; the facts were
+imperfectly known; and the never-resting friars mendicant were busy
+scattering falsehood and misrepresentation. It was of the highest moment
+that on all these important matters the mind of the nation should if
+possible be set at rest; and the clergy, whose loyalty was presumed
+rather than trusted, furnished the only means by which the government
+could generally and simultaneously reach the people. The clergy
+therefore, as we have seen, were called upon for their services; the
+pope's name was erased from the mass; books; the statute of appeals and
+the statute of succession were fixed against the doors of every parish
+church in England, and the rectors and curates were directed every week
+in their sermons to explain the meaning of these acts. The bishops were
+held responsible for the obedience of the clergy; the sheriffs and the
+magistrates had been directed to keep an eye upon the bishops; and all
+the machinery of centralization was put in force to compel the
+fulfilment of a duty which was well known to be unwelcome.
+
+[Sidenote: The order for preaching. Every preacher to deliver one sermon
+against the papal usurpation.]
+
+[Sidenote: The archbishop's sentence to be held a thing of mere verity,
+not to be again called in question.]
+
+[Sidenote: The clergy are forbidden to preach upon disputed points of
+doctrine.]
+
+That as little latitude as possible might be left for resistance or
+evasion, books were printed by order of council, and distributed through
+the hands of the bishops, containing a minute account of the whole
+proceedings on the divorce, the promises and falsehoods of the pope, the
+opinions of the European universities, and a general epitome of the
+course which had been pursued.[385] These were to be read aloud to the
+congregations; and an order for preaching was at the same time
+circulated, in which the minuteness of the directions is as remarkable
+as the prudence of them. Every preacher was to deliver one sermon at
+least ("and after at his liberty") on the encroachments and usurpations
+of the papal power. He was to preach against it, to expose and refute it
+to the best of his ability, and to declare that it was done away, and
+might neither be obeyed nor defended further. Again in all places "where
+the king's just cause in his matter of matrimony had been detracted, and
+the incestuous and unjust [matrimony] had been set forth [and
+extolled]," the clergy were generally directed "to open and declare the
+mere verity and justice" of the matter, declaring it "neither doubtful
+nor disputable," but to be a thing of mere verity, and so to be allowed
+of all men's opinions. They were to relate in detail the pope's conduct,
+his many declarations in the king's favour; the first decretal, which
+was withheld by Campeggio, in which he had pronounced the marriage with
+Catherine invalid; his unjust avocation of the cause to Rome; his
+promises to the King of France; and finally, his engagement at
+Marseilles to pronounce in the King of England's favour, if only he
+would acknowledge the papal jurisdiction.[386] They were therefore to
+represent the king's conduct as the just and necessary result of the
+pope's duplicity. These things the clergy were required to teach, not as
+matters of doubt and question, but as vital certainties on which no
+difference of opinion could be tolerated. Finally, there were added a
+few wholesome admonitions on other subjects, which mark the turning of
+the tide from Catholic orthodoxy. The clergy were interdicted from
+indulging any longer in the polemics of theology. "To keep unity and
+quietness in the realm it" was "ordained that no preachers" should
+"contend openly in the pulpit one against another, nor uncharitably
+deprave one another in open audience. If any of them" were "grieved one
+with another," they were to "complain to the King's Highness or the
+archbishop or bishop of the diocese." They were "purely, sincerely, and
+justly" to "preach the scripture and words of Christ, and not mix them
+with men's institutions, or make men believe that the force of God's law
+and man's law was the like." On subjects such as purgatory, worship of
+saints and relics, marriage of the clergy, justification by faith,
+pilgrimages and miracles, they were to keep silence for one whole year,
+and not to preach at all.[387]
+
+[Sidenote: Difficulty of securing obedience to the order.
+Obstructiveness of the bishops,]
+
+[Sidenote: And of the regular clergy.]
+
+These instructions express distinctly the convictions of the government.
+It would have been well if the clergy could have accepted them as they
+were given, and submitted their understandings once for all to statesmen
+who were wiser than themselves. The majority (of the parish clergy at
+least) were perhaps outwardly obedient; but the surveillance which the
+magistrates were directed to exercise proves that the exceptions were
+expected to be extensive; and in many quarters these precautions
+themselves were rapidly discovered to be inadequate. Several even of the
+most trusted among the bishops attempted an obstructive resistance. The
+clergy of the north were notoriously disobedient. The Archbishop of York
+was reported to have talked loosely of "standing against" the king "unto
+death."[388] The Bishop of Durham fell under suspicion, and was summoned
+to London. His palace was searched and his papers examined in his
+absence; and the result, though inconclusive, was unsatisfactory.[389]
+The religious orders again (especially the monks of such houses as had
+been implicated with the Nun of Kent) were openly recusant. At the
+convent at Sion, near Richmond, a certain Father Ricot preached as he
+was commanded, "but he made this addition, that he which commanded him
+to preach should discharge his conscience: and as soon," it was said,
+"as the said Ricot began to declare the king's title," "nine of the
+brethren departed from the sermon, contrary to the rule of their
+religion, to the great slander of the audience."[390] Indeed it soon
+became evident that among the regular clergy no compliance whatever was
+to be looked for; and the agents of the government began to contemplate
+the possible consequences, with a tenderness not indeed for the
+prospective sufferers, but for the authorities whom they would so
+cruelly compel to punish them. "I am right sorry," wrote Cromwell's
+secretary to him, "to see the foolishness and obstinacy of divers
+religious men, so addict to the Bishop of Rome and his usurped power,
+that they contemn counsel as careless men and willing to die. If it were
+not for the opinion which men had, and some yet have, in their apparent
+holiness, it made no great matter what became of them, so their souls
+were saved. And for my part, I would that all such obstinate persons of
+them as be ready to die for the advancement of the Bishop of Rome's
+authority were dead indeed by God's hand, that no man should run
+wrongfully into obloquy for their just punishment."[391]
+
+[Sidenote: Powers of the confessional.]
+
+[Sidenote: The clergy in some cases advise their penitents to take the
+oaths with a mental reservation.]
+
+But the open resistance of mistaken honesty was not the danger which the
+government most feared. Another peril threatened their authority, deeper
+and more alarming by far. The clergy possessed in the confessional a
+power of secret influence over the masses of the people, by which they
+were able at once (if they so pleased) to grant their penitents licences
+for insincerity, to permit them to perjure themselves under mental
+reservations, and to encourage them to expiate a venial falsehood by
+concealed disaffection. The secrets of confession were inviolable.
+Anathemas the most fearful forbade their disclosure; and, secured behind
+this impenetrable shield, the church might defy the most stringent
+provisions, and baffle every precaution.
+
+From the nature of the case but little could transpire of the use or the
+abuse which was made at such a time of so vast a power; but Cromwell,
+whose especial gift it was to wind himself into the secrets of the
+clergy, had his sleuth-hounds abroad, whose scent was not easily
+baffled. The long tyranny of the priesthood produced also its natural
+retribution in the informations which were too gladly volunteered in the
+hour of revenge; and more than one singular disclosure remains among the
+_State Papers_, of language used in this mysterious intercourse. Every
+man who doubted whether he might lawfully abjure the pope, consulted his
+priest. Haughton, the Prior of Charterhouse, in all such cases, declared
+absolutely that the abjuration might not be made.[392] He himself
+refused openly; and it is likely that he directed others to be as open
+as himself. But Haughton's advice was as exceptional as his conduct.
+Father Forest, of Greenwich, who was a brave man, and afterwards met
+nobly a cruel death, took the oath to the king as he was required; while
+he told a penitent that he had abjured the pope in the outward, but not
+in the inward man, that he "owed an obedience to the pope which he could
+not shake off," and that it was "his use and practice in confession, to
+induce men to hold and stick to the old fashion of belief."[393]
+
+[Sidenote: Confession of John Staunton.]
+
+Here, again, is a conversation which a treacherous penitent revealed to
+Cromwell; the persons in the dialogue being the informer, John Staunton,
+and the confessor of Sion Monastery, who had professed the most
+excessive loyalty to the crown.[394] The informer, it must be allowed,
+was a good-for-nothing person. He had gone to the confessor, he said, to
+be shriven, and had commenced his confession with acknowledging "the
+seven deadly sins particularly," "and next the misspending of his five
+wits." As an instance of the latter, he then in detail had confessed to
+heresy; he could not persuade himself that the priest had power to
+forgive him. "Sir," he professed to have said to the confessor, "there
+is one thing in my stomach which grieveth my conscience very sore; and
+that is by reason of a sermon I heard yesterday of Master Latimer,
+saying that no man of himself had authority to forgive sins, and that
+the pope had no more authority than another bishop; and therefore I am
+in doubt whether I shall have remission of my sins of you or not, and
+that the pardon is of no effect."
+
+The priest answered, "That Latimer is a false knave;" and seven or eight
+times he called him false knave, and said he was an eretycke. "Marry,
+this I heard Latimer say," the confessor continued, "that if a man come
+to confession, and be not sorry for his sins, the priest hath no power
+to forgive him. I say the pope's pardon is as good as ever it was; and
+he is the Head of the Universal Church, and so I will take him. Here in
+England the king and his parliament hath put him out; but be of good
+comfort, and steadfast in your faith; this thing will not last long, I
+warrant you. You shall see the world change shortly."
+
+To this the informer said that he had replied, "You know how that we be
+sworn unto the King's Grace, and he hath already abjured the pope."
+
+[Sidenote: The confessor thinks that an oath loosely made may be loosely
+broken.]
+
+[Sidenote: Reported advice of Cranmer to the confessor of Sion.]
+
+"As for that," said the priest, "an oath loosely made may be loosely
+broken; and by this example be ye in ease. I had an enemy come unto this
+church, and one of his friends and mine came unto me and said, 'Sir, I
+pray you let us go drink with yonder man.' And the said friend maketh
+such importunate suit unto me to drink with my enemy, that I promise him
+by my faith that I will go and drink with him; and so indeed doth drink
+with him. But what then," said the priest; "though I go and drink with
+him upon this promise, trow you that I will forgive him with my heart.
+Nay, nay, I warrant you. And so in like wise in this oath concerning the
+abjuration of the pope. I will not abjure him in my heart," said the
+priest, "for these words were not spoken unto Peter for nought--'I will
+give thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven'--and the pope is Peter's
+successor. Of this matter," said the priest, "I communed once with the
+Bishop of Canterbury,[395] and I told the bishop I would pray for the
+pope as the chief and papal head of Christ's church. And the bishop told
+me it was the king's pleasure that I should not. I said unto him I would
+do it; and though I did it not openly, yet would I do it secretly. And
+he said I might pray for him secretly, but in any wise do it not
+openly."[396]
+
+[Sidenote: Maitland the Black Friar, by his science of nigromancy,
+foretells a counter-revolution.]
+
+Trifles of this kind may seem unimportant; but at the time they were of
+moment, for their weight was cumulative; and we can only now recover but
+a few out of many. Such as they are, however, they show the spirit in
+which the injunctions were received by a section at least of the English
+clergy. Nor was this the worst. We find language reported, which shows
+that many among the monks were watching for symptoms of the promised
+imperial invasion, and the progress of the Irish insurgents. A Doctor
+Maitland, of the order of Black Friars in London, had been "heard divers
+times to say, he trusted to see every man's head that was of the new
+learning, and the maintainers of them, to stand upon a stake, and
+Cranmer's to be one of them. The king," he hoped, might suffer "a
+violent and shameful death;" and "the queen, that mischievous whore,
+might be brent." "He said further, that he knew by his science, which
+was nigromancy, that all men of the new learning should be suppressed
+and suffer death, and the _people of the old learning should be set up
+again by the power of the king's enemies from the parts beyond the
+sea_."[397]
+
+[Sidenote: Feron and Hale.]
+
+[Sidenote: Feron hopes that Henry's death may be like that of the
+manqueller Richard.]
+
+In the May weather of 1534, two Middlesex clergy, "walking to and fro
+in the cloyster garden at Sion, were there overheard compassing sedition
+and rebellion." John Hale, an eager, tumultuous person, was prompting
+his brother priest, Robert Feron, with matter for a pamphlet, which
+Feron was to write against the king.[398] "Syth the realm of England was
+first a realm," said Hale, "was there never in it so great a robber and
+piller of the commonwealth read of nor heard of as is our king..... He
+is the most cruellest capital heretic, defacer and treader under foot of
+Christ and of his church, continually applying and minding to extinct
+the same; whose death, I beseech God, may be like to the death of the
+most wicked John, sometime king of this realm, or rather to be called a
+great tyran than a king; and that his death may be not much unlike to
+the end of that manqueller Richard, sometime usurper of this imperial
+realm. And if thou wilt deeply look upon his life, thou shalt find it
+more foul and more stinking than a sow wallowing and defiling herself in
+any filthy place."
+
+[Sidenote: The Irish will persevere in the quarrel, and the Welsh will
+join them.]
+
+[Sidenote: Three parts of England be against the king.]
+
+These words were spoken in English; Feron translated them into Latin,
+and wrote them down. Hale then continued: "Until the king and the rulers
+of this realm be plucked by the pates, and brought, as we say, to the
+pot, shall we never live merrily in England, which, I pray God, may
+chance, and now shortly come to pass. Ireland is set against him, which
+will never shrink in their quarrel to die in it; and what think ye of
+Wales? The noble and gentle Ap Ryce,[399] so cruelly put to death, and
+he innocent, as they say, in the cause. _I think not contrary, but they
+will join and take part with the Irish, and so invade our realm. If they
+do so, doubt ye not but they shall have aid and strength enough in
+England. For this is truth: three parts of England be against the king,
+as he shall find if he need._ For of truth, they go about to bring this
+realm into such miserable condition as is France; which the commons see,
+_and perceive well enough a sufficient cause of rebellion and
+insurrection in this realm. And truly we of the church shall never live
+merrily until that day come_."[400]
+
+[Sidenote: The persecuting laws against the Catholics.]
+
+These informations may assist us in understanding, if we cannot forgive,
+the severe enactments--severely to be executed--which were passed in the
+ensuing parliament.
+
+[Sidenote: Effect of circumstances upon policy.]
+
+[Sidenote: A modern analogy.]
+
+It is a maxim of sound policy, that actions only are a proper subject of
+punishment,--that to treat men as offenders for their words, their
+intentions, or their opinions, is not justice, but tyranny. But there is
+no rule which is universally applicable. The policy of a state of war is
+not the policy of a state of peace. And as a soldier in a campaign is
+not at liberty to criticise openly the cause for which he is fighting;
+as no general, on his army going into action, can permit a subordinate
+to decline from his duty in the moment of danger, on the plea that he is
+dissatisfied with the grounds of the quarrel, and that his conscience
+forbids him to take part in it; so there are times when whole nations
+are in a position analogous to that of an army so circumstanced; when
+the safety of the State depends upon unity of purpose, and when private
+persons must be compelled to reserve their opinions to themselves; when
+they must be compelled neither to express them in words, nor to act upon
+them in their capacity of citizens, except at their utmost peril. At
+such times the _salus populi_ overrides all other considerations; and
+the maxims and laws of calmer periods for awhile consent to be
+suspended. The circumstances of the year 1848 will enable us, if we
+reflect, not upon what those circumstances actually were, but on what
+they easily might have been, to understand the position of Henry VIII.'s
+government at the moment of the separation from Rome. If the danger in
+1848 had ceased to be imaginary,--if Ireland had broken into a real
+insurrection,--if half the population of England had been Socialist, and
+had been in secret league with the leaders of the Revolution in Paris
+for a combined attack upon the State by insurrection and invasion,--the
+mere passing of a law, making the use of seditious language an act of
+treason, would not have been adequate to the danger. Influential persons
+would have been justly submitted to question on their allegiance, and
+insufficient answers would have been interpreted as justifying
+suspicion. Not the expression only, of opinions subversive of society,
+but the holding such opinions, however discovered, would have been
+regarded and treated as a crime, with the full consent of what is
+called the common sense and educated judgment of the nation.[401]
+
+[Sidenote: The Romanism of the sixteenth century not the Romanism of the
+nineteenth.]
+
+If for "opinions subversive of society," we substitute allegiance to the
+papacy, the parallel is complete between the year 1848, as it would then
+have been, and the time when the penal laws which are considered the
+reproach of the Tudor governments were passed against the Roman
+Catholics. I assume that the Reformation was in itself right; that the
+claims of the pope to an English supremacy were unjust; and that it was
+good and wise to resist those claims. If this be allowed, those laws
+will not be found to deserve the reproach of tyranny. We shall see in
+them but the natural resource of a vigorous government placed in
+circumstances of extreme peril. The Romanism of the present day is a
+harmless opinion, no more productive of evil than any other
+superstition, and without tendency, or shadow of tendency, to impair the
+allegiance of those who profess it. But we must not confound a phantom
+with a substance; or gather from modern experience the temper of a time
+when words implied realities, when Catholics really believed that they
+owed no allegiance to an heretical sovereign, and that the first duty of
+their lives was to a foreign potentate. This perilous doctrine was
+waning, indeed, but it was not dead. By many it was actively professed;
+and among those by whom it was denied there were few except the
+Protestants whom it did not in some degree embarrass and perplex.
+
+[Sidenote: Parliament meets, November 3.]
+
+[Sidenote: The king is declared supreme Head of the Church.]
+
+The government, therefore, in the close of 1534, having clear evidence
+before them of intended treason, determined to put it down with a high
+hand; and with this purpose parliament met again on the 3d of November.
+The first act of the session was to give the sanction of the legislature
+to the title which had been conceded by convocation, and to declare the
+king supreme Head of the Church of England. As affirmed by the
+legislature, this designation meant something more than when it was
+granted three years previously by the clergy. It then implied that the
+spiritual body were no longer to be an _imperium in imperio_ within the
+realm, but should hold their powers subordinate to the crown. It was now
+an assertion of independence of foreign jurisdiction; it was the
+complement of the Act of Appeals, rounding off into completeness the
+constitution in Church and State of the English nation. The act is
+short, and being of so great importance, I insert it entire.
+
+[Sidenote: Act of Supremacy.]
+
+"Albeit," it runs, "the King's Majesty justly and rightfully is and
+ought to be the supreme Head of the Church of England, and so is
+recognised by the clergy of this realm in their convocation, yet
+nevertheless, for corroboration and confirmation thereof, and for
+increase of virtue in Christ's religion within this realm of England,
+and to repress and extirp all errours, heresies, and other enormities
+and abuses heretofore used in the same: Be it enacted, by authority of
+this present parliament, that the King our Sovereign Lord, his heirs and
+successors, kings of this realm, shall be taken, accepted, and reputed
+the only supreme Head in earth of the Church of England, called
+_Anglicana Ecclesia_, and shall have and enjoy, annexed and united to
+the imperial crown of this realm, as well the title and style thereof as
+all the honours, dignities, pre-eminences, jurisdictions, authorities,
+immunities, profits, and commodities, to the said dignity belonging and
+appertaining; and that our said Sovereign Lord, his heirs and
+successors, kings of this realm, shall have full power and authority to
+visit, repress, redress, reform, order, correct, restrain, and amend all
+such errours, heresies, abuses, contempts, and enormities, whatsoever
+they be, which by any manner of spiritual authority or jurisdiction
+ought or may lawfully be reformed--most to the pleasure of Almighty God,
+the increase of virtue in Christ's religion, and for the conservation of
+the peace, unity, and tranquillity of this realm--any usage, custom,
+foreign lawes, foreign authority, prescription, or any other thing or
+things to the contrary hereof notwithstanding."[402]
+
+[Sidenote: The meaning and value of the title.]
+
+[Sidenote: It becomes the gage of the battle.]
+
+Considerable sarcasm has been levelled at the assumption by Henry of
+this title; and on the accession of Elizabeth, the crown, while
+reclaiming the authority, thought it prudent to retire from the
+designation. Yet it answered a purpose in marking the nature of the
+revolution, and the emphasis of the name carried home the change into
+the mind of the country. It was the epitome of all the measures which
+had been passed against the encroachments of the spiritual powers within
+and without the realm; it was at once the symbol of the independence of
+England, and the declaration that thenceforth the civil magistrate was
+supreme within the English dominions over church as well as state.[403]
+
+Whether the king was or was not head of the church, became now therefore
+the rallying point of the struggle; and the denial or acceptance of his
+title the test of allegiance or disloyalty. To accept it was to go along
+with the movement heartily and completely; to deny it was to admit the
+rival sovereignty of the pope, and with his sovereignty the lawfulness
+of the sentence of excommunication. It was to imply that Henry was not
+only not head of the church, but that he was no longer lawful King of
+England, and that the allegiance of the country must be transferred to
+the Princess Mary when the pope and the emperor should give the word.
+There might be no intention of treason; the motive of the opposition
+might be purely religious; but from the nature of the case opposition of
+any kind would abet the treason of others; and no honesty of meaning
+could render possible any longer a double loyalty to the crown and to
+the papacy.
+
+[Sidenote: The new Treason Act.]
+
+The act conferring the title was in consequence followed by another,
+declaring the denial of it to be treason. It was necessary to stop the
+tongues of the noisy mutinous monks, to show them once for all that
+these high matters were no subjects for trifling. The oath to the
+succession of the Princess Elizabeth partially answered this purpose;
+and the obligation to take that oath had been extended to all classes of
+the king's subjects;[404] but to refuse to swear to the succession was
+misprision of treason only, not high treason; and the ecclesiastics (it
+had been seen) found no difficulty in swearing oaths which they did not
+mean to observe. The parliament therefore now attached to the statute of
+supremacy the following imperious corollary:--
+
+[Sidenote: For the better security of the realm, it is enacted, That any
+person who, by words, writing, or otherwise, deprives the king or queen
+of any one of their just titles, shall be held guilty of high treason.]
+
+"Forasmuch as it is most necessary, both for common policy and duty of
+subjects, above all things to prohibit, provide, restrain, and extinct
+all manner of shameful slanders, perils, or imminent danger or dangers,
+which might grow, happen, or arise to their sovereign lord the king, the
+queen, or their heirs, which, when they be heard, seen, or understood,
+cannot be but odible and also abhorred of all those sorts that be true
+and loving subjects, if in any point they may, do, or shall touch the
+king, the queen, their heirs or successors, upon which dependeth the
+whole unity and universal weal of this realm; without providing
+wherefore, too great a scope should be given to all cankered and
+traitorous hearts, willers and workers of the same; and also the king's
+loving subjects should not declare unto their sovereign lord now being,
+which unto them both hath been and is most entirely beloved and
+esteemed, their undoubted sincerity and truth: Be it therefore enacted,
+that if any person or persons, after the first day of February next
+coming, do maliciously wish, will, or desire, by words or writing, or by
+craft imagine, invent, practise, or attempt any bodily harm to be done
+or committed to the king's most royal person, the queen's, or their
+heirs apparent, or to _deprive them or any of them of the dignity,
+title, or name of their royal estates_, or slanderously and maliciously
+publish and pronounce by express writing or words that the king our
+sovereign lord should be heretic, schismatic, tyrant, infidel, or
+usurper of the crown, &c., &c., that all such persons, their aiders,
+counsellors, concertors, or abettors, being thereof lawfully convict
+according to the laws and customs of the realm, shall be adjudged
+traitors, and that every such offence in any of the premises shall be
+adjudged high treason."[405]
+
+[Sidenote: The act made still more comprehensive, in the interpretation
+of it.]
+
+[Sidenote: Retributive justice.]
+
+The terrible powers which were thus committed to the government lie on
+the surface of this language; but comprehensive as the statute appears,
+it was still further extended by the interpretation of the lawyers. In
+order to fall under its penalties it was held not to be necessary that
+positive guilt should be proved in any one of the specified offences; it
+was enough if a man refused to give satisfactory answers when subjected
+to official examination.[406] At the discretion of the king or his
+ministers the active consent to the supremacy might be required of any
+person on whom they pleased to call, under penalty to the recusant of
+the dreadful death of a traitor. So extreme a measure can only be
+regarded as a remedy for an evil which was also extreme; and as on the
+return of quiet times the parliament made haste to repeal a law which
+was no longer required, so in the enactment of that law we are bound to
+believe that they were not betraying English liberties in a spirit of
+careless complacency; but that they believed truly that the security of
+the state required unusual precautions. The nation was standing with its
+sword half drawn in the face of an armed Europe, and it was no time to
+permit dissensions in the camp.[407] Toleration is good--but even the
+best things must abide their opportunity; and although we may regret
+that in this grand struggle for freedom, success could only be won by
+the aid of measures which bordered upon oppression, yet here also the
+even hand of justice was but commending the chalice to the lips of those
+who had made others drink it to the dregs. They only were likely to fall
+under the Treason Act who for centuries had fed the rack and the stake
+with sufferers for "opinion."
+
+[Sidenote: Appointment of suffragan bishops.]
+
+Having thus made provision for public safety, the parliament voted a
+supply of money for the fortifications on the coast and for the expenses
+of the Irish war; and after transferring to the crown the first-fruits
+of church benefices, which had been previously paid to the See of Rome,
+and passing at the same time a large and liberal measure for the
+appointment of twenty-six suffragan bishops,[408] they separated, not to
+meet again for more than a year.
+
+[Sidenote: Cardinal Farnese is chosen pope.]
+
+[Sidenote: He is chosen by French influence, in the hope he will pursue
+a liberal and conciliating policy.]
+
+Meanwhile, at Rome a change had taken place which for the moment seemed
+to promise that the storm after all might pass away. The conclave had
+elected as a successor to Clement a man who, of all the Italian
+ecclesiastics, was the most likely to recompose the quarrels in the
+church; and who, if the genius or the destiny of the papacy had not been
+too strong for any individual will, would perhaps have succeeded in
+restoring peace to Christendom. In the debates upon the divorce the
+Cardinal Farnese had been steadily upon Henry's side. He had maintained
+from the first the general justice of the king's demands. After the
+final sentence was passed, he had urged, though vainly, the
+reconsideration of that fatal step; and though slow and cautious,
+although he was a person who, as Sir Gregory Cassalis described him,
+"would accomplish little, but would make few mistakes,"[409] he had
+allowed his opinion upon this, as on other matters connected with the
+English quarrel, to be generally known. He was elected therefore by
+French influence[410] as the person most likely to meet the difficulties
+of Europe in a catholic and conciliating spirit. He had announced his
+intention, immediately on Clement's death, of calling a general council
+at the earliest moment, in the event of his being chosen to fill the
+papal chair; and as he was the friend rather of Francis I. than of the
+emperor, and as Francis was actively supporting Henry, and was
+negotiating at the same moment with the Protestant princes in Germany,
+it seemed as if a council summoned under such auspices would endeavour
+to compose the general discords in a temper of wise liberality, and that
+some terms of compromise would be discovered where by mutual concessions
+Catholic and Protestant might meet upon a common ground.
+
+The moment was propitious for such a hope; for the accession of a
+moderate pope coincided with the reaction in Germany which followed the
+scandals at Munster and the excesses of John of Leyden; and Francis
+pictured to himself a coalition between France, England, and the
+Lutherans, which, if the papacy was attached to their side, would be
+strong enough to bear down opposition, and reconstitute the churches of
+Europe upon the basis of liberality which he seemed to have secured for
+the church of France. The flattering vision in the autumn of the
+following year dazzled the German princes. Perhaps in the novelty of
+hope it was encouraged even by the pope, before he had felt the strong
+hand of fate which ruled his will.
+
+[Sidenote: Anxiety and alarm of the emperor.]
+
+[Sidenote: The mission of the Count of Nassau to Paris with proposals
+for a league.]
+
+[Sidenote: The emperor's offers are rejected by Francis.]
+
+To Charles V. the danger of some such termination of the great question
+at issue appeared most near and real. Charles, whose resentment at the
+conduct of England united with a desire to assert his authority over his
+subjects in Germany, beheld with the utmost alarm a scheme growing to
+maturity which menaced alike his honour, his desire of revenge, his
+supremacy in Europe, and perhaps his religious convictions. A liberal
+coalition would be fatal to order, to policy, to truth; and on the
+election of Cardinal Farnese, the Count de Nassau was sent on a secret
+mission to Paris with overtures, the elaborate condescension of which
+betrays the anxiety that must have dictated them. The emperor, in his
+self-constituted capacity of the Princess Mary's guardian, offered her
+hand with the English succession to the Duke of Angoulesme. From the
+terms on which he was thought to stand with Anne Boleyn, it was thought
+possible that Henry might consent;[411] he might not dare, as
+d'Inteville before suggested, to oppose the united demands of France and
+the Empire.[412] To Margaret de Valois the Count was to propose the
+splendid temptation of a marriage with Philip.[413] If Francis would
+surrender the English alliance, the emperor would make over to him the
+passionately coveted Duchy of Milan,[414] to be annexed to France on the
+death of the reigning Duke. In the meantime he would pay to the French
+king, as "tribute for Milan," a hundred thousand crowns a year, as an
+acknowledgment of the right of the house of Valois. Offers such as these
+might well have tempted the light ambition of Francis. If sincere, they
+were equivalent to a surrender of the prize for which the emperor's life
+had been spent in contending, and perilous indeed it would have been for
+England if this intrigue had been permitted to succeed. But whether it
+was that Francis too deeply distrusted Charles, that he preferred the
+more hazardous scheme of the German alliance, or that he supposed he
+could gain his object more surely with the help of England, the Count de
+Nassau left Paris with a decisive rejection of the emperor's advances;
+and in the beginning of January, De Bryon, the High Admiral of France,
+was sent to England, to inform Henry of what had passed, and to propose
+for Elizabeth the marriage which Charles had desired for the Princess
+Mary.
+
+[Sidenote: De Bryon sent to England.]
+
+De Bryon's instructions were remarkable. To consolidate the alliance of
+the two nations, he was to entreat Henry at length to surrender the
+claim to the crown of France, which had been the cause of so many
+centuries of war. In return for this concession, Francis would make over
+to England, Gravelines, Newport, Dunkirk, a province of Flanders, and
+"the title of the Duke of Lorrayne to the town of Antwerp, with
+sufficient assistance for the recovery of the same." Henry was not to
+press Francis to part from the papacy; and De Bryon seems to have
+indicated a hope that the English king might retrace his own steps. The
+weight of French influence, meanwhile, was to be pressed, to induce the
+pope to revoke and denounce, voyd and frustrate the unjust and
+slanderous sentence[415] given by his predecessor; and the terms of
+this new league were to be completed by the betrothal of the Princess
+Elizabeth to the Duke of Angoulesme.[416]
+
+[Sidenote: Change in Henry's character.]
+
+There had been a time when these proposals would have answered all which
+Henry desired. In the early days of his reign he had indulged himself in
+visions of empire, and of repeating the old glories of the Plantagenet
+kings. But in the peace which was concluded after the defeat of Pavia,
+he showed that he had resigned himself to a wiser policy,[417] and the
+surrender of a barren designation would cost him little. In his quarrel
+with the pope, also, he had professed an extreme reluctance to impair
+the unity of the church; and the sacrifices which he had made, and the
+years of persevering struggle which he had endured, had proved that in
+those professions he had not been insincere. But Henry's character was
+not what it had been when he won his title of Defender of the Faith. In
+the experience of the last few years he had learnt to conceive some
+broader sense of the meaning of the Reformation; and he had gathered
+from Cromwell and Latimer a more noble conception of the Protestant
+doctrines. He had entered upon an active course of legislation for the
+putting away the injustices, the falsehoods, the oppressions of a
+degenerate establishment; and in the strong sense that he had done
+right, and nothing else but right, in these measures, he was not now
+disposed to submit to a compromise, or to consent to undo anything which
+he was satisfied had been justly done, in consideration of any supposed
+benefit which he could receive from the pope. He was anxious to remain
+in communion with the see of Rome. He was willing to acknowledge in some
+innocuous form the Roman supremacy. But it could be only on his own
+terms. The pope must come to him; he could not go to the pope. And the
+papal precedency should only again be admitted in England on conditions
+which should leave untouched the Act of Appeals, and should preserve the
+sovereignty of the crown unimpaired.
+
+[Sidenote: Henry's reply to the overtures of the French king.]
+
+[Sidenote: The pope must make the first move towards a reconciliation.]
+
+He replied, therefore, to the overtures of Francis, that he was ready to
+enter into negotiations for the resignation or his title to the crown of
+France, and for the proposed marriage.[418] Before any other step was
+taken, however, he desired his good brother to insist that "the Bishop
+of Rome" should revoke the sentence, and "declare his pretended marriage
+with the Lady Catherine naught;" "which to do," Henry wrote (and this
+portion of his reply is written by his own hand), "we think it very
+facile for our good brother; since we do perceive by letters [from Rome]
+both the opinions of the learned men there to be of that opinion that we
+be of; and also a somewhat disposition to that purpose in the Bishop of
+Rome's self, according to equity, reason, and the laws both positive and
+divine." If there was to be a reconciliation with the Holy See, the
+first advance must be made on the Bishop of Rome's side; and Cromwell,
+in a simultaneous despatch, warned Francis not "to move or desire his
+Grace to the violation of any laws recently passed, as a thing whereunto
+he would in no wise condescend or agree."[419]
+
+[Sidenote: Henry distrusts Francis.]
+
+Henry, however, felt no confidence either in the sincerity of the pope,
+or in the sincerity of the French king, as he haughtily showed. He did
+not even trust De Bryon's account of the rejection of the overtures of
+the emperor. "If it happeneth," he wrote, "that the said Bishop will
+obstinately follow the steps of his predecessor, and be more inclined to
+the maintenance of the actions and sentences of his see than to equity
+and justice, then we trust that our good brother--perceiving the right
+to stand on our side, and that not only the universities of his whole
+realm and dominions hath so defined, but also the most part of the rest
+of Christendom, and also the best learned men of the Bishop of Rome's
+own council, now being called for that purpose--will fully and wholly,
+both he and his whole realm, adhere and cleave to us and our doings in
+this behalf; and we herein desire shortly to have answer, which we would
+be right loth should be such as whereupon we might take any occasion of
+suspicion; trusting, further, that our said good brother will both
+promise unto us upon his word, and indeed perform, that in the meantime,
+before the meeting of our deputies,[420] he nor directly nor indirectly
+shall practise or set forth any mean or intelligence of marriage, or of
+other practices with the emperour."[421]
+
+[Sidenote: The pope makes indirect advances, which are received also
+with coldness.]
+
+[Sidenote: January.]
+
+So cold an answer could have arisen only from deep distrust; it is
+difficult to say whether the distrust was wholly deserved. Analogous
+advances, made indirectly from the pope were met with the same reserve.
+Sir Gregory Cassalis wrote to Cromwell, that Farnese, or Paul III., as
+he was now called, had expressed the greatest desire to please the king.
+He had sent for lawyers out of Tuscany, on whose judgment he had great
+reliance, and these lawyers had given an opinion that the pope might _ex
+officio_ annul the first marriage as Henry desired, and pronounce the
+second valid.[422] This was well, but it did not go beyond words; and of
+these there had been too many. The English government had fed upon "the
+cameleon's dish," "eating the air promise crammed," till they were weary
+of so weak a diet, and they desired something more substantial. If the
+pope, replied Cromwell, be really well disposed, let him show his
+disposition in some public manner, "of his own accord, with a desire
+only for the truth, and without waiting till the King's Majesty entreat
+him."[423] It would have been more courteous, and perhaps it would have
+been more just, if the French overtures had been met in a warmer spirit;
+for the policy of Francis required for the time a cordial understanding
+with England; and his conduct seems to prove that he was sincerely
+anxious to win the pope to complacency.[424] But Henry's experience
+guided him wisely with the Roman Bishop; and if he had been entangled
+into confidence in Farnese, he would have been entangled to his ruin.
+
+[Sidenote: The language of the papacy had been inconsistent, but its
+conduct had been uniform.]
+
+The spring of 1535 was consumed in promises, negotiations, and a
+repetition of the profitless story of the preceding years. Suddenly, in
+the midst of the unreality, it became clear that one man at least was
+serious. Henry, with an insurgent Ireland and a mutinous England upon
+his hands, had no leisure for diplomatic finesse; he had learnt his
+lesson with Clement, and was not to be again deceived. The language of
+the Roman see had been inconsistent, but the actions of it had been
+always uniform. From the first beginning of the dispute to the final
+break and excommunication, in the teeth of his promises, his flatteries,
+his acknowledgments, Clement had been the partisan of Catherine. When
+the English agents were collecting the opinions of the Italian
+universities, they were thwarted by his emissaries. He had intrigued
+against Henry in Scotland; he had tampered with Henry's English and
+Irish subjects; he had maintained a secret correspondence with Catherine
+herself. And so well had his true feelings and the true position of the
+question been understood by the papal party in England, that at the very
+time when at Marseilles and elsewhere the pope himself was admitting the
+justice of the king's demand, the religious orders who were most
+unwavering in their allegiance to the papacy, were pressing their
+opposition to the divorce into rebellion.
+
+[Sidenote: Until the pope, therefore, shows some change in action, the
+penal laws may not be arrested.]
+
+When, therefore, the chair of St. Peter was filled by a new occupant,
+and language of the same smooth kind began again to issue from it, the
+English government could not for so light a cause consent to arrest
+their measures, or suspend the action of laws which had been passed from
+a conviction of their necessity. Whatever might become of French
+marriages, or of the cession of a corner of the Netherlands and a few
+towns upon the coast in exchange for a gaudy title, the English
+Reformation must continue its way; the nation must be steered clear
+among the reefs and shoals of treason. The late statutes had not been
+passed without a cause; and when occasion came to enforce them, were not
+to pass off, like the thunders of the Vatican, in impotent noise.
+
+[Sidenote: The martyrdoms of Catholics and Protestants analogous to
+deaths in battle.]
+
+Here, therefore, we are to enter upon one of the grand scenes of
+history; a solemn battle fought out to the death, yet fought without
+ferocity, by the champions of rival principles. Heroic men had fallen,
+and were still fast falling, for what was called heresy; and now those
+who had inflicted death on others were called upon to bear the same
+witness to their own sincerity. England became the theatre of a war
+between two armies of martyrs, to be waged, not upon the open field, in
+open action, but on the stake and on the scaffold, with the nobler
+weapons of passive endurance. Each party were ready to give their blood;
+each party were ready to shed the blood of their antagonists; and the
+sword was to single out its victims in the rival ranks, not as in peace
+among those whose crimes made them dangerous to society, but, as on the
+field of battle, where the most conspicuous courage most challenges the
+aim of the enemy. It was war, though under the form of peace; and if we
+would understand the true spirit of the time, we must regard Catholics
+and Protestants as gallant soldiers, whose deaths, when they fall, are
+not painful, but glorious; and whose devotion we are equally able to
+admire, even where we cannot equally approve their cause. Courage and
+self-sacrifice are beautiful alike in an enemy and in a friend. And
+while we exult in that chivalry with which the Smithfield martyrs bought
+England's freedom with their blood, so we will not refuse our admiration
+to those other gallant men whose high forms, in the sunset of the old
+faith, stand transfigured on the horizon, tinged with the light of its
+dying glory.
+
+[Sidenote: The monks of the London Charterhouse.]
+
+Secretary Bedyll, as we saw above, complained to Cromwell of the
+obstinacy of certain friars and monks, who, he thought, would confer a
+service on the country by dying quietly, lest honest men should incur
+unmerited obloquy in putting them to death. Among these, the brethren of
+the London Charterhouse were specially mentioned as recalcitrant, and
+they were said at the same time to bear a high reputation for holiness.
+In a narrative written by a member of this body, we are brought face to
+face, at their time of trial, with one of the few religious
+establishments in England which continued to deserve the name; and we
+may see, in the scenes which are there described, the highest
+representation of struggles which graduated variously according to
+character and temper, and, without the tragical result, may have been
+witnessed in very many of the monastic houses. The writer was a certain
+Maurice Channey, probably an Irishman. He went through the same
+sufferings with the rest of the brethren, and was one of the small
+fraction who finally gave way under the trial. He was set at liberty,
+and escaped abroad; and in penance for his weakness, he left on record
+the touching story of his fall, and of the triumph of his bolder
+companions.
+
+[Sidenote: Story of Maurice Channey.]
+
+[Sidenote: Unity of the monastic life.]
+
+He commences with his own confession. He had fallen when others stood.
+He was, as he says, an unworthy brother, a Saul among the prophets, a
+Judas among the apostles, a child of Ephraim turning himself back in the
+day of battle--for which his cowardice, while his brother monks were
+saints in heaven, he was doing penance in sorrow, tossing on the waves
+of the wide world. The early chapters contain a loving lingering picture
+of his cloister life--to him the perfection of earthly happiness. It is
+placed before us, in all its superstition, its devotion, and its
+simplicity, the counterpart, even in minute details, of the stories of
+the Saxon recluses when monasticism was in the young vigour of its life.
+St. Bede or St. Cuthbert might have found himself in the house of the
+London Carthusians, and he would have had few questions to ask, and no
+duties to learn or to unlearn. The form of the buildings would have
+seemed more elaborate; the notes of the organ would have added richer
+solemnity to the services; but the salient features of the scene would
+have been all familiar. He would have lived in a cell of the same shape,
+he would have thought the same thoughts, spoken the same words in the
+same language. The prayers, the daily life, almost the very faces with
+which he was surrounded, would have seemed all unaltered. A thousand
+years of the world's history had rolled by, and these lonely islands of
+prayer had remained still anchored in the stream; the strands of the
+ropes which held them, wearing now to a thread, and very near their last
+parting, but still unbroken. What they had been they were; and, if
+Maurice Channey's description had come down to us as the account of the
+monastery in which Offa of Mercia did penance for his crimes, we could
+have detected no internal symptoms of a later age.
+
+[Sidenote: Channey's description of it.]
+
+His pages are filled with the old familiar stories of visions and
+miracles; of strange adventures befalling the chalices and holy
+wafers;[425] of angels with wax candles; innocent phantoms which
+flitted round brains and minds fevered by asceticism. There are accounts
+of certain _fratres reprobi et eorum terribilis punitio_--frail brethren
+and the frightful catastrophes which ensued to them.[426] Brother
+Thomas, who told stories out of doors, _apud saeculares_, was attacked
+one night by the devil; and the fiend would have strangled him but for
+the prayers of a companion. Brother George, who craved after the
+fleshpots of Egypt, was walking one day about the cloister when he ought
+to have been at chapel, and the great figure upon the cross at the end
+of the gallery turned its back upon him as it hung, and drove him all
+but mad. Brother John Daly found fault with his dinner, and said that he
+would as soon eat toads--_Mira res! Justus Deus non fraudavit eum
+desiderio suo_--his cell was for three months filled with toads. If he
+threw them into the fire, they hopped back to him unscorched; if he
+killed them, others came to take their place.
+
+[Sidenote: Character of Haughton, the prior.]
+
+But these bad brothers were rare exceptions. In general the house was
+perhaps the best ordered in England. The hospitality was well sustained,
+the charities were profuse, and whatever we may think of the intellect
+which could busy itself with fancies seemingly so childish, the monks
+were true to their vows, and true to their duty as far as they
+comprehended what duty meant. Among many good, the prior John Haughton
+was the best. He was of an old English family, and had been educated at
+Cambridge, where he must have been the contemporary of Latimer. At the
+age of twenty-eight he took the vows as a monk, and had been twenty
+years a Carthusian at the opening of the troubles of the Reformation.
+He is described as "small in stature, in figure graceful, in countenance
+dignified." "In manner he was most modest; in eloquence most sweet; in
+chastity without stain." We may readily imagine his appearance; with
+that feminine austerity of expression which, as has been well said,
+belongs so peculiarly to the features of the mediaeval ecclesiastics.
+
+[Sidenote: The monks espouse the side of Queen Catherine.]
+
+[Sidenote: They are required to take the oath of allegiance, and
+refuse.]
+
+[Sidenote: The prior is persuaded to submit, _sub conditione_.]
+
+[Sidenote: The prior's dream.]
+
+[Sidenote: The monks hesitate,]
+
+[Sidenote: But at last yield.]
+
+Such was the society of the monks of the Charterhouse, who, in an era
+too late for their continuance, and guilty of being unable to read the
+signs of the times, were summoned to wage unequal battle with the world.
+From the commencement of the divorce cause they had espoused
+instinctively the queen's side; they had probably, in common with their
+affiliated house at Sion, believed unwisely in the Nun of Kent; and, as
+pious Catholics, they regarded the reforming measures of the parliament
+with dismay and consternation. The year 1533, says Maurice,[427] was
+ushered in with signs in heaven and prodigies upon earth, as if the end
+of the world was at hand; as indeed of the monks and the monks' world
+the end was truly at hand. And then came the spring of 1534, when the
+act was passed cutting off the Princess Mary from the succession, and
+requiring of all subjects of the realm an oath of allegiance to
+Elizabeth, and a recognition of the king's marriage with Queen Anne. Sir
+Thomas More and Bishop Fisher went to the Tower, as we saw, rather than
+swear; and about the same time the royal commissioners appeared at the
+Charterhouse to require the submission of the brethren. The regular
+clergy through the kingdom had bent to the storm. The conscience of the
+London Carthusians was less elastic; they were the first and, with the
+exception of More and Fisher, the only recusants. "The prior did answer
+to the commissioners," Maurice tells us, "that he knew nothing of such
+matters, and could not meddle with them; and they continuing to insist,
+and the prior being still unable to give other answer, he was sent with
+Father Humphrey, our proctor, to the Tower." There he remained for a
+month; and at the end of it he was persuaded by "certain good and
+learned men"[428] that the cause was not one for which it was lawful to
+suffer. He undertook to comply, _sub conditione_, with some necessary
+reservations, and was sent home to the cloister. As soon as he returned,
+the brethren assembled in their chapter-house "in confusion and great
+perplexity," and Haughton told them what he had promised. He would
+submit, he said, and yet his misgivings foretold to him that a
+submission so made could not long avail. "Our hour, dear brethren," he
+continued, "is not yet come. In the same night in which we were set free
+I had a dream that I should not escape thus. Within a year I shall be
+brought again to that place, and then I shall finish my course." If
+martyrdom was so near and so inevitable, the remainder of the monks were
+at first reluctant to purchase a useless delay at the price of their
+convictions. The commissioners came with the lord mayor for the oath,
+and it was refused. They came again, with the threat of instant
+imprisonment for the whole fraternity; "and then," says Maurice, "they
+prevailed with us. We all swore as we were required, making one
+condition, that we submitted only so far as it was lawful for us so to
+do. Thus, like Jonah, we were delivered from the belly of this monster,
+this immanis ceta, and began again to rejoice like him, under the shadow
+of the gourd of our home. But it is better to trust in the Lord than in
+princes, in whom is no salvation; God had prepared a worm that smote our
+gourd and made it to perish."[429]
+
+[Sidenote: The convent hears of the Treason Act.]
+
+This worm, as may be supposed, was the act of supremacy, with the
+statute of treasons which was attached to it. It was ruled, as I have
+said, that inadequate answers to official inquiry formed sufficient
+ground for prosecution under these acts. But this interpretation was not
+generally known; nor among those who knew it was it certain whether the
+crown would avail itself of the powers which it thus possessed, or
+whether it would proceed only against such offenders as had voluntarily
+committed themselves to opposition. In the opening of the following year
+[1535] the first uncertainty was at an end; it was publicly understood
+that persons who had previously given cause for suspicion might be
+submitted to question. When this bitter news was no longer doubtful, the
+prior called the convent together, and gave them notice to prepare for
+what was coming. They lay already under the shadow of treason; and he
+anticipated, among other evil consequences of disobedience, the
+immediate dissolution of the house. Even he, with all his forebodings,
+was unprepared for the course which would really be taken with them.
+"When we were all in great consternation," writes our author, "he said
+to us:--
+
+[Sidenote: The prior's address.]
+
+"'Very sorry am I, and my heart is heavy, especially for you, my
+younger friends, of whom I see so many round me. Here you are living in
+your innocence. The yoke will not be laid on your necks, nor the rod of
+persecution. But if you are taken hence, and mingle among the Gentiles,
+you may learn the works of them, and having begun in the spirit you may
+be consumed in the flesh. And there may be others among us whose hearts
+are still infirm. If these mix again with the world, I fear how it may
+be with them; and what shall I say, and what shall I do, if I cannot
+save those whom God has trusted to my charge?'
+
+"Then all who were present," says Channey, "burst into tears, and cried
+with one voice, 'Let us die together in our integrity, and heaven and
+earth shall witness for us how unjustly we are cut off.'
+
+[Sidenote: If it may be so, the prior will make himself anathema for his
+brethren.]
+
+"The prior answered, sadly,--'Would, indeed, that it might be so; that
+so dying we might live, as living we die--but they will not do to us so
+great a kindness, nor to themselves so great an injury. Many of you are
+of noble blood; and what I think they will do is this: Me and the elder
+brethren they will kill; and they will dismiss you that are young into a
+world which is not for you. _If, therefore, it depend on me alone--if my
+oath will suffice for the house--I will throw myself for your sakes on
+the mercy of God. I will make myself anathema; and to preserve you from
+these dangers, I will consent to the king's will._ If, however, they
+have determined otherwise--if they choose to have the consent of us
+all--the will of God be done. If one death will not avail, we will die
+all.'
+
+"So then, bidding us prepare for the worst, that the Lord when he
+knocked might find us ready, he desired us to choose each our
+confessor, and to confess our sins one to another, giving us power to
+grant each other absolution.
+
+[Sidenote: The brethren make their preparations.]
+
+"The day after he preached a sermon in the chapel on the 59th Psalm,--'O
+God, Thou hast cast us off, Thou hast destroyed us;'[430] concluding
+with the words, 'It is better that we should suffer here a short penance
+for our faults, than be reserved for the eternal pains of hell
+hereafter;'--and so ending, he turned to us and bade us all do as we saw
+him do. Then rising from his place he went direct to the eldest of the
+brethren, who was sitting nearest to himself, and kneeling before him,
+begged his forgiveness for any offence which in heart, word, or deed, he
+might have committed against him. Thence he proceeded to the next, and
+said the same; and so to the next, through us all, we following him and
+saying as he did, each from each imploring pardon."
+
+Thus, with unobtrusive nobleness, did these poor men prepare themselves
+for their end; not less beautiful in their resolution, not less
+deserving the everlasting remembrance of mankind, than those three
+hundred who in the summer morning sate combing their golden hair in the
+passes of Thermopylae. We will not regret their cause; there is no cause
+for which any man can more nobly suffer than to witness that it is
+better for him to die than to speak words which he does not mean. Nor,
+in this their hour of trial, were they left without higher comfort.
+
+"The third day after," the story goes on, "was the mass of the Holy
+Ghost, and God made known his presence among us. For when the host was
+lifted up, there came as it were a whisper of air, which breathed upon
+our faces as we knelt. Some perceived it with the bodily senses; all
+felt it as it thrilled into their hearts. And then followed a sweet,
+soft sound of music, at which our venerable father was so moved, God
+being thus abundantly manifest among us, that he sank down in tears, and
+for a long time could not continue the service--we all remaining
+stupified, hearing the melody, and feeling the marvellous effects of it
+upon our spirits, but knowing neither whence it came nor whither it
+went. Only our hearts rejoiced as we perceived that God was with us
+indeed."
+
+[Sidenote: The government are in no haste to enforce the statutes.]
+
+Comforted and resolute, the brotherhood awaited patiently the approach
+of the commissioners; and they waited long, for the crown was in no
+haste to be severe. The statutes had been passed in no spirit of
+cruelty; they were weapons to be used in case of extremity; and there
+was no attempt to enforce them until forbearance was misconstrued into
+fear. Sir Thomas More and the Bishop of Rochester remained unquestioned
+in the Tower, and were allowed free intercourse with their friends. The
+Carthusian monks were left undisturbed, although the attitude which they
+had assumed was notorious, and although the prior was known to forbid
+his penitents in confession to acknowledge the king's supremacy. If the
+government was at length driven to severity, it was because the clergy
+forced them to it in spite of themselves.
+
+[Sidenote: Conduct of the clergy.]
+
+The clergy had taken the oath, but they held themselves under no
+obligation to observe it; or if they observed the orders of the crown in
+the letter, they thwarted those orders in the spirit. The Treason Act
+had for awhile overawed them; but finding that its threats were confined
+to language, that months passed away, and that no person had as yet
+been prosecuted, they fell back into open opposition, either careless of
+the consequences, or believing that the government did not dare to exert
+its powers. The details of their conduct during the spring months of
+this year I am unable to discover; but it was such as at length, on the
+17th of April, provoked the following circular to the lords-lieutenant
+of the various counties:[431]--
+
+[Sidenote: Circular of the 17th of April.]
+
+[Sidenote: The clergy in divers places continue to pray for the pope.]
+
+[Sidenote: The king commands that all persons so doing shall be
+arrested.]
+
+"Right trusty and well-beloved cousin, we greet you well; and whereas it
+has come to our knowledge that sundry persons, as well religious as
+secular priests and curates in their parishes and in divers places
+within this our realm, do daily, as much as in them is, set forth and
+extol the jurisdiction of the Bishop of Rome, otherwise called the Pope;
+sowing their seditious, pestilent, and false doctrines; praying for him
+in the pulpit and making him a god; to the great deceit of our subjects,
+bringing them into errours and evil opinions; more preferring the power,
+laws, and jurisdiction of the said Bishop of Rome than the most holy
+laws and precepts of Almighty God: We therefore, minding not only to
+proceed for an unity and quietness among our said subjects, but also
+greatly coveting and desiring them to be brought to a knowledge of the
+mere verity and truth, and no longer to be seduced with any such
+superstitious and false doctrines of any earthly usurper of God's
+laws--will, therefore, and command you, that whensoever ye shall hear of
+any such seditious persons, ye indelayedly do take and apprehend them,
+or cause them to be apprehended and taken, and so committed to ward,
+there to remain without bail or mainprize, until, upon your
+advertisement thereof to us and to our council, ye shall know our
+further pleasure.
+
+  HENRY R."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Sidenote: The Carthusians are called upon to acknowledge the royal
+supremacy.]
+
+[Sidenote: The reason for the conduct of the government.]
+
+In obvious connexion with the issue of this publication, the monks of
+the Charterhouse were at length informed that they would be questioned
+on the supremacy. The great body of the religious houses had volunteered
+an outward submission. The London Carthusians, with other affiliated
+establishments, had remained passive, and had thus furnished an open
+encouragement to disobedience. We are instinctively inclined to censure
+an interference with persons who at worst were but dreamers of the
+cloister; and whose innocence of outward offences we imagine might have
+served them for a shield. Unhappily, behind the screenwork of these poor
+saints a whole Irish insurrection was blazing in madness and fury; and
+in the northern English counties were some sixty thousand persons ready
+to rise in arms. In these great struggles men are formidable in
+proportion to their virtues. The noblest Protestants were chosen by the
+Catholics for the stake. The fagots were already growing which were to
+burn Tyndal, the translator of the Bible. It was the habit of the time,
+as it is the habit of all times of real danger, to spare the multitude
+but to strike the leaders, to make responsibility the shadow of power,
+to choose for punishment the most efficacious representatives of the
+spirit which it was necessary to subdue.
+
+The influence of the Carthusians, with that of the two great men who
+were following the same road to the same goal, determined multitudes in
+the attitude which they would assume, and in the duty which they would
+choose. The Carthusians, therefore, were to be made to bend; or if they
+could not be bent, to be made examples in their punishment, as they had
+made themselves examples in their resistance. They were noble and good;
+but there were others in England good and noble as they, who were not of
+their fold; and whose virtues, thenceforward more required by England
+than cloistered asceticisms, had been blighted under the shadow of the
+papacy. The Catholics had chosen the alternative, either to crush the
+free thought which was bursting from the soil, or else to be crushed by
+it; and the future of the world could not be sacrificed to preserve the
+exotic graces of mediaeval saints. They fell, gloriously and not
+unprofitably. They were not allowed to stay the course of the
+Reformation; but their sufferings, nobly borne, sufficed to recover the
+sympathy of after-ages for the faith which they professed. Ten righteous
+men were found in the midst of the corruption to purchase for Romanism a
+few more centuries of tolerated endurance.
+
+[Sidenote: The prior with three others are sent to the Tower,]
+
+[Sidenote: And brought to trial, April 28.]
+
+To return to the narrative of Maurice Channey. Notice of the intention
+of the government having been signified to the order, Father Webster and
+Father Lawrence, the priors of the two daughter houses of Axholm and
+Belville, came up to London three weeks after Easter, and, with
+Haughton, presented themselves before Cromwell with an entreaty to be
+excused the submission. For answer to their petition they were sent to
+the Tower, where they were soon after joined by Father Reynolds, one of
+the recalcitrant monks of Sion. These four were brought on the 26th of
+April before a committee of the privy council, of which Cromwell was
+one. The act of supremacy was laid before them, and they were required
+to signify their acceptance of it. They refused, and two days after
+they were brought to trial before a special commission. They pleaded all
+"not guilty." They had of course broken the act; but they would not
+acknowledge that guilt could be involved in disobedience to a law which
+was itself unlawful. Their words in the Tower to the privy council
+formed the matter of the charge against them. It appears from the record
+that on their examination, "they, treacherously machinating and desiring
+to deprive the king our sovereign lord of his title of supreme Head of
+the Church of England, did openly declare and say, the king our
+sovereign lord is not supreme Head on earth of the Church of
+England."[432]
+
+[Sidenote: Haughton's language at the bar.]
+
+But their conduct on the trial, or at least the conduct of Haughton,
+spared all difficulty in securing a conviction. The judges pressed the
+prior "not to shew so little wisdom as to maintain his own opinion
+against the consent of the realm." He replied, that he had resolved
+originally to imitate the example of his Master before Herod, and say
+nothing. "But since you urge me," he continued, "that I may satisfy my
+own conscience and the consciences of these who are present, I will say
+that our opinion, if it might go by the suffrages of men, would have
+more witnesses than yours. You can produce on your side but the
+parliament of a single kingdom; I, on mine, have the whole Christian
+world except that kingdom. Nor have you all even of your own people. The
+lesser part is with you. The majority, who seem to be with you, do but
+dissemble, to gain favour with the king, or for fear they should lose
+their honours and their dignities."
+
+Cromwell asked him of whom he was speaking. "Of all the good men in the
+realm," he replied; "and when his Majesty knows the truth, I know well
+he will be beyond measure offended with those of his bishops who have
+given him the counsel which he now follows."
+
+"Why," said another of the judges, "have you, contrary to the king's
+authority within the realm, persuaded so many persons as you have done
+to disobey the king and parliament?"
+
+[Sidenote: Thursday, April 29.]
+
+[Sidenote: The prisoners are condemned.]
+
+"I have declared my opinion," he answered, "to no man living but to
+those who came to me in confession, which in discharge of my conscience
+I could not refuse. But if I did not declare it then, I will declare it
+now, because I am thereto obliged to God."[433] He neither looked for
+mercy nor desired it. A writ was issued for the return of a petty jury
+the following day. The prisoners were taken back to the Tower, and the
+next morning were brought again to the bar. Feron and Hale, the two
+priests whose conversation had been overheard at Sion, were placed on
+their trial at the same time. The two latter threw themselves on the
+mercy of the court. A verdict of guilty was returned against the other
+four. The sentence was for the usual punishment of high treason. Feron
+was pardoned; I do not find on what account. Hale and the Carthusians
+were to suffer together. When Haughton heard the sentence, he merely
+said, "This is the judgment of the world."[434]
+
+[Sidenote: May 4. The execution.]
+
+[Sidenote: They are brought to the scaffold in their habits.]
+
+An interval of five days was allowed after the trial. On the 4th of May,
+the execution took place at Tyburn, under circumstances which marked the
+occasion with peculiar meaning. The punishment in cases of high treason
+was very terrible. I need not dwell upon the form of it. The English
+were a hard, fierce people; and with these poor sufferers the law of the
+land took its course without alleviation or interference. But another
+feature distinguished the present execution. For the first time in
+English history, ecclesiastics were brought out to suffer in their
+habits, without undergoing the previous ceremony of degradation.
+Thenceforward the world were to know, that as no sanctuary any more
+should protect traitors, so the sacred office should avail as little;
+and the hardest blow which it had yet received was thus dealt to
+superstition, shaking from its place in the minds of all men the
+key-stone of the whole system.
+
+[Sidenote: Haughton dies first.]
+
+[Sidenote: The council urges the rest to submit, but in vain.]
+
+To the last moment escape was left open, if the prisoners would submit.
+Several members of the council attended them to the closing scene, for a
+last effort of kindness; but they had chosen their course, and were not
+to be moved from it. Haughton, as first in rank, had the privilege of
+first dying. When on the scaffold, in compliance with the usual custom,
+he spoke a few touching and simple words to the people. "I call to
+witness Almighty God," he said, "and all good people, and I beseech you
+all here present to bear witness for me in the day of judgment, that
+being here to die, I declare that it is from no obstinate rebellious
+spirit that I do not obey the king, but because I fear to offend the
+Majesty of God. Our holy mother the church has decreed otherwise than
+the king and the parliament have decreed, and therefore, rather than
+disobey the church, I am ready to suffer. Pray for me, and have mercy on
+my brethren, of whom I have been the unworthy prior." He then knelt
+down, repeating the first few verses of the 31st Psalm,[435] and after a
+few moments delivered himself to the executioner. The others followed,
+undaunted. As one by one they went to their death, the council, at each
+fresh horrible spectacle, urged the survivors to have pity on
+themselves; but they urged them in vain. The faces of these men did not
+grow pale; their voices did not shake; they declared themselves liege
+subjects of the king, and obedient children of holy church; "giving God
+thanks that they were held worthy to suffer for the truth."[436] All
+died without a murmur. The stern work was ended with quartering the
+bodies; and the arm of Haughton was hung up as a bloody sign over the
+archway of the Charterhouse, to awe the remaining brothers into
+submission.
+
+[Sidenote: June 10. Three more Carthusians tried and executed.]
+
+But the spirit of the old martyrs was in these friars. One of them, like
+the Theban sister, bore away the honoured relic and buried it; and all
+resolved to persist in their resigned opposition. Six weeks were allowed
+them to consider. At the end of that time three more were taken, tried,
+and hanged;[437] and this still proving ineffectual, Cromwell hesitated
+to proceed.
+
+[Sidenote: Cromwell hesitates.]
+
+[Sidenote: Close of the story of the Carthusians.]
+
+[Sidenote: They will not yield, and are crushed.]
+
+The end of the story is very touching and may be told briefly, that I
+may not have occasion to return to it. Maurice's account is probably
+exaggerated, and is written in a tone of strong emotion; but it has all
+the substantial features of truth. The remaining monks were left in the
+house; and two secular priests were sent to take charge of the
+establishment, who starved and ill-used them; and were themselves,
+according to Maurice, sensual and profligate. From time to time they
+were called before the privy council. Their friends and relatives were
+ordered to work upon them. No effort either of severity or kindness was
+spared to induce them to submit; as if their attitude, so long as it was
+maintained, was felt as a reproach by the government. At last, four were
+carried down to Westminster Abbey, to hear the Bishop of Durham deliver
+his famous sermon against the pope; and when this rhetorical inanity had
+also failed, and as they were thought to confirm one another in their
+obstinacy, they were dispersed among other houses the temper of which
+could be depended upon. Some were sent to the north; others to Sion,
+where a new prior had been appointed, of zealous loyalty; others were
+left at home to be disciplined by the questionable seculars. But nothing
+answered. Two found their way into active rebellion, and being
+concerned in the Pilgrimage of Grace, were hung in chains at York. Ten
+were sent to Newgate, where nine died miserably of prison fever and
+filth;[438] the tenth survivor was executed. The remainder, of whom
+Maurice was one, went through a form of submission, with a mental
+reservation, and escaped abroad.
+
+[Sidenote: The necessity was a cruel one, but the government are not to
+be blamed.]
+
+[Sidenote: The king orders the court into mourning.]
+
+So fell the monks of the London Charterhouse, splintered to pieces--for
+so only could their resistance be overcome--by the iron sceptre and the
+iron hand which held it. They were, however, alone of their kind. There
+were many perhaps who wished to resemble them, who would have imitated
+their example had they dared. But all bent except these. If it had been
+otherwise, the Reformation would have been impossible, and perhaps it
+would not have been needed. Their story claims from us that sympathy
+which is the due of their exalted courage. But we cannot blame the
+government. Those who know what the condition of the country really was,
+must feel their inability to suggest, with any tolerable reasonableness,
+what else could have been done. They may regret so hard a necessity, but
+they will regret in silence. The king, too, was not without feeling. It
+was no matter of indifference to him that he found himself driven to
+such stern courses with his subjects; and as the golden splendour of
+his manhood was thus sullenly clouding, "he commanded all about his
+court to poll their heads," in public token of mourning; "and to give
+them example, he caused his own head to be polled; and from thenceforth
+his beard to be knotted, and to be no more shaven."[439]
+
+[Sidenote: May 8. Other martyrs who were not Catholics.]
+
+The friars of Charterhouse suffered for the Catholic faith, as
+Protestants had suffered, and were still to suffer, for a faith fairer
+than theirs. In this same month of May, in the same year, the English
+annals contain another entry of no less sad significance. The bishops,
+as each day they parted further from their old allegiance, and were
+called in consequence by the hateful name of heretics, were increasingly
+anxious to prove by evident tokens their zeal for the true faith; and
+although the late act of heresy had moderated their powers, yet power
+enough remained to enable them to work their will upon all extreme
+offenders. Henry, also, it is likely, was not sorry of an opportunity of
+showing that his justice was even-handed, and that a schism from the
+papacy was not a lapse into heterodoxy. His mind was moving. Latimer and
+Shaxton, who three years before had been on trial for their lives, were
+soon to be upon the bench; and in the late injunctions, the Bible, and
+not the decrees of the church, had been held up as the canon of truth.
+But heresy, though the definition of it was changing, remained a crime;
+and although the limits of permitted belief were imperceptibly
+enlarging, to transgress the recognised boundaries was an offence
+enormous as ever.
+
+[Sidenote: Popular estimate of the Anabaptists.]
+
+If we can conceive the temper with which the reasonable and practical
+English at present regard the Socialists of the continent, deepened by
+an intensity of conviction of which these later ages have had but little
+experience, we can then imagine the light in which the Anabaptists of
+the Netherlands appeared in the eyes or orthodox Europe. If some
+opinions, once thought heretical, were regarded with less agitated
+repugnance, the heresy of these enemies of mankind was patent to the
+world. On them the laws of the country might take their natural course,
+and no voice was raised to speak for them.
+
+[Sidenote: May 25.]
+
+[Sidenote: Fourteen of them are executed.]
+
+[Sidenote: They too did not die in vain.]
+
+We find, therefore, in Stow's _Chronicle_, the following: brief entry:
+"The five and twentieth day of May were, in St. Paul's church, London,
+examined nineteen men and six women, born in Holland, whose opinions
+were--first, that in Christ is not two natures, God and man; secondly,
+that Christ took neither flesh nor blood of the Virgin Mary; thirdly,
+that children born of infidels may be saved; fourthly, that baptism of
+children is of none effect; fifthly, that the sacrament of Christ's body
+is but bread only; sixthly, that he who after baptism sinneth wittingly,
+sinneth deadly, and cannot be saved. Fourteen of them were condemned: a
+man and a woman were burnt at Smithfield. The remaining twelve were
+scattered among other towns, there to be burnt."[440] The details are
+gone,[441]--the names are gone. Poor Hollanders they were, and that is
+all. Scarcely the fact seemed worth the mention, so shortly it is told
+in a passing paragraph. For them no Europe was agitated, no courts were
+ordered into mourning, no papal hearts trembled with indignation. At
+their deaths the world looked on complacent, indifferent, or exulting.
+Yet here, too, out of twenty-five common men and women were found
+fourteen who, by no terror of stake or torture, could be tempted to say
+that they believed what they did not believe. History for them has no
+word of praise; yet they, too, were not giving their blood in vain.
+Their lives might have been as useless as the lives of most of us. In
+their deaths they assisted to pay the purchase-money for England's
+freedom.
+
+[Sidenote: Fisher and More.]
+
+[Sidenote: Fisher's dangerous imprudence.]
+
+[Sidenote: Treatment and conduct of Fisher and of More in the Tower.]
+
+[Sidenote: Cromwell's charges against them.]
+
+After the execution of the Carthusians, it became a question what should
+be done with the Bishop of Rochester and Sir Thomas More. They had
+remained for a year in the Tower, undisturbed; and there is no reason to
+think that they would have been further troubled, except for the fault
+of one, if not of both. It appeared, however, on the trial of Father
+Reynolds, that Fisher's imprudence or zeal had tempted him again to
+meddle with dangerous matters. A correspondence had passed between the
+bishop and the king,[442] on the Act of Supremacy, or on some subject
+connected with it. The king had taken no public notice of Fisher's
+words, but he had required a promise that the letter should not be
+shown to any other person. The unwise old man gave his word, but he did
+not observe it; he sent copies both of what he had himself written and
+of the king's answer to the Sion monks,[443] furnishing them at the same
+time with a copy of the book which he had written against the divorce,
+and two other books, written by Abel, the queen's confessor, and the
+Spanish ambassador. Whether he was discovered to have held any other
+correspondence, or whether anything of an analogous kind was proved
+against More, I am unable to discover. Both he and Fisher had been
+treated with greater indulgence than was usual with prisoners.[444]
+Their own attendants had waited on them; they were allowed to receive
+visits from their relatives within the Tower walls, and to correspond
+with their families and friends.[445] As a matter of course, under such
+circumstances, they must have expressed their opinions on the great
+subject of the day; and those opinions were made known throughout
+England, and, indeed, throughout Europe. Whether they did more than
+this, or whether they had only indirectly allowed their influence to be
+used against the government, must be left to conjecture. But the
+language of a document under the king's hand speaks of their having
+given some cause of provocation, of no common kind; and this is
+confirmed by Cromwell, who was once deeply attached to More. "When they
+were in strait keeping," say the instructions to the Bishop of Hereford,
+"having nevertheless the prison at their liberties, they ceased not both
+to practise an insurrection within the realm, and also to use all the
+devices to them possible in outward parts, as well to defame and slander
+his Majesty, and his most virtuous doings and proceedings, as also to
+procure the impeachment and other destruction of his most royal
+person."[446] Cromwell speaks also of their having been engaged in
+definite schemes, the object of which was rebellion;[447] and although
+we have here the _ex parte_ statement of the government, and although
+such a charge would have been held to be justified by a proof that they
+had spoken generally against the Act of Supremacy, it may be allowed to
+prove that so far they were really guilty; and it is equally certain
+that for these two men to have spoken against the act was to have lent
+encouragement to the party of insurrection, the most powerful which that
+party could have received.
+
+Thus, by another necessity, Fisher and More, at the beginning of May,
+were called upon for their submission. It was a hard case, for the
+bishop was sinking into the grave with age and sickness, and More had
+the highest reputation of any living man. But they had chosen to make
+themselves conspicuous as confessors for Catholic truth; though
+prisoners in the Tower, they were in fact the most effectual champions
+of the papal claims; and if their disobedience had been passed over, the
+statute could have been enforced against no one.
+
+[Sidenote: May 7. A deputation of the council waits upon them in the
+Tower. They refuse to admit the supremacy.]
+
+The same course was followed as with the Carthusian monks. On the 7th of
+May a deputation of the council waited on the prisoners in the Tower,
+for an acknowledgment of the supremacy. They refused: Fisher, after a
+brief hesitation, peremptorily; More declining to answer, but also
+giving an indirect denial. After repeated efforts had been made to move
+them, and made in vain, their own language, as in the preceding trials,
+furnished material for their indictment; and the law officers of the
+crown who were to conduct the prosecution were the witnesses under whose
+evidence they were to be tried. It was a strange proceeding, to be
+excused only, if excused at all, by the pressure of the times.[448]
+
+[Sidenote: The government delay their trial.]
+
+Either the king or his ministers, however, were slow in making up their
+minds. With the Carthusians, nine days only were allowed to elapse
+between the first examination and the final close at Tyburn. The case
+against More and Fisher was no less clear than against the monks; yet
+five weeks elapsed and the government still hesitated. Perhaps they were
+influenced by the high position of the greater offenders,--perhaps there
+was some fear of the world's opinion, which, though it might be
+indifferent to the sacrifice of a few obscure ecclesiastics, yet would
+surely not pass over lightly the execution of men who stood out with so
+marked preeminence. The council board was unevenly composed. Cromwell,
+who divides with the king the responsibility of these prosecutions, had
+succeeded, not to the authority only of Wolsey, but to the hatred with
+which the ignoble plebeian was regarded by the patricians who were
+compelled to stoop before him. Lord Exeter was already looking with a
+cold eye on the revolution; and Norfolk and Suffolk, though zealous as
+the king himself for the independence of England, yet had all the
+instincts of aristocratic conservatism. Even Cromwell may have desired
+the triumph of winning over converts so distinguished, or may have
+shrunk from the odium which their deaths would bring upon him. Whatever
+was the cause of the delay, the privy council, who had been contented
+with a single examination of Haughton and his companions, struggled with
+their present difficulty week after week; and it is possible that,
+except from an extraneous impulse, some mode of escape might have been
+discovered. But as the sentence of Clement sealed the fate of the Nun of
+Kent, so the unwisdom of his successor bore similarly fatal fruits.
+
+[Sidenote: The pope names Fisher a cardinal.]
+
+Paul III. had throughout the spring flattered Henry with expressions of
+sympathy, and had held out hopes of an approaching change of policy. He
+chose the present unfortunate juncture to expose the vanity of these
+professions; and as an intimation of the course which he intended to
+follow, he named the Bishop of Rochester, the one bishop who remained
+attached to Catherine's cause, a cardinal. Henry had appealed to a
+council, which the pope had promised to call; and Fisher, of all
+Englishmen, was chosen as the person whom the pope desired to represent
+the nation on its assembly. Even the very conclave at Rome were taken by
+surprise, and expressed themselves in no measured terms at the impolicy
+of this most foolish action. Cassalis, aware of the effect which the
+news would produce in England, hurried to such friends as he possessed
+in the conclave to protest against the appointment. The king, he said,
+would inevitably regard it as injurious to the realm and insulting to
+himself;[449] and it was madness at such a moment to trifle with Henry's
+displeasure.
+
+[Sidenote: Cassalis protests, and the pope condescends to falsehood.]
+
+The Pope, alarmed at the expressions which he was told that Cassalis had
+used, sent in haste to urge him, if possible, to allay the storm. He
+was not ashamed to stoop to falsehood--but falsehood too awkward to
+deceive even the most willing credulity. He had thought, he said, of
+nothing but to please Henry. He had been urged by the King of France to
+seek a reconciliation with England, and in sending a hat to an English
+bishop he had meant nothing but a compliment. The general council would
+be held immediately; and it was desirable, according to the constitution
+of the church, that a cardinal of every nation should be present. He had
+no especial reason for choosing the Bishop of Rochester, except that he
+had a high reputation for learning, and he imagined, therefore, that the
+king would be gratified.[450] "He implored me," Cassalis wrote, "to make
+his excuses to his Majesty, and to assure him how deeply he regretted
+his mistake, especially when I assured him that the step was of a kind
+which admitted of no excuse."[451]
+
+[Sidenote: The appointment seals Fisher's fate.]
+
+[Sidenote: June 17. He is tried at Westminster,]
+
+[Sidenote: And is condemned.]
+
+Cassalis himself was afterwards disposed to believe that the appointment
+was made in thoughtlessness, and that the pope at the moment had really
+forgotten Fisher's position.[452] But this could gain no credit in
+England. The news reached the government in the middle of June, and
+determined the fate of the unfortunate bishop; and with it the fate,
+also, of his nobler companion. To the king, the pope's conduct appeared
+a defiance; and as a defiance he accepted it. In vain Fisher declared
+that he had not sought his ill-timed honours, and would not accept
+them. Neither his ignorance nor his refusal could avail him. Once more
+he was called upon to submit, with the intimation, that if he refused he
+must bear the consequences. His reply remained what it had been; and on
+the 17th of June he was taken[453] down in a boat to Westminster Hall,
+where the special commission was sitting. The proceedings at his trial
+are thus briefly summed up in the official record:--"Thursday after the
+feast of St. Barnabas, John Fisher was brought to the bar by Sir William
+Kingston, Constable of the Tower. Pleads not guilty. Venire awarded.
+Verdict--guilty. Judgment as usual in cases of treason."[454]
+
+It was a swift sentence, and swiftly to be executed. Five days were
+allowed him to prepare himself; and the more austere features of the
+penalty were remitted with some show of pity. He was to die by the axe.
+
+[Sidenote: June 22. He is beheaded on Tower Hill.]
+
+Mercy was not to be hoped for. It does not seem to have been sought. He
+was past eighty. The earth on the edge of the grave was already
+crumbling under his feet; and death had little to make it fearful. When
+the last morning dawned, he dressed himself carefully--as he said, for
+his marriage-day. The distance to Tower Hill was short. He was able to
+walk; and he tottered out of the prison-gates, holding in his hand a
+closed volume of the New Testament. The crowd flocked about him, and he
+was heard to pray that, as this book had been his best comfort and
+companion, so in that hour it might give him some special strength, and
+speak to him as from his Lord. Then opening it at a venture, he read:
+"This is life eternal, to know Thee, the only true God, and Jesus
+Christ, whom Thou hast sent." It was the answer to his prayer; and he
+continued to repeat the words as he was led forward. On the scaffold he
+chanted the _Te Deum_, and then, after a few prayers, knelt down, and
+meekly laid his head upon a pillow where neither care nor fear nor
+sickness would ever vex it more. Many a spectacle of sorrow had been
+witnessed on that tragic spot, but never one more sad than this; never
+one more painful to think or speak of. When a nation is in the throes of
+revolution, wild spirits are abroad in the storm; and poor human nature
+presses blindly forward with the burden which is laid upon it, tossing
+aside the obstacles in its path with a recklessness which, in calmer
+hours, it would fear to contemplate.
+
+Sir Thomas More followed, his fortunes linked in death as in life to
+those of his friend. He was left to the last--in the hope, perhaps, that
+the example might produce an effect which persuasion could not. But the
+example, if that was the object, worked to far other purpose. From
+More's high-tempered nature, such terrors fell harmless, as from
+enchanted armour. Death to him was but a passing from one country to
+another; and he had all along anticipated that his prison was the
+antechamber of the scaffold. He had, indeed, taken no pains to avoid it.
+The king, according to the unsuspicious evidence of his daughter,
+Margaret Roper, had not accused him without cause of exciting a spirit
+of resistance. He had spent his time in encouraging Catholics to
+persevere to martyrdom for their faith. In his many conversations with
+herself, he had expressed himself with all freedom, and to others he
+had doubtless spoken as plainly as to her.[455]
+
+[Sidenote: June 26. A true bill found against Sir Thomas More.]
+
+[Sidenote: July 1. He is brought to the bar.]
+
+[Sidenote: Substance of the indictment.]
+
+On the 7th of May he was examined by the same persons who examined Fisher;
+and he was interrogated again and again in subsequent interviews. His
+humour did not allow him to answer questions directly: he played with his
+catechists, and did not readily furnish them with materials for a charge.
+He had corresponded with Fisher in prison, on the conduct which he meant to
+pursue. Some of these letters had been burnt; but others were in the hands
+of the government, and would have been sufficient to sustain the
+prosecution, but they preferred his own words from his own lips. At length
+sufficient evidence was obtained. On the 26th of June, a true bill was
+found against him by the Grand Jury of Middlesex; and on the 1st of July
+the High Commission sat again in Westminster Hall, to try the most
+illustrious prisoner who ever listened to his sentence there.[456] He
+walked from the Tower--feebly, however, and with a stick, for he was weak
+from long confinement. On appearing at the bar, a chair was brought for
+him, and he was allowed to sit. The indictment was then read by the
+attorney-general. It set forth that Sir Thomas More, traitorously imagining
+and attempting to deprive the king of his title as supreme Head of the
+Church, did, on the 7th of May, when examined before Thomas Cromwell, the
+king's principal secretary, and divers other persons, whether he would
+accept the king as Head on earth of the Church of England, pursuant to the
+statute, refuse to give a direct answer, but replied, "I will not meddle
+with any such matters, for I am fully determined to serve God and to think
+upon His passion, and my passage out of this world."[457] He was then
+charged with having written to Fisher that "The act of parliament was like
+a sword with two edges; for if a man answered one way it would confound his
+soul, and if the other way it would confound his body."[458] Finally and
+chiefly, he had spoken treasonable words in the Tower to Rich, the
+solicitor-general. Rich had endeavoured to persuade him, as Cranmer had
+endeavoured in his previous difficulty at Lambeth, that it was his duty as
+a subject to obey the law of the land. "Supposing it was enacted by act of
+parliament," the solicitor-general had said, "that I, Richard Rich, should
+be king, and that it should be treason to deny it, what would be the
+offence if you, Sir Thomas More, were to say that I was king?" More had
+answered that, in his conscience, he would be bound by the act of
+parliament, and would be obliged to accept Rich as king. He would put
+another case, however. "Suppose it should be enacted by parliament, _quod
+Deus non esset Deus_, and that opposing the act should be treason, if it
+were asked of him, Richard Rich, whether he would say _Quod Deus non erat
+Deus_, according to this statute, and if he were to say No, would he not
+offend?" Rich had replied, "Certainly, because it is impossible, _quod Deus
+non esset Deus_; but why, Master More, can you not accept the king as chief
+Head of the Church of England, just as you would that I should be made
+king, in which case you agree that you would be obliged to acknowledge me
+as king?" "To which More, persevering in his treasons, had answered to
+Rich, that the cases were not similar, because the king could be made by
+parliament and deprived by parliament;[459] but in the first case the
+subject could not be obliged, because his consent could not be given for
+that in parliament."
+
+[Sidenote: The chancellor urges him to submit.]
+
+This was the substance of the indictment. As soon as it was read, the
+lord chancellor rose, and told the prisoner that he saw how grievously
+he had offended the king; it was not too late to ask for mercy, however,
+which his Majesty desired to show.
+
+[Sidenote: He trusts, however, to remain in his opinion till death.]
+
+[Sidenote: The jury find a verdict of guilty.]
+
+"My lord," More replied, "I have great cause to thank your honour for
+your courtesy, but I beseech Almighty God that I may continue in the
+mind that I am in through His grace unto death." To the charges against
+him he pleaded "not guilty," and answered them at length. He could not
+say indeed that the facts were not true; for although he denied that he
+had "practised" against the supremacy, he could not say that he had
+consented to it, or that he ever would consent; but like the Prior of
+the Charterhouse, he could not admit himself guilty when he had only
+obeyed his conscience. The jury retired to consider, and in a quarter of
+an hour returned with their verdict. The chancellor, after receiving it,
+put the usual question, what the prisoner could say in arrest of
+judgment. More replied, but replied with a plea which it was impossible
+to recognise, by denouncing the statute under which he was tried, and
+insisting on the obligation of obedience to the see of Rome. Thus the
+sentence was inevitable. It was pronounced in the ordinary form; but the
+usual punishment for treason was commuted, as it had been with Fisher,
+to death upon the scaffold; and this last favour was communicated as a
+special instance of the royal clemency. More's wit was always ready.
+"God forbid," he answered, "that the king should show any more such
+mercy unto any of my friends; and God bless all my posterity from such
+pardons."[460]
+
+The pageant was over, for such a trial was little more. As the
+procession formed to lead back the "condemned traitor" to the Tower, the
+commissioners once more adjured him to have pity on himself, and offered
+to reopen the court if he would reconsider his resolution. More smiled,
+and replied only a few words of graceful farewell.
+
+[Sidenote: His last words to the commission.]
+
+"My lords," he said, "I have but to say that, like as the blessed
+Apostle St. Paul was present at the death of the martyr Stephen, keeping
+their clothes that stoned him, and yet they be now both saints in
+heaven, and there shall continue friends for ever, so I trust, and shall
+therefore pray, that though your lordships have been on earth my
+judges, yet we may hereafter meet in heaven together to our everlasting
+salvation; and God preserve you all, especially my sovereign lord the
+king, and grant him faithful councillors."
+
+[Sidenote: He returns to the Tower.]
+
+[Sidenote: Margaret Roper.]
+
+He then left the hall, and to spare him the exertion of the walk he was
+allowed to return by water. At the Tower stairs one of those scenes
+occurred which have cast so rich a pathos round the closing story of
+this illustrious man. "When Sir Thomas," writes the grandson, "was now
+come to the Tower wharf, his best beloved child, my aunt Roper, desirous
+to see her father, whom she feared she should never see in this world
+after, to have his last blessing, gave there attendance to meet him;
+whom as soon as she had espied she ran hastily unto him, and without
+consideration or care for herself, passing through the midst of the
+throng and guard of men, who with bills and halberts compassed him
+round, there openly in the sight of them all embraced him, and took him
+about the neck and kissed him, not able to say any word but 'Oh, my
+father! oh, my father!' He, liking well her most natural and dear
+affection towards him, gave her his fatherly blessing; telling her that
+whatsoever he should suffer, though he were innocent, yet it was not
+without the will of God; and that He knew well enough all the secrets of
+her heart, counselling her to accommodate her will to God's blessed
+pleasure, and to be patient for his loss.
+
+"She was no sooner parted from him, and had gone scarce ten steps, when
+she, not satisfied with the former farewell, like one who had forgot
+herself, ravished with the entire love of so worthy a father, having
+neither respect to herself nor to the press of people about him,
+suddenly turned back, and ran hastily to him, and took him about the
+neck and divers times together kissed him; whereat he spoke not a word,
+but carrying still his gravity, tears fell also from his eyes; yea,
+there were very few in all the troop who could refrain hereat from
+weeping, no, not the guard themselves. Yet at last with a full heart she
+was severed from him, at which time another of our women embraced him;
+and my aunt's maid Dorothy Collis did the like, of whom he said after,
+it was homely but very lovingly done. All these and also my grandfather
+witnessed that they smelt a most odoriferous smell to come from him,
+according to that of Isaac, 'The scent of my son is as the scent of a
+field which the Lord has blessed.'"[461]
+
+[Sidenote: The last days in the Tower.]
+
+More's relation with this daughter forms the most beautiful feature in
+his history. His letters to her in early life are of unequalled grace,
+and she was perhaps the only person whom he very deeply loved. He never
+saw her again. The four days which remained to him he spent in prayer
+and in severe bodily discipline. On the night of the 5th of July,
+although he did not know the time which had been fixed for his
+execution, yet with an instinctive feeling that it was near, he sent her
+his hair shirt and whip, as having no more need for them, with a parting
+blessing of affection.
+
+He then lay down and slept quietly. At daybreak he was awoke by the
+entrance of Sir Thomas Pope, who had come to confirm his anticipations,
+and to tell him it was the king's pleasure that he should suffer at nine
+o'clock that morning. He received the news with utter composure. "I am
+much bounden to the king," he said, "for the benefits and honours he
+has bestowed upon me; and so help me God, most of all am I bounden to
+him that it pleaseth his Majesty to rid me so shortly out of the
+miseries of this present world."
+
+Pope told him the king desired that he would not "use many words on the
+scaffold." "Mr. Pope," he answered, "you do well to give me warning, for
+otherwise I had purposed somewhat to have spoken; but no matter
+wherewith his Grace should have cause to be offended. Howbeit, whatever
+I intended, I shall obey his Highness's command."
+
+He afterwards discussed the arrangements for his funeral, at which he
+begged that his family might be present; and when all was settled, Pope
+rose to leave him. He was an old friend. He took More's hand and wrung
+it, and quite overcome, burst into tears.
+
+"Quiet yourself, Mr. Pope," More said, "and be not discomforted, for I
+trust we shall once see each other full merrily, when we shall live and
+love together in eternal bliss."[462]
+
+As soon as he was alone he dressed in his most elaborate costume. It was
+for the benefit, he said, of the executioner who was to do him so great
+a service. Sir William Kingston remonstrated, and with some difficulty
+induced him to put on a plainer suit; but that his intended liberality
+should not fail, he sent the man a gold angel in compensation, "as a
+token that he maliced him nothing, but rather loved him extremely."
+
+[Sidenote: He leaves the Tower.]
+
+"So about nine of the clock he was brought by the Lieutenant out of the
+Tower, his beard being long, which fashion he had never before used, his
+face pale and lean, carrying in his hands a red cross, casting his eyes
+often towards heaven." He had been unpopular as a judge, and one or two
+persons in the crowd were insolent to him; but the distance was short
+and soon over, as all else was nearly over now.
+
+[Sidenote: On the scaffold.]
+
+[Sidenote: Death.]
+
+The scaffold had been awkwardly erected, and shook as he placed his foot
+upon the ladder. "See me safe up," he said to Kingston. "For my coming
+down I can shift for myself." He began to speak to the people, but the
+sheriff begged him not to proceed, and he contented himself with asking
+for their prayers, and desiring them to bear witness for him that he
+died in the faith of the holy Catholic church, and a faithful servant of
+God and the king. He then repeated the Miserere psalm on his knees; and
+when he had ended and had risen, the executioner, with an emotion which
+promised ill for the manner in which his part in the tragedy would be
+accomplished, begged his forgiveness. More kissed him. "Thou art to do
+me the greatest benefit that I can receive," he said. "Pluck up thy
+spirit, man, and be not afraid to do thine office. My neck is very
+short. Take heed therefore that thou strike not awry for saving of thine
+honesty." The executioner offered to tie his eyes. "I will cover them
+myself," he said; and binding them in a cloth which he had brought with
+him, he knelt and laid his head upon the block. The fatal stroke was
+about to fall, when he signed for a moment's delay while he moved aside
+his beard. "Pity that should be cut," he murmured, "that has not
+committed treason." With which strange words, the strangest perhaps
+ever uttered at such a time, the lips most famous through Europe for
+eloquence and wisdom closed for ever.
+
+"So," concludes his biographer, "with alacrity and spiritual joy he
+received the fatal axe, which no sooner had severed the head from the
+body, but his soul was carried by angels into everlasting glory, where a
+crown of martyrdom was placed upon him which can never fade nor decay;
+and then he found those words true which he had often spoken, that a man
+may lose his head and have no harm."[463]
+
+This was the execution of Sir Thomas More, an act which was sounded out
+into the far corners of the earth, and was the world's wonder as well
+for the circumstances under which it was perpetrated, as for the
+preternatural composure with which it was borne. Something of his
+calmness may have been due to his natural temperament, something to an
+unaffected weariness of a world which in his eyes was plunging into the
+ruin of the latter days. But those fair hues of sunny cheerfulness
+caught their colour from the simplicity of his faith; and never was
+there a Christian's victory over death more grandly evidenced than in
+that last scene lighted with its lambent humour.
+
+History will rather dwell upon the incidents of the execution than
+attempt a sentence upon those who willed that it should be. It was at
+once most piteous and most inevitable. The hour of retribution had come
+at length, when at the hands of the Roman church was to be required all
+the righteous blood which it had shed, from the blood of Raymond of
+Toulouse to the blood of the last victim who had blackened into ashes
+at Smithfield. The voices crying underneath the altar had been heard
+upon the throne of the Most High, and woe to the generation of which the
+dark account had been demanded.
+
+[Sidenote: The effect of these executions in Europe.]
+
+In whatever light, however, we may now think of these things, the effect
+in Europe was instantaneous and electrical. The irritation which had
+accompanied the excommunication by Clement had died away in the
+difficulty of executing the censures. The papal party had endeavoured to
+persuade themselves that the king was acting under a passing caprice.
+They had believed that the body of the people remained essentially
+Catholic; and they had trusted to time, to discontent, to mutiny, to the
+consequences of what they chose to regard as the mere indulgence of
+criminal passion, to bring Henry to his senses. To threats and
+anathemas, therefore, had again succeeded fair words and promises, and
+intrigues and flatteries; and the pope and his advisers, so long
+accustomed themselves to promise and to mean nothing, to fulminate
+censures in form, and to treat human life as a foolish farce upon the
+stage, had dreamed that others were like themselves. In the rough
+awakening out of their delusion, as with a stroke of lightning, popes,
+cardinals, kings, emperors, ambassadors, were startled into seriousness;
+and, the diplomatic meshwork all rent and broken, they fell at once each
+into their places, with a sense suddenly forced upon them that it was no
+child's play any longer. The King of England was in earnest, it seemed.
+The assumption of the supremacy was a fixed purpose, which he was
+prepared to make a question of life and death; and with this resolution
+they must thenceforward make their account.
+
+[Sidenote: The news arrives at Rome of the deaths of the Carthusians.]
+
+On the 1st of June, Cassalis wrote[464] from Rome that the French
+ambassador had received a letter concerning certain friars who had been
+put to death in England for denying the king to be Head of the Church.
+The letter had been read in the consistory, and was reported to be
+written in a tone of the deepest commiseration. There had been much
+conversation about it, the French bishops having been louder than any in
+their denunciations; and the form of the execution was described as
+having been most barbarous. Some of the cardinals had said that they
+envied the monks their deaths in such a cause, and wished that they had
+been with them. "I desired my informant," Cassalis said, "to suggest to
+these cardinals, that, if they were so anxious on the subject, they had
+better pay a visit to England." And he concluded, in cipher, "I cannot
+tell very well what to think of the French. An Italian told me he had
+heard the Most Christian king himself say, that although he was obliged
+to press upon the pope the requests of the king of England, yet that
+these requests were preposterous, and could not be granted."
+
+[Sidenote: And of Fisher, which the pope will make of more account than
+the martyrdom of Becket.]
+
+The deaths of a few poor monks would soon have been forgiven; the
+execution of Fisher first really revealed the truth. No sooner was the
+terrible reply of Henry to his promotion to the cardinalate made known
+than the conclave was instantly summoned. Cardinal Tournon described the
+scene upon the scaffold in language which moved all his audience to
+tears.[465] The pope, in a paroxysm of anger, declared that if he had
+seen his own nephews murdered in his presence, it would not have so
+much affected him; and Cassalis said he heard, from good authority, that
+they would do their worst, and intended to make the Bishop of
+Rochester's death of more account than that of the martyr St.
+Thomas.[466]
+
+[Sidenote: All Europe unites in amazed displeasure.]
+
+[Sidenote: Francis remonstrates, and recommends that in future political
+offenders should be banished.]
+
+Nor was the anger or the surprise confined to Rome. Through England,
+through France, through Flanders, even among the Protestants of Germany,
+there rose a simultaneous outcry of astonishment. Rumour flew to and fro
+with a thousand falsehoods; and the unfortunate leaven of the Anne
+Boleyn marriage told fatally to destroy that appearance of probity of
+motive so indispensable to the defence of the government. Even Francis
+I. forgot his caution, and dared to remonstrate. He wrote to entreat his
+good brother in future to content himself for the future with banishing
+such offenders, and sparing the extremity of his penalties.
+
+Unfortunately, the question which was at issue was European as well as
+English; and every exile who was driven from England would have become,
+like Reginald Pole, a missionary of a holy war against the infidel king.
+Whatever else might have been possible, banishment was more perilous
+than pardon.
+
+[Sidenote: Henry condescends to explanation.]
+
+[Sidenote: His message to Francis.]
+
+[Sidenote: He had made his laws on good and substantial grounds,]
+
+But the indignation was so general and so serious, that Henry thought it
+well to offer an explanation of his conduct, both at home and abroad.
+With his own people he communicated through the lay authorities, not
+choosing to trust himself on this occasion to the clergy. The
+magistrates at the quarter sessions were directed "to declare to the
+people the treasons committed by the late Bishop of Rochester and Sir
+Thomas More; who thereby, and by divers secret practices, of their
+malicious minds intended to seminate, engender, and breed a most
+mischievous and seditious opinion, not only to their own confusion, but
+also of divers others, who have lately suffered execution according to
+their demerits."[467] To Francis, Cromwell instructed Gardiner, who was
+ambassador in Paris, to reply very haughtily. The English government, he
+said had acted on clear proof of treason; treason so manifest, and
+tending so clearly to the total destruction of the commonwealth of the
+realm, that the condemned persons "were well worthy, if they had a
+thousand lives, to have suffered ten times a more terrible death and
+execution than any of them did suffer." The laws which the king had made
+were "not without substantial grounds;" but had been passed "by great
+and mature advice, counsel, and deliberation of the whole policy of the
+realm, and" were "indeed no new laws, but of great antiquity, now
+renovate and renewed in respect to the common weal of the same realm."
+
+[Sidenote: And is much surprised that he should be advised to banish his
+traitors, giving them increased opportunity to injure him.]
+
+With respect to the letter of the King of France, Gardiner was to say,
+it was "not a little to his Highness's marvel that the French king would
+ever counsel or advise him, if in case hereafter any such like offenders
+should happen to be in the realm, that he should rather banish them,
+than in such wise execute them, ... supposing it to be neither the
+office of a friend nor a brother, that he would counsel the King's
+Highness to banish his traitors into strange parts, where they might
+have good occasion, time, place, and opportunity to work their feats of
+treason and conspiracy the better against the king and this his realm.
+In which part," concluded Cromwell, "ye shall somewhat engrieve the
+matter, after such sort that it may well appear to the French king that
+the King's Highness may take those his counsels both strangely and
+unkindly."[468]
+
+[Sidenote: His elaborate despatch to Cassalis intended for the pope.]
+
+With the German princes Henry was scarcely less imperious;[469] and it
+is noteworthy that the most elaborate defence which he condescended to
+make is that which was sent to Sir Gregory Cassalis, to be laid before
+the pope. He chose that the Roman court should understand distinctly the
+grounds on which he had acted; and this despatch (which was written by
+Cromwell) shows more clearly than any other state paper which remains
+to us, the light in which the reforming party desired their conduct to
+be regarded.
+
+It was written in reply to the letter in which Cassalis reported the
+irritation of the Roman court, and enters into the whole ground of
+complaint against More and Fisher.
+
+[Sidenote: He cannot sufficiently marvel at the pope's displeasure.]
+
+"I have signified," wrote Cromwell, "to the King's Highness the purport
+of your late letters, and as they contained many things which were very
+welcome to his Majesty, so he could not sufficiently marvel that the
+pope should have conceived so great offence at the deaths of the Bishop
+of Rochester and Sir Thomas More. And albeit his Majesty is not bound to
+render account of his actions except to God, whom in thought and deed he
+is ever desirous to obey; nevertheless that his royal name may not be
+evil spoken of by malicious tongues, from want of knowledge of the
+truth, I will tell you briefly what has been done in this matter.
+
+[Sidenote: Fisher and More had obstructed the reforms which had been
+introduced into the realm.]
+
+"After that his Majesty, with the favour and assistance of Almighty God,
+had brought his cause to an end, by the consent and authority of
+unprejudiced persons of the most approved learning in Christendom,--and
+after he had confirmed it by the very rule of truth, these men, who had
+looked to see a far different conclusion, finding now no hopes of
+disturbing the settlement thus made, began to meditate other purposes.
+And when our good king, according to his princely duty, was devising
+measures for the quiet and good order of the realm, and for the
+correction of manners now largely fallen to decay, this, so great a
+benefit to the commonweal, they did, so far as in them lay, endeavour,
+though without effect, under pretence of dissembled honesty, to obstruct
+and oppose. Manifest proofs of their wicked designs were in the hands of
+the King's Grace; but his Majesty consented rather to pass over their
+offence without notice, hoping to recall them to a better mind, as
+having before been in some good estimation with him.
+
+[Sidenote: They had thwarted the measures in progress through
+parliament,]
+
+"But they in whom ambition, love of self, and a peculiar conceit of
+wisdom had bred another persuasion, obstinately abused this kindness of
+their most noble prince. And when on a certain day there was order
+issued for the assembly of the great council of the realm, they made
+secret inquiry to learn the measures which would there be treated of.
+Whatsoever they discovered or conjectured, forthwith they debated in
+private council among themselves, arriving upon each point at
+conclusions other than those which the interests of the realm did
+require; and they fortified those conclusions with such array of
+arguments and reasons, that with no great labour the ignorant people
+might have been dangerously deceived.
+
+[Sidenote: And had organized seditious opposition in the country.]
+
+[Sidenote: They had in consequence been committed to the Tower, where
+they were treated with the utmost kindness.]
+
+[Sidenote: Kindness had, however, produced no effect; they had continued
+to obstruct the government; and had therefore been tried and condemned
+by the ordinary laws of the realm.]
+
+"At length knowing that they had incurred the king's displeasure, and
+fearing lest they might fail of accomplishing their purposes, they chose
+out persons on whose courage, readiness, and devotion to themselves they
+could depend; and taking these men into their councils, they fed them
+with the poison which they had conceived, forgetting their allegiance to
+their king, and their duty to their country.[470] Thus were their
+seditious opinions scattered over the country. And when his Highness
+began to trace this impious conspiracy to its source, Sir Thomas More
+and the Bishop of Rochester were found to be the undoubted authors of
+the same; and their guilt was proved against them by the evidence of
+their own handwrit, and the confessions of their own lips. For these
+causes, therefore, and for many others of like kind, our most gracious
+sovereign was compelled to imprison them as rebellious subjects, as
+disturbers of the public peace, and as movers of sedition and tumult.
+Nor was it possible for him to do other than punish them, unless, after
+their crimes had been detected, he had so far forgotten his duty as to
+leave the contagion to spread unchecked, to the utter destruction of the
+nation. They were in consequence thrown into the Tower, where, however,
+their treatment was far different from what their demerits had deserved;
+they were allowed the society of their friends; their own servants were
+admitted to attend upon them, and they received all such indulgences in
+food and dress as their families desired. Clemency, however, produced no
+effect on persons in whom duty and allegiance had given place to treason
+and malice. They chose rather to persist in their wicked courses than to
+make trial by repentance of the king's goodness. For after that certain
+laws had been decreed by authority of parliament, and had been by the
+whole nation admitted and accepted as expedient for the realm, and
+agreeable to true religion, they alone refused their consent to these
+laws, hoping that something might occur to sustain them in their
+impiety; and while professing to have left all care and thought for
+human things, they were considering by what arguments, in furtherance
+of their seditious purposes, they might, to the common hurt, elude,
+refute, and disturb the said laws.
+
+"Of this their treason there are proofs extant--letters written, when
+ink failed them, with chalk or charcoal, and passed secretly from one to
+the other. Our most merciful king could therefore no longer tolerate
+their grievous faults. He allowed them to be tried by process of
+ordinary law. They were found guilty of high treason, and sentenced to
+death. Their punishment was milder than that which the law prescribed,
+or which their crimes had deserved; and many persons have by this
+example been brought to a better mind."[471]
+
+To Cromwell evidently the case appeared so clear as to require no
+apology. To modern writers it has appeared so clear as to admit of none.
+The value of the defence turns upon the point of the actual danger to
+the state, and the extent to which the conduct of the sufferers
+imperilled the progress of the Reformation. As written for the eyes of
+the pope and cardinals, however, such a letter could be understood only
+as daring them to do their worst. It ignored the very existence of such
+rules of judgment as the heads of the Roman church would alone
+acknowledge, and represented the story as it appeared from the position
+which England had assumed on its revolt from its old allegiance.
+
+[Sidenote: The reply of the pope.]
+
+There were no more false efforts at conciliation, and open war
+thenceforth appeared to be the only possible relation between the papacy
+and Henry VIII. Paul III. replied, or designed to reply, with his
+far-famed bull of interdict and deposition, which, though reserved at
+the moment in deference to Francis of France, and not issued till three
+years later, was composed in the first burst of his displeasure.[472]
+The substance of his voluminous anathemas may be thus briefly
+epitomized.
+
+[Sidenote: The bull of interdict and deposition.]
+
+The pope, quoting and applying to himself the words of Jeremiah,
+"Behold, I have set thee over nations and kingdoms, that thou mayest
+root out and destroy, and that thou mayest plant and build again,"
+addressed Henry as a disobedient vassal. Already lying under the
+censures of the church, he had gone on to heap crime on crime; and
+therefore, a specific number of days being allowed him to repent and
+make his submission, at the expiration of this period of respite the
+following sentence was to take effect.
+
+The king, with all who abetted him in his crimes, was pronounced
+accursed--cut off from the body of Christ, to perish. When he died, his
+body should lie without burial; his soul, blasted with anathema, should
+be cast into hell for ever. The lands of his subjects who remained
+faithful to him were laid under an interdict: their children were
+disinherited, their marriages illegal, their wills invalid; only by one
+condition could they escape their fate--by instant rebellion against the
+apostate prince. All officers of the crown were absolved from their
+oaths; all subjects, secular or ecclesiastic, from their allegiance.
+The entire nation, under penalty of excommunication, was commanded no
+longer to acknowledge Henry as their sovereign.[473] No true son of the
+church should hold intercourse with him or his adherents. They must
+neither trade with them, speak with them, nor give them food. The
+clergy, leaving behind a few of their number to baptize the new-born
+infants, were to withdraw from the accursed land, and return no more
+till it had submitted. If the king, trusting to force, persevered in his
+iniquity, the lords and commons of England, dukes, marquises, earls, and
+all other persons, were required, under the same penalty of
+excommunication, to expel him from the throne; and the Christian princes
+of Europe were called on to show their fidelity to the Holy See, by
+aiding in so godly a work.
+
+In conclusion, as the king had commanded his clergy to preach against
+the pope in their churches, so the pope commanded them to retaliate upon
+the king, and with bell, book, and candle declare him cursed.
+
+This was loud thunder; nor, when abetted by Irish massacres and English
+treasons, was it altogether impotent. If Henry's conceptions of the
+royal supremacy were something imperious, the papal supremacy was not
+more modest in its self-assertion; and the language of Paul III. went
+far to justify the rough measures by which his menaces were parried. If
+any misgiving had remained in the king's mind on the legitimacy of the
+course which he had pursued, the last trace of it must have been
+obliterated by the perusal of this preposterous bombast.
+
+[Sidenote: Peril of Henry's position.]
+
+For the moment, as I said, the bull was suspended through the
+interference of Francis. But Francis remained in communion with the See
+of Rome: Francis was at that moment labouring to persuade the Lutheran
+states in Germany to return to communion with it: and Henry knew, that,
+although in their hearts the European powers might estimate the pope's
+pretences at their true value, yet the bull of excommunication might
+furnish a convenient and dangerous pretext against him in the event of a
+Catholic combination. His position was full of peril; and in spite of
+himself, he was driven once more to seek for an alliance among the
+foreign Protestants, before the French intrigues should finally
+anticipate him.
+
+[Sidenote: Intrigues of the French in Germany.]
+
+That he really might be too late appeared an immediate likelihood. The
+quarrel between the Lutherans and the followers of Zwingli, the
+Anabaptist anarchy and the increasing confusion throughout the
+Protestant states, had so weighed on Luther's spirit that he was looking
+for the end of all things and the coming of Christ; and although Luther
+himself never quailed, too many "murmurers in the wilderness" were
+looking wistfully back into Egypt. The French king, availing himself
+skilfully of the turning tide, had sent the Bishop of Paris to the
+courts of Saxony and Bavaria, in the beginning of August, to feel his
+way towards a reconciliation; and his efforts had been attended with
+remarkable success.
+
+[Sidenote: Probability of a reconciliation of the Lutherans with the See
+of Rome.]
+
+The bishop had been in communication with Melancthon and many of the
+leading Lutheran theologians upon the terms on which they would return
+to the church. The Protestant divines had drawn up a series of articles,
+the first of which was a profession of readiness to recognise the
+authority of the pope;[474] accompanying this statement with a
+declaration that they would accept any terms not plainly unjust and
+impious. These articles were transmitted to Paris, and again
+retransmitted to Germany, with every prospect of a mutually satisfactory
+result; and Melancthon was waiting only till the bishop could accompany
+him, to go in person to Paris, and consult with the Sorbonne.[475]
+
+[Sidenote: Of which Henry is partly the cause.]
+
+[Sidenote: Henry is driven to conciliate the German princes.]
+
+This momentary (for it was only momentary) weakness of the German
+Protestants was in part owing to their want of confidence in Henry
+VIII.[476] The king had learnt to entertain a respect for the foreign
+Reformers, far unlike the repugnance of earlier years; but the prospect
+of an alliance with them had hitherto been too much used by him as a
+weapon with which to menace the Catholic powers, whose friendship he had
+not concealed that he would prefer. The Protestant princes had shrunk
+therefore, and wisely, from allowing themselves to be made the
+instruments of worldly policy; and the efforts at a combination had
+hitherto been illusive and ineffectual. Danger now compelled the king to
+change his hesitation into more honest advances. If Germany accepted the
+mediation of Francis, and returned to communion with Rome; and if, under
+the circumstances of a reunion, a general council were assembled; there
+could be little doubt of the attitude in which a council, called
+together under such auspices, would place itself towards the movement in
+England. To escape so imminent a peril, Henry was obliged (as Elizabeth
+after him) to seek the support of a party from which he had shrunk: he
+was forced, in spite of himself, to identify his cause with the true
+cause of freedom, and consequently to admit an enlarged toleration of
+the Reformed doctrines in his own dominions. There could be little doubt
+of the support of the Germans, if they could be once assured that they
+would not again be trifled with; and a Protestant league, the steady
+object of Cromwell's efforts, seemed likely at length to be realized.
+
+[Sidenote: August. Nature of the relations of the Tudors to the German
+Protestants.]
+
+[Sidenote: Mission of the Bishop of Hereford to counteract the French.]
+
+Different indeed would have been the future, both of England and for
+Germany, if such a league had been possible, if the pressure which
+compelled this most natural alliance had continued till it had cemented
+into rock. But the Tudors, representatives in this, as in so many other
+features of their character, of the people whom they governed, could
+never cordially unite themselves with a form of thought which permitted
+resistance to authority, and which they regarded as anarchic and
+revolutionary. They consented, when no alternative was left them, to
+endure for short periods a state of doubtful cordiality; but the
+connexion was terminated at the earliest moment which safety permitted;
+in their hatred of disorder (for this feeling is the key alike to the
+strength and to the weakness of the Tudor family), they preferred the
+incongruities of Anglicanism to a complete reformation; and a
+"midge-madge"[477] of contradictory formularies to the simplicity of the
+Protestant faith. In essentials, the English movement was political
+rather than spiritual. What was gained for the faith, we owe first to
+Providence, and then to those accidents, one of which had now arisen,
+which compelled at intervals a deeper and a broader policy. To
+counteract the French emissaries, Christopher Mount, in August, and in
+September, Fox, Bishop of Hereford, were despatched to warn the Lutheran
+princes against their intrigues, and to point out the course which the
+interests of Northern Europe in the existing conjuncture required. The
+bishop's instructions were drawn by the king. He was to proceed direct
+to the court of Saxony, and, after presenting his letters of credit, was
+to address the elector to the following effect:
+
+[Sidenote: Henry's message to the Elector of Saxony.]
+
+[Sidenote: He desires, in connexion with other princes who have the same
+cause at heart, to maintain the middle way of truth, according to God's
+word.]
+
+[Sidenote: September. He has heard that the Lutherans are again
+inclining to Rome; and he desires to know their true intentions.]
+
+"Besides and beyond the love, amity, and friendship which noble blood
+and progeny had carnally caused and continued in the heart of the King's
+Highness towards the said duke and his progenitors, and besides that
+kindness also which of late by mutual communication of gratuities had
+been not a little augmented and increased between them, there was also
+stirred up in the heart of the King's Highness a spiritual love and
+favour towards the said duke and his virtuous intents and proceedings,
+for that the said duke persisted and continued in his most virtuous mind
+to set forth, maintain, and defend the sincere teaching of the gospel
+and the perfect true understanding of the word of God. In that matter
+the King's Highness, also illuminated with the same spirit of truth, and
+wholly addict and dedicate to the advancement thereof, had employed
+great pain and travail to bring the same to the knowledge of his people
+and subjects, intending also further and further to proceed therein, as
+his Grace by good consultation should perceive might tend to the
+augmentation of the glory of God and the true knowledge of his word. His
+said Majesty was of such sincere meaning in the advancing [hereof] as
+his Grace would neither headily, without good advisement, and
+consultation, and conference with his friends, go in any part beyond the
+said truth, ne for any respect tarry or stay on this side the truth, but
+would proceed in the right straight mean way assuredly agreed upon. He
+had known of certainty divers who by their immoderate zeal or the
+excessive appetite to novelties had from darkness proceeded to much more
+darkness, wherein the Anabaptists and sacramentarians were guilty; so by
+secret report he had been advertised, that upon private communications
+and conferences, the learned men there [in Germany] had in certain
+points and articles yielded and relented from their first asseveration;
+by reason whereof it was much doubted whether by other degrees they
+might be dissuaded in some of the rest. The King's Highness therefore,
+being very desirous to know the truth therein, and to be ascertained in
+what points and articles the learned men there were so assuredly and
+constantly resolved as by no persuasion of man they could be turned
+from the same, had sent the Bishop of Hereford to the said duke,
+desiring and praying him in respect of the premises to entertain the
+said bishop friendly and familiarly concerning the matter aforesaid, as
+the mutual love carnally, and the zeal of both princes to the increase
+of the glory of God spiritually, did require."[478]
+
+[Sidenote: He dissuades a council.]
+
+[Sidenote: But if a council is to meet, let them come to a common
+understanding with England.]
+
+[Sidenote: The bishop was to apologize for all past coolness,]
+
+[Sidenote: And to conclude with fresh warnings against the pope.]
+
+The bishop was then to speak of the council, the assembling of which he
+understood that the German princes so much desired. He was to dissuade
+them from pressing it, to the extent of his ability. They would find
+themselves opposed inevitably in all essential matters by the pope, the
+emperor, and the French king, whose factions united would outnumber and
+outvote them; and in the existing state of Europe, a general council
+would only compromise their position and embarrass their movements. If,
+however, notwithstanding his remonstrances, the princes persisted in
+their wish, then the bishop was to urge them to come to some
+understanding with England on the resolutions which they desired to
+maintain. Let them communicate to the English bishops such points "as
+they would stick to without relenting;" and the two countries, "standing
+together, would be so much stronger to withstand their adversaries."
+Without definitely promising to sign the Confession of Augsburg, Henry
+held out strong hopes that he might sign that Confession, if they would
+send representatives to London to discuss the articles of it with
+himself.[479] The bishop was to apologize for any previous slackness on
+the king's part in his communications with the elector, and to express
+his hopes, that for the future their relations might be those of cordial
+unanimity. He was especially to warn the elector to beware of
+re-admitting the papal supremacy under any pretext. The English had
+shaken off the pope, "provoked thereunto in such wise as would have
+provoked them rather to have expelled him from them by wrong, than to
+suffer him so to oppress them with injuries." If in Germany they "opened
+the great gate" to let him in again, he would rebuild "the fortresses
+that were thrown down, and by little and little bring all to the former
+estate again." Finally, with respect to the council--if a council there
+was to be--they must take care that it was held in a place indifferent,
+where truth might be heard or spoken; "considering that else in a
+council, were not the remedy that all good men sought, but the mischief
+that all good men did abhor."
+
+These advances, consented to by Henry, were the act of Cromwell, and
+were designed as the commencement of a _Foedus Evangelicum_--a league
+of the great Reforming nations of Europe. It was a grand scheme, and
+history can never cease to regret that it was grasped at with too faint
+a hand. The bishop succeeded in neutralizing partially the scheming of
+the French, partially in attracting the sympathies of the German powers
+towards England; but the two great streams of the Teutonic race, though
+separated by but a narrow ridge of difference, were unable to reach a
+common channel. Their genius drove them into courses which were to run
+side by side for centuries, yet ever to remain divided. And if the lines
+in which their minds have flowed seem to be converging at last, and if
+hereafter Germans and English are again to unite in a single faith, the
+remote meeting point is still invisible, and the terms of possible
+agreement can be but faintly conjectured.
+
+
+NOTES:
+
+[383] "These be no causes to die for," was the favourite phrase of the
+time. It was the expression which the Bishop of London used to the
+Carthusian monks (_Historia Martyrum Anglorum_), and the Archbishop of
+York in his diocese generally.--Ellis, third series, Vol. II. p. 375.
+
+[384] Si Rex Praefatus, vel alii, inhibitioni ac prohibitioni et
+interdicto hujusmodi contravenerint, Regem ipsum ac alios omnes
+supradictos, sententias censuras et poenas praedictas ex nunc prout ex
+tunc incurrisse declaramus, et ut tales publicari ac publice nunciari et
+evitari--ac interdictum per totum regnum Angliae sub dictis poenis
+observari debere, volumus atque mandamus.--_First Brief of Clement_:
+Legrand, Vol. III. pp. 451, 452. The Church of Rome, however, draws a
+distinction between a sentence implied and a sentence directly
+pronounced.
+
+[385] Strype's _Memorials_, Vol. I. p. 292. Ellis, third series, Vol.
+II. p. 336.
+
+[386] It is remarkable that in this paper it seems to be assumed, that
+the pope would have fulfilled this engagement if Henry had fully
+submitted. "He openly confessed," it says, "that our master had the
+right; but because our prince and master would not prejudicate for his
+jurisdictions, and uphold his usurped power by sending a proctor, ye may
+evidently here see that this was only the cause why the judgment of the
+Bishop of Rome was not given in his favour; whereby it may appear that
+there lacked not any justice in our prince's cause, but that ambition,
+vain glory, and too much mundanity were the lets thereof."
+
+[387] An Order for Preaching: printed in Burnet's _Collectanea_, p. 447.
+
+[388] Ellis, third series, Vol. II. p. 373.
+
+[389] John ap Rice to Secretary Cromwell, with an account of the search
+of the Bishop of Durham's chamber: _Rolls House MS._
+
+[390] Bedyll to Cromwell: _State Papers_, Vol. I. p. 422. Bedyll had
+been directed by Cromwell to observe how the injunctions were obeyed. He
+said that he was "in much despair of the reformation of the friars by
+any gentle or favourable means;" and advised, "that fellows who leave
+sermons should be put in prison, and made a terrible example of."
+
+[391] _State Papers_, Vol. I. p. 422, et seq.
+
+[392] Strype's _Memorials_, Vol. I. p. 305.
+
+[393] Confessions of Father Forest: _Rolls House MS._ This seems to have
+been generally known at the time. Latimer alludes to it in one of his
+sermons.
+
+[394] "The confessor can do no good with them (the monks), and the
+obstinate persons be not in fear of him; but be in great fear and danger
+of his life, by reason of their malice, for that he hath consented to
+the king's title, and hath preached the same."--Bedyll to Cromwell:
+_State Papers_, Vol. I. p. 424.
+
+[395] Cranmer: but we will hope the story is coloured. It is
+characteristic, however, of the mild, tender-hearted man who desired to
+glide round difficulties rather than scale and conquer them.
+
+[396] A Deposition concerning the popish Conduct of a Priest: _Rolls
+House MS._
+
+[397] Information given by John Maydwell, of treasonable Words spoken
+against Henry VIII. and Anne Boleyn: _Rolls House MS._
+
+[398] In this instance we need not doubt that the words were truly
+reported, for the offenders were tried and pleaded guilty.
+
+[399] The conspiracy of "young Ryce," or Richard ap Griffyth, is one of
+the most obscure passages in the history of this reign. It was a Welsh
+plot, conducted at Islington. [Act of Attainder of Richard ap Griffyth,
+23 Hen. VIII. cap. 24.] The particulars of it I am unable to discover
+further, than that it was a desperate undertaking, encouraged by the
+uncertainty of the succession, and by a faith in prophecies (Confession
+of Sir William Neville: _Rolls House MS._), to murder the king. Ryce was
+tried in Michaelmas term, 1531, and executed. His uncle, who passed
+under the name of Brancetor, was an active revolutionary agent on the
+Continent in the later years of Henry's reign.--See _State Papers_, Vol.
+IV. pp. 647, 651, 653; Vol. VIII. pp. 219, 227, &c.
+
+[400] Trial and Conviction of John Feron, clerk, and John Hale, clerk:
+Baga de Secretis; Appendix II. to the _Third Report of the Deputy Keeper
+of the Public Records_.
+
+[401] History is never weary of repeating its warnings against narrow
+judgments. A year ago we believed that the age of arbitrary severity was
+past. In the interval we have seen the rebellion in India; the forms of
+law have been suspended, and Hindoo rajahs have been executed for no
+greater crime than the possession of letters from the insurgents. The
+evidence of a treasonable animus has been sufficient to ensure
+condemnation; and in the presence of necessity the principles of the
+sixteenth century have been instantly revived.--April, 1858.
+
+[402] Act of Supremacy, 26 Hen. VIII. cap. 1.
+
+[403] To guard against misconception, an explanatory document was drawn
+up by the government at the time of the passing of the act, which is
+highly curious and significant. "The King's Grace," says this paper,
+"hath no new authority given hereby that he is recognised as supreme
+Head of the Church of England; for in that recognition is included only
+that he have such power as to a king of right appertaineth by the law of
+God; and not that he should take any spiritual power from spiritual
+ministers that is given to them by the Gospel. So that these words, that
+the king is supreme Head of the Church, serve rather to declare and make
+open to the world, that the king hath power to suppress all such
+extorted powers as well of the Bishop of Rome as of any other within
+this realm, whereby his subjects might be grieved; and to correct and
+remove all things whereby any unquietness might arise amongst the
+people; rather than to prove that he should pretend thereby to take any
+powers from the successors of the apostles that was given to them by
+God. And forasmuch as, in the session of this former parliament holden
+in the twenty-fifth year of this reign, whereby great exactions done to
+the king's subjects by a power from Rome was put away, and thereupon the
+promise was made that nothing should be interpreted and expounded upon
+that statute, that the King's Grace, his nobles or subjects, intended to
+decline or vary from the congregation of Christ's church in anything
+concerning the articles of the Catholic faith, or anything declared by
+Holy Scripture and the Word of God necessary for his Grace's salvation
+and his subjects'; it is not, therefore, meet lightly to think that the
+self-same persons, continuing the self-same parliament, would in the
+next year following make an act whereby the king, his nobles and
+subjects, should so vary. And no man may with conscience judge that they
+did so, except they can prove that the words of the statute, whereby the
+king is recognised to be the supreme Head of the Church of England,
+should show expressly that they intended to do so; as it is apparent
+that they do not.
+
+"There is none authority of Scripture that will prove that any one of
+the apostles should be head of the universal Church of Christendom. And
+if any of the doctors of the church or the clergy have, by any of their
+laws or decrees, declared any Scripture to be of that effect, kings and
+princes, taking to them their counsellors, and such of their clergy as
+they shall think most indifferent, ought to be judges whether those
+declarations and laws be made according to the truth of Scripture or
+not; because it is said in the Psalms, 'Et nunc Reges intelligite,
+erudimini qui judicatis terram': that is, 'O kings! understand ye, be ye
+learned that judge the world.' And certain it is that the Scripture is
+always true; and there is nothing that the doctors and clergy might,
+through dread and affection, [so well] be deceived in, as in things
+concerning the honour, dignity, power, liberty, jurisdiction, and riches
+of the bishops and clergy; and some of them have of likelihood been
+deceived therein."--Heads of Arguments concerning the Power of the Pope
+and the Royal Supremacy: _Rolls House MS._
+
+[404] 26 Hen. VIII. cap. 2.
+
+[405] 26 Hen. VIII. cap. 13.
+
+[406] More warned Fisher of this. He "did send Mr. Fisher word by a
+letter that Mr. Solicitor had showed him, that it was all one not to
+answer, and to say against the statute what a man would, as all the
+learned men in England would justify."--_State Papers_, Vol. I. p. 434.
+
+[407] The act was repealed in 1547, I Edw. VI. cap. 12. The explanation
+which is there given of the causes which led to the enactment of it is
+temperate and reasonable. Subjects, says that statute, should obey
+rather for love of their prince than for fear of his laws: "yet such
+times at some time cometh in the commonwealth, that it is necessary and
+expedient for the repressing of the insolence and unruliness of men, and
+for the foreseeing and providing of remedies against rebellions,
+insurrections, or such mischiefs as God, sometime with us displeased,
+doth inflict and lay upon us, or the devil, at God's permission, to
+assay the good and God's elect, doth sow and set among us,--the which
+Almighty God and man's policy hath always been content to have
+stayed--that sharper laws as a harder bridle should be made."
+
+[408] 26 Henry VIII. cap. 14: "An Act for Nomination and Consecration of
+Suffragans within the Realm." I have already stated my impression that
+the method of nomination to bishopricks by the crown, as fixed by the
+20th of the 25th of Henry VIII., was not intended to be perpetual. A
+further evidence of what I said will be found in the arrangements under
+the present act for the appointment of suffragans. The king made no
+attempt to retain the patronage. The bishop of each diocese was to
+nominate two persons, and between these the crown was bound to choose.
+
+[409] Parum erraturus sed pauca facturus.--_State Papers_, Vol. VII. p.
+581.
+
+[410] Ibid. p. 573.
+
+[411] Nota qu'il ne sera pas paraventure si fort malayse a gaigner ce
+roy.--_Note on the margin of the Comte de Nassau's Instructions._
+
+[412]
+
+  _Charles V. to his Ambassador at Paris._
+
+  "November, 1534.
+
+" ... In addition, the Count de Nassau and yourself may go further in
+sounding the King about the Count's proposal--I mean for the marriage of
+our cousin the Princess of England with the Duke d'Angoulesme. The Grand
+Master, I understand, when the Count spoke of it, seemed to enter into
+the suggestion, and mentioned the displeasure which the King of England
+had conceived against Anne Boleyn. I am therefore sincerely desirous
+that the proposal should be well considered, and you will bring it
+forward as you shall see opportunity. You will make the King and the
+Grand Master feel the importance of the connexion, the greatness which
+it would confer on the Duke d'Angoulesme, the release of the English
+debt, which can be easily arranged, and the assurance of the realm of
+France.
+
+"Such a marriage will be, beyond comparison, more advantageous to the
+King, his realm, and his children, than any benefit for which he could
+hope from Milan; while it can be brought about with no considerable
+difficulty. But be careful what you say, and how you say it. Speak alone
+to the King and alone to the Grand Master, letting neither of them know
+that you have spoken to the other. Observe carefully how the King is
+inclined, and, at all events, be secret; so that if he does not like the
+thing, the world need not know that it has been thought of.
+
+"Should it be suggested to you--as it may be--that Anne Boleyn may be
+driven desperate, and may contrive something against the Princess's
+life, we answer that we can hardly believe her so utterly abandoned by
+conscience: or, again, the Duke of Anjou may possibly object to the
+exaltation of his brother; in which case we shall consent willingly to
+have our cousin marry the Duke of Anjou; and, in that case, beyond the
+right which appertains to the Duke and Princess from their fathers and
+mothers, they and either of them shall have the kingdom of Denmark, and
+we will exert ourselves to compose any difficulties with our Holy Father
+the Pope."--_MS. Archives at Brussels._
+
+[413] _State Papers_, Vol. VII. pp. 584, 585.
+
+[414] Ibid.
+
+[415] This is Cromwell's paraphrase. Francis is not responsible for the
+language.
+
+[416] _State Papers_, Vol. VII. pp. 584-590.
+
+[417] See the long and curious correspondence between the English and
+Spanish courts in the _State Papers_, Vol. VI.
+
+[418] _State Papers_, Vol. VII. pp. 587, 588.
+
+[419] Ibid. p. 587.
+
+[420] Who were to arrange the betrothal of Elizabeth to the Duke of
+Angoulesme.
+
+[421] Henry VIII. to De Bryon: _State Papers_, Vol. VII. p. 589.
+
+[422] _State Papers_, Vol. VII. p. 591.
+
+[423] "Sua sponte solius veritatis propagandae studio; nulla regiae
+Majestatis intercessione expectata."--Cromwell to Cassalis: Ibid. p.
+592.
+
+[424] Language can scarcely be stronger than that which he directed his
+ambassador at Rome to use--short, at least, of absolute menace.--Ibid.
+pp. 593, 594.
+
+[425] _Historia Martyrum Anglorum_, cap. 2.
+
+[426] _Historia Martyrum Anglorum_, cap. 8.
+
+[427] _Historia Martyrum_, cap. 9.
+
+[428] Stokesley, Bishop of London, among others: _State Papers_, Vol. I.
+pp. 423, 424.
+
+[429] _Historia Martyrum_, cap, 9.
+
+[430] The 60th in the English version.
+
+[431] Printed in Strype's _Memorials_, Vol. I. Appendix, p. 208.
+
+[432] Baga de Secretis; Appendix II. to the _Third Report of the Deputy
+Keeper of the Public Records_.
+
+[433] Strype's _Memorials_, Vol. I. p. 305; _Historia Martyrum
+Anglorum_.
+
+[434] Father Maurice says that the jury desired to acquit; and after
+debating for a night, were preparing a verdict of Not Guilty; when
+Cromwell, hearing of their intention, went in person to the room where
+they were assembled, and threatened them with death unless they did what
+he called their duty. The story is internally improbable. The conditions
+of the case did not admit of an acquittal; and the conduct attributed to
+Cromwell is inconsistent with his character. Any doubt which might
+remain, in the absence of opposing testimony, is removed by the record
+of the trial, from which it appears clearly that the jury were not
+returned until the 29th of April, and _that the verdict was given in on
+the same day_.--Baga de Secretis; Appendix to the _Third Report of the
+Deputy Keeper of the Public Records_.
+
+[435] "In thee, O Lord, have I put my trust: let me never be put to
+confusion: deliver me in thy righteousness. Bow down thine ear to me;
+make haste to deliver me. And be thou my strong rock and house of
+defence, that thou mayest save me. For thou art my strong rock, and my
+castle; be thou also my guide, and lead me for thy name's sake. Draw me
+out of the net that they have laid privily for me: for thou art my
+strength. Into thy hands I commend my spirit, for thou hast redeemed me,
+O Lord, thou God of truth!"
+
+[436] _Historia Martyrum Anglorum._
+
+[437] On the 19th of June. Hall says they were insolent to Cromwell on
+their trial.
+
+[438] "By the hand of God," according to Mr. Secretary Bedyll. "My very
+good Lord, after my most hearty commendations, it shall please your
+lordship to understand that the monks of the Charterhouse here in London
+which were committed to Newgate for their traitorous behaviour, long
+time continued against the King's Grace, be almost dispatched by the
+hand of God, as may appear to you by this bill enclosed; whereof,
+considering their behaviour and the whole matter, I am not sorry, but
+would that all such as love not the King's Highness and his worldly
+honour were in like case."--Bedyll to Cromwell: _Suppression of the
+Monasteries_, p. 162.
+
+[439] Stow, p. 571. And see the Diary of Richard Hilles, merchant, of
+London. _MS._, Balliol College, Oxford.
+
+[440] Stow's _Chronicle_, p. 571.
+
+[441] Latimer alludes to the story with no disapproval of the execution
+of these men--as we should not have disapproved of it, if we had lived
+then, unless we had been Anabaptists ourselves. A brave death, Latimer
+says, is no proof of a good cause. "This is no good argument, my
+friends; this is a deceivable argument: he went to his death
+boldly--ergo, he standeth in a just quarrel. The Anabaptists that were
+burnt here in divers towns in England (as I heard of credible men--I saw
+them not myself), went to their death intrepide, as you will say;
+without any fear in the world--cheerfully: well, let them go. There was
+in the old times another kind of poisoned heretics that were called
+Donatists; and these heretics went to their execution as they should
+have gone to some jolly recreation or banquet."--Latimer's _Sermons_, p.
+160.
+
+[442] He wrote to the king on the 14th of June, in consequence of an
+examination at the Tower; but that letter could not have been spoken of
+on the trial of the Carthusians.--See _State Papers_, Vol. I. p. 431.
+
+[443] "I had the confessor alone in very secret communication concerning
+certain letters of Mr. Fisher's, of which Father Reynolds made mention
+in his examination; which the said Fisher promised the King's Grace that
+he never showed to any other man, neither would. The said confessor hath
+confessed to me that the said Fisher sent to him, to the said Reynolds,
+and to one other brother of them, the copy of his said letters directed
+to the King's Grace, and the copy of the king's answer also. He hath
+knowledged to me also that the said Fisher sent unto them with the said
+copies a book of his, made in defence of the King's Grace's first
+marriage, and also Abel's book, and one other book made by the
+emperour's ambassador, as I suppose."--Bedyll to Cromwell: _Suppression
+of the Monasteries_, pp. 45, 46.
+
+[444] The accounts are consistent on this subject with a single
+exception. A letter is extant from Fisher, in which he complained of
+suffering from the cold and from want of clothes. This must have been an
+accident. More was evidently treated well (see More's _Life of More_);
+and all the circumstances imply that they were allowed to communicate
+freely with their friends, and to receive whatever comforts their
+friends were pleased to send them. The official statements on this
+subject are too positive and too minute to admit of a doubt. Cromwell
+writes thus to Cassalis: "Carceribus mancipati tractabantur humanius
+atque mitius quam par fuisset pro eorum demeritis; per Regem illis
+licebat proximorum colloquio et consuetudine frui. Ii fuerant illis
+appositi praescriptique ministri quos a vinclis immunes antea fidos
+charosque habebant; id cibi genus eaque condimenta et vestitus eis
+concedebantur quae eorum habitudini ac tuendae sanitati, ipsi
+consanguinei, nepotes atque affines et amici judicabant esse magis
+accommoda."--_State Papers_, Vol. VII. p. 634.
+
+[445] More's _Life of More_.
+
+[446] "Instructions given by the King's Majesty to the Right Reverend
+Father in God, his right trusty and well-beloved counsellor the Bishop
+of Hereford, whom his Majesty at this time sendeth unto the Princes of
+Germany."--_Rolls House MS._
+
+[447] _State Papers_, Vol. VII. p. 635.
+
+[448] Compare _State Papers_, Vol. I. pp. 431-436, with the Reports of
+the trials in the Baga de Secretis. Burnet has hastily stated that no
+Catholic was ever punished for merely denying the supremacy in official
+examinations. He has gone so far, indeed, as to call the assertions of
+Catholic writers to this effect "impudent falsehoods." Whether any
+Catholic was prosecuted who had not given other cause for suspicion, I
+do not know; but it is quite certain that Haughton and Fisher were
+condemned solely on the ground of their answers on these occasions, and
+that no other evidence was brought against them. The government clearly
+preferred this evidence as the most direct and unanswerable, for in both
+those cases they might have produced other witnesses had they cared to
+do so.
+
+[449] "Omnes Cardinales amicos nostros adivi; eisque demonstravi quam
+temere ac stulte fecerint in Roffensi in Cardinalem eligendo unde et
+potentissimum Regem et universum Regnum Angliae mirum in modum laedunt et
+injuria afficiunt; Roffensem enim virum esse gloriosum ut propter vanam
+gloriam in sua opinione contra Regem adhuc sit permansurus; qua etiam de
+causa in carcere est et morti condemnatus."--Cassalis to Cromwell:
+_State Papers_, Vol. VII. p. 604.
+
+[450] _State Papers_, Vol. VII. p. 604.
+
+[451] Pontifex me vehementer rogavit, ut vias omnes tentare velim,
+quibus apud Regiam Majestatem excusatam hanc rem faciam, unde se
+plurimum dolere dixit, cum praesertim ego affirmaverim rem esse ejusmodi
+ut excusationem non recipiat.--Cassalis to Cromwell: Ibid.
+
+[452] Ibid. p. 616.
+
+[453] _Historia Martyrum Anglorum._
+
+[454] Report of the Trial of John Fisher: Baga de Secretis: Appendix to
+the _Third Report of the Deputy Keeper of the Records_.
+
+[455] If his opinions had been insufficient for his destruction, there
+was an influence at court which left no hope to him: the influence of
+one whose ways and doings were better known then than they have been
+known to her modern admirers. "On a time," writes his grandson, "when he
+had questioned my aunt Roper of his wife and children, and the state of
+his house in his absence, he asked her at last how Queen Anne did. 'In
+faith, father,' said she, 'never better. There is nothing else at the
+court but dancing and sporting.' 'Never better?' said he; 'alas, Meg,
+alas, it pitieth me to remember unto what misery she will shortly come.
+These dances of hers will prove such dances that she will spurn our
+heads off like footballs, but it will not be long ere her head will
+dance the like dance.'"--More's _Life of More_, p. 244.
+
+[456] The composition of the commission is remarkable. When Fisher was
+tried, Lord Exeter sate upon it. On the trial of More, Lord Exeter was
+absent, but his place was taken by his cousin, Lord Montague, Reginald
+Pole's eldest brother, and Lady Salisbury's son. Willingly or
+unwillingly, the opposition nobles were made _participes criminis_ in
+both these executions.
+
+[457] I take my account of the indictment from the government record. It
+is, therefore, their own statement of their own case.--Trial of Sir
+Thomas More: Baga de Secretis, pouch 7, bundle 3.
+
+[458] Fisher had unhappily used these words on his own examination; and
+the identity of language was held a proof of traitorous confederacy.
+
+[459] If this was the constitutional theory, "divine right" was a Stuart
+fiction.
+
+[460] More's _Life of More_, p. 271
+
+[461] More's _Life of More_, pp. 276, 277.
+
+[462] "And, further to put him from his melancholy, Sir Thomas More did
+take his urinal, and cast his water, saying merrily, 'I see no danger
+but the man that owns this water may live longer, if it please the
+king.'"--More's _Life_, p. 283. I cannot allow myself to suppress a
+trait so eminently characteristic.
+
+[463] More's _Life of More_, p. 287.
+
+[464] _State Papers_, Vol. VII. p. 606.
+
+[465] Cassalis to Cromwell: _State Papers_, Vol. VII. pp. 620, 621.
+
+[466] _State Papers_, Vol. VII. pp. 620, 621.
+
+[467] Strype's _Memor. Eccles._, Vol. I., Appendix, p. 211. These words
+are curious as directly attributing the conduct of the monks to the
+influence of More and Fisher.
+
+[468] Cromwell to Gardiner: Burnet's _Collectanea_, pp. 460, 461.
+
+[469] "If the Duke of Saxe, or any of the other princes, shall in their
+conference with him, expostulate or show themselves displeased with such
+information as they may percase have had, touching the attainder and
+execution of the late Bishop of Rochester and Sir Thomas More, the said
+Bishop shall thereunto answer and say, that the same were by order of
+his laws found to be false traitors and rebels to his Highness and his
+crown. The order of whose attainder with the causes thereof, he may
+declare unto them, saying that in case the King's Highness should know
+that they would conceive any sinister opinion of his Grace, for the
+doing of any act within his realm, his Grace should not only have cause
+to think they used not with him the office of friendship, which would
+not by any report conceive other opinion of so noble a prince as he is
+than were both just and honourable; but also to note in them less
+constancy of judgment than he verily thinketh they have. And hereupon
+the said Bishop shall dissuade them from giving credit to any such
+report, as whereby they shall offend God in the judgment of evil upon
+their neighbour; and cause his Majesty to muse that they would of him,
+being a prince of honour, conceive any other opinion than his honour and
+friendship towards them doth require. Setting this forth with such a
+stomach and courage as they may not only perceive the false traitorous
+dealings of the said persons; but consider what folly it were in them
+upon light report to judge of another prince's proceedings otherwise
+than they would a foreign prince should judge of them."--Instructions to
+the Bishop of Hereford by the King's Highness: _Rolls House MS._
+
+[470] It will be observed that many important facts are alluded to in
+this letter, of which we have no other knowledge.
+
+[471] Cromwell to Cassalis: _State Papers_, Vol. VII. p. 633.
+
+[472] Paul himself said that it was reserved at the intercession of the
+Princes of Europe. Intercession is too mild a word for the species of
+interference which was exerted. The pope sent a draft of the intended
+bull to France; and the king having no disposition to countenance
+exaggerated views of papal authority, spoke of it as _impudentissimum
+quoddam breve_; and said that he must send the Cardinal of Lorraine to
+Rome, to warn his Holiness that his pretence of setting himself above
+princes could by no means be allowed; by such impotent threats he might
+not only do no good, but he would make himself a laughing-stock to all
+the world.--Christopher Mount to Henry VIII.: _State Papers_, Vol. VII.
+p. 628
+
+[473] His sub excommunicationis poena mandamus ut ab ejusdem Henrici
+regis, suorumque officialium judicium et magistratuum quorumcunque
+obedientia, penitus et omnino recedant, nec illos in superiores
+recognoscant neque illorum mandatis obtemperent.--Bull of Pope Paul
+against Henry VIII.
+
+[474] The Venetian Ambassador told Mount that the first article stood
+thus, "Admittitur Protestas Pontificis Maximi absolute;" to which Mount
+says he answered, "Hoc Latinum magis sapit Sorbonam Parisiensem quam
+Witenbergensem Minervam." Du Bellay afterwards said that the saving
+clause was attached to it, "Modo secundum verbum Dei omnia judicet;" and
+that this had been added at the desire of the French king; which Mount
+did not believe--and indeed found great difficulty in discovering any
+credible account of what was really taking place, beyond the fact that
+the Lutherans were so anxious for an agreement, that they were walking
+with open eyes into a net which would strangle them.--See _State
+Papers_, Vol. VII. p. 630, &c.
+
+[475] Ibid.
+
+[476] Ego colendissime Patrone (si scribere licet quod sentio) non nihil
+nocere puto amicitiae ineundae et confirmandae inter serenissimum Regem
+nostrum et Principes Germanos, nimiam serenissimi Regis nostri
+prudentiam. Germanorum animi tales sunt ut apertam et simplicem
+amicitiam colant et expetant. Ego quoque Germanos Principes super hac
+causa saepius expostulantes audivi, ut qui suspensam hanc et causariam
+amicitiam not satis probarent. Dixerunt enim hac re fieri ut plerique
+alii foedus secum inire detrectarent et refugerunt qui id ultro factum
+fuerant si serenissimum Angliae Regem aperte stare cernerent.--Mount to
+Cromwell: _State Papers_, Vol. VII. p. 625.
+
+[477] This was Lord Burleigh's word for the constitution of the English
+Church.
+
+[478] Instructions to the Bishop of Hereford: _Rolls House MS._
+
+[479] In case they shall require that the King's Majesty shall receive
+the whole confession of Germany as it is imprinted, the bishop shall say
+that when the King's Highness shall have seen and perused the articles
+of the league, and shall perceive that there is in it contained none
+other articles but such as may be agreeable with the Gospel, and such as
+his Highness ought and conveniently may maintain, it is not to be
+doubted, and also, "I durst boldly affirm," the said bishop shall say,
+"that the King's Highness will enter the same [league]." But it shall be
+necessary for the said duke and the princes confederate to send to the
+King's Highness such personages as might devise, conclude, and
+condescend in every article.--Instructions to the Bishop of Hereford:
+_Rolls House MS._
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X.
+
+THE VISITATION OF THE MONASTERIES.
+
+
+[Sidenote: Exemption of the religious houses from control.]
+
+[Sidenote: Contrast in the monasteries between theory and fact.]
+
+[Sidenote: The original intention.]
+
+Many high interests in England had been injured by the papal
+jurisdiction; but none had suffered more vitally than those of the
+monastic establishments. These establishments had been injured, not by
+fines and exactions,--for oppression of this kind had been terminated by
+the statutes of provisors,--but because, except at rare and remote
+intervals, they had been left to themselves, without interference and
+without surveillance. They were deprived of those salutary checks which
+all human institutions require if they are to be saved from sliding into
+corruption. The religious houses, almost without exception, were not
+amenable to the authority of the bishops. The several societies
+acknowledged obedience only to the heads of their order, who resided
+abroad; or to the pope, or to some papal delegate. Thus any regularly
+conducted visitation was all but impossible. The foreign superiors, who
+were forbidden by statute to receive for their services more than
+certain limited and reasonable fees, would not undertake a gratuitous
+labour; and the visitations, attempted with imperfect powers[480] by the
+English archbishops, could be resisted successfully under pleas of
+exemption and obedience to the rules of the orders.[481] Thus the abbeys
+had gone their own way, careless of the gathering indignation with which
+they were regarded by the people, and believing that in their position
+they held a sacred shield which would protect them for ever. In them, as
+throughout the Catholic system, the sadness of the condition into which
+they had fallen was enhanced by the contrast between the theory and the
+degenerate reality. Originally, and for many hundred years after their
+foundation, the regular clergy were the finest body of men of which
+mankind in their chequered history can boast. They lived to illustrate,
+in systematic simplicity, the universal law of sacrifice. In their three
+chief vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience, they surrendered
+everything which makes life delightful. Their business on earth was to
+labour and to pray: to labour for other men's bodies, to pray for other
+men's souls. Wealth flowed in upon them; the world, in its instinctive
+loyalty to greatness, laid its lands and its possessions at their feet;
+and for a time was seen the notable spectacle of property administered
+as a trust, from which the owners reaped no benefit, except increase of
+toil. The genius of the age expended its highest efforts to provide
+fitting tabernacles for the divine spirit which they enshrined; and
+alike in village and city, the majestic houses of the Father of mankind
+and his especial servants towered up in sovereign beauty, symbols of the
+civil supremacy of the church, and of the moral sublimity of life and
+character which had won the homage and the admiration of the Christian
+nations. Ever at the sacred gates sate Mercy, pouring out relief from a
+never-failing store to the poor and the suffering; ever within the
+sacred aisles the voices of holy men were pealing heavenwards, in
+intercession for the sins of mankind; and influences so blessed were
+thought to exhale around those mysterious precincts, that the outcasts
+of society--the debtor, the felon, and the outlaw--gathered round the
+walls, as the sick men sought the shadow of the apostle, and lay there
+sheltered from the avenging hand till their sins were washed from off
+their souls. Through the storms of war and conquest the abbeys of the
+middle ages floated, like the ark upon the waves of the flood, inviolate
+in the midst of violence, through the awful reverence which surrounded
+them.
+
+[Sidenote: The life of "religion" left it in the 14th century.]
+
+The soul of "religion,"[482] however, had died out of it for many
+generations before the Reformation. At the close of the fourteenth
+century, Wycliffe had cried that the rotting trunk cumbered the ground,
+and should be cut down. It had not been cut down; it had been allowed to
+stand for a hundred and fifty more years; and now it was indeed plain
+that it could remain no longer. The boughs were bare, the stem was
+withered, the veins were choked with corruption; the ancient life-tree
+of monasticism would blossom and bear fruit no more. Faith had sunk into
+superstition; duty had died into routine; and the monks, whose technical
+discipline was forgotten, and who were set free by their position from
+the discipline of ordinary duty, had travelled swiftly on the downhill
+road of human corruption.
+
+[Sidenote: The darker scandals not to be touched upon.]
+
+[Sidenote: Political and administrative abuses.]
+
+Only light reference will be made in this place to the darker scandals
+by which the abbeys were dishonoured. Such things there really were, to
+an extent which it may be painful to believe, but which evidence too
+abundantly proves. It is better, however, to bury the recollection of
+the more odious forms of human depravity; and so soon as those who
+condemn the Reformation have ceased to deny what the painfulness of the
+subject only has allowed to remain disputed, the sins of the last
+English monks will sleep with them in their tombs. Here, in spite of
+such denials, the most offensive pictures shall continue to be left in
+the shade; and persons who wish to gratify their curiosity, or satisfy
+their unbelief, may consult the authorities for themselves.[483] I shall
+confine my own efforts rather to the explanation of the practical, and,
+in the highest sense of the word, political abuses, which, on the whole,
+perhaps, told most weightily on the serious judgment of the age.
+
+[Sidenote: The abbeys intended for the benefit of the poor.]
+
+[Sidenote: Fraudulent neglect of duty.]
+
+[Sidenote: Illegal division of profits.]
+
+[Sidenote: Dishonest administration of the lands.]
+
+[Sidenote: Neglect of hospitality. Neglect of the poor.]
+
+[Sidenote: Simony and profligacy.]
+
+The abbeys, then, as the State regarded them, existed for the benefit of
+the poor. The occupants for the time being were themselves under vows of
+poverty; they might appropriate to their personal use no portion of the
+revenues of their estates; they were to labour with their own hands, and
+administer their property for the public advantage. The surplus proceeds
+of the lands, when their own modest requirements had been supplied,
+were to be devoted to the maintenance of learning, to the exercise of a
+liberal hospitality, and to the relief of the aged, the impotent, and
+the helpless. The popular clamour of the day declared that these duties
+were systematically neglected; that two-thirds, at least, of the
+religious bodies abused their opportunities unfairly for their own
+advantage; and this at a time when the obligations of all property were
+defined as strictly as its rights, and negligent lay owners were
+promptly corrected by the State whenever occasion required. The monks,
+it was believed, lived in idleness, keeping vast retinues of servants to
+do the work which they ought to have done themselves.[484] They were
+accused of sharing dividends by mutual connivance, although they were
+forbidden by their rule to possess any private property whatever, and of
+wandering about the country in the disguise of laymen in pursuit of
+forbidden indulgences.[485] They were bound by their statutes to keep
+their houses full, and if their means were enlarged, to increase their
+numbers; they were supposed to have allowed their complement to fall to
+half, and sometimes to a third, of the original foundation, fraudulently
+reserving the enlarged profits to themselves. It was thought, too, that
+they had racked their estates; that having a life-interest only, they
+had encumbered them with debts, mortgages, and fines; that in some cases
+they had wholly alienated lands, of which they had less right to
+dispose than a modern rector of his glebe.[486] In the meantime, it was
+said that the poor were not fed, that hospitality was neglected, that
+the buildings and houses were falling to waste, that fraud and Simony
+prevailed among them from the highest to the lowest, that the abbots
+sold the presentations to the benefices which were in their gift, or
+dishonestly retained the cures of souls in their own hands, careless
+whether the duties of the parishes could or could not be discharged; and
+that, finally, the vast majority of the monks themselves were ignorant,
+self-indulgent, profligate, worthless, dissolute.
+
+[Sidenote: A hundred houses suppressed by Henry V.]
+
+[Sidenote: Visitation of 1489.]
+
+These, in addition to the heavier accusations, were the charges which
+the popular voice had for more than a century brought against the
+monasteries, which had led Wycliffe to denounce their existence as
+intolerable, the House of Commons to petition Henry IV. for the
+secularization of their property, and Henry V. to appease the outcry, by
+the suppression of more than a hundred, as an ineffectual warning to the
+rest.[487] At length, in the year 1489, at the instigation of Cardinal
+Morton, then Archbishop of Canterbury, a commission was issued by
+Innocent VIII. for a general investigation throughout England into the
+behaviour of the regular clergy. The pope said that he had heard, from
+persons worthy of credit, that abbots and monks in many places were
+systematically faithless to their vows; he conferred on the archbishop a
+special power of visitation, and directed him to admonish, to correct,
+to punish, as might seem to him to be desirable.[488] On the receipt of
+these instructions, Morton addressed the following letter to the
+superior of an abbey within a few miles of London,--a peer of the realm,
+living in the full glare of notoriety,--a person whose offences, such as
+they were, had been committed openly, palpably, and conspicuously in the
+face of the world:--
+
+[Sidenote: Archbishop Morton visits the Abbey of St. Alban's.]
+
+"John, by Divine permission, Archbishop of Canterbury, Primate of all
+England, Legate of the Apostolic See, to William, Abbot of the Monastery
+of St. Alban's, greeting.
+
+"We have received certain letters under lead, the copies whereof we
+herewith send you, from our most holy Lord and Father in Christ,
+Innocent, by Divine Providence Pope, the eighth of that name. We
+therefore, John, the archbishop, the visitor, reformer, inquisitor, and
+judge therein mentioned, in reverence for the Apostolic See, have taken
+upon ourselves the burden of enforcing the said commission; and have
+determined that we will proceed by, and according to, the full force,
+tenour, and effect of the same.
+
+"And it has come to our ears, being at once publicly notorious and
+brought before us upon the testimony of many witnesses worthy of credit,
+that you, the abbot aforementioned, have been of long time noted and
+diffamed, and do yet continue so noted, of Simony, of usury, of
+dilapidation and waste of the goods, revenues, and possessions of the
+said monastery, and of certain other enormous crimes and excesses
+hereafter written. In the rule, custody, and administration of the
+goods, spiritual and temporal, of the said monastery, you are so remiss,
+so negligent, so prodigal, that whereas the said monastery was of old
+times founded and endowed by the pious devotion of illustrious princes
+of famous memory, heretofore kings of this land, the most noble
+progenitors of our most serene Lord and King that now is, in order that
+true religion might flourish there, that the name of the Most High, in
+whose honour and glory it was instituted, might be duly celebrated
+there;
+
+"And whereas, in days heretofore the regular observance of the said rule
+was greatly regarded, and hospitality was diligently kept;
+
+[Sidenote: Delinquencies of the abbot and the monks.]
+
+"Nevertheless, for no little time, during which you have presided in the
+same monastery, you and certain of your fellow monks and brethren (whose
+blood, it is feared, through your neglect, a severe Judge will require at
+your hand) have relaxed the measure and form of religious life; you have
+laid aside the pleasant yoke of contemplation, and all regular observances;
+hospitality, alms, and those other offices of piety which of old time were
+exercised and ministered therein have decreased, and by your faults, your
+carelessness, your neglect and deed, do daily decrease more and more, and
+cease to be regarded--the pious vows of the founders are defrauded of their
+just intent; the antient rule of your order is deserted; and not a few of
+your fellow monks and brethren, as we most deeply grieve to learn, giving
+themselves over to a reprobate mind, laying aside the fear of God, do lead
+only a life of lasciviousness--nay, as is horrible to relate, be not afraid
+to defile the holy places, even the very churches of God, by infamous
+intercourse with nuns.
+
+"You yourself, moreover, among other grave enormities and abominable
+crimes whereof you are guilty, and for which you are noted and diffamed,
+have, in the first place, admitted a certain married woman, named Elena
+Germyn, who has separated herself without just cause from her husband,
+and for some time past has lived in adultery with another man, to be a
+nun or sister in the house or Priory of Bray, lying, as you pretend,
+within your jurisdiction. You have next appointed the same woman to be
+prioress of the said house, notwithstanding that her said husband was
+living at the time, and is still alive. And finally, Father Thomas
+Sudbury, one of your brother monks, publicly, notoriously, and without
+interference or punishment from you, has associated, and still
+associates, with this woman as an adulterer with his harlot.
+
+"Moreover, divers other of your brethren and fellow monks have resorted,
+and do resort, continually to her and other women at the same place, as
+to a public brothel or receiving house, and have revived no correction
+therefor.
+
+"Nor is Bray the only house into which you have introduced disorder. At
+the nunnery of Sapwell, which you also contend to be under your
+jurisdiction, you change the prioresses and superiors again and again at
+your own will and caprice. Here, as well as at Bray, you depose those
+who are good and religious; you promote to the highest dignities the
+worthless and the vicious. The duties of the order are cast aside;
+virtue is neglected; and by these means so much cost and extravagance
+has been caused, that to provide means for your indulgence you have
+introduced certain of your brethren to preside in their houses under the
+name of guardians, when in fact they are no guardians, but thieves and
+notorious villains; and with their help you have caused and permitted
+the goods of the same priories to be dispensed, or to speak more truly
+to be dissipated, in the above-described corruptions and other enormous
+and accursed offences. Those places once religious are rendered and
+reputed as it were profane and impious; and by your own and your
+creatures' conduct are so impoverished as to be reduced to the verge of
+ruin.
+
+"In like manner, also, you have dealt with certain other cells of monks,
+which you say are subject to you, even within the monastery of the
+glorious proto-martyr, Alban himself. You have dilapidated the common
+property; you have made away with the jewels; the copses, the woods, the
+underwood, almost all the oaks and other forest trees, to the value of
+eight thousand marks and more, you have made to be cut down without
+distinction, and they have by you been sold and alienated. The brethren
+of the abbey, some of whom, as is reported, are given over to all the
+evil things of the world, neglect the service of God altogether. They
+live with harlots and mistresses publicly and continuously, within the
+precincts of the monastery and without. Some of them, who are covetous
+of honour and promotion, and desirous therefore of pleasing your
+cupidity, have stolen and made away with the chalices and other jewels
+of the church. They have even sacrilegiously extracted the precious
+stones from the very shrine of St. Alban; and you have not punished
+these men, but have rather knowingly supported and maintained them. If
+any of your brethren be living justly and religiously, if any be wise
+and virtuous, these you straightway depress and hold in hatred....
+You...."
+
+But this overwhelming document need not be transcribed further. It
+pursues its way through mire and filth to its most lame and impotent
+conclusion. The abbot was not deposed; he was invited merely to
+reconsider his conduct, and, if possible, amend it.
+
+Offences similar in kind and scarcely less gross were exposed at
+Waltham, at St. Andrew's, Northampton, at Calais, and at other
+places.[489] Again, a reprimand was considered to be an adequate
+punishment.
+
+[Sidenote: Visitation of archbishop Warham in 1511.]
+
+Evils so deep and so abominable would not yield to languid treatment;
+the visitation had been feeble in its execution and limited in extent.
+In 1511 a second was attempted by Archbishop Warham.[490] This inquiry
+was more partial than the first, yet similar practices were brought to
+light: women introduced to religious houses; nuns and abbesses accusing
+one another of incontinency; the alms collected in the chapels
+squandered by the monks in licentiousness. Once more, no cure was
+attempted beyond a paternal admonition.[491] A third effort was made by
+Wolsey twelve years later: again exposure followed, and again no remedy
+was found.
+
+If the condition of the abbeys had appeared intolerable before
+investigation, still less could it be endured when the justice of the
+accusations against them had been ascertained. But the church was
+unequal to the work of self-reformation. Parliament alone could decide
+on the measures which the emergency made necessary; and preparatory to
+legislation, the true circumstances and present character of the
+religious bodies throughout the whole country were to be ascertained
+accurately and completely.
+
+[Sidenote: Issue of a commission for a general visitation.]
+
+[Sidenote: Character of the commissioners.]
+
+[Sidenote: First intention of the crown to reform and not to destroy.]
+
+Accordingly, in the summer of 1535, directly after Sir Thomas More's
+execution, Cromwell, now "vicegerent of the king in all his
+ecclesiastical jurisdiction within the realm,"[492] issued a commission
+for a general visitation of the religious houses, the universities, and
+other spiritual corporations. The persons appointed to conduct the
+inquiry were Doctors Legh, Leyton, and Ap Rice, ecclesiastical lawyers
+in holy orders, with various subordinates. Legh and Leyton, the two
+principal commissioners, were young, impetuous men, likely to execute
+their work rather thoroughly than delicately; but, to judge by the
+surviving evidence, they were as upright and plain-dealing as they were
+assuredly able and efficient. It is pretended by some writers that the
+inquiry was set on foot with a preconceived purpose of spoliation; that
+the duty of the visitors was rather to defame roundly than to report
+truly; and that the object of the commission was merely to justify an
+act of appropriation which had been already determined. The commission
+of Pope Innocent, with the previous inquiries, puts to silence so
+gratuitous a supposition; while it is certain that antecedent to the
+presentation of the report, an extensive measure of suppression was not
+so much as contemplated. The directions to the visitors,[493] the
+injunctions they were to carry with them to the various houses, the
+private letters to the superiors, which were written by the king and by
+Cromwell,[494] show plainly that the first object was to reform and not
+to destroy; and it was only when reformation was found to be
+conclusively hopeless, that the harder alternative was resolved upon.
+The report itself is no longer extant. Bonner was directed by Queen Mary
+to destroy all discoverable copies of it, and his work was fatally well
+executed. We are able, however, to replace its contents to some extent,
+out of the despatches of the commissioners.
+
+[Sidenote: The commissioners issue an inhibition against the bishops.]
+
+Their discretionary powers were unusually large, as appears from the
+first act with which the visitors commenced operations. On their own
+responsibility, they issued an inhibition against the bishops,
+forbidding them to exercise any portion of their jurisdiction while the
+visitation was in progress. The sees themselves were to be inspected;
+and they desired to make the ground clear before they moved. When the
+amazed bishops exclaimed against so unheard-of an innovation, Doctor
+Legh justified the order by saying, that it was well to compel the
+prelates to know and feel their new position; and in the fact of their
+suspension by a royal commission, to "agnize" the king as the source of
+episcopal authority.[495]
+
+[Sidenote: And commence work at Oxford, Sept. 12.]
+
+[Sidenote: Condition of the University.]
+
+[Sidenote: Efforts of the heads of houses.]
+
+[Sidenote: Parish clergy idling at the colleges under pretence of
+study.]
+
+[Sidenote: The disturbers of order and quiet.]
+
+[Sidenote: Revolution of studies.]
+
+Truly it was an altered world since the bishops sent in their answer to
+the complaints of the House of Commons. The visitors, in this haughty
+style, having established their powers, began work with the university
+of Oxford. Their time was short, for parliament was to meet early in the
+spring, when their report was to be submitted to it; and their business
+meanwhile was not only to observe and inquire, but any reforms which
+were plainly useful and good, they were themselves to execute. They had
+no time for hesitation, therefore; and they laid their hands to the
+task before them with a promptitude at which we can only wonder. The
+heads of houses, as may be supposed, saw little around them which was in
+need of reform. A few students of high genius and high purposes had been
+introduced into the university, as we have seen, by Wolsey; and these
+had been assiduously exiled or imprisoned. All suspected books had been
+hunted out. There had been fagot processions in High-street, and
+bonfires of New Testaments at Carfax. The daily chapels, we suppose, had
+gone forward as usual, and the drowsy lectures on the Schoolmen; while
+"towardly young men" who were venturing stealthily into the perilous
+heresy of Greek, were eyed askance by the authorities, and taught to
+tremble at their temerity. All this we might have looked for; and among
+the authorities themselves, also, the world went forward in a very
+natural manner. There was comfortable living in the colleges: so
+comfortable, that many of the country clergy preferred Oxford and
+Cambridge to the monotony of their parishes, and took advantage of a
+clause in a late act of parliament, which recognised a residence at
+either of the universities as an excuse for absence from tedious duties.
+"Divers and many persons," it was found, "beneficed with cure of souls,
+and being not apt to study by reason of their age or otherwise, ne never
+intending before the making of the said act to travel in study, but
+rather minding their own ease and pleasure, colourably to defraud the
+same good statute, did daily and commonly resort to the said
+universities, where, under pretence of study, they continued and abode,
+living dissolutely; nothing profiting themselves in learning, but
+consumed the time in idleness and pastimes and insolent pleasures,
+giving occasion and evil example thereby to the young men and students
+within the universities, and occupying such rooms and commodities as
+were instituted for the maintenance and relief of poor scholars."[496]
+These persons were not driven away by the heads of houses as the
+Christian Brothers had been; they were welcomed rather as pleasant
+companions. In comfortable conservatism they had no tendencies to
+heresy, but only to a reasonable indulgence of their five bodily senses.
+Doubtless, therefore, the visitors found Oxford a pleasant place, and
+cruelly they marred the enjoyments of it. Like a sudden storm of rain,
+they dropt down into its quiet precincts. Heedless of rights of fellows
+and founders' bequests, of sleepy dignities and established indolences,
+they re-established long dormant lectures in the colleges. In a few
+little days (for so long only they remained) they poured new life into
+education. They founded fresh professorships--professorships of Polite
+Latin, professorships of Philosophy, Divinity, Canon Law, Natural
+Sciences--above all of the dreaded Greek; confiscating funds to support
+them. For the old threadbare text-books, some real teaching was swiftly
+substituted. The idle residents were noted down, soon to be sent home by
+parliament to their benefices, under pain of being compelled, like all
+other students, to attend lectures, and, in their proper persons, "keep
+sophisms, problems, disputations, and all other exercises of
+learning."[497]
+
+[Sidenote: Revolution of discipline.]
+
+[Sidenote: Memorable fate of Duns Scotus.]
+
+The discipline was not neglected: "we have enjoined the religious
+students,"[498] Leyton wrote to Cromwell, "that none of them, for no
+manner of cause, shall come within any tavern, inn, or alehouse, or any
+other house, whatsoever it be, within the town and suburbs. [Each
+offender] once so taken, to be sent home to his cloyster. Without doubt,
+this act is greatly lamented of all honest women of the town; and
+especially of their laundresses, that may not now once enter within the
+gates, much less within the chambers, whereunto they were right well
+accustomed. I doubt not, but for this thing, only the honest matrons
+will sue to you for redress."[499] These were sharp measures; we lose
+our breath at their rapidity and violence. The saddest vicissitude was
+that which befell the famous Duns--Duns Scotus, the greatest of the
+Schoolmen, the constructor of the _memoria technica_ of ignorance, the
+ancient text-book of _a priori_ knowledge, established for centuries the
+supreme despot in the Oxford lecture-rooms. "We have set Duns in
+Bocardo," says Leyton. He was thrown down from his high estate, and from
+being lord of the Oxford intellect, was "made the common servant of all
+men;" condemned by official sentence to the lowest degradation to which
+book can be submitted.[500] Some copies escaped this worst fate; but for
+changed uses thenceforward. The second occasion on which the visitors
+came to New College, they "found the great Quadrant Court full of the
+leaves of Duns, the wind blowing them into every corner; and one Mr.
+Greenfield, a gentleman of Buckinghamshire, gathering up part of the
+same book leaves, as he said, to make him sewers or blawnsheres, to keep
+the deer within his wood, thereby to have the better cry with his
+hounds."[501]
+
+To such base uses all things return at last; dust unto dust, when the
+life has died out of them, and the living world needs their
+companionship no longer.
+
+[Sidenote: Progress of the visitors.]
+
+[Sidenote: Uniformity of result.]
+
+[Sidenote: The _animus improbus_.]
+
+On leaving Oxford, the visitors spread over England, north, south, east,
+and west. We trace Legh in rapid progress through Bedfordshire,
+Cambridgeshire, Lincoln, Yorkshire, and Northumberland; Leyton through
+Middlesex, Kent, Sussex, Hants, Somersetshire, and Devon. They appeared
+at monastery after monastery, with prompt, decisive questions; and if
+the truth was concealed, with expedients for discovering it, in which
+practice soon made them skilful. All but everywhere the result was the
+same. At intervals a light breaks through, and symptoms appear of some
+efforts after decency; but in the vast majority of the smaller houses,
+the previous results were repeated, the popular suspicions were more
+than confirmed. Wolsey, when writing to the pope of his intended
+reformation, had spoken of the _animus improbus_, and the frightful
+symptoms which existed of it. He was accused, in his attempted
+impeachment, of having defamed the character of the English clergy. Yet
+Wolsey had written no more than the truth, as was too plainly
+discovered. I do not know what to say on this matter, or what to leave
+unsaid. If I am to relate the suppression of the monasteries, I should
+relate also why they were suppressed. If I were to tell the truth, I
+should have first to warn all modest eyes to close the book, and read no
+further. It will perhaps be sufficient if I introduce a few superficial
+stories, suggestive rather than illustrative of the dark matter which
+remains in the shade.
+
+[Sidenote: Sion Monastery.]
+
+[Sidenote: The confessional, and the fruits of it.]
+
+I have spoken more than once of the monastery of Sion. It was the scene of
+the Nun of Kent's intrigues. It furnished more than one martyr for the
+Catholic cause; and the order was Carthusian--one of the strictest in
+England. There were two houses attached to the same establishment--one of
+monks, another of nuns. The confessors of the women were chosen from the
+friars, and they were found to have abused their opportunities in the most
+infamous manner. With a hateful mixture of sensuality and superstition, the
+offence and the absolution went hand-in-hand. One of these confessors, so
+zealous for the pope that he professed himself ready to die for the Roman
+cause, was in the habit of using language so filthy to his penitents, that
+it was necessary to "sequester him from hearing ladies' confessions." The
+nuns petitioned the visitors, on the exposure of the seduction of a sister,
+that he and his companion might come to them no more; and the friar was
+told that his abominable conduct might be the occasion that "shrift should
+be laid down in England."[502]
+
+This is one instance of an evil found fatally prevalent.
+
+[Sidenote: Forged licenses for profligacy.]
+
+Again, the clergy were suspected of obtaining dispensations from their
+superiors indulging in a breach of their vows. The laxity of the church
+courts in dealing with clerical delinquents had perhaps given rise to
+this belief; but the accusation was confirmed by a discovery at Maiden
+Bradley, in Wiltshire. The prior of this house had a family of
+illegitimate children, whom he brought up and provided for in a very
+comfortable manner;[503] and the visitor wrote that "_the pope,
+considering his fragility_," had granted him a licence in this little
+matter; that he had, in fact, "a good writing _sub plumbo_, to discharge
+his conscience." I do not easily believe that _authentic_ dispensations
+of such a kind were obtained from Rome, or were obtainable from it; but
+of forged dispensations, invented by reverend offenders or fraudulently
+issued by the local ecclesiastical authorities, to keep appearances
+smooth, there were probably enough, and too many.[504]
+
+[Sidenote: Visit to Langden Abbey, Oct. 22.]
+
+The more ordinary experiences of the commissioners may be described by
+Leyton himself, in an account which he wrote of his visit to Langden
+Abbey, near Dover. The style is graphic, and the picture of the scene
+one of the most complete which remains. The letter is to Cromwell.
+
+"Please it your goodness to understand that on Friday, the 22nd of
+October, I rode back with speed to take an inventory of Folkstone, and
+from thence I went to Langden. Whereat immediately descending from my
+horse, I sent Bartlett, your servant, with all my servants, to
+circumspect the abbey, and surely to keep all back-doors and
+starting-holes. I myself went alone to the abbot's lodging, joining
+upon the fields and wood, even like a cony clapper, full of
+starting-holes. [I was] a good space knocking at the abbot's door; _nec
+vox nec sensus apparuit_, saving the abbot's little dog that within his
+door fast locked bayed and barked. I found a short poleaxe standing
+behind the door, and with it I dashed the abbot's door in pieces, _ictu
+oculi_, and set one of my men to keep that door; and about the house I
+go, with that poleaxe in my hand, _ne forte_, for the abbot is a
+dangerous desperate knave, and a hardy. But for a conclusion, his
+gentlewoman bestirred her stumps towards her starting-holes; and then
+Bartlett, watching the pursuit, took the tender damoisel; and, after I
+had examined her, [brought her] to Dover to the mayor, to set her in
+some cage or prison for eight days; and I brought holy father abbot to
+Canterbury, and here in Christchurch I will leave him in prison. In this
+sudden doing _ex tempore_, to circumspect the house, and to search, your
+servant John Antony's men marvelled what fellow I was, and so did the
+rest of the abbey, for I was unknown there of all men. I found her
+apparel in the abbot's coffer. To tell you all this comedy (but for the
+abbot a tragedy), it were too long. Now it shall appear to gentlemen of
+this country, and other the commons, that ye shall not deprive or visit,
+but upon substantial grounds. The rest of all this knavery I shall defer
+till my coming unto you, which shall be with as much speed as I can
+possible."[505]
+
+[Sidenote: October. Nunnery of Lichfield.]
+
+[Sidenote: Two of the sisterhood found "not barren."]
+
+Towards the close of the year, Leyton went north to join Legh; and
+together they visited a nunnery at Lichfield. The religious orders were
+bound by oaths similar to those which have recently created difficulty
+in Oxford. They were sworn to divulge nothing which might prejudice the
+interests of the houses. The superior at Lichfield availed herself of
+this plea. When questioned as to the state of the convent, she and the
+sisterhood refused to allow that there was any disorder, or any
+irregularity, which could give occasion for inquiry. Her assertions were
+not implicitly credited; the inspection proceeded, and at length two of
+the sisters were discovered to be "not barren"; a priest in one instance
+having been the occasion of the misfortune, and a serving-man in the
+other. No confession could be obtained either from the offenders
+themselves, or from the society. The secret was betrayed by an "old
+beldame"; "and when," says Leyton, "I objected against the prioresses,
+that if they could not show me a cause reasonable of their concealment,
+I must needs, and would, punish them for their manifest perjury,--their
+answer was, that they were bound by their religion never to confess the
+secret faults done amongst them, but only to a visitor of their own
+religion, and to that they were sworn, every one of them, on their first
+admission."[506]
+
+[Sidenote: Abbey of Fountains.]
+
+[Sidenote: Theft and sacrilege committed by the abbot.]
+
+A little later the commissioners were at Fountains Abbey; and tourists,
+who in their daydreams among those fair ruins are inclined to complain
+of the sacrilege which wasted the houses of prayer, may study with
+advantage the following account of that house in the year which preceded
+its dissolution. The outward beautiful ruin was but the symbol and
+consequence of a moral ruin not so beautiful. "The Abbot of Fountains,"
+we read in a joint letter of Legh and Leyton, had "greatly dilapidated
+his house, [and] wasted the woods, notoriously keeping six women. [He
+is] defamed here," they say, "_a toto populo_, one day denying these
+articles, with many more, the next day confessing the same, thus
+manifestly incurring perjury." Six days before the visitors' access to
+his monastery "he committed theft and sacrilege, confessing the same. At
+midnight he caused his chaplain to seize the sexton's keys, and took out
+a jewel, a cross of gold with stones. One Warren, a goldsmith in the
+Chepe, was with him in his chamber at that hour, and there they stole
+out a great emerald, with a ruby. The said Warren made the abbot believe
+the ruby to be but a garnet, so that for this he paid nothing. For the
+emerald he paid but twenty pounds. He sold him also the plate without
+weight or ounces; how much the abbot was deceived therein he cannot
+tell, for he is a very fool and miserable idiot."[507]
+
+[Sidenote: The visitors instructed to make inventories of the property,
+and to bring away the superfluous plate.]
+
+[Sidenote: False returns made by the abbots.]
+
+Under an impression that frauds of this description were becoming
+frequent, the government had instructed the commissioners to take
+inventories of the plate and jewels; and where they saw occasion for
+suspicion, to bring away whatever seemed superfluous, after leaving a
+supply sufficient for the services of the house and chapel. The
+misdemeanour of the Abbot of Fountains was not the only justification of
+these directions. Sometimes the plate was secreted. The Prior of Christ
+Church, Canterbury, was accused of having sent in a false return,[508]
+keeping back gold and precious stones valued at a thousand pounds.
+Information was given by some of the brethren, who professed to fear
+that the prior would poison them in revenge.
+
+[Sidenote: Scene at Norton Abbey in Cheshire.]
+
+Occasionally the monks ventured on rougher methods to defend themselves.
+Here is a small spark of English life while the investigation was in
+progress, lighted by a stray letter from an English gentleman of
+Cheshire. The lord chancellor was informed by Sir Piers Dutton, justice
+of the peace, that the visitors had been at Norton Abbey. They had
+concluded their inspection, had packed up such jewels and plate as they
+purposed to remove, and were going away; when, the day being late and
+the weather foul, they changed their minds, and resolved to spend the
+night where they were. In the evening, "the abbot," says Sir Piers,
+"gathered together a great company, to the number of two or three
+hundred persons, so that the commissioners were in fear of their lives,
+and were fain to take a tower there; and therefrom sent a letter unto
+me, ascertaining me what danger they were in, and desiring me to come
+and assist them, or they were never likely to come thence. Which letter
+came to me about nine of the clock, and about two o'clock on the same
+night I came thither with such of my tenants as I had near about me, and
+found divers fires made, as well within the gates as without; and the
+said abbot had caused an ox to be killed, with other victuals, and
+prepared for such of his company as he had there. I used some policy,
+and came suddenly upon them. Some of them took to the pools and water,
+and it was so dark that I could not find them. Howbeit I took the abbot
+and three of his canons, and brought them to the king's castle of
+Hatton."[509]
+
+[Sidenote: Monks under 24, and nuns under 21, set free from their vows.]
+
+If, however, the appropriation of the jewels led to occasional
+resistance, another duty which the commissioners were to discharge
+secured them as often a warm and eager welcome. It was believed that the
+monastic institutions had furnished an opportunity, in many quarters,
+for the disposal of inconvenient members of families. Children of both
+sexes, it was thought, had been forced into abbeys and convents at an
+age too young to have allowed them a free choice in the sacrifice of
+their lives. To all such, therefore, the doors of their prison house
+were thrown open. On the day of visitation, when the brethren, or the
+sisterhood, were assembled, the visitors informed everywhere such monks
+as were under twenty-four, and such nuns as were under twenty-one, that
+they might go where they pleased. To those among them who preferred to
+return to the world, a secular dress was given, and forty shillings in
+money, and they were restored to the full privileges of the laity.
+
+[Sidenote: The monks at Fordham petition for release.]
+
+The opportunity so justly offered was passionately embraced. It was
+attended only with this misfortune, that the line was arbitrarily drawn,
+and many poor wretches who found themselves condemned by the accident of
+a few more days or months of life to perpetual imprisonment, made
+piteous entreaties for an extension of the terms of freedom. At Fordham,
+in Cambridgeshire, Dr. Legh wrote to Cromwell, "the religious persons
+kneeling on their knees, instantly with humble petition desire of God
+and the king and you, to be dismissed from their religion, saying they
+live in it contrary to God's law and their consciences; trusting that
+the king, of his gracious goodness, and you, will set them at liberty
+out of their bondage, which they are not able to endure, but should
+fall into desperation, or else run away." "It were a deed of charity,"
+he continued, fresh from the scene where he had witnessed the full
+misery of their condition, "that they might live in that kind of living
+which might be most to the glory of God, the quietness of their
+consciences, and most to the commonwealth, _whosoever hath informed you
+to the contrary_."[510] Similar expressions of sympathy are frequent in
+the visitors' letters. Sometimes the poor monks sued directly to the
+vicar-general, and Cromwell must have received many petitions as
+strange, as helpless, and as graphic, as this which follows. The writer
+was a certain Brother Beerley, a Benedictine monk of Pershore, in
+Worcestershire. It is amusing to find him addressing the vicar-general
+as his "most reverend lord in God." I preserve the spelling, which,
+however, will with some difficulty be found intelligible.
+
+[Sidenote: Letter of a monk of Pershore to Cromwell.]
+
+"We do nothing seyrch," says this good brother, "for the doctryn of
+Chryst, but all fowloys owr owne sensyaly and plesure. Also most gracyus
+Lord, there is a secrett thynge in my conchons whych doth move mee to go
+owt of the relygyon, an yt were never so perfytt, whych no man may know
+but my gostly fader; the wych I supposs yf a man mothe guge [is] yn
+other yong persons as in me selfe. But Chryst saye _nolite judicare et
+non judicabimini_, therefore y wyll guge my nowne conschons fyrst--the
+wych fault ye shall know of me heyrafter more largyously--and many other
+fowll vycys done amonckst relygyus men--not relygyus men, as y thynck
+they owt not to be cald, but dyssemblars wyth God.
+
+"Now, most gracyus Lord and most worthyst vycytar that ever cam amonckes
+us, help me owt of thys vayne relygyon, and macke me your servant
+handmayd and beydman, and save my sowlle, wych shold be lost yf ye helpe
+yt not--the wych ye may save wyth one word speking--and mayck me wych am
+nowe nawtt to cum unto grace and goodness.
+
+"Now y wyll ynstrux your Grace sumwatt of relygyus men, and how the
+Kyng's Gracis commandment is keyp yn puttyng forth of bockys the
+Beyschatt of Rome's userpt pour. Monckes drynke an bowll after collatyon
+tyll ten or twelve of the clok, and cum to matyns as dronck as myss--and
+sum at cardys, sum at dycys, and at tabulles; sum cum to mattyns
+begenying at the mydes, and sum wen yt ys almost dun, and wold not cum
+there so only for boddly punyshment, nothyng for Goddis sayck. Also
+abbettes, monckes, prests, dun lyttyl or nothyng to put owtte of bockys
+the Beyschatt of Rome's name--for y myself do know yn dyvers bockys
+where ys name ys, and hys userpt powor upon us[511]."
+
+In reply to these and similar evidences of the state of the monasteries,
+it will be easy to say, that in the best ages there were monks impatient
+of their vows, and abbots negligent of their duties; that human weakness
+and human wickedness may throw a stain over the noblest institutions;
+that nothing is proved by collecting instances which may be merely
+exceptions, and that no evidence is more fallacious than that which
+rests upon isolated facts.
+
+It is true; and the difficulty is felt as keenly by the accuser who
+brings forward charges which it is discreditable to have urged, if they
+cannot be substantiated, as by those who would avail themselves of the
+easy opening to evade the weight of the indictment. I have to say only,
+that if the extracts which I have made lead persons disposed to differ
+with me to examine the documents which are extant upon the subject, they
+will learn what I have concealed as well as what I have alleged; and I
+believe that, if they begin the inquiry (as I began it myself) with
+believing that the religious orders had been over-hardly judged, they
+will close it with but one desire--that the subject shall never more be
+mentioned.
+
+[Sidenote: New regulations enforced by the commissioners.]
+
+Leaving, then, the moral condition in which the visitors found these
+houses, we will now turn to the regulations which they were directed to
+enforce for the future. When the investigation at each of the houses had
+been completed, when the young monks and nuns had been dismissed, the
+accounts audited, the property examined, and the necessary inquiries had
+been made into the manners and habits of the establishment, the
+remaining fraternity were then assembled in the chapter-house, and the
+commissioners delivered to them their closing directions. No differences
+were made between the orders. The same language was used everywhere. The
+statute of supremacy was first touched upon; and the injunction was
+repeated for the detailed observance of it. Certain broad rules of moral
+obedience were then laid down, to which all "religious" men without
+exception were expected to submit.[512]
+
+[Sidenote: The monks confined within walls.]
+
+No monks, thenceforward, were to leave the precincts of the monastery to
+which they belonged, under any pretext; they were to confine themselves
+within the walls, to the house, the gardens, and the grounds.
+
+[Sidenote: No women to be admitted within the precincts.]
+
+[Sidenote: The brethren to dine together in hall, gravely and decently.]
+
+No women were to come within the walls, without licence from the king or
+the visitor; and, to prevent all unpermitted ingress or egress, private
+doors and posterns were to be walled up. There was, in future, to be but
+one entrance only, by the great foregate; and this was to be diligently
+watched by a porter. The "brethren" were to take their meals decently in
+the common hall. They were not to clamour, as they had been in the habit
+of doing, "for any certain, usual, or accustomed portion of meat;" but
+were to be content with what was set before them, giving thanks to God.
+
+To ensure gravity and decency, one of the brethren, at every refection,
+was to read aloud a chapter of the Old or New Testament.
+
+The abbot was "to keep an honest and hospitable table;" and an almoner
+was to be appointed in each house, to collect the broken meats, and to
+distribute them among the deserving poor.
+
+[Sidenote: Valiant, mighty, and idle beggars no longer to be supported.]
+
+Special care was to be taken in this last article, and "_by no means
+should such alms be given to valiant, mighty, and idle beggars and
+vagabonds, such as commonly use to resort to such places; which rather
+as drove beasts and mychers should be driven away and compelled to
+labour, than in their idleness and lewdness be cherished and maintained,
+to the great hindrance and damage of the commonweal_."
+
+All other alms and distributions, either prescribed by the statutes of
+the foundations, or established by the customs of the abbeys, were to be
+made and given as largely as at any past time.
+
+The abbots were to make no waste of the woods or lands. They were to
+keep their accounts with an annual audit, faithfully and truly.
+
+No fairs nor markets were any more to be held within the precincts.[513]
+
+Every monk was to have a separate bed, and not to have any child or boy
+lying with him, or otherwise haunting unto him.
+
+The "brethren" were to occupy themselves in daily reading or other
+honest and laudable exercises. Especially there was to be every day one
+general lesson in Holy Scripture, at which every member of the house was
+bound to be present.
+
+[Sidenote: Some portion of the rule which the monks have professed shall
+every day be read to them.]
+
+Finally, that they might all understand the meaning of their position in
+the world, and the intention, which they had so miserably forgotten, of
+the foundations to which they belonged, the abbot, prior, or president,
+was every day to explain in English some of the portion of the rule
+which they had professed; "applying the same always to the doctrine of
+Christ." The language of the injunctions is either Cromwell's or the
+king's; and the passage upon this subject is exceedingly beautiful.
+
+"The abbot shall teach them that the said rule, and other their
+principles of religion (so far as they be laudable), be taken out of
+Holy Scripture: and he shall shew them the places from whence they be
+derived: and that their ceremonies and other observances be none other
+things than as the first letters or principles, and certain
+introductions to true Christianity: and that true religion is not
+contained in apparel, manner of going, shaven heads, and such other
+marks; nor in silence, fasting, uprising in the night, singing, and
+such other kind of ceremonies; but in cleanness of mind, pureness of
+living, Christ's faith not feigned, and brotherly charity, and true
+honouring of God in spirit and verity: and that those abovesaid things
+were instituted and begun, that they being first exercised in these, in
+process of time might ascend to those as by certain steps--that is to
+say, to the chief point and end of religion. And therefore, let them be
+exhorted that they do not continually stick and surcease in such
+ceremonies and observances, as though they had perfectly fulfilled the
+chief and outmost of the whole of true religion; but that when they have
+once passed such things, they should endeavour themselves after higher
+things, and convert their minds from such external matters to more
+inward and deeper considerations, as the law of God and Christian
+religion doth teach and shew: and that they assure not themselves of any
+reward or commodity by reason of such ceremonies and observances, except
+they refer all such to Christ, and for his sake observe them."[514]
+
+Certainly, no government which intended to make the irregularities of an
+institution an excuse for destroying it, ever laboured more assiduously
+to defeat its own objects. Those who most warmly disapprove of the
+treatment of the monasteries have so far no reason to complain; and
+except in the one point of the papal supremacy, under which, be it
+remembered, the religious orders had luxuriated in corruption, Becket or
+Hildebrand would scarcely have done less or more than what had as yet
+been attempted by Henry.
+
+[Sidenote: 1536. Parliament meets for its last session.]
+
+[Sidenote: February. Preliminary measures.]
+
+[Sidenote: The commissioners present their report.]
+
+But the time had now arrived when the results of the investigation were
+to be submitted to the nation. The parliament--the same old parliament
+of 1529, which had commenced the struggle with the bishops--was now
+meeting for its last session, to deal with this its greatest and
+concluding difficulty. It assembled on the 4th of February, and the
+preliminaries of the great question being not yet completed, the Houses
+were first occupied with simplifying justice and abolishing the obsolete
+privileges of the Northern palatinates.[515] Other minor matters were
+also disposed of. Certain questionable people, who were taking advantage
+of the confusion of the times to "withhold tythes," were animadverted
+upon.[516] The treason law was further extended to comprehend the
+forging of the king's sign-manual, signet, and privy seal, "divers light
+and evil-disposed persons having of late had the courage to commit such
+offences." The scale of fees at the courts of law was fixed by
+statute;[517] and felons having protection of sanctuary were no longer
+to be permitted to leave the precincts, and return at their pleasure.
+When they went abroad, they were to wear badges, declaring who and what
+they were; and they were to be within bounds after sunset. In these and
+similar regulations the early weeks of the session were consumed. At
+length the visitors had finished their work, and the famous _Black Book_
+of the monasteries was laid on the table of the House of Commons.
+
+This book, I have said, unhappily no longer exists. Persons however who
+read it have left on record emphatic descriptions of its contents; and
+the preamble of the act of parliament of which it formed the foundation,
+dwells upon its character with much distinctness. I cannot discuss the
+insoluble question whether the stories which it contained were true.
+History is ill occupied with discussing probabilities on _a priori_
+grounds, when the scale of likelihood is graduated by antecedent
+prejudice. It is enough that the report was drawn up by men who had the
+means of knowing the truth, and who were apparently under no temptation
+to misrepresent what they had seen; that the description coincides with
+the authentic letters of the visitors; and that the account was
+generally accepted as true by the English parliament.
+
+[Sidenote: Two thirds of the monks are living in habits which may not be
+described.]
+
+It appeared, then, on this authority, that two-thirds of the monks in
+England were living in habits which may not be described. The facts were
+related in great detail. The confessions of parties implicated were
+produced, signed by their own hands.[518] The vows were not observed.
+The lands were wasted, sold, and mortgaged. The foundations were
+incomplete. The houses were falling to waste; within and without, the
+monastic system was in ruins. In the smaller abbeys especially, where,
+from the limitation of numbers, the members were able to connive
+securely at each other's misdemeanours, they were saturated with
+profligacy, with Simony, with drunkenness.[519] The case against the
+monasteries was complete; and there is no occasion either to be
+surprised or peculiarly horrified at the discovery. The demoralization
+which was exposed was nothing less and nothing more than the condition
+into which men of average nature compelled to celibacy, and living as
+the exponents of a system which they disbelieved, were certain to fall.
+
+[Sidenote: A great debate in the House.]
+
+There were exceptions. In the great monasteries, or in many of them,
+there was decency and honourable management; but when all the
+establishments, large and small, had been examined, a third only could
+claim to be exempted from the darkest schedule. This was the burden of
+the report which was submitted to the legislature. So long as the extent
+of the evil was unknown, it could be tolerated; when it had been exposed
+to the world, honour and justice alike required a stronger remedy than
+an archiepiscopal remonstrance. A "great debate" followed.[520] The
+journals of the session are lost, and we cannot replace the various
+arguments; but there was not a member of either House who was not
+connected, either by personal interest, or by sacred associations, with
+one or other of the religious houses; there was not one whose own
+experience could not test in some degree the accuracy of the _Black
+Book_; and there was no disposition to trifle with institutions which
+were the cherished dependencies of the great English families.
+
+[Sidenote: March. Difficulty of arriving at a resolution.]
+
+[Sidenote: Conflicting interests. The representatives of the founders.]
+
+[Sidenote: Divided opinion of the Reformers.]
+
+[Sidenote: Latimer, and Knox after him, desired to preserve and reform.]
+
+[Sidenote: Crammer opposed to ecclesiastical corporations under any
+form.]
+
+[Sidenote: Cranmer more right than Latimer, as experience has proved.]
+
+[Sidenote: The instincts of the laity guide them truly.]
+
+The instincts of conservatism, association, sympathy, respect for
+ancient bequests, and a sense of the sacredness of property set apart
+for holy uses, and guarded by anathemas, all must have been against a
+dissolution; yet, so far as we can supply the loss of the journals from
+other accounts of the feeling of the time, there seems to have been
+neither hope nor desire of preserving the old system--of preserving the
+houses, that is, collectively under their existing statutes as
+foundations in themselves inviolate. The visitation had been commenced
+with a hope that extremities might still be avoided. But all expectation
+of this kind vanished before the fatal evidence which had been produced.
+The House of Commons had for a century and a half been familiar with the
+thought of suppression as a possible necessity. The time was come when,
+if not suppression, yet some analogous measure had become imperative.
+The smaller establishments, at least, could not and might not continue.
+Yet while, so far, there was general agreement, it was no easy matter to
+resolve upon a satisfactory remedy. The representatives of the founders
+considered that, if houses were suppressed which had been established
+out of estates which had belonged to their forefathers, those estates
+should revert to the heirs, or at least, that the heirs should recover
+them upon moderate terms.[521] In the Reforming party there was
+difference of opinion on the legality of secularizing property which had
+been given to God. Latimer, and partially Cromwell, inherited the
+designs of Wolsey; instead of taking away from the church the lands of
+the abbeys, they were desirous of seeing those lands transferred to the
+high and true interests of religion. They wished to convert the houses
+into places of education, and to reform, wherever possible, the
+ecclesiastical bodies themselves.[522] This, too, was the dream, the
+"devout imagination," as it was called, of Knox, in Scotland, as it has
+been since the dream of many other good men who have not rightly
+understood why the moment at which the church was washed clean from its
+stains, and came out fresh robed in the wedding-garment of purity,
+should have been chosen to strip it of its resources, and depose it from
+power and preeminence. Cranmer, on the other hand, less imaginative but
+more practical, was reluctant that clerical corporations should be
+continued under any pretext--even under the mild form of cathedral
+chapters. Cranmer desired to see the secular system of the church made
+as efficient as possible; the religious system, in its technical sense,
+he believed to have become a nursery of idleness, and believed that no
+measures of reform could restore the old tone to institutions which the
+world had outgrown.[523] In the present age it will perhaps be
+considered that Cranmer's sagacity was more right than Latimer's
+enthusiasm, however at the moment men's warmer instincts might seem to
+have pleaded for the latter. The subsequent history both of the Scotch
+and English church permits the belief that neither would have been
+benefited by the possession of larger wealth than was left to them. A
+purer doctrine has not corrected those careless and questionable habits
+in the management of property which were exposed by the visitors of
+1535. Whether the cause of the phenomenon lies in an indifference to the
+things of the world, or in the more dubious palliation that successive
+incumbents have only a life-interest in their incomes, the experience of
+three centuries has proved the singular unfitness of spiritual persons
+for the administration of secular trusts; and the friends of the
+establishment may be grateful that the judgment of the English laity
+ultimately guided them to this conclusion. They were influenced, it is
+likely, by a principle which they showed rather in their deeds than in
+their words. They would not recognise any longer the distinction on
+which the claims of the abbeys were rested. Property given to God, it
+was urged, might not be again taken from God, but must remain for ever
+in his service. It was replied in substance that God's service was not
+divided, but one; that all duties honestly done were religious duties;
+that the person of the layman was as sacred as the person of the priest;
+and the liturgy of obedience as acceptable as the liturgy of words.
+
+[Sidenote: Necessity of caution.]
+
+[Sidenote: Aversion of English statesmen to sweeping measures.]
+
+Yet if, in the end, men found their way clearly, they moved towards it
+with slow steps; and the first resolution at which they arrived embodied
+partially the schemes of each of the honest reformers. In touching
+institutions with which the feelings of the nation were deeply
+connected, prudence and principle alike dictated caution. However
+bitterly the people might exclaim against the abbeys while they
+continued to stand, their faults, if they were destroyed, would soon be
+forgotten. Institutions which had been rooted in the country for so many
+centuries, retained a hold too deep to be torn away without wounding a
+thousand associations; and a reaction of regret would inevitably follow
+among men so conservative as the English, so possessed with reverence
+for the old traditions of their fathers. This was to be considered; or
+rather the parliament, the crown, and the council felt as the people
+felt. Vast as the changes were which had been effected, there had been
+as yet no sweeping measures. At each successive step, Henry had never
+moved without reluctance. He hated anarchy; he hated change: in the true
+spirit of an Englishman, he never surrendered an institution or a
+doctrine till every means had been exhausted of retaining it,
+consistently with allegiance to truth. The larger monasteries,
+therefore, with many of the rest, had yet four years allowed them to
+demonstrate the hopelessness of their amendment, the impossibility of
+their renovation. The remainder were to reap the consequences of their
+iniquities; and the judicial sentence was pronounced at last in a spirit
+as rational as ever animated the English legislature.
+
+[Sidenote: Act for the Dissolution of the smaller houses. Forasmuch as
+religious persons in the little abbeys are living in manifest sin,]
+
+[Sidenote: To the displeasure of God and the great infamy of the realm;]
+
+[Sidenote: And forasmuch as reformation is seen to be hopeless,]
+
+[Sidenote: It is believed that God will be better pleased to see the
+possessions of such houses, now wasted in evil living, applied to better
+purpose.]
+
+"Forasmuch," says the preamble of the Act of Dissolution, "as manifest
+sin, vicious, carnal, and abominable living, is daily used and committed
+among the little and small abbeys, priories, and other religious houses
+of monks, canons, and nuns, where the congregation or such religious
+persons is under the number of twelve, whereby the governors of such
+religious houses and their convents, spoil, consume, destroy, and
+utterly waste their churches, monasteries, principal houses, farms, and
+granges, to the high displeasure pleasure of Almighty God, the slander
+of true religion, and to the great infamy of the King's Highness and of
+the realm, if redress should not be had thereof; and albeit that many
+continual visitations hath been heretofore had by the space of two
+hundred years and more, for an honest and charitable reformation of such
+unthrifty, carnal, and abominable living; yet nevertheless, little or
+none amendment is hitherto had, but their vicious living shamelessly
+increaseth and augmenteth, and by a cursed custom is so rooted and
+infested, that a great multitude of the religious persons in such small
+houses do rather choose to rove abroad in apostacy than to conform them
+to the observation of true religion; so that without such small houses
+be utterly suppressed, and the religious persons therein committed to
+great and honourable monasteries of religion in this realm, where they
+may be compelled to live religiously for the reformation of their lives,
+there can be no reformation in this behalf: in consideration hereof the
+King's most royal Majesty, being supreme head on earth, under God, of
+the Church of England, daily finding and devising the increase,
+advancement, and exaltation, of true doctrine and virtue in the said
+Church, to the only glory of God, and the total extirping and
+destruction of vice and sin; having knowledge that the premises be true,
+as well by accounts of his late visitation as by sundry credible
+informations; considering also that divers great monasteries of this
+realm, wherein, thanks be to God, religion is right well kept and
+observed, be destitute of such full number of religious persons as they
+ought and may keep; hath thought good that a plain declaration should be
+made of the premises, as well to the Lords Spiritual and Temporal as to
+other his loving subjects the Commons in this present parliament
+assembled. Whereupon, the said Lords and Commons, by a great
+deliberation, finally be resolved that it is and shall be much more to
+the pleasure of Almighty God, and for the honour of this His realm, that
+the possessions of such spiritual houses, now spent, and spoiled, and
+wasted for increase and maintenance of sin, should be converted to
+better uses; and the unthrifty religious persons so spending the same be
+compelled to reform their lives."[524]
+
+[Sidenote: The lands of all having less than 200_l._ a-year to be given
+to the king. The monks either to be distributed among the larger houses,
+or to be pensioned off, to live honestly abroad.]
+
+[Sidenote: The few houses reputed clear may be reestablished by the
+Crown.]
+
+The parliament went on to declare, that the lands of all monasteries the
+incomes of which were less than two hundred pounds a-year, should be
+"given to the king."[525] The monks were either to be distributed in the
+great abbeys, "or to be dismissed with a permission," if they desired
+it, "to live honestly and virtuously abroad." "Some convenient charity"
+was to be allowed them for their living; and the chief head or governor
+was to have "such pension as should be commensurate with his degree or
+quality."[526] All debts, whether of the houses or of the brothers
+individually, were to be carefully paid; and finally, one more clause
+was added, sufficient in itself to show the temper in which the
+suppression had been resolved upon. The visitors had reported a few of
+the smaller abbeys as free from stain. The king was empowered, at his
+discretion, to permit them to survive; and under this permission
+thirty-two houses were refounded _in perpetuam eleemosynam_.[527]
+
+This is the history of the first suppression of the monasteries under
+Henry VIII. We regret the depravity by which it was occasioned; but the
+measure itself, in the absence of any preferable alternative, was
+bravely and wisely resolved. In the general imperfection of human
+things, no measure affecting the interests of large bodies of men was
+ever yet devised which has not pressed unequally, and is not in some
+respects open to objection. We can but choose the best among many
+doubtful courses, when we would be gladly spared, if we might be spared,
+from choosing at all.
+
+[Sidenote: The laity only see their way clearly.]
+
+[Sidenote: Unwisdom of the Protestant bishops.]
+
+In this great transaction, it is well to observe that the laity alone
+saw their way clearly. The majority of the bishops, writhing under the
+inhibitions, looked on in sullen acquiescence, submitting in a forced
+conformity, and believing, not without cause, that a tide which flowed
+so hotly would before long turn and ebb back again. Among the Reforming
+clergy there was neither union nor prudence; and the Protestants, in the
+sudden sunshine, were becoming unmanageable and extravagant. On the
+bench there were but four prelates who were on the moving
+side,--Cranmer, Latimer, Shaxton, and Barlow,[528]--and among these
+Cranmer only approved the policy of the government. Shaxton was an
+arrogant braggart, and Barlow a feeble enthusiast. Shaxton, who had
+flinched from the stake when Bilney was burnt, Shaxton, who
+subsequently relapsed under Mary, and became himself a Romanist
+persecutor, was now strutting in his new authority, and punishing,
+suspending, and inhibiting in behalf of Protestant doctrines which were
+not yet tolerated by the law.[529] Barlow had been openly preaching that
+purgatory was a delusion; that a layman might be a bishop; that where
+two or three, it might be, "cobblers or weavers," "were in company in
+the name of God, there was the church of God."[530] Such ill-judged
+precipitancy was of darker omen to the Reformation than papal
+excommunications or imperial menaces, and would soon be dearly paid for
+in fresh martyr-fires. Latimer, too, notwithstanding his clear
+perception and gallant heart, looked with bitterness on the confiscation
+of establishments which his mind had pictured to him as garrisoned with
+a Reforming army, as nurseries of apostles of the truth. Like most
+fiery-natured men, he was ill-pleased to see the stream flowing in a
+channel other than that which he had marked for it; and the state of his
+feeling, and the state of the English world, with all its confused
+imaginings, in these months, is described with some distinctness in a
+letter written by a London curate to the Mayor of Plymouth, on the 13th
+of March, 1535-36, while the bill for the suppression of the abbeys was
+in progress through parliament.
+
+[Sidenote: Letter of a London curate to the Mayor of Plymouth.]
+
+[Sidenote: Vision of the Trinity by Dr. Crewkhorne.]
+
+"Right Worshipful,--On the morrow after that Master Hawkins departed
+from hence, I, having nothing to do, as an idler went to Lambeth to the
+bishop's palace, to see what news; and I took a wherry at Paul's Wharf,
+wherein also was already a doctor named Crewkhorne, which was sent for
+to come to the Bishop of Canterbury. And he, before the three Bishops of
+Canterbury, Worcester, and Salisbury, confessed that he was rapt into
+heaven, where he saw the Trinity sitting in a pall or mantle or cope of
+blew colour; and from the middle upward they were three bodies, and from
+the middle downward were they closed all three into one body. And he
+spake with Our Lady, and she took him by the hand, and bade him serve
+her as he had done in time past; and bade him preach abroad that she
+would be honoured at Ipswich and Willesdon as she hath been in old
+times.
+
+[Sidenote: March 13.]
+
+"On Tuesday in Ember week, the Bishop of Rochester[531] came to Crutched
+Friars, and inhibited a doctor and three or four more to near
+confession; and so in Cardmaker and other places. Then the Bishop of
+London's apparitor came and railed on the other bishops, and said that
+he, nor no such as he, shall have jurisdiction within his Lord's
+precincts. Then was the Bishop of London sent for to make answer; but he
+was sick and might not come. On Friday, the clergy sat on it in
+Convocation House a long time, and left off till another day; and in the
+meantime, all men that have taken loss or wrong at his hands, must bring
+in their bills, and shall have recompence.
+
+[Sidenote: Latimer preaches at Paul's Cross, and is disrespectful to
+persons in authority.]
+
+"On Sunday last, the Bishop of Worcester preached at Paul's Cross, and
+he said that bishops, abbots, priors, parsons, canons, resident priests,
+and all, were strong thieves; yea, dukes, lords, and all. The king,
+quoth he, made a marvellous good act of parliament, that certain men
+should sow every of them two acres of hemp; but it were all too little,
+even if so much more, to hang the thieves that be in England. Bishops,
+abbots, with such others, should not have so many servants, nor so many
+dishes; but to go to their first foundation; and keep hospitality to
+feed the needy people--not jolly fellows, with golden chains and velvet
+gowns; ne let these not once come into houses of religion for repast.
+Let them call knave bishop, knave abbot, knave prior, yet feed none of
+them all, nor their horses, nor their dogs. Also, to eat flesh and white
+meat in Lent, so it be done without hurting weak consciences, and
+without sedition; and likewise on Fridays and all days.
+
+[Sidenote: What Cranmer will do with the unpreaching friars.]
+
+"The Bishop of Canterbury saith that the King's Grace is at full point
+for friars and chauntry priests, that they shall away all, saving them
+that can preach. Then one said to the bishop, that they had good trust
+that they should serve forth their life-times; and he said they should
+serve it out at a cart, then, for any other service they should have by
+that."
+
+The concluding paragraph of this letter is of still greater interest. It
+refers to the famous Vagrant Act, of which I have spoken in the first
+chapter of this work.[532]
+
+[Sidenote: The Vagrant Act the first fruits of the suppression.]
+
+"On Saturday in the Ember week, the King's Grace came in among the
+burgesses of the parliament, and delivered them a bill, and bade them
+look upon it, and weigh it in conscience; for he would not, he said,
+have them pass either it or any other thing because his Grace giveth in
+the bill; but they to see if it be for the commonweal of his subjects,
+and have an eye thitherwards; and on Wednesday next he will be there
+again to hear their minds. There shall be a proviso made for the poor
+people. The gaols shall be rid; the faulty shall die; and the others
+shall be rid by proclamation or by jury, and shall be set at liberty,
+and pay no fees. Sturdy beggars and such prisoners as cannot be set at
+work, shall be set at work at the king's charge; some at Dover, and some
+at places where the water hath broken over the lands. Then, if they fall
+to idleness, the idler shall be had before a justice of the peace, and
+his fault written. If he be taken idle again in another place, he shall
+be known where his dwelling is; and so at the second mention he shall be
+burned in the hand; and if he fail the third time, he shall die for
+it."[533]
+
+[Sidenote: The penal clauses of this statute.]
+
+The king, as it appeared, had now the means at his disposal to find work
+for the unemployed; and the lands bequeathed for the benefit of the poor
+were reapplied, under altered forms, to their real intention. The
+antithesis which we sometimes hear between the charity of the
+monasteries--which relieved poverty for the love of God--and the worldly
+harshness of a poor-law, will not endure inspection. The monasteries,
+which had been the support of "valiant beggary," had long before
+transferred to the nation the maintenance of the impotent and the
+deserving; and the resumption of an abused trust was no more than the
+natural consequence of their dishonesty. I have already discussed[534]
+the penal clauses of this act, and I need not enter again upon that
+much-questioned subject. Never, however, at any period, were the
+labouring classes in England more generously protected than in the reign
+of Henry VIII.; never did any government strain the power of legislation
+more resolutely in their favour; and, I suppose, they would not
+themselves object to the reenactment of Henry's penalties against
+dishonesty, if they might have with them the shelter of Henry's laws.
+
+[Sidenote: Payment of firstfruits remitted to the Universities.]
+
+The session was drawing to an end. At the close of it, the government
+gave one more proof of their goodwill toward any portion of the church
+establishment which showed signs of being alive. Duns Scotus being
+disposed of in Bocardo, the idle residents being driven away, or
+compelled to employ themselves, and the professors' lectures having
+recovered their energy, there were hopes of good from Oxford and
+Cambridge; and the king conceded for them what the pope had never
+conceded, when the power rested with the See of Rome: he remitted
+formally by statute the tenths and firstfruits, which the colleges had
+paid in common with all other church corporations. "His Majesty is
+conscious," says the act which was passed on this occasion,[535] that
+the enforcing of the payment of firstfruits against the universities,
+"may prejudice learning, and cause the students to give their minds to
+other things, which might not be acceptable to God;" and "he has
+conceived such hearty love and tender affection to the continuance of
+honest and virtuous living, and of the arts and sciences (wherewith it
+hath pleased Almighty God abundantly to endow his Highness), as that his
+Grace cannot compare the same to any law, constitution, or statute; nor
+tolerate any such ordinance, though the commodity and benefit thereof
+should never so much redound to his own profit or pleasure, if it may
+hinder the advancement and setting forth of the lively word of God,
+wherewith his people must be fed; or if it may imperil the knowledge of
+such other good letters as in Christian realms is expedient to be
+learned. He has therefore,--(for that the students should the more
+gladly bend their wits to the attaining of learning, and, before all
+things, the learning of the wholesome doctrines of Almighty God, and the
+three tongues, Latin, Greek, and Hebrew, which be requisite for the
+understanding of Scripture,)--thought it convenient" to exonerate the
+universities from the payment of firstfruits for ever.
+
+[Sidenote: April 4. Dissolution of the parliament, and summary of its
+labours.]
+
+So closed the first great parliament of the Reformation, which was now
+dissolved. The Lower House is known to us only as an abstraction. The
+debates are lost; and the details of its proceedings are visible only in
+faint transient gleams. We have an epitome of two sessions in the Lords'
+Journals; but even this partial assistance fails us with the Commons;
+and the Lords in this matter were a body of secondary moment. The Lords
+had ceased to be the leaders of the English people; they existed as an
+ornament rather than a power; and under the direction of the council
+they followed as the stream drew them, when individually, if they had so
+dared, they would have chosen a far other course. The work was done by
+the Commons; by them the first move was made; by them and the king the
+campaign was carried through to victory. And this one body of men, dim
+as they now seem to us, who assembled on the wreck of the administration
+of Wolsey, had commenced and had concluded a revolution which had
+reversed the foundations of the State. They found England in dependency
+upon a foreign power; they left it a free nation. They found it under
+the despotism of a church establishment saturated with disease; and they
+had bound the hands of that establishment; they had laid it down under
+the knife, and carved away its putrid members; and stripping off its
+Nessus robe of splendour and power, they had awakened in it some forced
+remembrance of its higher calling. The elements of a far deeper change
+were seething; a change, not in the disposition of outward authority,
+but in the beliefs and convictions which touched the life of the soul.
+This was yet to come; and the work so far was but the initial step or
+prelude leading up to the more solemn struggle. Yet where the enemy who
+is to be conquered is strong, not in vital force, but in the prestige of
+authority, and in the enchanted defences of superstition, those truly
+win the battle who strike the first blow, who deprive the idol of its
+terrors by daring to defy it.
+
+
+NOTES:
+
+[480] The English archbishops were embarrassed by the statutes of
+provisors in applying for plenary powers to Rome. If they accepted
+commissions they accepted them at their peril, and were compelled to
+caution in their manner of proceeding.
+
+[481] 27 Hen. VIII. cap. 28. The statute says that many visitations had
+been made in the two hundred years preceding the Reformation, but had
+failed wholly of success.
+
+[482] To enter "religion" was the technical expression for taking the
+vows.
+
+[483] A summary of the condition of the Religious Houses, in the Cotton
+Library, Cleopatra, E 4; MS. Letters of the Visitors, in the same
+collection; three volumes of the correspondence of Richard Layton with
+Cromwell, in the State Paper Office; and the reports of the Visitations
+of 1489 and 1511, in the _Registers_ of Archbishops Morton and Warham.
+For printed authorities, see _Suppression of the Monasteries_, published
+by the Camden Society; Strype's _Memorials_, Vol. I., Appendix; Fuller's
+_Ecclesiastical History_; and Wilkins's _Concilia_, Vol. III.
+
+[484] At Tewkesbury, where there was an abbot and thirty-two monks, I
+find payment made to a hundred and forty-four servants in livery, who
+were wholly engaged in the service of the abbey.--Particulars relating
+to the Dissolution of the Monasteries, section 5: Burnet's
+_Collectanea_, p. 86.
+
+[485] See the Directions to the Visitors: Burnet's _Collectanea_, p, 74.
+
+[486] See, for instance, _Suppression of the Monasteries_, p. 86.
+
+[487] "In a parliament held at Leicester, in 1414, the priories alien in
+England were given to the king; all their possessions to remain to the
+king and to his heirs for ever. And these priories were suppressed, to
+the number of more than a hundred houses."--Stow's _Chronicle_, p. 345.
+
+[488] The commission is in Morton's _Register_, MS., Lambeth Library.
+
+[489] Morton's _Register_, MS., Lambeth.
+
+[490] Warham's _Register_, MS., Lambeth.
+
+[491] Ibid.
+
+[492] See Injunctions to the Clergy: Foxe, Vol. V. p. 165.
+
+[493] Burnet's _Collectanea_, p. 74.
+
+[494] Strype's _Ecclesiastical Memorials_, Vol. I., Appendix, p. 214.
+
+[495] Legh to Cromwell, Sept. 24th: Strype's _Ecclesiastical Memorials_,
+Vol. I., Appendix, p. 216.--_Cotton. MS._ Cleopatra, E 4, fol. 225.
+
+[496] 28 Hen. VIII. cap. 13.
+
+[497] Ibid.
+
+[498] That is, the exhibitioners sent up to the university from the
+monasteries.
+
+[499] Strype, _Memorials_, Vol. I. p. 323. Leyton to Cromwell:
+_Suppression of the Monasteries_, p. 71, et seq.
+
+[500] Id quod meis oculis vidi, Leyton writes: Ibid.
+
+[501] Leyton to Cromwell: _Suppression of the Monasteries_, p. 71, et
+seq.
+
+[502] Leyton to Cromwell: _Suppression of the Monasteries_, p. 48. Let
+it not be thought that the papal party were worse than the other. The
+second confessor, if anything the more profligate of the two, gave his
+services to the king.
+
+[503] The prior is an holy man, and hath but six children; and but one
+daughter married yet of the goods of the monastery. His sons be tall
+men, waiting upon him.--Leyton to Cromwell: _Suppression of the
+Monasteries_, p. 58.
+
+[504] I leave this passage as it stands. The acquittal of the papal
+courts of actual complicity becomes, however, increasingly difficult to
+me. I discovered among the MSS. in the Rolls House a list of eighteen
+clergy and laymen in one diocese who had, or professed to have
+dispensations to keep concubines.--Note to Second Edition.
+
+[505] Leyton to Cromwell: _Suppression of the Monasteries_, pp. 75, 76.
+
+[506] Leyton to Cromwell: _Suppression of the Monasteries_, p. 91.
+
+[507] Leyton and Legh to Cromwell: _Suppression of the Monasteries_, p.
+100.
+
+[508] Christopher Levyns to Cromwell: Ibid. p. 90. But in this instance
+I doubt the truth of the charge.
+
+[509] Sir Piers Dutton to the Lord Chancellor: Ellis, third series. Vol.
+III. p. 42.
+
+[510] Legh to Cromwell: _Suppression of the Monasteries_, p. 82. The
+last words are curious, as implying that Cromwell, who is always
+supposed to have urged upon the king the dissolution of the abbeys and
+the marriage of the clergy, at this time inclined the other way.
+
+[511] Richard Beerley to Cromwell: _Suppression of the Monasteries_, p.
+132.
+
+[512] These rules must be remembered. The impossibility of enforcing
+obedience to them was the cause of the ultimate resolution to break up
+the system.
+
+[513] At one time fairs and markets were held in churchyards.--Stat.
+Wynton., 13 Ed. I. cap. 6.
+
+[514] A General Injunctions to be given on the King's Highness's behalf,
+in all Monasteries and other houses of whatsoever order or religion they
+be: Burnet's _Collectanea_, p. 77.
+
+[515] 27 & 28 Hen. VIII. cap. 24
+
+[516] Ibid. cap. 20.
+
+[517] Ibid. cap. 9.
+
+[518] Strype's _Memorials_, Vol. I. p. 387; _Suppression of the
+Monasteries_, p. 114.
+
+[519] When their enormities were first read in the parliament house,
+they were so great and abominable that there was nothing but "Down with
+them!"--Latimer's _Sermons_, p. 123.
+
+[520] 27 Hen. VIII. cap. 28.
+
+[521] Many letters from country gentlemen to this effect are in the
+collection made by Sir Henry Ellis.
+
+[522] Latimer at first even objected to monks leaving their profession.
+Speaking of racking Scripture, he says, "I myself have been one of them
+that hath racked it; and the text, 'He that putteth his hand to the
+plough and looketh back,' I have believed and expounded against
+religious persons that would forsake their order, and would go out of
+their cloyster."--_Sermons_, p. 60. We find him entreating Cromwell to
+prevent the suppression of Great Malvern, and begging that it may be
+allowed to remain,--"Not in monkery, but any other ways as should seem
+good to the King's Majesty, as to maintain teaching, preaching, study,
+with praying and good housekeeping."--_Suppression of the Monasteries_,
+p. 149. Late in his life, under Edw. VI., he alluded bitterly to the
+decay of education, and the misuse of the appropriated abbey
+lands.--_Sermons_, p. 291.
+
+[523] "This is my consideration; for having experience, both in times
+past and also in our days, how the sect of prebendaries have not only
+spent their time in much idleness, and their substance in superfluous
+belly cheer, I think it not to be a convenient state or degree to be
+maintained and established: considering that commonly a prebendary is
+neither a learner nor teacher, but a good viander."--Cranmer to
+Cromwell, on the New Foundation at Canterbury: Burnet's _Collectanea_,
+p. 498.
+
+[524] 27 Hen. VIII. cap. 28.
+
+[525] Either to be held under the Crown itself for purposes of State, or
+to be granted out as fiefs among the nobles and gentlemen of England,
+under such conditions as should secure the discharge of those duties
+which by the laws were attached to landed tenures.
+
+[526] The monks generally were allowed from four to eight pounds a-year
+being the income of an ordinary parish priest. The principals in many
+cases had from seventy to eighty pounds a-year.
+
+[527] Burnet's _Collectanea_, p. 80.
+
+[528] In the autumn of 1535 Latimer had been made Bishop of Worcester,
+Shaxton of Salisbury, and Barlow of St. David's.
+
+[529] Strype's _Memorials_, Vol. I., Appendix, p. 222; Burnet's
+_Collectanea_, p. 92.
+
+[530] Strype's _Memorials_, Vol. I., Appendix, p. 273.
+
+[531] John Hilsey.
+
+[532] 27 Hen. VIII. cap. 25.
+
+[533] Letter of Thomas Dorset to the Mayor of Plymouth: _Suppression of
+the Monasteries_, p. 36.
+
+[534] Vol. I. chap. 1.
+
+[535] 27 Hen. VIII. cap. 42.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+TRIAL AND DEATH OF ANNE BOLEYN.
+
+
+The first act of the great drama appeared to have closed. No further
+changes were for the present in contemplation. The church was
+reestablished under its altered constitution; and the parliament had
+been dissolved under the impression that it would be unnecessary to
+summon another for an indefinite time.[536] Within four weeks of the
+dissolution, writs were issued for a fresh election, under the pressure
+of a misfortune which is alike calamitous, under whatever aspect we
+regard it; and which blotted the Reformation with a black and frightful
+stain. The guilt must rest where it is due; but under any hypothesis,
+guilt there was, dark, mysterious, and most miserable.
+
+[Sidenote: Death of Queen Catherine.]
+
+[Sidenote: January 7. Her last letter to Henry.]
+
+The fate of Queen Catherine had by this time completed itself. She had
+taken her leave of a world which she had small cause to thank for the
+entertainment which it had provided for her; and she died, as she had
+lived, resolute, haughty, and unbending. In the preceding October (1535)
+she was in bad health; her house, she imagined, disagreed with her, and
+at her own desire she was removed to Kimbolton. But there were no
+symptoms of immediate danger. She revived under the change, and was in
+better spirits than she had shown for many previous months, especially
+after she heard of the new pope's resolution to maintain her cause.
+"Much resort of people came daily to her."[537] The vexatious dispute
+upon her title had been dropped, from an inability to press it; and it
+seemed as if life had become at least endurable to her, if it never
+could be more. But the repose was but the stillness of evening as night
+is hastening down. The royal officers of the household were not admitted
+into her presence; the queen lived wholly among her own friends and her
+own people; she sank unperceived; and so effectually had she withdrawn
+from the observation of those whom she desired to exclude, that the king
+was left to learn from the Spanish ambassador that she was at the point
+of death, before her chamberlain was aware that she was more than
+indisposed.[538] In the last week of December Henry learnt that she was
+in danger. On the 2d of January the ambassador went down from London to
+Kimbolton, and spent the day with her.[539] On the 5th, Sir Edmund
+Bedingfield wrote that she was very ill, and that the issue was
+doubtful. On the morning of the 7th she received the last sacrament, and
+at two o'clock on that day she died.[540] On her deathbed she dictated
+the following letter of farewell to him whom she still called, her most
+dear lord and husband.
+
+"The hour of my death now approaching, I cannot choose but, out of the
+love I bear you, advise you of your soul's health, which you ought to
+prefer before all considerations of the world or flesh whatsoever; for
+which yet you have cast me into many calamities, and yourself into many
+troubles. But I forgive you all, and pray God to do so likewise. For the
+rest I commend unto you Mary our daughter, beseeching you to be a good
+father to her, as I have heretofore desired. I must entreat you also to
+respect my maids, and give them in marriage, which is not much, they
+being but three; and to all my other servants a year's pay besides their
+due, lest otherwise they should be unprovided for. Lastly, I make this
+vow, that mine eyes desire you above all things. Farewell."[541]
+
+This letter reached Henry with the intimation that she was gone. He was
+much affected, and is said to have shed tears.[542]
+
+[Sidenote: She is buried at Peterborough, and the See of Peterborough is
+founded as a memorial of her.]
+
+The court was ordered into mourning--a command which Anne Boleyn
+distinguished herself by imperfectly obeying.[543] Catherine was buried
+at Peterborough, with the estate of Princess Royal;[544] and shortly
+after, on the foundation of the new bishoprics, the See of Peterborough
+was established in her memory. We may welcome, however late, these acts
+of tardy respect.[545] Henry, in the few last years, had grown wiser in
+the ways of women; and had learnt to prize more deeply the austerity of
+virtue, even in its unloveliest aspect.
+
+[Sidenote: Fall of Anne Boleyn.]
+
+The death of Catherine was followed, four months later, by the tragedy
+which I have now to relate. The ground on which I am about to tread is
+so critical, and the issues at stake affect so deeply the honour of many
+of our most eminent English statesmen, that I must be pardoned if I
+cannot here step boldly out with a flowing narrative, but must pick my
+way slowly as I can: and I, on my part, must ask my readers to move
+slowly also, and be content to allow their judgment, for a few pages, to
+remain in suspense.
+
+And first, I have to say that, as with all the great events of Henry's
+reign, so especially with this, we must trust to no evidence which is
+not strictly contemporary. During periods of revolution, years do the
+work of centuries in colouring actions and disturbing forms; and events
+are transferred swiftly from the deliberation of the judgment to the
+precipitate arrogance of party spirit. When the great powers of Europe
+were united against Elizabeth, and when Elizabeth's own character was
+vilely and wantonly assailed, the Catholic writers dipped their pens in
+the stains which blotted her mother's name; and, more careless of truth
+than even theological passion can excuse, they poured out over both
+alike a stream of indiscriminate calumny. On the other hand, as
+Elizabeth's lordly nature was the pride of all true-hearted Englishmen,
+so the Reformers laboured to reflect her virtues backwards. Like the
+Catholics, they linked the daughter with the parent; and became no less
+extravagant in their panegyrics than their antagonists in their
+gratuitous invective. But the Anne Boleyn, as she appears in
+contemporary letters, is not the Anne Boleyn of Foxe, or Wyatt, or the
+other champions of Protestantism, who saw in her the counterpart of her
+child. These writers, though living so near to the events which they
+described, yet were divided from the preceding generation by an
+impassable gulf. They were surrounded with the heat and flame of a
+controversy, in which public and private questions were wrapped
+inseparably together; and the more closely we scrutinize their
+narratives, the graver occasion there appears for doing so.
+
+[Sidenote: Rules to be observed in judging this question.]
+
+While, therefore, in following out this miserable subject, I decline so
+much as to entertain the stories of Sanders, who has represented Queen
+Anne as steeped in profligacy from her childhood, so I may not any more
+accept those late memorials of her saintliness, which are alike
+unsupported by the evidence of those who knew her. If Protestant legends
+are admitted as of authority, the Catholic legends must enter with them,
+and we shall only deepen the confusion. I cannot follow Burnet, in
+reporting out of Meteren a version of Anne Boleyn's trial, unknown in
+England. The subject is one on which rhetoric and rumour are alike
+unprofitable. We must confine ourselves to accounts written at the time
+by persons to whom not the outline of the facts only was known, but the
+circumstances which surrounded them; by persons who had seen the
+evidence upon the alleged offences, which, though now lost
+irrecoverably, can be proved to have once existed.
+
+[Sidenote: Difficulty of ascertaining Anne Boleyn's early character.]
+
+We are unable, as I early observed, to form any trustworthy judgment of
+Anne Boleyn before her marriage. Her education had been in the worst
+school in Europe. On her return from the French court to England, we
+have seen her entangled in an unintelligible connexion with Lord Percy;
+and if the account sent to the Emperor was true, she was Lord Percy's
+actual wife; and her conduct was so criminal as to make any
+after-charges against her credible.[546]
+
+If the Protestants, again, found in her a friend and supporter, she was
+capable, as Wolsey experienced, of inveterate hatred; and although among
+the Reformers she had a reputation for generosity, which is widely
+confirmed,[547] yet it was exercised always in the direction in which
+her interests pointed; and kindness of feeling is not incompatible,
+happily, with seriously melancholy faults.
+
+[Sidenote: Cranmer's evidence in her favour.]
+
+[Sidenote: Early coolness between her and Henry.]
+
+The strongest general evidence in her favour is that of Cranmer, who
+must have known her intimately, and who, at the crisis of her life,
+declared that he "never had better opinion in woman than he had in
+her."[548] Yet there had been circumstances in her conduct, as by her
+own after confessions was amply evident, which justified Sir Thomas More
+in foretelling a stormy end to her splendour;[549] and her relations
+with the king, whether the fault rested with him, or rested with her,
+grew rapidly cool when she was his wife. In 1534, perhaps sooner, both
+she herself, her brother, and her relations had made themselves odious
+by their insolence; her over-bearing manners had caused a decline in the
+king's affection for her; and on one side it was reported that he was
+likely to return to Catherine,[550] on the other that he had transferred
+his attention to some other lady, and that the court encouraged his
+inconstancy to separate him from Anne's influence.[551] D'Inteville
+confirms the account of a new love affair, particularising nothing, but
+saying merely that Anne was falling out of favour; and that the person
+alluded to as taking her place was Jane Seymour, appears from a letter
+written after Anne's execution, by the Regent Mary to the Emperor of
+Austria, and from the letter written (supposing it genuine) by Anne
+herself to the king before her trial.[552]
+
+On the other hand, it is equally clear that whether provoked or not by
+infidelity on the part of Henry, her own conduct had been singularly
+questionable. We know very little, but waiving for the present the
+exposures at her trial, we know, by her own confession, that arrogance
+and vanity had not been her only faults, and that she had permitted the
+gentlemen who were the supposed partners of her guilt, to speak to her
+of their passion for herself.[553]
+
+In January, 1535, Henry's mind had been filled with "doubts and strange
+suspicions" about his wife. There had been a misunderstanding, in which
+she had implored the intercession of Francis I.[554]
+
+[Sidenote: The probable cause of that coolness.]
+
+[Sidenote: The antecedent probabilities amount to nothing.]
+
+In February, 1536, she miscarried, with a dead boy, which later rumour
+dwelt on as the cause of Henry's displeasure. But conversations such as
+those which she described with her supposed paramours, lay bare far
+deeper wounds of domestic unhappiness; and assure us, that if we could
+look behind the scenes, we should see there estrangements, quarrels,
+jealousies, the thousand dreary incidents that, if we knew them, would
+break the suddenness with which at present the catastrophe bursts upon
+us. It is the want of preparation, the blank ignorance in which we are
+left of the daily life and daily occurrences of the court, which places
+us at such disadvantage for recovering the truth. We are unable to form
+any estimate whatever of those antecedent likelihoods which, in the
+events of our own ordinary lives, guide our judgment so imperceptibly,
+yet so surely. Henry is said to have been inconstant, but those who most
+suspected Henry's motives charge Anne at the same time with a long
+notorious profligacy.[555] We cannot say what is probable or what is
+improbable; except, indeed, that the guilt or every person is improbable
+antecedent to evidence; and in the present instance, since, either on
+the side of the queen or of the king, there was and must have been most
+terrible guilt, these opposite presumptions neutralize each other.
+
+[Sidenote: April. Secret investigation by a committee of the privy
+council.]
+
+[Sidenote: April 27. Writs issued for a parliament.]
+
+[Sidenote: Thursday, April 27; arrest of Sir William Brereton; and on
+Sunday, April 30, of Mark Smeton.]
+
+[Sidenote: May 1. Tournament at Greenwich.]
+
+[Sidenote: The king goes to London.]
+
+To proceed with the story. Towards the middle of April, 1536, certain
+members of the privy council were engaged secretly in receiving evidence
+which implicated the queen in adultery. Nothing is known of the quarter
+from which the information came which led to the inquiry.[556]
+Something, however, there was to call for inquiry, or something there
+was thought to be; and on the 24th of April the case was considered
+sufficiently complete to make necessary a public trial. On that day an
+order was issued for a special commission. The members of the tribunal
+were selected with a care proportioned to the solemnity of the
+occasion.[557] It was composed of the lord chancellor, the first
+noblemen of the realm, and of the judges. The investigation had,
+however, been conducted so far with profound secrecy; and the object for
+which it was to assemble was unknown even to Cranmer, himself a member
+of the privy council.[558] With the same mysterious silence on the cause
+of so unexpected a measure, the writs were issued for a general
+election, and parliament was required to assemble as soon as
+possible.[559] On Thursday, the 27th, the first arrest was made. Sir
+William Brereton,[560] a gentleman of the king's household, was sent
+suddenly to the Tower; and on the Sunday after, Mark Smeton, of whom we
+know only that he was a musician high in favour at the court, apparently
+a spoilt favourite of royal bounty.[561] The day following was the 1st
+of May. It was the day on which the annual festival was held at
+Greenwich, and the queen appeared, as usual, with her husband and the
+court at the tournament. Lord Rochfort, the queen's brother, and Sir
+Henry Norris, both of them implicated in the fatal charge, were defender
+and challenger. The tilting had commenced, when the king rose suddenly
+with signs of disturbance in his manner, left the court, and rode off
+with a small company to London. Rumour, which delights in dramatic
+explanations of great occurrences, has discovered that a handkerchief
+dropped by the queen, and caught by Norris, roused Henry's jealousy; and
+that his after conduct was the result of a momentary anger. The
+incidents of the preceding week are a sufficient reply to this romantic
+story. The mine was already laid, the match was ready for the fire.
+
+[Sidenote: Tuesday, May 2; arrest of the queen. The privy council sit
+at Greenwich.]
+
+[Sidenote: She declares her innocence.]
+
+[Sidenote: Norris, Weston, and Smeton examined.]
+
+The king did not return: he passed the night in London, and Anne
+remained at Greenwich. On the morning of Tuesday the privy council
+assembled in the palace under the presidency of the Duke of Norfolk, and
+she was summoned to appear before it. The Duke of Norfolk, her uncle,
+was anxious, as Burnet insinuates, on political grounds that his niece
+should be made away with. Such accusations are easily brought,
+especially when unsupported by evidence. She was unpopular from her
+manner. The London merchants looked on her with no favour as having
+caused a breach in the alliance with Flanders, and the duke was an
+imperialist and at heart a friend of Queen Catherine; but he had grown
+old in the service of the state with an unblemished reputation; and he
+felt too keenly the disgrace which Anne's conduct had brought upon her
+family, to have contrived a scheme for her removal at once so awkward
+and so ignominious.[562] On her examination, she declared herself
+innocent; the details of what passed are unknown; only she told Sir
+William Kingston that she was cruelly handled at Greenwich with the
+king's council; "and that the Duke of Norfolk, in answer to her defence,
+had said, 'Tut, tut, tut,' shaking his head three or four times."[563]
+The other prisoners were then examined; not Brereton, it would seem,
+but Smeton, who must have been brought down from the Tower, and Sir
+Henry Norris, and Sir Francis Weston, two young courtiers, who had both
+of them been the trusted friends of the king. Each day the shadow was
+stretching further. The worst was yet to come.
+
+[Sidenote: May 2. Tuesday. Smeton confesses, and Norris, who afterwards,
+however, withdraws from what he has said.]
+
+On being first questioned, these three made general admissions, but
+denied resolutely that any actual offence had been committed. On being
+pressed further and cross-examined, Smeton confessed to actual
+adultery.[564] Norris hesitated: being pressed, however, by Sir William
+Fitzwilliam to speak the truth, he also made a similar acknowledgment,
+although he afterwards withdrew from what he had said.[565] Weston
+persisted in declaring himself innocent. The result was unsatisfactory,
+and it was thought that it would "much touch the king's honour" if the
+guilt of the accused was not proved more clearly. "Only Mark," Sir
+Edward Baynton said, would confess "of any actual thing"[566]; although
+he had no doubt "the other two" were "as fully culpable as ever was he."
+They were, however, for the present, recommitted to the Tower; whither
+also in the afternoon the council conducted the queen, and left her in
+the custody of Sir William Kingston.
+
+[Sidenote: The queen, in the afternoon, is taken to the Tower.]
+
+[Sidenote: She protests her innocence, and begs to have the sacrament in
+her closet.]
+
+She was brought up the river; the same river along which she sailed in
+splendour only three short years before. She landed at the same Tower
+Stairs; and, as it to complete the bitter misery of the change, she was
+taken "to her own lodgings in which she lay at her coronation." She had
+feared that she was to go to a dungeon. When Kingston told her that
+these rooms had been prepared for her, "It is too good for me," she
+said, "Jesu have mercy on me;" "and kneeled down, weeping a great space;
+and in the same sorrow fell into a great laughing."[567] She then begged
+that she might have the sacrament in the closet by her chamber, that she
+might pray for mercy, declaring "that she was free from the company of
+man as for sin," and was "the king's true wedded wife."
+
+She was aware that the other prisoners were in the Tower, or, at least,
+that Smeton, Weston, and Norris were there. Whether she knew at that
+time of the further dreadful accusation which was hanging over her, does
+not appear; but she asked anxiously for her brother; and, if she had
+suspected anything, her fears must have been confirmed by Kingston's
+evasive replies. It is so painful to dwell upon the words and actions of
+a poor woman in her moments of misery, that Kingston may describe his
+conversation with her in his own words. Lord Rochfort had returned to
+London at liberty; he seems to have been arrested the same Tuesday
+afternoon. "I pray you," she said, "to tell me where my Lord Rochfort
+is?"--"I told her," Kingston wrote, that "I saw him afore dinner, in
+the court." "Oh, where is my sweet brother?" she went on. "I said I left
+him at York-place;" and so I did. "I hear say," said she, "that I should
+be accused with three men; and I can say no more but nay, without I
+should open my body,"--and therewith she opened her gown, saying, "Oh,
+Norris, hast thou accused me? Thou art in the Tower with me, and thou
+and I shall die together. And, Mark, thou art here too. Oh, my mother,
+thou wilt die for sorrow." And much she lamented my Lady of Worcester,
+for because her child did not stir in her body. And my wife said, "What
+should be the cause?" She said, "For the sorrow she took for me." And
+then she said, "Mr. Kingston, shall I die without justice?" And I said,
+"The poorest subject the king hath, had justice;" and therewith she
+laughed.[568]
+
+[Sidenote: Lady Boleyn and three other ladies sent to attend upon her.]
+
+Lady Boleyn, her aunt, had been sent for, with a Mrs. Cousins, and two
+other ladies, selected by the king.[569] They were ordered to attend
+upon the queen, but to observe a strict silence; and to hold no
+communication with her, except in the presence of Lady Kingston. This
+regulation, it was found, could not be insisted on. Lady Boleyn and Mrs.
+Cousins slept in the queen's room, and conversation could not be
+prevented. Mrs. Cousins undertook, on her part, to inform Kingston if
+anything was said which "it was meet that he should know."[570]
+
+[Sidenote: Wednesday, May 3. Reported conversation of the queen with
+Norris,]
+
+[Sidenote: And with Sir Francis Weston.]
+
+In compliance with this promise, she told him, the next morning, that
+the queen had been speaking to her about Norris. On the preceding
+Sunday, she said that Norris had offered to "swear for the queen, that
+she was a good woman."--"But how," asked Mrs. Cousins, very naturally,
+"how came any such things to be spoken of at all?"--"Marry," the queen
+said, "I bade him do so: for I asked him why he went not through with
+his marriage; and he made answer, that he would tarry a time. Then, I
+said, You look for dead men's shoes; for if aught came to the king but
+good, you would look to have me.[571] And he said, if he should have any
+such thought, he would his head were off. And then she said she could
+undo him, if she would. And therewith they fell out." "But she said she
+more feared Weston; for on Whitsun Tuesday last, Weston told her that
+Norris came more unto her chamber for her than for Mage."[572]
+Afterwards, "The queen spake of Weston, that she had spoken to him,
+because he did love her kinswoman, Mrs. Skelton, and that she said he
+loved not his wife; and he made answer to her again, that he loved one
+in her house better than them both. She asked him who is that? to which
+he answered, that it is yourself. 'And then,' she said, 'she defied
+him.'"[573]
+
+So passed Wednesday at the Tower. Let us feel our very utmost
+commiseration for this unhappy woman; if she was guilty, it is the more
+reason that we should pity her; but I am obliged to say, that
+conversations of this kind, admitted by herself, disentitle her to plead
+her character in answer to the charges against her. Young men do not
+speak of love to young and beautiful married women, still less to ladies
+of so high rank, unless something more than levity has encouraged them;
+and although to have permitted such language is no proof of guilt, yet
+it is a proof of the absence of innocence.
+
+[Sidenote: The news reaches Cranmer. He is ordered to Lambeth till he
+hears further.]
+
+Meanwhile, on the Tuesday morning, a rumour of the queen's arrest was
+rife in London; and the news for the first time reached the ears of
+Cranmer. The archbishop was absent from home, but in the course of the
+day he received an order, through Cromwell, to repair to his palace, and
+remain there till he heard further. With what thoughts he obeyed this
+command may be gathered from the letter which, on the following morning,
+he wrote to Henry. The fortunes of the Reformation had been so closely
+linked to those of the queen, that he trembled for the consequences to
+the church of the king's too just indignation. If the barren womb of
+Catherine had seemed a judgment against the first marriage, the shameful
+issue of the second might be regarded too probably as a witness against
+that and against every act which had been connected with it. Full of
+these forebodings, yet not too wholly occupied with them to forget the
+unhappy queen, he addressed the king, early on Wednesday, in the
+following language:--
+
+[Sidenote: He writes to the king. He implores Henry to bear his
+misfortune like a man,]
+
+[Sidenote: And to accept submissively the trial which God has sent upon
+him.]
+
+"Please it your most noble Grace to be advertised, that at your Grace's
+commandment, by Mr. Secretary's letter, written in your Grace's name, I
+came to Lambeth yesterday, and there I do remain to know your Grace's
+further pleasure. And forasmuch as without your Grace's commandment, I
+dare not, contrary to the contents of the said letter, presume to come
+unto your Grace's presence; nevertheless, of my most bounden duty, I can
+do no less than most humbly to desire your Grace, by your great wisdom,
+and by the assistance of God's help, somewhat to suppress the deep
+sorrows of your Grace's heart, and to take all adversities of God's
+hands both patiently and thankfully. I cannot deny but your Grace hath
+good cause many ways of lamentable heaviness; and also, that in the
+wrongful estimation of the world, your Grace's honour of every part is
+so highly touched (whether the things that commonly be spoken of be true
+or not), that I remember not that ever Almighty God sent unto your Grace
+any like occasion to try your Grace's constancy throughout, whether your
+Highness can be content to take of God's hands as well things
+displeasant as pleasant. And if He find in your most noble heart such an
+obedience unto his will, that your Grace, without murmuration and
+over-much heaviness, do accept all adversities, not less thanking Him
+than when all things succeed after your Grace's will and pleasure, then
+I suppose your Grace did never thing more acceptable unto Him since your
+first governance of this your realm. And moreover, your Grace shall give
+unto Him occasion to multiply and increase his graces and benefits unto
+your Highness, as He did unto his most faithful servant Job; unto whom,
+after his great calamities and heaviness, for his obedient heart and
+willing acceptation of God's scourge and rod, addidit Dominus cuncta
+duplicia. And if it be true that is openly reported of the Queen's
+Grace, if men had a right estimation of things, they should not esteem
+any part of your Grace's honour to be touched thereby; but her honour to
+be clean disparaged. And I am in such perplexity, that my mind is clean
+amazed; for I never had better opinion in woman than I had in her; which
+maketh me to think that she should not be culpable. And again, I think
+your Highness would not have gone so far, except she had been surely
+culpable.
+
+[Sidenote: Of the queen's guilt, he knows not what to believe.]
+
+[Sidenote: He will pray that she may be found innocent.]
+
+[Sidenote: But if she be guilty, let her be punished with all extremity,
+for the dishonour which she has brought upon the gospel.]
+
+[Sidenote: He trusts that the king will still continue to favour the
+gospel, however, as before.]
+
+"Now I think that your Grace best knoweth that, next unto your Grace, I
+was most bound unto her of all creatures living. Wherefore, I most
+humbly beseech your Grace to suffer me in that which both God's law,
+nature, and also her kindness bindeth me unto: that is, that I may with
+your Grace's favour wish and pray for her that she may declare herself
+inculpable and innocent. And if she be found culpable, considering your
+Grace's goodness to her, and from what condition your Grace of your only
+mere goodness took her, and set the crown upon her head, I repute him
+not your Grace's faithful servant and subject, nor true unto the realm,
+that would not desire the offence without mercy to be punished, to the
+example of all other. And as I loved her not a little for the love
+which I judged her to bear towards God and his gospel; so if she be
+proved culpable, there is not one that loveth God and his gospel that
+will ever favour her, but must hate her above all other; and the more
+they favour the gospel, the more they will hate her; for there never was
+creature in our time that so much slandered the gospel. And God hath
+sent her this punishment for that she feignedly hath professed his
+gospel in her mouth, and not in heart and deed. And though she hath
+offended so that she hath deserved never to be reconciled to your
+Grace's favour, yet Almighty God hath manifoldly declared his goodness
+towards your Grace, and never offended you. But your Grace, I am sure,
+acknowledgeth that you have offended Him. Wherefore, I trust that your
+Grace will bear no less entire favour unto the truth of the gospel than
+you did before; forasmuch as your Grace's favour to the gospel was not
+led by affection unto her, but by zeal unto the truth. And thus I
+beseech Almighty God, whose gospel he hath ordained your Grace to be
+defender of, ever to preserve your Grace from all evil, and give you at
+the end the promise of his gospel. From Lambeth, the third of May."
+
+[Sidenote: He is sent for to the Star Chamber.]
+
+[Sidenote: The postscript of his letter.]
+
+The letter was written; it was not, however, sent upon the instant; and
+in the course of the morning the archbishop was requested to meet the
+Lord Chancellor, Lord Oxford, Lord Sussex, and the Lord Chamberlain, in
+the Star Chamber. He went, and on his return to Lambeth he added a few
+words in a postscript. In the interview from which he had at the moment
+returned, those noblemen, he said, had declared unto him such things as
+his Grace's pleasure was they should make him privy unto; for the which
+he was most bounden unto his Grace. "What communications we had
+together," he added, "I doubt not but they will make the true report
+thereof unto your Grace. _I am exceedingly sorry that such faults can be
+proved by the queen, as I heard of their relation._"[574]
+
+If we may believe, as I suppose we may, that Cranmer was a man of sound
+understanding, and of not less than ordinary probity, this letter is of
+the greatest value; it shows the impression which was made upon a
+sensible person by the first rumours of the discovery; it shows also the
+archbishop's opinion of the king's character, with the effect upon his
+own mind of the evidence which the chancellor, at the king's command,
+had laid before him.
+
+[Sidenote: Friday, May 5. Henry writes to the queen with a promise of
+pardon if she will confess.]
+
+[Sidenote: She persists in maintaining her innocence,]
+
+[Sidenote: Being satisfied that there was no witness of her guilt.]
+
+We return to the prisoners in the Tower. Mark Smeton, who had confessed
+his guilt, was ironed.[575] The other gentlemen, not in consideration of
+their silence, but of their rank, were treated more leniently. To the
+queen, with an object which may be variously interpreted, Henry wrote
+the Friday succeeding her arrest, holding out hopes of forgiveness if
+she would be honest and open with him. Persons who assume that the whole
+transaction was the scheme of a wicked husband to dispose of a wife of
+whom he was weary, will believe that he was practising upon her terror
+to obtain his freedom by a lighter crime than murder. Those who consider
+that he possessed the ordinary qualities of humanity, and that he was
+really convinced of her guilt, may explain his offer as the result of
+natural feeling. But in whatever motive his conduct originated, it was
+ineffectual. Anne, either knowing that she was innocent, or trusting
+that her guilt could not be proved, trusting, as Sir Edmund Baynton
+thought, to the constancy of Weston and Norris,[576] declined to confess
+anything. "_If any man accuse me_," she said to Kingston, "_I can but
+say nay, and they can bring no witness_."[577] Instead of acknowledging
+any guilt in herself, she perhaps retaliated upon the king in the
+celebrated letter which has been thought a proof both of her own
+innocence, and of the conspiracy by which she was destroyed.[578] This
+letter also, although at once so well known and of so dubious authority,
+it is fair to give entire.
+
+[Sidenote: Saturday, May 6. Her letter to the king.]
+
+"Sir,--Your Grace's displeasure and my imprisonment are things so
+strange unto me, as what to write, or what to excuse, I am altogether
+ignorant. Whereas you send unto me (willing [me] to confess a truth, and
+to obtain your favour) by such an one whom you know to be mine antient
+professed enemy, I no sooner conceived this message by him, than I
+rightly conceived your meaning; and if, as you say, confessing a truth
+indeed may procure my safety, I shall with all willingness and duty
+perform your command.
+
+[Sidenote: Never prince had more loyal wife.]
+
+[Sidenote: She, however, always looked for what now she finds.]
+
+"But let not your Grace ever imagine that your poor wife will ever be
+brought to acknowledge a fault where not so much as a thought thereof
+proceeded. And to speak a truth, never prince had wife more loyal in all
+duty, and in all true affection, than you have ever found in Anne
+Boleyn; with which name and place I could willingly have contented
+myself, if God and your Grace's pleasure had been so pleased. Neither
+did I at any time so far forget myself in my exaltation or received
+queenship, but that I always looked for such an alteration as now I
+find: for the ground of my preferment being on no surer foundation than
+your Grace's fancy, the least alteration I knew was fit and sufficient
+to draw that fancy to some other subject. You have chosen me from a low
+estate to be your queen and companion, far beyond my desert or desire.
+If then you found me worthy of such honour, good your Grace, let not any
+light fancy or bad counsel of mine enemies withdraw your princely favour
+from me; neither let that stain, that unworthy stain, of a disloyal
+heart towards your good Grace, ever cast so foul a blot on your most
+dutiful wife, and the infant princess, your daughter.
+
+[Sidenote: She begs for a fair trial,]
+
+[Sidenote: And if she is condemned, Henry may lawfully follow his new
+fancy.]
+
+"Try me, good king, but let me have a lawful trial; and let not my
+sworn enemies sit as my accusers and my judges; yea, let me receive an
+open trial, for my truth shall fear no open shame. Then shall you see
+either mine innocency cleared, your suspicions and conscience satisfied,
+the ignominy and slander of the world stopped, or my guilt openly
+declared; so that, whatsoever God or you may determine of me, your Grace
+may be freed from an open censure; and mine offence being so lawfully
+proved, your Grace is at liberty, both before God and man, not only to
+execute worthy punishment on me, as an unlawful wife, but to follow your
+affection already settled on that party for whose sake I am now as I am,
+whose name I could some good while since have pointed unto; your Grace
+not being ignorant of my suspicion therein.
+
+[Sidenote: If her fate is already decided, she prays God will pardon his
+great sin,]
+
+"But if you have already determined of me; and that not only my death,
+but an infamous slander, must bring you the enjoying of your desired
+happiness; then I desire of God that he will pardon your great sin
+therein, and likewise my enemies the instruments thereof; and that He
+will not call you to a strict account for your unprincely and cruel
+usage of me, at his general judgment-seat, where both you and myself
+must shortly appear; and in whose judgment, I doubt not, whatsoever the
+world may think of me, mine innocence shall be openly known and
+sufficiently cleared.
+
+[Sidenote: And also that her own death may suffice, and the poor
+gentlemen be spared.]
+
+"My last and only request shall be, that myself may only bear the burden
+of your Grace's displeasure, and that it may not touch the innocent
+souls of those poor gentlemen who, as I understand, are likewise in
+strait imprisonment for my sake. If ever I have found favour in your
+sight, if ever the name of Anne Boleyn hath been pleasing in your ears,
+then let me obtain this request; and I will so leave to trouble your
+Grace any further; with mine earnest prayers to the Trinity, to have
+your Grace in his good keeping, and to direct you in all your actions.
+From my doleful prison in the Tower, this 6th of May. Your most loyal
+and ever faithful wife,
+
+  ANNE BOLEYN."[579]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Sidenote: A second requisition to confess from the king, and a second
+refusal.]
+
+[Sidenote: The tone of the queen's answers not what it ought to have
+been, even on her own showing.]
+
+This letter is most affecting; and although it is better calculated to
+plead the queen's cause with posterity than with the king, whom it could
+only exasperate, yet if it is genuine it tells (so far as such a
+composition can tell at all) powerfully in her favour. On the same page
+of the manuscript, carrying the same authority, and subject to the same
+doubt, is a fragment of another letter, supposed to have been written
+subsequently, and therefore in answer to a second invitation to confess.
+In this she replied again, that she could confess no more than she had
+already spoken; that she might conceal nothing from the king, to whom
+she did acknowledge herself so much bound for so many favours; for
+raising her first from a mean woman to be a marchioness; next to be his
+queen; and now, seeing he could bestow no further honours upon her on
+earth, for purposing by martyrdom to make her a saint in heaven.[580]
+This answer also was unwise in point of worldly prudence; and I am
+obliged showing to add, that the tone which was assumed, both in this
+and in her first letter, was unbecoming (even if she was innocent of
+actual sin) in a wife who, on her own showing, was so gravely to blame.
+It is to be remembered that she had betrayed from the first the king's
+confidence; and, as she knew at the moment at which she was writing, she
+had never been legally married to him.
+
+[Sidenote: Her wild words in the Tower.]
+
+Her spirits meanwhile had something rallied, though still violently
+fluctuating. "One hour," wrote Kingston,[581] "she is determined to die,
+and the next hour much contrary to that." Sometimes she talked in a
+wild, wandering way, wondering whether any one made the prisoners' beds,
+with other of those light trifles which women's minds dwell upon so
+strangely, when strained beyond their strength. "There would be no
+rain," she said, "till she was out of the Tower; and if she died, they
+would see the greatest punishment for her that ever came to England."
+"And then," she added, "I shall be a saint in heaven, for I have done
+many good deeds in my days; but I think it much unkindness in the king
+to put such about me as I never loved."[582] Kingston was a hard
+chronicler, too convinced of the queen's guilt to feel compassion for
+her; and yet these rambling fancies are as touching as Ophelia's; and,
+unlike hers, are no creation of a poet's imagination, but words once
+truly uttered by a poor human being in her hour of agony. Yet they
+proved nothing. And if her wanderings seem to breathe of innocence, they
+are yet compatible with the absence of it. We must remind ourselves that
+two of the prisoners had already confessed both their own guilt and
+hers.
+
+[Sidenote: Preparations for the trial. Necessity of entering into
+offensive details.]
+
+The queen demanded a trial; it was not necessary to ask for it. Both
+she and her supposed accomplices were tried with a scrupulousness
+without a parallel, so far as I am aware, in the criminal records of the
+time. The substance of the proceedings is preserved in an official
+summary;[583] and distressing as it is to read of such sad matters, the
+importance of arriving at a fair judgment must excuse the details which
+will be entered into. The crime was alike hideous, whether it was the
+crime of the queen or of Henry; we may not attempt to hide from
+ourselves the full deformity of it.
+
+On the 24th of April, then, a special commission was appointed, to try
+certain persons for offences committed at London, at Hampton Court, and
+at the palace at Greenwich. The offences in question having been
+committed in Middlesex and in Kent, bills were first to be returned by
+the grand juries of both counties.
+
+[Sidenote: The names of the commissioners appointed to try the queen's
+accomplices.]
+
+[Sidenote: The queen and her brother to be tried by the House of Lords.]
+
+Men are apt to pass vaguely over the words "a commission" or "a jury,"
+regarding them rather as mechanical abstractions than as bodies of
+responsible men. I shall therefore give the list of the persons who, in
+these or any other capacities, were engaged upon the trials. The special
+commission consisted of Sir Thomas Audeley, the lord chancellor; the
+Duke of Norfolk, uncle of the queen and of Lord Rochfort; the Duke of
+Suffolk, the king's brother-in-law; the Earl of Wiltshire, the queen's
+father; the Earls of Oxford, Westmoreland, and Sussex; Lord Sandys;
+Thomas Cromwell; Sir William Fitzwilliam the Lord High Admiral, an old
+man whose career had been of the most distinguished brilliancy; Sir
+William Paulet, lord treasurer, afterwards Marquis of Winchester; and,
+finally, the nine judges of the Courts of Westminster, Sir John
+Fitzjames, Sir John Baldewyn, Sir Richard Lister, Sir John Porte, Sir
+John Spelman, Sir Walter Luke, Sir Anthony Fitzherbert, Sir Thomas
+Englefield, and Sir William Shelley. The duty of this tribunal was to
+try the four commoners accused of adultery with the queen. She herself,
+with her brother, would be tried by the House of Lords. Of the seven
+peers, three were her own nearest connexions; the remaining
+commissioners were those who, individually and professionally, might
+have been considered competent for the conduct of the cause above all
+other persons in the realm. Antecedently to experience, we should not
+have expected that a commission so constituted would have lent itself to
+a conspiracy; and if foul play had been intended, we should have looked
+to see some baser instruments selected for so iniquitous a purpose.
+
+[Sidenote: Wednesday, May 10. True bill found by the grand jury of
+Middlesex.]
+
+In the middle of the second week in May, the grand juries had completed
+their work. On the 10th, a true bill was found at Westminster, by the
+oaths of Giles Heron, Esq.; Roger More, Esq.; Richard Awnsham, Esq.;
+Thomas Byllyngton, Esq.; Gregory Lovel, Esq.; John Worsop, Esq.; William
+Goddard, gentleman; William Blakwall, gentleman; John Wylford,
+gentleman; William Berd, gentleman; Henry Hubbylthorne, gentleman;
+William Huning, gentleman; Robert Walys, gentleman; John Englond,
+gentleman; Henry Lodysman, gentleman; and John Averey, gentleman.
+
+[Sidenote: Thursday, May 11. True bill found by the grand jury of Kent.]
+
+On the 11th a true bill was found at Deptford by the oaths of Sir
+Richard Clement, Sir William Fynche, Sir Edward Boughton, Anthony St.
+Leger, Esq.;[584] John Cromer, Esq.; John Fogg, Esq.; Thomas Wylleford,
+Esq.; John Norton, Esq.; Humphrey Style, Esq.; Robert Fisher, gentleman;
+Thomas Sybbell, gentleman; John Lovelace, gentleman; Walter Harrington,
+gentleman; Edmund Page, gentleman; Thomas Fereby, gentleman; and Lionel
+Ansty, gentleman.
+
+I am thus particular in recording the names of these jurors, before I
+relate the indictment which was found by them, because, if that
+indictment was unjust, it stamps their memory with eternal infamy; and
+with the judges, the commissioners, the privy council, the king, with
+every living person who was a party, active or passive, to so enormous a
+calumny, they must be remembered with shame for ever.
+
+[Sidenote: The indictment.]
+
+The indictment, then, found by the grand jury of Middlesex was to the
+following effect:[585]
+
+"1. That the Lady Anne, Queen of England, having been the wife of the
+king for the space of three years and more, she, the said Lady Anne,
+contemning the marriage so solemnized between her and the king, and
+bearing malice in her heart against the king, and following her frail
+and carnal lust, did falsely and traitorously procure, by means of
+indecent language, gifts, and other acts therein stated, divers of the
+king's daily and familiar servants to be her adulterers and concubines;
+so that several of the king's servants, by the said queen's most vile
+provocation and invitation, became given and inclined to the said queen.
+
+"2. That the queen [on the] 6th of October, 25 Hen. VIII. [1533], at
+Westminster, by words, &c., procured and incited one Henry Norris, Esq.,
+one of the gentlemen of the king's privy chamber, to have illicit
+intercourse with her; and that the act was committed at Westminster,
+12th October, 25 Hen. VIII.
+
+"3. That the queen, 2nd of November, 27 Hen. VIII. [1535], by the means
+therein stated, procured and incited George Boleyn, knight, Lord
+Rochfort, her own natural brother, to have illicit intercourse with her;
+and that the act was committed 5th of November in the same year, at
+Westminster, against the commands of Almighty God, and all laws human
+and divine.
+
+"4. That the queen, 3rd December, 25 Hen. VIII., procured and incited
+William Brereton, Esq., one of the gentlemen of the king's privy
+chamber, to have illicit intercourse with her; and that the act was
+committed at Hampton Court, 25th December, 25 Hen. VIII.
+
+"5. That the queen, 8th of May, 26 Hen. VIII., procured and incited
+Francis Weston, one of the gentlemen of the king's privy chamber, to
+have illicit intercourse with her; and that the act was committed at
+Westminster, 20th May, 26 Hen. VIII.
+
+"6. That the queen, 12th of April, 26 Hen. VIII., procured and incited
+Mark Smeton, Esq., one of the grometers of the king's chamber, to have
+illicit intercourse with her; and that the act was committed at
+Westminster, 26th April, 26 Henry VIII.
+
+"7. Furthermore, that the said George, Lord Rochfort, Henry Norris,
+William Brereton, Sir Francis Weston, and Mark Smeton, being thus
+inflamed by carnal love of the queen, and having become very jealous of
+each other, did, in order to secure her affections, satisfy her
+inordinate desires; and that the queen was equally jealous of the Lord
+Rochfort and other the before-mentioned traitors; and she would not
+allow them to show any familiarity with any other woman, without her
+exceeding displeasure and indignation; and that on the 27th day of
+November, 27 Hen. VIII., and other days, at Westminster, she gave them
+gifts and great rewards, to inveigle them to her will.
+
+"8. Furthermore, that the queen, and other the said traitors, jointly
+and severally, 31st of October, 27 Hen. VIII., and at various times
+before and after, compassed and imagined the king's death; and that the
+queen had frequently promised to marry some one of the traitors,
+whenever the king should depart this life, affirming she never would
+love the king in her heart.
+
+"9. Furthermore, that the king, having within a short time before become
+acquainted with the before-mentioned crimes, vices, and treasons, had
+been so grieved that certain harms and dangers had happened to his royal
+body."[586]
+
+[Sidenote: The improbability of the queen's guilt and the improbability
+of a conspiracy against her increase in the same ratio.]
+
+[Sidenote: There is no room for the hypothesis of mistake.]
+
+[Sidenote: The parallel of Leontes suggested, but not admissible.]
+
+I suppose that persons who have made up their minds conclusively, and
+are resolved to abide by the popular verdict of English historians, will
+turn with disgust from these hideous charges; seeming, as they do, to
+overstep all ordinary bounds of credibility. On one side or the other
+there was indeed no common guilt. The colours deepen at every step. But
+it is to be remembered that if the improbability of crimes so revolting
+is becoming greater, the opposite improbability increases with equal
+strength--that English noblemen and gentlemen could have made themselves
+a party to the invention of the story. For invention is unfortunately
+the only word; would indeed that any other were admissible! The
+discovery of the indictment disposes at once of Burnet's legend, that
+the queen was condemned on hearsay evidence; or that her guilt was
+conjectured from an exaggerated report of foolish conversations. It cuts
+off all hope, too, of possible mistake. I have heard the name Leontes
+mentioned as a parallel to Henry; and if the question lay only between
+the king and his wife, we would gladly welcome the alternative. Charity
+would persuade us that a husband had been madly blind, sooner far than
+that a queen had been madly wicked. But this road for escape is closed.
+The mistake of Leontes was transparent to every eye but his own. The
+charges against Anne Boleyn were presented by two grand juries before
+the highest judicial tribunal in the realm. There was nothing vague,
+nothing conjectural. The detail was given of acts and conversations
+stretching over a period of two years and more; and either there was
+evidence for these things, or there was none. If there was evidence, it
+must have been close, elaborate, and minute; if there was none, these
+judges, these juries and noblemen, were the accomplices of the king in a
+murder perhaps the most revolting which was ever committed.
+
+[Sidenote: The difficulty in the way of supposing the accusations
+forged.]
+
+It may be thought that the evidence was pieced together in the secrets
+of the cabinet; that the juries found their bills on a case presented to
+them by the council. This would transfer the infamy to a higher stage;
+but if we try to imagine how the council proceeded in such a business,
+we shall not find it an easy task. The council, at least, could not have
+been deceived. The evidence, whatever it was, must have been examined by
+them; and though we stretch our belief in the complacency of statesmen
+to the furthest limit of credulity, can we believe that Cromwell would
+have invented that dark indictment,--Cromwell who was, and who remained
+till his death, the dearest friend of Latimer? Or the Duke of Norfolk,
+the veteran who had won his spurs at Flodden? Or the Duke of Suffolk and
+Sir William Fitzwilliam, the Wellington and the Nelson of the sixteenth
+century? Scarcely among the picked scoundrels of Newgate could men be
+found for such work; and shall we believe it of men like these? It is to
+me impossible. Yet, if it was done at all, it was done by those four
+ministers.
+
+[Sidenote: To what purpose the multiplication of offences, and the
+number of offenders?]
+
+Even if we could believe that they forged the accusations, yet they
+would at least limit the dimensions of them. The most audacious villain
+will not extend his crimes beyond what he requires for his object; and
+if the king desired only to rid himself of his wife, to what purpose the
+multiplication of offenders, and the long list of acts or guilt, when a
+single offence with the one accomplice who was ready to abide by a
+confession would have sufficed? The four gentlemen gratuitously, on this
+hypothesis, entangled in the indictment, were nobly connected: one of
+them, Lord Rochfort, was himself a peer; they had lived, all four,
+several years at the court, and were personally known to every member
+of the council. Are we to suppose that evidence was invented with no
+imaginable purpose, for wanton and needless murders?--that the council
+risked the success of their scheme, by multiplying charges which only
+increased difficulty of proof, and provoked the interference of the
+powerful relations of the accused?[587]
+
+Such are the difficulties in which, at this early stage of the
+transaction, we are already implicated. They will not diminish as we
+proceed.
+
+[Sidenote: Friday, May 12. The court opens.]
+
+[Sidenote: The four commoners are brought to the bar.]
+
+[Sidenote: A petty jury return a verdict of guilty.]
+
+Friday, the 12th of May, was fixed for the opening of the court. On that
+day, a petty jury was returned at Westminster, for the trial of Sir
+Henry Norris, Sir Francis Weston, Sir William Brereton, and Mark Smeton.
+The commission sat,--the Earl of Wiltshire sitting with them,[588]--and
+the four prisoners were brought to the bar. On their arraignment, Mark
+Smeton, we are told, pleaded guilty of adultery with the queen; not
+guilty of the other charges. Norris, Weston, and Brereton severally
+pleaded not guilty. Verdict, guilty. The king's sergeant and attorney
+pray judgment. Judgment upon Smeton, Norris, Weston, and Brereton as
+usual in cases of high treason. This is all which the record contains.
+The nature of the evidence is not mentioned. But again there was a jury;
+and if we have not the evidence which convinced that jury, we have the
+evidence that they were, or professed to be, convinced.
+
+[Sidenote: The Duke of Norfolk is named Lord High Steward.]
+
+The queen and her brother were to be tried on the following Monday.
+Their crime was not adultery only, but was coloured with the deeper
+stain of incest. On the Friday, while the other prisoners were at the
+bar, "Letters patent were addressed to Thomas, Duke of Norfolk,
+Treasurer and Earl Marshal of England, setting forth that the Lady Anne,
+Queen of England, and Sir George Boleyn, knight, Lord Rochfort, had been
+indicted of certain capital crimes; and that the king, considering that
+justice was a most excellent virtue, and pleasing to the Most Highest;
+and inasmuch as the office of High Steward of England, whose presence
+for the administration of the law in this case is required, was vacant,
+the king therefore appointed the said duke Lord High Steward of England,
+with full powers to receive the indictments found against Queen Anne and
+the Lord Rochfort, and calling them before him, for the purpose of
+hearing and examining them, and compelling them to answer thereto." The
+duke was to collect also "such and so many lords, peers, and magnates of
+the kingdom of England, peers of the said Queen Anne and Lord Rochfort,
+by whom the truth could be better known; and the truth being known, to
+give judgment according to the laws and customs of England, and to give
+sentence and judgment, and to direct execution, with the other usual
+powers."[589] As a certain number only of the peers were summoned, it
+may be imagined that some fraud was practised in the selection, and that
+those only were admitted whose subserviency could be relied upon. I will
+therefore give the names as before.
+
+[Sidenote: List of peers summoned to try the queen and her brother.]
+
+The two English Dukes, of Norfolk and Suffolk.[590] The one English
+Marquis, of Exeter. The Earls of Arundel, Oxford, Northumberland (the
+queen's early lover), Westmoreland, Derby, Worcester, Rutland, Sussex,
+and Huntingdon all the earls in the peerage except four--those of
+Shrewsbury, Essex, Cumberland, and Wiltshire. Why the first three were
+omitted I do not know. Lord Wiltshire had already fulfilled his share of
+the miserable duty; he was not compelled to play the part of Brutus, and
+condemn, in person, his two children. The remaining peers were the Lords
+Audeley, De la Ware, Montague, Morley, Dacre, Cobham, Maltravers, Powis,
+Mounteagle, Clinton, Sandys, Windsor, Wentworth, Burgh, and Mordaunt:
+twenty-seven in all: men hitherto of unblemished honour--the noblest
+blood in the realm.
+
+[Sidenote: Monday, May 15. Account of the trial in the Baga de
+Secretis.]
+
+These noblemen assembled in the Tower on the 15th of May. The queen was
+brought before them; and the record in the Baga de Secretis relates the
+proceeding as follows:--
+
+"Before the Lord High Steward at the Tower, Anne, Queen of England,
+comes in the custody of Sir William Kingston, Constable of the Tower,
+and is brought to the bar. Being arraigned of the before-mentioned
+treasons, she pleads not guilty, and puts herself upon her peers;
+whereupon the Duke of Suffolk, Marquis of Exeter, and others the
+before-mentioned earls and barons, peers of the said queen, being
+charged by the said Lord High Steward to say the truth, and afterwards
+being examined severally by the Lord High Steward, from the lowest peer
+to the highest, each of them severally saith that she is guilty.
+
+[Sidenote: The queen is found guilty, and sentenced to be burned or
+beheaded at the king's pleasure.]
+
+"Judgment--that the queen be taken by the said Constable back to the
+king's prison within the Tower; and then, as the king shall command, be
+brought to the green within the said Tower, and there burned or
+beheaded, as shall please the king."[591]
+
+In such cold lines is the story of this tragedy unrolling itself to its
+close. The course which it followed, however, was less hard in the
+actual life; and men's hearts, even in those stern times, could beat
+with human emotions. The Duke of Norfolk was in tears as he passed
+sentence.[592] The Earl of Northumberland "was obliged by a sudden
+illness to leave the court."[593] The sight of the woman whom he had
+once loved, and to whom he was perhaps married, in that dreadful
+position, had been more than he could bear; and the remainder of the
+work of the day went forward without him.
+
+[Sidenote: Lord Rochfort found guilty also.]
+
+The queen withdrew. Her brother took his place at the bar. Like Anne, he
+declared himself innocent. Like Anne, he was found guilty, and sentenced
+to die.[594]
+
+We can form no estimate of the evidence; for we do not know what it was.
+We cannot especially accuse the form of the trial; for it was the form
+which was always observed. But the fact remains to us, that these
+twenty-seven peers, who were not ignorant, as we are, but were fully
+acquainted with the grounds of the prosecution, did deliberately, after
+hearing the queen's defence, pronounce against her a unanimous verdict.
+If there was foul play, they had advantages infinitely greater than any
+to which we can pretend for detecting it. The Boleyns were unpopular,
+and Anne herself was obnoxious to the imperialists and Catholics; but
+all parties, Catholic and Protestant alike, united in the sentence.
+
+[Sidenote: The popular interpretation is not credible.]
+
+Looking at the case, then, as it now stands, we have the report for some
+time current, that the queen was out of favour, and that the king's
+affection was turned in another direction,--a report, be it observed,
+which had arisen before the catastrophe, and was not, therefore, an
+afterthought, or legend; we have also the antecedent improbability,
+which is very great, that a lady in the queen's position could have been
+guilty of the offences with which the indictment charges her. We have
+also the improbability, which is great, that the king, now forty-four
+years old, who in his earlier years had been distinguished for the
+absence of those vices in which contemporary princes indulged
+themselves, in wanton weariness of a woman for whom he had
+revolutionized the kingdom, and quarrelled with half Christendom,
+suddenly resolved to murder her; that, instead of resorting to poison,
+or to the less obtrusive methods of criminality, he invented, and
+persuaded his council to assist him in inventing, a series of
+accusations which reflected dishonour on himself, and which involved the
+gratuitous death of five persons with whom he had no quarrel, who were
+attached to his court and person. To maintain these accusations, he
+would have to overawe into an active participation in his crime, judges,
+juries, peers, the dearest relations of those whom he was destroying,
+and this with no standing army, no praetorians or janissaries at his
+back, with no force but the yeomen of the guard, who could be scattered
+by a rising of the apprentices. He had gone out of his way, moreover, to
+call a parliament; and the summons had been so hasty that no time was
+left to control the elections; while again to fail was ruin; and the
+generation of Englishmen to whom we owe the Reformation were not so
+wholly lost to all principles of honour, that Henry could have counted
+beforehand upon success in so desperate a scheme with that absolute
+certainty without which he would scarcely have risked the experiment. I
+think that there is some improbability here. Unlikely as it is that
+queens should disgrace themselves, history contains unfortunately more
+than one instance that it is not impossible. That queens in that very
+age were capable of profligacy was proved, but a few years later, by the
+confessions of Catherine Howard. I believe history will be ransacked
+vainly to find a parallel for conduct at once so dastardly, so
+audacious, and so foolishly wicked as that which the popular hypothesis
+attributes to Henry VIII.
+
+[Sidenote: The facts in favour of the queen.]
+
+[Sidenote: The facts against her.]
+
+This is a fair statement of the probabilities; not, I believe,
+exaggerated on either side. Turning to the positive facts which are
+known to us, we have amongst those which make for the queen her own
+denial of her guilt; her supposed letter to the king, which wears the
+complexion of innocence; the assertions of three out of the five other
+persons who were accused, up to the moment of their execution; and the
+sympathizing story of a Flemish gentleman who believed her innocent, and
+who says that many other people in England believed the same. On the
+other side, we have the judicial verdict of more than seventy noblemen
+and gentlemen,[595] no one of whom had any interest in the deaths of the
+accused, and some of whom had interests the most tender in their
+acquittal; we have the assent of the judges who sat on the commission,
+and who passed sentence, after full opportunities of examination, with
+all the evidence before their eyes; the partial confession of one of the
+prisoners, though afterwards withdrawn; and the complete confession of
+another, maintained till the end, and not withdrawn upon the scaffold.
+Mr. Hallam must pardon me for saying that this is not a matter in which
+doubt is unpermitted.
+
+[Sidenote: Wednesday, May 17. The execution of the five gentlemen.]
+
+A brief interval only was allowed between the judgment and the final
+close. On Wednesday, the 17th, the five gentlemen were taken to
+execution. Smeton was hanged; the others were beheaded. Smeton and
+Brereton acknowledged the justice of their sentence. Brereton said that
+if he had to die a thousand deaths, he deserved them all; and Brereton
+was the only one of the five whose guilt at the time was doubted.[596]
+Norris died silent; Weston, with a few general lamentations on the
+wickedness of his past life. None denied the crime for which they
+suffered; all but one were considered by the spectators to have
+confessed. Rochfort had shown some feeling while in the Tower. Kingston
+on one occasion found him weeping bitterly. The day of the trial he sent
+a petition to the king, to what effect I do not learn; and on the
+Tuesday he begged to see Cromwell, having something on his conscience,
+as he said, which he wished to tell him.[597] His desire, however, does
+not seem to have been complied with; he spoke sorrowfully on the
+scaffold of the shame which he had brought upon the gospel, and died
+with words which appeared to the spectators, if not a confession, yet
+something very nearly resembling it, "This said lord," wrote a spectator
+to the court at Brussels, "made a good Catholic address to the people.
+He said that he had not come there to preach to them, but rather to
+serve as a mirror and an example. He acknowledged the crimes which he
+had committed against God, and against the king his sovereign; there was
+no occasion for him, he said, to repeat the cause for which he was
+condemned; they would have little pleasure in hearing him tell it. He
+prayed God, and he prayed the king, to pardon his offences; and all
+others whom he might have injured he also prayed to forgive him as
+heartily as he forgave every one. He bade his hearers avoid the vanities
+of the world, and the flatteries of the court which had brought him to
+the shameful end which had overtaken him. Had he obeyed the lessons of
+that gospel which he had so often read, he said he should not have
+fallen so far; it was worth more to be a good doer than a good reader.
+Finally, he forgave those who had adjudged him to die, and he desired
+them to pray God for his soul."[598]
+
+[Sidenote: Anne Boleyn confesses to Cranmer that she has never been
+lawfully married to the king.]
+
+The queen was left till a further mystery had perplexed yet deeper the
+disgraceful exposure. Henry had desired Cranmer to be her confessor. The
+archbishop was with her on the day after her trial,[599] and she then
+made an extraordinary avowal,[600] either that she had been married or
+contracted in early life, or had been entangled in some connexion which
+invalidated her marriage with the king. The letter to the emperor, which
+I have already quoted,[601] furnishes the solitary explanation of the
+mystery which remains. Some one, apparently the imperial ambassador,
+informed Charles that she was discovered to have been nine years before
+married to Lord Percy, not formally only, but really and completely. If
+this be true, her fate need scarcely excite further sympathy.
+
+[Sidenote: The queen is pronounced divorced.]
+
+On Wednesday she was taken to Lambeth, where she made her confession in
+form, and the archbishop, sitting judicially, pronounced her marriage
+with the king to have been null and void. The supposition, that this
+business was a freak of caprice or passion, is too puerile to be
+considered. It is certain that she acknowledged something; and it is
+certain also that Lord Northumberland was examined upon the subject
+before the archbishop. In person upon oath indeed, and also in, a letter
+to Cromwell, Northumberland denied that he had ever been legally
+connected with her; but perhaps Northumberland was afraid to make an
+admission so dangerous to himself, or perhaps the confession itself was
+a vague effort which she made to save her life.[602] But whatever she
+said, and whether she spoke truth or falsehood, she was pronounced
+divorced, and the divorce did not save her.[603] Friday, the 19th, was
+fixed for her death; and when she found that there was no hope she
+recovered her spirits. The last scene was to be on the green inside the
+Tower. The public were to be admitted; but Kingston suggested that to
+avoid a crowd it was desirable not to fix the hour, since it was
+supposed that she would make no further confession.
+
+[Sidenote: Thursday, May 18. Kingston's tribute to her conduct in the
+Tower.]
+
+"This morning she sent for me," he added, "that I might be with her at
+such time as she received the good Lord, to the intent that I should
+hear her speak as touching her innocency always to be clear. 'Mr.
+Kingston,' she said, 'I hear say I shall not die afore noon, and I am
+very sorry therefore, for I thought to be dead by this time, and past my
+pain.' I told her it should be no pain, it was so subtle; and then she
+said, 'I heard say the executioner was very good, and I have a little
+neck,' and put her hands about it, laughing heartily. I have seen many
+men, and also women, executed, and they have been in great sorrow; and
+to my knowledge, this lady hath much joy and pleasure in death."[604]
+
+[Sidenote: Friday, May 19. Tower Green at noon.]
+
+We are very near the termination of the tragedy. A little before noon on
+the 19th of May, Anne Boleyn, Queen of England, was led down to the
+green. A single cannon stood loaded on the battlements; the motionless
+cannoneer was ready, with smoking linstock, to tell London that all was
+over. The yeomen of the guard were there, and a crowd of citizens; the
+lord mayor in his robes, the deputies of the guilds, the sheriffs, and
+the aldermen; they were come to see a spectacle which England had never
+seen before--a head which had worn the crown falling under the sword of
+an executioner.
+
+[Sidenote: The scaffold, and the persons present upon it.]
+
+On the scaffold, by the king's desire, there were present Cromwell, the
+Lord Chancellor, the Duke of Suffolk, and lastly, the Duke of Richmond,
+who might now, when both his sisters were illegitimized, be considered
+heir presumptive to the throne. As in the choice of the commission, as
+in the conduct of the trial, as in the summons of parliament, as in
+every detail through which the cause was passed, Henry had shown
+outwardly but one desire to do all which the most strict equity
+prescribed, so around this last scene he had placed those who were
+nearest in blood to himself, and nearest in rank to the crown. If she
+who was to suffer was falling under a forged charge, he acted his part
+with horrible completeness.
+
+[Sidenote: The queen's last words.]
+
+The queen appeared walking feebly, supported by the Lieutenant of the
+Tower. She seemed half stupified and looked back from time to time at
+the ladies by whom she was followed. On reaching the platform, she asked
+if she might say a few words;[605] and permission being granted, she
+turned to the spectators and said: "Christian people, I am come to die.
+And according to law, and by law, I am judged to death; and therefore I
+will speak nothing against it. I am come hither to accuse no man, nor to
+speak anything of that whereof I am accused and condemned to die. But I
+pray God save the king, and send him long to reign over you; for a
+gentler and more merciful prince was there never; and to me he was ever
+a good, a gentle, and sovereign lord. If any person will meddle of my
+cause, I require him to judge the best. And thus I take my leave of the
+world and of you; and I heartily desire you all to pray for me. Oh,
+Lord, have mercy on me. To God I commend my soul."[606] "These words,"
+says Stow, "she spoke with a smiling countenance." She wore an ermine
+cloak which was then taken off. She herself removed her headdress, and
+one of her attendants gave her a cap into which she gathered her hair.
+She then knelt, and breathing faintly a commendation of her soul to
+Christ, the executioner with a single blow struck off her head. A white
+handkerchief was thrown over it as it fell, and one of the ladies took
+it up and carried it away. The other women lifted the body and bore it
+into the Chapel of the Tower, where it was buried in the choir.[607]
+
+Thus she too died without denying the crime for which she suffered.
+Smeton confessed from the first. Brereton, Weston, Rochfort, virtually
+confessed on the scaffold. Norris said nothing. Of all the sufferers not
+one ventured to declare that he or she was innocent,--and that six human
+beings should leave the world with the undeserved stain of so odious a
+charge on them, without attempting to clear themselves, is credible only
+to those who form opinions by their wills, and believe or disbelieve as
+they choose.
+
+To this end the queen had come at last, and silence is the best comment
+which charity has to offer upon it. Better far it would have been if the
+dust had been allowed to settle down over the grave of Anne Boleyn, and
+her remembrance buried in forgetfulness. Strange it is that a spot which
+ought to have been sacred to pity, should have been made the arena for
+the blind wrestling of controversial duellists. Blind, I call it; for
+there has been little clearness of judgment, little even of common
+prudence in the choice of sides. If the Catholics could have fastened
+the stain of murder on the king and the statesmen of England, they would
+have struck the faith of the establishment a harder blow than by a poor
+tale of scandal against a weak, erring, suffering woman: and the
+Protestants, in mistaken generosity, have courted an infamy for the
+names of those to whom they owe their being, which, staining the
+fountain, must stain for ever the stream which flows from it. It has
+been no pleasure to me to rake among the evil memories of the past, to
+prove a human being sinful whom the world has ruled to have been
+innocent. Let the blame rest with those who have forced upon our history
+the alternative of a reassertion of the truth, or the shame of noble
+names which have not deserved it at our hands.
+
+[Sidenote: Fresh perplexity in the succession.]
+
+[Sidenote: Elizabeth now illegitimate.]
+
+[Sidenote: Lord Thomas Howard and Lady Margaret Douglas.]
+
+No sooner had the result of the trial appeared to be certain, than the
+prospects of the succession to the throne were seen to be more perplexed
+than ever. The prince so earnestly longed for had not been born. The
+disgrace of Anne Boleyn, even before her last confession, strengthened
+the friends of the Princess Mary. Elizabeth, the child of a doubtful
+marriage which had terminated in adultery and incest, would have had
+slight chance of being maintained, even if her birth had suffered no
+further stain; and by the Lambeth sentence she was literally and legally
+illegitimate. The King of Scotland was now the nearest heir; and next to
+him stood Lady Margaret Douglas, his sister, who had been born in
+England, and was therefore looked upon with better favour by the people.
+As if to make confusion worse confounded, in the midst of the
+uncertainty Lord Thomas Howard, taking advantage of the moment, and, as
+the act or his attainder says,[608] "being seduced by the devil, and not
+having the fear of God before his eyes," persuaded this lady into a
+contract of marriage with him; "The presumption being," says the same
+act, "that he aspired to the crown by reason of so high a marriage; or,
+at least, to the making division for the same; having a firm hope and
+trust _that the subjects of this realm[609] would incline and bear
+affection to the said Lady Margaret, being born in this realm; and not
+to the King of Scots, her brother, to whom this realm hath not, nor ever
+had, any affection; but would resist his attempt to the crown of this
+realm to the uttermost of their powers_."[610]
+
+[Sidenote: The council and the peers urge the king to an instant
+re-marriage.]
+
+Before the discovery of this proceeding, but in anticipation of
+inevitable intrigues of the kind, the privy council and the peers, on
+the same grounds which had before led them to favour the divorce from
+Catherine, petitioned the king to save the country from the perils
+which menaced it, and to take a fresh wife without an hour's delay.
+Henry's experience of matrimony had been so discouraging, that they
+feared he might be reluctant to venture upon it again. Nevertheless, for
+his country's sake, they trusted that he would not refuse.[611]
+
+[Sidenote: He marries Jane Seymour.]
+
+Henry, professedly in obedience to this request, was married,
+immediately after the execution, to Jane, daughter of Sir John Seymour.
+The indecent haste is usually considered a proof entirely conclusive of
+the cause of Anne Boleyn's ruin.[612] Under any aspect it was an
+extraordinary step, which requires to be gravely considered. Henry, who
+waited seven years for Anne Boleyn, to whom he was violently attached,
+was not without control over his passions; and if appetite had been the
+moving influence with him, he would scarcely, with the eyes of all the
+world upon him, have passed so extravagant an insult upon the nation of
+which he was the sovereign. If Jane Seymour had really been the object
+of a previous unlawful attachment, her conduct in accepting so
+instantly a position so frightfully made vacant, can scarcely be painted
+in too revolting colours. Yet Jane Seymour's name, at home and abroad,
+by Catholic and Protestant, was alike honoured and respected. Among all
+Henry's wives she stands out distinguished by a stainless name,
+untarnished with the breath of reproach.
+
+If we could conceive the English nation so tongue-tied that they dared
+not whisper their feelings, there were Brussels, Paris, Rome, where the
+truth could be told; yet, with the exception of a single passage in a
+letter of Mary of Hungary,[613] there is no hint in the correspondence,
+either in Paris, Simancas, or Brussels, that there was a suspicion of
+foul play. If Charles or Francis had believed Henry really capable of so
+deep atrocity, no political temptation would have induced either of them
+to commit their cousins or nieces to the embrace of a monster, yet no
+sooner was Jane Seymour dead, than we shall find them competing eagerly
+with each other to secure his hand.
+
+It is quite possible that when Anne Boleyn was growing licentious, the
+king may have distinguished a lady of acknowledged excellence by some in
+no way improper preference, and that when desired by the council to
+choose a wife immediately, he should have taken a person as unlike as
+possible to the one who had disgraced him. This was the interpretation
+which was given to his conduct by the Lords and Commons of England. In
+the absence of any evidence, or shadow of evidence, that among
+contemporaries who had means of knowing the truth, another judgment was
+passed upon it, the deliberate assertion of an act of parliament must be
+considered a safer guide than modern unsupported conjecture.[614]
+
+[Sidenote: June 8. Parliament meets.]
+
+This matter having been accomplished, the king returned to London to
+meet parliament. The Houses assembled on the 8th of June; the peers had
+hastened up in unusual numbers, as if sensible of the greatness of the
+occasion. The Commons were untried and unknown; and if Anne Boleyn was
+an innocent victim, no king of England was ever in so terrible a
+position as Henry VIII. when he entered the Great Chamber fresh from his
+new bridal. He took his seat upon the throne; and then Audeley, the Lord
+Chancellor, rose and spoke:[615]
+
+[Sidenote: The Lord Chancellor's speech at the opening.]
+
+[Sidenote: The succession must be reconsidered.]
+
+[Sidenote: And the king desires the parliament to name an heir
+apparent.]
+
+"At the dissolution of the late parliament, the King's Highness had not
+thought so soon to meet you here again. He has called you together now,
+being moved thereunto by causes of grave moment, affecting both his own
+person and the interests of the commonwealth. You will have again to
+consider the succession to the crown of this realm. His Highness knows
+himself to be but mortal, liable to fall sick, and to die.[616] At
+present he perceives the peace and welfare of the kingdom to depend upon
+his single life; and he is anxious to leave it, at his death, free from
+peril. He desires you therefore to nominate some person as his heir
+apparent, who, should it so befall him (which God forbid!) to depart out
+of this world without children lawfully begotten, may rule in peace over
+this land, with the consent and the good will of the inhabitants
+thereof.
+
+"You will also deliberate upon the repeal of a certain act passed in the
+late parliament, by which the realm is bound to obedience to the Lady
+Anne Boleyn, late wife of the king, and the heirs lawfully begotten of
+them twain, and which declares all persons who shall, by word or deed,
+have offended against this lady or her offspring, to have incurred the
+penalties of treason.
+
+[Sidenote: The Lord Chancellor's advice to the Houses.]
+
+"These are the causes for which you are assembled; and if you will be
+advised by me, you will act in these matters according to the words of
+Solomon, with whom our most gracious king may deservedly be compared.
+The "wise man" counsels us to bear in mind such things as be past, to
+weigh well such things as be present, and provide prudently for the
+things which be to come. And you I would bid to remember, first, those
+sorrows and those burdens which the King's Highness did endure on the
+occasion of his first unlawful marriage--a marriage not only judged
+unlawful by the most famous universities in Christendom, but so
+determined by the consent of this realm; and to remember further the
+great perils which have threatened his most royal Majesty from the time
+when he entered on his second marriage.
+
+[Sidenote: The gratitude due to the king for his third adventure into
+marriage.]
+
+"Then, turning to the present, you will consider in what state the realm
+now standeth with respect to the oath by which we be bound to the Lady
+Anne and to her offspring; the which Lady Anne, with her accomplices,
+has been found guilty of high treason, and has met the due reward of her
+conspiracies. And then you will ask yourselves, what man of common
+condition would not have been deterred by such calamities from venturing
+a third time into the state of matrimony. Nevertheless, our most
+excellent prince, not in any carnal concupiscence, but at the humble
+entreaty of his nobility, hath consented once more to accept that
+condition, and has taken to himself a wife who in age and form is deemed
+to be meet and apt for the procreation of children.
+
+"Lastly, according to the third injunction, let us now do our part in
+providing for things to come. According to the desire of his most
+gracious Highness, let us name some person to be his heir; who, in case
+(_quod absit_) that he depart this life leaving no offspring lawfully
+begotten, may be our lawful sovereign. But let us pray Almighty God that
+He will graciously not leave our prince thus childless; and let us give
+Him thanks for that He hath preserved his Highness to us out of so many
+dangers; seeing that his Grace's care and efforts be directed only to
+the ruling his subjects in peace and charity so long as his life
+endures, and to the leaving us, when he shall come to die, in sure
+possession of these blessings."
+
+[Sidenote: The speech digested into a statute.]
+
+[Sidenote: July 1. Reassertion of the independence of the realm.]
+
+Three weeks after Anne Boleyn's death and the king's third marriage, the
+chancellor dared to address the English legislature in these terms: and
+either he spoke like a reasonable man, which he may have done, or else
+he was making an exhibition of effrontery to be paralleled only by
+Seneca's letter to the Roman Senate after the murder of Agrippina. The
+legislature adopted the first interpretation, and the heads of the
+speech were embodied in an act of parliament. While the statute was in
+preparation, they made use of the interval in continuing the business of
+the Reformation. They abolished finally the protection of sanctuary in
+cases of felony, extending the new provisions even to persons in holy
+orders:[617] they calmed the alarms of Cranmer and the Protestants by re
+asserting the extinction of the authority of the pope;[618] and they
+passed various other laws of economic and social moment. At length, on
+the 1st of July, in a crowded house, composed of fourteen bishops,[619]
+eighteen abbots, and thirty-nine lay peers,[620] a bill was read a first
+time of such importance that I must quote at length its own most
+noticeable words.
+
+[Sidenote: Second great Act of Succession. The parliament endorse all
+the proceedings in the late trials.]
+
+The preamble commenced with reciting those provisions of the late acts
+which were no longer to remain in force. It then proceeded, in the form
+of an address to the king, to adopt and endorse the divorce and the
+execution. "Albeit," it ran, "most dread Sovereign Lord, that these acts
+were made, as it was then thought, upon a pure, perfect, and clear
+foundation; your Majesty's nobles and commons, thinking the said
+marriage then had between your Highness and the Lady Anne in their
+consciences to have been pure, sincere, perfect, and good, and so was
+reputed and taken in the realm; [yet] now of late God, of his infinite
+goodness, from whom no secret things can be hid, hath caused to be
+brought to light evident and open knowledge of certain just, true, and
+lawful impediments, unknown at the making of the said acts; and since
+that time confessed by the Lady Anne, before the Most Reverend Father in
+God, Thomas, Archbishop of Canterbury, sitting judicially for the same;
+by the which it plainly appeareth that the said marriage was never good,
+nor consonant to the laws, but utterly void and of none effect; by
+reason whereof your Highness was and is lawfully divorced from the bonds
+of the said marriage in the life of the said Lady Anne:
+
+"And over this, most dread Lord, albeit that your Majesty, not knowing
+of any lawful impediments, entered into the bonds of the said unlawful
+marriage, and advanced the same Lady Anne to the honour of the sovereign
+estate of the queen of this realm; yet she, nevertheless, inflamed with
+pride and carnal desires of her body, putting apart the dread of God and
+excellent benefits received of your Highness, confederated herself with
+George Boleyn, late Lord Rochfort, her natural brother, Henry Norris,
+Esq., Francis Weston, Esq., William Brereton, Esq., gentlemen of your
+privy chamber, and Mark Smeton, groom of your said privy chamber; and so
+being confederate, she and they most traitorously committed and
+perpetrated divers detestable and abominable treasons, to the fearful
+peril and danger of your royal person, and to the utter loss,
+disherison, and desolation of this realm, if God of his goodness had not
+in due time brought their said treasons to light; for the which, being
+plainly and manifestly proved, they were convict and attainted by due
+course and order of your common law of this realm, and have suffered
+according to the merits:"
+
+[Sidenote: The late queen declared attainted.]
+
+In consequence of these treasons, and to lend, if possible, further
+weight to the sentence against her, the late queen was declared
+attainted by authority of parliament, as she already was by the common
+law. The Act then proceeded:
+
+[Sidenote: Opinion of parliament upon the king's third marriage.]
+
+"And forasmuch, most gracious Sovereign, as it hath pleased your royal
+Majesty--(notwithstanding the great intolerable perils and occasions
+which your Highness hath suffered and sustained, as well by occasion of
+your first unlawful marriage, as by occasion of your second); at the
+most humble petition and intercession of us your nobles of this realm,
+for the ardent love and fervent affection which your Highness beareth to
+the conservation of the peace and amity of the same, and of the good and
+quiet governance thereof, of your most excellent goodness to enter into
+marriage again; and [forasmuch as you] have chosen and taken a right
+noble, virtuous, and excellent lady, Queen Jane, to your true and lawful
+wife; who, for her convenient years, excellent beauty, and pureness of
+flesh and blood, is apt to conceive issue by your Highness; which
+marriage is so pure and sincere, without spot, doubt, or impediment,
+that the issue presented under the same, when it shall please Almighty
+God to send it, cannot be truly, lawfully, nor justly interrupted or
+disturbed of the right and title in the succession of your crown: May it
+now please your Majesty, for the extinguishment of all doubts, and for
+the pure and perfect unity of us your subjects, and all our posterities,
+that inasmuch as the marriage with the Lady Catherine having been
+invalid, the issue of that marriage is therefore illegitimate; and the
+marriage with the Lady Anne Boleyn having been upon true and just causes
+deemed of no value nor effect, the issue of this marriage is also
+illegitimate; the succession to the throne be now therefore determined
+to the issue of the marriage with Queen Jane."[621]
+
+[Sidenote: The succession determined to the issue of the king by Queen
+Jane.]
+
+[Sidenote: A reason for demurring to the popular judgment in this
+matter.]
+
+Thus was every step which had been taken in this great matter
+deliberately sanctioned[622] by parliament. The criminality of the queen
+was considered to have been proved; the sentence upon her to have been
+just. The king was thanked in the name of the nation for having made
+haste with the marriage which has been regarded as the temptation to his
+crime. It is wholly impossible to dismiss facts like these with a few
+contemptuous phrases; and when I remember that the purity of Elizabeth
+is an open question among our historians, although the foulest kennels
+must be swept to find the filth with which to defile it; while Anne
+Boleyn is ruled to have been a saint, notwithstanding the solemn verdict
+of the Lords and Commons, the clergy, the council, judges, and juries,
+pronounced against her,--I feel that with such a judgment caprice has
+had more to do than a just appreciation of evidence.
+
+[Sidenote: The contingency to be provided for, of the last marriage
+proving unfruitful.]
+
+The parliament had not yet, however, completed their work. It was
+possible, as the lord chancellor had said, that the last marriage might
+prove unfruitful, and this contingency was still unprovided for. The
+king had desired the Lords and Commons to name his successor; they
+replied with an act which showed the highest confidence in his
+patriotism; they conferred a privilege upon him unknown to the
+constitution, yet a power which, if honestly exercised, offered by far
+the happiest solution of the difficulty.
+
+Henry had three children. The Duke of Richmond was illegitimate in the
+strictest sense, but he had been bred as a prince; and I have shown
+that, in default of a legitimate heir, the king had thought of him as
+his possible successor. Mary and Elizabeth were illegitimate also,
+according to law and form; but the illegitimacy of neither the one nor
+the other could be pressed to its literal consequences. They were the
+children, each of them, of connexions which were held legal at the
+period of their birth. They had each received the rank of a princess;
+and the instincts of justice demanded that they should be allowed a
+place in the line of inheritance. Yet, while this feeling was distinctly
+entertained, it was difficult to give effect to it by statute, without a
+further complication of questions already too complicated, and without
+provoking intrigue and jealousy in other quarters. The Princess Mary
+also had not yet receded from the defiant attitude which she had
+assumed. She had lent herself to conspiracy, she had broken her
+allegiance, and had as yet made no submission. To her no favour could be
+shown while she remained in this position; and it was equally
+undesirable to give Elizabeth, under the altered circumstances, a
+permanent preference to her sister.
+
+[Sidenote: The parliament grant the king a power to bequeath the crown
+by will.]
+
+The parliament, therefore, with as much boldness as good sense, cut the
+knot, by granting Henry the power to bequeath the crown by will. He
+could thus advance the Duke of Richmond, if Richmond's character as a
+man fulfilled the promise of his youth; and he could rescue his
+daughters from the consequences of their mother's misfortunes or their
+mother's faults. It was an expression of confidence, as honourable to
+the country as to the king; and if we may believe, as the records say,
+that the tragedy of the past month had indeed grieved and saddened
+Henry, the generous language in which the legislature committed the
+future of the nation into his hands, may have something soothed his
+wounds.
+
+[Sidenote: The reasons alleged for this measure.]
+
+"Forasmuch as it standeth," they said, "in the only pleasure and will of
+Almighty God, whether your Majesty shall have heirs begotten and
+procreated from this (late) marriage, or else any lawful heirs or issues
+hereafter of your own body, begotten by any other lawful wife; and if
+such heirs should fail (as God defend), and no provision be made in your
+life who should rule and govern this realm, then this realm, after your
+transitory life, shall be destitute of a governor, or else percase [be]
+encumbered with a person that would count to aspire to the same, whom
+the subjects of this realm shall not find in their hearts to love,
+dread, and obediently serve[623] as their sovereign lord; and if your
+Grace, before it be certainly known whether ye shall have heirs or not,
+should suddenly name and declare any person or persons to succeed after
+your decease, then it is to be doubted that such person so named might
+happen to take great heart and courage, and by presumption fall to
+inobedience and rebellion; by occasion of which premises, divisions and
+dissensions are likely to arise and spring in this realm, to the great
+peril and destruction of us, your most humble and obedient servants, and
+all our posterities: For reformation and remedy hereof, we, your most
+bounden and loving subjects, most obediently acknowledging that your
+Majesty, prudently, victoriously, politicly, and indifferently, hath
+maintained this realm in peace and quietness during all the time of your
+most gracious reign, putting our trust and confidence in your Highness,
+and nothing doubting but that your Majesty, if you should fail of heirs
+lawfully begotten, for the love and affection that ye bear to this
+realm, and for avoiding all the occasions of divisions afore rehearsed,
+so earnestly mindeth the wealth of the same, that ye can best and most
+prudently provide such a governour for us and this your realm, as will
+succeed and follow in the just and right tract of all your proceedings,
+and maintain, keep, and defend the same and all the laws and ordinances
+established in your Grace's time for the wealth of the realm, which we
+all desire, do therefore most humbly beseech your Highness, that it may
+be enacted, for avoiding all ambiguities, doubts, and divisions, that
+your Highness shall have full and plenary power and authority to
+dispose, by your letters patent under your great seal, or else by your
+last will made in writing, and signed with your hand, the imperial crown
+of this realm, and all other the premises thereunto belonging, to such
+person or persons as shall please your Highness.
+
+"And we, your humble and obedient subjects, do faithfully promise to
+your Majesty, by one common assent, that after your decease, we, our
+heirs and successors, shall accept and take, love, dread, and only obey
+such person or persons, male or female, as your Majesty shall give your
+imperial crown unto; and wholly to stick to them as true and faithful
+subjects ought to do."[624]
+
+
+NOTES:
+
+[536] Speech of the Lord Chancellor: _Lords' Journals_, p. 84
+
+[537] Strype's _Memorials_, Vol. I. p. 370.
+
+[538] Sir Edmund Bedingfield to Cromwell: _State Papers_, Vol. I. p.
+451.
+
+[539] Strype's _Memorials_, Vol. I.; and see Appendix, p. 241, et seq.
+
+[540] _State Papers_, Vol. I. p. 452
+
+[541] Lord Herbert, p. 188.
+
+[542] Lord Herbert, p. 188. It will have been observed, that neither in
+this letter, nor in the other authentic papers connected with her death,
+is there any allusion to Cardinal Pole's famous story, that being on her
+deathbed, Queen Catherine prayed the king to allow her to see her
+daughter for the last time, and that the request was refused. Pole was
+not in England at the time. He drew his information from Catholic
+rumour, as vindictive as it was credulous; and in the many letters from
+members of the privy council to him which we possess, his narrative is
+treated as throughout a mere wild collection of fables. I require some
+better evidence to persuade me that this story is any truer than the
+rest, when we know that Catherine allowed the king to hear that she was
+dying, not from herself, but from a foreign ambassador; and that such a
+request could have been made in the few days which intervened between
+this intimation and her death, without some traces of it appearing in
+the close account which we possess of her language and actions during
+those days, is in a high degree unlikely.
+
+[543] See Lingard, Vol. V. p. 30. Hall says: "Queen Anne wore yellow for
+mourning."
+
+[544] The directions for the funeral are printed in Lingard Vol. V.,
+Appendix, p. 267.
+
+[545] It ought not to be necessary to say that her will was
+respected--Lord Herbert, p. 188; but the king's conduct to Catherine of
+Arragon has provoked suspicion even where suspicion is unjust; and much
+mistaken declamation has been wasted in connexion with this matter upon
+an offence wholly imaginary.
+
+In making her bequests, Catherine continued to regard herself as the
+king's wife, in which capacity she professed to have no power to dispose
+of her property. She left her legacies in the form of a petition to her
+husband. She had named no executors; and being in the eyes of the law "a
+sole woman," the administration lapsed in consequence to the nearest of
+kin, the emperor. Some embarrassment was thus created, and the
+attorney-general was obliged to evade the difficulty by a legal
+artifice, before the king could take possession, and give effect to the
+bequests.--See Strype's _Memor._, Vol. I., Appendix, pp. 252-255. Miss
+Strickland's valuable volumes are so generally read, that I venture to
+ask her to reconsider the passage which she has written on this subject.
+The king's offences against Catherine require no unnecessary
+exaggeration.
+
+[546] See Vol. I. pp. 175, 176.
+
+[547] Foxe speaks very strongly on this point. In Ellis's Letters we
+find many detailed instances, and indeed in all contemporary
+authorities.
+
+[548] Cranmer's Letter to the King: Burnet, Vol. I. p. 323.
+
+[549] More's _Life of More_; and see Chap. IX.
+
+[550] Il Re de Inghilterra haveva fatto venire in la Corte sua il
+majordomo de la Regina et mostrava esserse mitigato alquanto. La causa
+della mitigation procede del buon negotiar ha fatto et fa la Catolica
+Mata con lo Ambaxiatore del Re de Inghilterra con persuadirle con buoni
+paroli et pregeri che debbia restituir la Regina in la antigua dignita.
+
+Dicano anchore che la Anna e mal voluta degli Si di Inghilterra si per
+la sua superbia, si anche per l'insolentia et mali portementi che fanno
+nel regno li fratelli e parenti di Anna e che per questo il Re non la
+porta la affezione que soleva.--"Nuevas de Inglaterra": _MS. Archives of
+Simancas._
+
+[551] Il Re festeggia una altra donna della quale se mostra esser
+inamorato; e molti Si di Inghilterra lo ajutano nel seguir el preditto
+amore per desviar questo Re de la pratica di Anna.--_Ibid._
+
+[552] Burnet's _Collectanea_, p. 87.
+
+[553] _Pilgrim_, p. 117.
+
+[554] _Le Laboureur_, I. 405: quoted in Lingard, Vol. V. p. 30.
+
+[555] Quoy qu'il en soit l'on me luy peult faire grand tort quand cires
+l'on a repute pour meschante. Car ce a este des longtemps son
+stile.--The Regent Mary to Ferdinand: _MS. Brussels._
+
+[556] Later writers point to the ladies of the court, but report could
+not agree upon any single person: and _nothing_ is really known.
+
+[557] Baga de Secretis, pouch 8: Appendix II. to the _Third Report of
+the Deputy Keeper of the Public Records_.
+
+[558] Cranmer to the King: Burnet, Vol. I. p. 322.
+
+[559] I must draw particular attention to this. Parliament had been just
+dissolved, and a fresh body of untried men were called together for no
+other purpose than to take cognizance of the supposed discovery.--See
+the Speech of the Lord Chancellor: _Lords' Journals_, p. 84. If the
+accusations were intentionally forged by the king, to go out of the way
+to court so needless publicity was an act most strange and most
+incomprehensible.
+
+[560] Constantyne says, Smeton was arrested first on Saturday evening,
+at Stepney; but he seems inconsistent with himself. See his Memorial,
+_Archaeologia_, Vol. XXIII. p. 63.
+
+[561] His name repeatedly occurs in "the Privy Purse Expenses of Henry
+VIII."
+
+[562] Five years later, after the shameful behaviour of Catherine
+Howard, the duke wrote to the king of "_the abominable deeds done by two
+of my nieces against your Highness_;" which he said have "brought me
+into the greatest perplexity that ever poor wretch was in, fearing that
+your Majesty, having so often and by so many of my kyn been thus falsely
+and traitorously handled, might not only conceive a displeasure in your
+heart against me and all other of that kyn, but also in manner abhor to
+hear speak of any of the same."--Norfolk to Henry VIII.: _State Papers_,
+Vol. I. p. 721.
+
+[563] Kingston to Cromwell: Singer's Cavendish, p. 456 et seq., in
+Strype's _Memorials_, Vol. I.
+
+[564] Sir Edward Baynton to the Lord Treasurer, from Greenwich: Singer's
+Cavendish, p. 458.
+
+[565] See Lingard, Vol. V. p. 33. It is not certain whether the
+examination of the prisoners was at Greenwich or at the Tower. Baynton's
+letter is dated from Greenwich, but that is not conclusive. Constantyne
+says (_Archaeologia_, Vol. XXIII. p. 63) that the king took Norris with
+him to London, and, as he heard say, urged him all the way to confess,
+with promises of pardon if he would be honest with him. Norris persisted
+in his denial, however, and was committed to the Tower. Afterwards,
+before the council, he confessed. On his trial, his confession was read
+to him, and he said he was deceived into making it by Sir W.
+Fitzwilliam: an accusation against this gentleman very difficult to
+believe.
+
+[566] Letter to the Lord Treasurer.
+
+[567] Kingston to Cromwell; Singer's Cavendish, p. 451.
+
+[568] Kingston to Cromwell: Singer's Cavendish, p. 451.
+
+[569] She said, "I think it much unkindness in the king to put such
+about me as I never loved." I shewed her that the king took them to be
+honest and good women. "But I would have had of mine own privy chamber,"
+she said, "which I favour most."--Kingston to Cromwell: Ibid. p. 457.
+
+[570] Ibid. p. 453.
+
+[571] The disorder of which the king ultimately died--ulceration in the
+legs--had already begun to show itself.
+
+[572] The lady, perhaps, to whom Norris was to have been married. Sir
+Edward Baynton makes an allusion to a Mistress Margery. The passage is
+so injured as to be almost unintelligible:--"I have mused much et ... of
+Mistress Margery, which hath used her ... strangely towards me of late,
+being her friend as I have been. But no doubt it cannot be but she must
+be of councell therewith. There hath been great friendship between the
+queen and her of late."--Sir E. Baynton to the Lord Treasurer: Singer,
+p. 458.
+
+[573] Kingston to Cromwell: Singer, pp. 452, 453. Of Smeton she said,
+"He was never in my chamber but at Winchester;" she had sent for him "to
+play on the virginals," for there her lodging was above the king's....
+"I never spoke with him since," she added, "but upon Saturday before May
+day, and then I found him standing in the round window in my chamber of
+presence, and I asked why he was so sad, and he answered and said it was
+no matter; and then she said, 'You may not look to have me speak to you
+as I should to a nobleman, because you be an inferior person.'--'No, no,
+madam; a look sufficeth me [he said], and thus fare you well.'"--Singer,
+p. 455.
+
+[574] Printed in Burnet, Vol. I. p. 322, et seq.
+
+[575] "Mark is the worst cherished of any man in the house, for he wears
+irons."--Kingston to Cromwell. Later writers have assured themselves
+that Smeton's confession was extorted from him by promises of pardon.
+Why, then, was the government so impolitic as to treat him with especial
+harshness so early in the transaction? When he found himself "ironed,"
+he must have been assured that faith would not be kept with him; and he
+had abundant time to withdraw what he had said.
+
+[576] The sentence is mutilated, but the meaning seems intelligible:
+"The queen standeth stiffly in her opinion that she wo ... which I think
+is in the trust that she [hath in the] other two,"--i.e. Norris and
+Weston.--Baynton to the Lord Treasurer. The government seems to have
+been aware of some secret communication between her and Norris.--Ibid
+Singer, p. 458.
+
+[577] Kingston to Cromwell: Singer, p. 457.
+
+[578] My first impression of this letter was strongly in favour of its
+authenticity. I still allow it to stand in the text because it exists,
+and because there is no evidence, external or internal, to prove it to
+be a forgery. The more carefully I have examined the MS., however, the
+greater uncertainty I have felt about it. It is not an original. It is
+not an official copy. It does not appear, though here I cannot speak
+conclusively, to be even a contemporary copy. The only guide to the date
+is the watermark on the paper, and in this instance the evidence is
+indecisive.--Note to the 2d edition.
+
+[579] Burnet's _Collectanea_, p. 87; _Cotton. MS._
+
+[580] Strype's _Eccles. Memorials_, Vol. I. Lord Bacon speaks of these
+words as a message sent by the queen on the morning of the execution.
+
+[581] Kingston to Cromwell: Singer, p. 456.
+
+[582] Ibid. p. 457.
+
+[583] Baga de Secretis, pouches 8 and 9: Appendix II to the _Third
+Report of the Deputy Keeper of the Public Records_.
+
+[584] We shall meet him again in Ireland: he was the queen's cousin, and
+man of the very highest character and ability. The grand jury of Kent
+were nominated by Sir Thomas Wyatt, who was sheriff for that year. This
+is not unimportant, for Wyatt in past times had been Anne's intimate
+friend, if not her lover.
+
+[585] The indictment found at Deptford was exactly similar; referring to
+other acts of the same kind, committed by the same persons at Greenwich.
+
+[586] Baga de Secretis, pouch 9.
+
+[587] Sir Francis Bryan, the queen's cousin, was at first suspected. He
+was absent from the court, and received a message from Cromwell to
+appeal instantly on his allegiance. The following extract is from the
+Deposition of the Abbot of Woburn--_MS. Cotton._ Cleopatra, E 4.:
+
+"The said abbot remembereth that at the fall of Queen Anne, whom God
+pardon, Master Bryan, being in the country, was suddenly sent for by the
+Lord Privy Seal, as the said Master Bryan afterwards shewed me, charging
+him upon his allegiance to come to him wheresoever he was within this
+realm upon the sight of his letter, and so he did with all speed. And at
+his next repair to Ampthill, I came to visit him there, at what time the
+Lord Grey of Wilton, with many other men of worship, was with him in the
+great court at Ampthill aforesaid. And at my coming in at the outer gate
+Master Bryan perceived me, and of his much gentleness came towards
+meeting me; to whom I said, 'Now welcome home and never so welcome.' He,
+astonished, said unto me, 'Why so?' The said abbot said, 'Sir, I shall
+shew you that at leisure,' and walked up into the great chamber with the
+men of worship. And after a pause it pleased him to sit down upon a
+bench and willed me to sit by him, and after that demanded of me what I
+meant when I said, 'Never so welcome as then;' to whom I said thus:
+'Sir, Almighty God in his first creation made an order of angels, and
+among all made one principal, which was the ----, who would not be
+content with his estate, but affected the celsitude and rule of Creator,
+for the which he was divested from the altitude of heaven into the
+profundity of hell into everlasting darkness, without repair or return,
+with those that consented unto his pride. So it now lately befell in
+this our worldly hierarchy of the court by the fall of Queen Anne as a
+worldly Lucifer, not content with her estate to be true unto her
+creator, making her his queen, but affected unlawful concupiscence, fell
+suddenly out of that felicity wherein she was set, irrecoverably with
+all those that consented unto her lust, whereof I am glad that ye were
+never; and, therefore, now welcome and never so welcome, here is the end
+of my tale.' And then he said unto me: 'Sir, indeed, as you say, I was
+suddenly sent for, marvelling thereof and debating the matter in my mind
+why this should be; at the last I considered and knew myself true and
+clear in conscience unto my prince, and with all speed and without fear
+[hastily set] me forward and came to my Lord Privy Seal, and after that
+to the King's Grace, and nothing found in me, nor never shall be, but
+just and true to my master the King's Grace.' And then I said
+'Benedictus, but this was a marvellous peremptory commandment,' said I,
+'and would have astonished the wisest man in this realm.' And he said,
+'What then, he must needs do his master's commandment, and I assure you
+there never was a man wiser to order the king's causes than he is; I
+pray God save his life.'"
+
+The language both of Sir Francis Bryan and the abbot is irreconcileable
+with any other supposition, except that they at least were satisfied of
+the queen's guilt.
+
+[588] Baga de Secretis, pouch 8. The discovery of these papers sets at
+rest the controversy whether the Earl of Wiltshire took part in the
+trial. He was absent at the trial of his children; he was present at the
+trial of the other prisoners.
+
+[589] Baga de Secretis, pouch 9.
+
+[590] The Duke of Richmond was under age.
+
+[591] Baga de Secretis, pouch 9.
+
+[592] Constantyne, _Archaeologia_, Vol. XXIII. p. 66.
+
+[593] Baga de Secretis. When the Pilgrimage of Grace broke out four
+months later, Northumberland was the only nobleman in the power of the
+insurgents who refused to join in the rebellion. They threatened to kill
+him; but "at that and all times the earl was very earnest against the
+commons in the king's behalf and the Lord Privy Seal's."--Confession of
+William Stapleton: _Rolls House MS._ A 2, 2. See Vol. III. of this work
+chap. xiii.
+
+[594] I know not whether I should here add the details which Meteren
+gives of these trials. His authority, a Flemish gentleman, was in London
+at the time, but was not present in the court. The Lord of Milherve
+(that was this gentleman's name) was persuaded that the queen was
+unjustly accused, and he worked out of the rumours which he heard an
+interesting picture, touched with natural sympathy. It has been often
+repeated, however. It may be read elsewhere; and as an authority it is
+but of faint importance. If we allow it its fullest weight, it proves
+that a foreigner then in England believed the queen innocent, and that
+she defended herself with an eloquence which deeply touched her hearers.
+His further assertion, that "Smeton's confession was all which was
+alleged" against her, is certainly inaccurate; and his complaint, which
+has been so often echoed, of the absence of witnesses, implies only a
+want of knowledge of the forms which were observed in trials for high
+treason. The witnesses were not brought into court and confronted with
+the prisoner: their depositions were taken on oath before the grand
+juries and the privy council, and on the trial were read out for the
+accused to answer as they could.
+
+[595] Two grand juries, the petty jury, and the twenty-seven peers.
+
+[596] Constantyne's _Memor., Archaeol._, Vol. XXIII. pp. 63-66.
+Constantyne was an attendant of Sir Henry Norris at this time, and a
+friend and school-fellow of Sir W. Brereton. He was a resolute
+Protestant, and he says that at first he and all other friends of the
+gospel were unable to believe that the queen had behaved so abominably.
+"As I may be saved before God," he says, "I could not believe it, afore
+I heard them speak at their death." ... But on the scaffold, he adds,
+"In a manner all confessed but Mr. Norris, who said almost nothing at
+all."
+
+[597] Kingston to Cromwell: Singer, p. 459.
+
+[598] _The Pilgrim_: Appendix, p. 116.
+
+[599] Kingston to Cromwell; and see Constantyne's _Memorial_.
+
+[600] "Now of late, God, of his infinite goodness, from whom no secret
+things can be hid, hath caused to be brought to light, evident and open
+knowledge of certain just, true, and lawful impediments, unknown at the
+making of the said acts [by which the marriage had been declared
+legitimate], and since that time confessed by the Lady Anne, by the
+which it plainly appeareth that the said marriage was never good nor
+consonant to the laws."--28 Henry VIII. cap. 7. See also the appendix to
+the fourth volume of this work.
+
+[601] Vol. I. pp. 175, 176.
+
+[602] On the day on which she first saw the archbishop, she said, at
+dinner, that she expected to be spared, and that she would retire to
+Antwerp.--to Cromwell: Singer, p. 460.
+
+[603] Burnet raises a dilemma here. If, he says, the queen was not
+married to the king, there was no adultery; and the sentence of death
+and the sentence of divorce mutually neutralize each other. It is
+possible that in the general horror at so complicated a delinquency, the
+technical defence was overlooked.
+
+[604] Kingston to Cromwell: Singer, p. 461.
+
+[605] Letter of ---- to ----, _The Pilgrim_, p. 116.
+
+[606] Wyatt's _Memoirs_, Hall, Stow, Constantyne's _Memorial_. There is
+some little variation in the different accounts, but none of importance.
+
+[607] _Pilgrim_, p. 116.
+
+[608] 28 Hen. VIII. cap. 24.
+
+[609] This paragraph is of great importance: it throws a light on many
+of the most perplexing passages in this and the succeeding reigns.
+
+[610] 28 Hen. VIII. cap. 24.
+
+[611] Speech of the Lord Chancellor: _Lords' Journals_, p. 84. Statutes
+of the Realm; 28 Henry VIII. cap. 7. Similarly, on the death of Jane
+Seymour, the council urged immediate re-marriage on the king,
+considering a single prince an insufficient security for the future. In
+a letter of Cromwell's to the English ambassador at Paris, _on the day
+of Jane Seymour's death_, there is the following passage:
+
+"And forasmuch as, though his Majesty is not anything disposed to marry
+again--albeit his Highness, God be thanked, taketh this chance as a man
+that by reason with force overcometh his affections may take such an
+extreme adventure--yet as sundry of his Grace's council here have
+thought it meet for us to be most humble suitors to his Majesty to
+consider the state of his realm, and to enter eftsoons into another
+matrimony: so his tender zeal to us his subjects hath already so much
+overcome his Grace's said disposition, and framed his mind both to be
+indifferent to the thing and to the election of any person from any part
+that, with deliberation, shall be thought meet for him, that we live in
+hope that his Grace will again couple himself to our comforts."--_State
+Papers_, Vol. VIII. p. 1.
+
+[612] Burnet, Hume, Strickland, &c. There is an absolute consensus of
+authorities.
+
+[613] "The king has, I understand, already married another woman, who,
+they say, is a good Imperialist. I know not whether she will so
+continue. He had shown an inclination for her before the other's death;
+and as neither that other herself, nor any of the rest who were put to
+death, confessed their guilt, except one who was a musician, some people
+think he invented the charge to get rid of her. However it be, no great
+wrong can have been done to the woman herself. She is known to have been
+a worthless person. It has been her character for a long time.
+
+"I suppose, if one may speak so lightly of such things, that when he is
+tired of his new wife he will find some occasion to quit himself of her
+also. Our sex will not be too well satisfied if these practices come
+into vogue; and, though I have no fancy to expose myself to danger, yet,
+being a woman, I will pray with the rest that God will have mercy on
+us."--_The Pilgrim_, p. 117.
+
+[614] Within four months the northern counties were in arms. Castle and
+cottage and village pulpit rang with outcries against the government.
+Yet, in the countless reports of the complaints of the insurgents, there
+is no hint of a suspicion of foul play in the late tragedy. If the
+criminality of the king is self-evident to us, how could it have been
+less than evident to Aske and Lord Darcy?
+
+[615] _Lords' Journals_, p. 84.
+
+[616] He had been very ill.
+
+[617] 26 Hen. VIII. cap. 1.
+
+[618] Ibid. cap. 10.
+
+[619] Including Latimer and Cranmer.
+
+[620] _Lords' Journals._
+
+[621] 28 Hen. VIII. cap. 7. The three last paragraphs, I need scarcely
+say, are a very brief epitome of very copious language.
+
+[622] The archbishop's sentence of divorce was at the same time
+submitted to Convocation and approved by it.
+
+[623] The King of Scots: 28 Hen. VIII. c. 24.
+
+[624] 28 Hen. VIII. cap. 7.
+
+
+
+
+END OF VOL. II.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of History of England from the Fall of
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