England under the Tudors Part 11

[Sidenote 2: Annates Act]

The other Acts referred to above were pa.s.sed before the Submission of the Clergy was completed. The Mortmain and Benefit of Clergy Acts were respectively in limitation of bequests to the Church and of privileges of clerical criminals. They were merely normal steps in the reform of abuses. The Annates Act however demands closer attention. Every bishop on appointment to his see paid the first year's income to Rome--whether on an original appointment, or on translation from one see to another. Obviously this was a tremendous tax on the bishops and a source of large income to Rome. There had been frequent complaints, and suggestions that the Pope should reduce his claim. Very recently, Gardiner had been obliged to borrow heavily to meet the exaction on becoming bishop of Winchester. The Bill provided that five per cent. only should be paid, by way of compensation for expenses of papal Bulls, the ground taken up being that the papal claim was contrary to the ruling of the General Council of Basle, and that the payment, being an alienation of the property of the See, was contrary to the bishops consecration oath. The Bill was pa.s.sed, the bishops--according to letters of the foreign amba.s.sadors in London--dissenting; a course perfectly natural on their part as a protest, not in favour of the payment, but against the authority of the temporal power to intervene. Yet it is frequently stated as a matter of common knowledge that the clergy themselves were the prime movers, and that the Bill was brought in on their pet.i.tion. This belief would seem to rest exclusively on the misinterpretation of a doc.u.ment attributed by a later historian [Footnote: Strype, _Eccl. Memorials_ I., ii., 158. Froude, i., 361 ff.

(Ed. 1862). But _cf._. Gairdner, _English Church_, p. 116. The present writer fell into the usual error in a previous volume on _Cranmer_; and has to thank Mr. Tomlinson for correcting him.] to Convocation, but almost certainly of parliamentary origin.

The Act however was not put in immediate execution: but the English agents in Italy were instructed to hold it _in terrorem_ over Clement's head.

[Sidenote: The European Powers and the Divorce]

The subsequent methods of procedure were largely the outcome of the diplomatic situation on the Continent. In the first place, the idea of calling an Oec.u.menical Council had been much in the air. Each of the three great monarchs was desirous of calling one, on his own terms; so were the Lutherans. But for each the terms must be such as should ensure practical subservience to his own dictation: while to the Pope the proposal, so long as it was hypothetical, was a thing he could produce as either a sop or a threat, as circ.u.mstances might commend. In the next place, for the time Charles dominated the Pope; but while he was making terms with the Lutherans, under pressure of the advance of the Turks on the east, whereby his loyalty to the papacy was made doubtful, he was also on the other hand, Katharine's unyielding champion. Thus any positive declaration on the divorce from Clement was tolerably certain to finally alienate either Charles or Henry. Now the rivalry of Charles was the great obstacle to Francis: whose object had come to be to utilise England so as to obtain for himself the concessions he wanted from the Emperor; extorting them as the result of joint pressure on the part of France and England or as the price of a separation between France and England. The thing he most feared was a compromise between Henry and Charles. Thus his policy was, by a.s.sociating himself with Henry, to detach the Pope also from Charles, by the menace of a joint Anglo-French schism from the Roman obedience. Therefore in the summer and autumn of 1532 Francis was ostentatiously friendly to Henry and the cause of the Divorce. Conferences to which Henry was invited to bring Anne Boleyn as his Queen-elect were arranged, and took place at Calais and Boulogne. Henry thereafter made up his mind to a decisive step and on their return to England in November or perhaps in the following January he married Anne privately. Francis however had successfully avoided committing himself unequivocally to an uncompromising English alliance.

[Sidenote: 1533 The crisis arrives]

In December, the Pope and the Emperor both being at Bologna, Clement professed to the English agents a more amenable spirit, suggesting that the divorce should be held over for a General Council, or that Henry should agree to have the trial held outside his own realms; propositions, however, to neither of which the King could be lured to a.s.sent. But the year 1533 had hardly opened when Charles was enabled to publish a Papal warning of excommunication against Henry unless he restored Katharine to her full rights as his wife (Feb.); while he detached France from England by the promise of concessions restoring her position in Italy.

Clement might now defer a p.r.o.nouncement in favour of Katharine; there was no practical room for hoping that he might still p.r.o.nounce against her.

Henry stood alone; if the Pope were finally driven to choose between defying the King or the Emperor there could be no doubt which of the two he would rather have for an enemy. It only remained for Henry to put it beyond question that the declaration must be made, and that his own enmity would take an energetic form. His reply to the Pope was decisive. Early in April, parliament pa.s.sed the great Act in Restraint of Appeals, which was virtually the announcement of the repudiation of the Roman allegiance; before the end of May, the new Archbishop of Canterbury in his court p.r.o.nounced the marriage with Katharine void _ab initio_, and the recent marriage with her rival valid.

[Sidenote: Restraint of Appeals]

In form, the Act in Restraint of Appeals was not a fresh piece of legislation but a declaration of the existing law; a flat a.s.sertion that any appeal to the jurisdiction of Rome from the English courts brought the appellant under the penalties of praemunire, the "spiritualty" of the country being competent to deal with spiritual cases, and the sovereign recognising no jurisdiction superior to his own. It did not raise the question of authority in matters of doctrine; nor was it a formal declaration of schism from Rome. Its meaning however was clear. The const.i.tutional theory of independence, put forward on many occasions as the warrant for legislation, was henceforth to be acted upon in its most ample interpretation: though, as with the Annates Bill, the final confirmation was suspended to leave Clement a last chance of surrender. Taken on its merits the Act laid down principles entirely acceptable to all parties who claim or claimed independence of Rome: yet it was quite obviously issued with the direct purpose of setting aside the Pope's authority in a particular case already referred to him.

[Sidenote 1: Cranmer Archbishop]

[Sidenote 2: The decisive breach]

It is in fact doubtful whether Henry could have procured a judgment from Warham; but Warham was dead, and the successor appointed was Thomas Cranmer, who already before he had been dragged into public life had committed himself to the sufficiency of the judgment of the English courts. Since taking part in Wilts.h.i.+re's emba.s.sy in 1531 he had been for the most part in Germany on diplomatic affairs, a.s.sociating with Protestants and imbibing their views. The most p.r.o.nounced and definite of his doctrines was that of the supremacy of the crown; and on his installation as Archbishop in March, he had qualified [Footnote: Moore (Aubrey), _Hist. of Reformation_, 109, finds a proof in this of "servility and dishonesty," which terms appear to be in his view equivalents of Erastianism.] his oath of allegiance to Rome accordingly.

Other ecclesiastics, from Becket to Gardiner, had been appointed to bishoprics under the impression that they were going to support the secular arm against the claims of their Order, and had falsified expectation. Cranmer maintained as Archbishop the theories of clerical subordination which he had adopted as a University Doctor. Convocation was called on to express an opinion on the marriage; and whether from conviction or despair, it supported the King by a majority. The Archbishop obtained the royal licence to convene a court. Katharine, refusing to appear, was declared contumacious; and the Court p.r.o.nounced her marriage void while confirming Anne's. The Pope rejoined by p.r.o.nouncing the judgment void. Henry retorted by confirming the Acts in Restraint of Annates and Appeals; and himself appealed against the Pope to a General Council. Until, in March of the next year, Clement himself definitely p.r.o.nounced judgment in favour of Katharine, there remained a shadow of a chance of a reconciliation tantamount to the submission of the Holy See; but the chance was not accepted. Practically the judgment of Cranmer's court marked the definite schism from Rome.

CHAPTER IX

HENRY VIII (v), 1533-40--MALLEUS MONACHORUM

[Sidenote: 1533 Ecclesiastical Parties]

WE have noted that a proportion of the higher clergy were at least not unwilling to be freed from the domination and the financial exactions of Rome; this att.i.tude being either the cause or the effect of the line they took as to the divorce. When, however, it was borne in upon them that the price of escaping the yoke of the Popedom was to be the subjection of the Church, in form to the lay monarch, and in fact to the State, the bulk of them endeavoured to protest against the newly imposed subordination. With the "Submission of the Clergy" and the appointment of Cranmer as Warham's successor, it became entirely clear that to protest or resist would be worse than useless. Accordingly we shall now find this section of the clerical body, including such prelates as Gardiner of Winchester, Stokesley of London, and Tunstal of Durham, devoting themselves to evading or rendering nugatory the directions of the Temporal power and its instrument Cranmer, under colour of obedience, while dissociating themselves from the more rigid of the Old Catholics such as Fisher of Rochester, More, the London Carthusians and others. On the other hand, the newer school, who were much more antagonistic to the papacy, such as Cranmer, Latimer and Barlow, found more personal favour with the King and with Cromwell, though their leanings towards the doctrinal tenets of Continental reformers were checked from time to time with sufficient rudeness.

[Sidenote: Pope or King?]

A very peculiar situation however soon resulted from the Royal rejection of the Papal supremacy. To hold the opinion that the Pope was head of the Church implied the recognition of a divided allegiance, casting a doubt on the holder's loyalty to the Secular Sovereign, and easily translated into treason; since the papal party were bound to maintain in theory the validity of the marriage with Katharine, and the rights of her daughter Mary. Henry never lacked a plausible theory to justify his most tyrannous actions. Modern historians however who carry their support of Henry to the extreme point ignore the two facts, that to hold an opinion which if acted on would lead to treason is not in itself treason; and that it was quite logical to maintain the supreme authority of the Pope in matters spiritual, without admitting his power to depose a recalcitrant monarch or to determine the line of succession--which was in fact the position adopted by Sir Thomas More.

[Sidenote: 1534 Confirmatory Acts]

The Spring session of Parliament in 1534 was devoted mainly to the pa.s.sing of Acts in confirmation and extension of what already been done. The Submission of the Clergy and the Restraint of Appeals were re-affirmed in one Act; but with the important difference that the whole of the Canon law was to be subjected to the Commission when appointed, [Footnote: See p. 128, _ante_]. till which time the clergy would be acting at their peril in enforcing any rules which might subsequently be condemned as against the Royal Prerogative. This was accompanied by an Act in confirmation of the Annates Act, coupled with the _conge d'elire_, a.s.suring to the King the right of nomination to ecclesiastical appointments under the form of permitting the Chapters to elect his nominee. A third, the "Peter Pence" Act, abolished the remaining contributions to the Papal Treasury. At the same time the "exempt" monasteries--those, that is, which had not been subject to the supervision of the bishops--were conveyed to the King's control, still without episcopal intervention. A fourth Act, not _prima facie_ ecclesiastical in character, was the Act of Succession, declaring the offspring of Anne Boleyn (the princess Elizabeth had been born in the previous September) heirs to the throne.

[Sidenote: The Pope's last word]

While these proceedings were in progress, the last attempt to subdue the Pope by diplomacy was failing. At the end of March, Clement gave the long deferred judgment on the divorce, p.r.o.nouncing the marriage with Katharine valid, and that with Anne Boleyn void. Clement survived but a short time.

His successor Paul III. had at one time been in Henry's favour; but reconciliation was now outside the range of practical politics, and the new Pope soon found himself more definitely antagonistic to the English monarch than his predecessor had been.

[Sidenote: The Nun of Kent]

The prevailing superst.i.tions of the day and their reality as factors even in public life are curiously ill.u.s.trated by the story of the "Nun of Kent"

--a story concluded by her execution about this time. The "Nun" was a young woman named Elizabeth Barton of humble birth, who was subject to fits or trances, presumably epileptic in character, in which trances she gave vent to utterances which were supposed to be inspired, being generally religious in their bearing. Having acquired some notoriety and a reputation for sanct.i.ty, her prophesyings before long took the form of denunciation of the divorce, at that time in its earlier stages. She was exploited by sundry fanatical persons honest or otherwise--in such cases it is seldom possible to fathom the extent to which mania, intentional deception, conscious or unconscious suggestion, and mere credulity, are mingled. In those days, there were few people who would venture to attribute such phenomena to purely natural causes. Such a man as Thomas More, who was eminently rational as well as deeply religious, was not easily beguiled; but the more credulous and equally honest bishop of Rochester was unable to regard the prophesyings as mere imposture, as was also the case with Warham; and being thus countenanced, when the Nun's utterances reached the point of denouncing the wrath of Heaven upon those who consented to the Divorce, she became really dangerous. She and her a.s.sociates were charged with treason and executed, while Fisher was necessarily to some degree implicated. Before her death the Nun made a confession of elaborate imposture, but too much weight should not be attached to confessions made under such conditions. Given a certain degree of mental aberration, the case is not without parallels pointing to an absence of conscious fraud.

But whether in her case it was fraud or mania, the important fact remains that there were numbers of people who attributed her utterances neither to the one nor the other but to inspiration; numbers more who were in doubt on the point; and that those utterances were to some extent utilised in a seditious propaganda; for to declare as a message from on high that the King and his advisers had brought upon themselves the curse of the Almighty must be recognised as effectively, even if not intentionally, preaching sedition.

[Sidenote 1: The Act of Succession]

[Sidenote 2: The oath refused]

The proceedings against Elizabeth Barton had been accompanied by revelations of more or less suspicious conduct on the part of the Countess of Salisbury and of Poles, [Footnote: The Countess of Salisbury's children. The de la Poles were now extinct. The Nevilles were the Countess's kinsfolk, her mother having been a daughter of the Kingmaker.

See _Front_.] Courtenays and Nevilles, while the Princess Mary declined to regard herself as illegitimate. This was made the pretext for adopting a very irregular course in connexion with the Act of Succession. The Act not only established the order of Succession to the throne, but in the preamble a.s.serted the invalidity of Katharine's marriage, it was accompanied by an authority to exact an oath of obedience to the Statute, the form of the oath not being laid down. Commissioners were appointed to exact the oath, which was drawn up in a form accepting the entire terms of the Act, not merely promising adhesion to its provisions. Presented to them in this form, both More and Fisher refused to take the oath. Both were prepared to swear to maintain the succession as laid down; neither would avow a belief that the marriage with Katharine was void _ab initio_. More laid down definitely the doctrine that it was in the power of the State to determine the succession, and the duty of the citizen to accept its decision; but that obviously does not involve an opinion that the reasons for its decision are sound. Cranmer would fain have persuaded the King to accept the oath thus modified as sufficient--not realising that the primary object of Henry and Cromwell was to drive the opponents of the divorce into a public recantation of their opinion. More and Fisher were resolute, and were sent to the Tower, though in form an indictment ought first to have been brought against them in the courts.

Cromwell expressed and no doubt felt a very genuine regret at the failure of the plan; but it was ever Cromwell's method to strike at the most influential opponents of his policy. If they would bend, well: if not, they must break. The device of the oath would force the surrender or else the destruction of the best members of the high Catholic party. Three of the most zealous and most irreproachable monastic establishments--the London Carthusians, the Richmond Observants, and the Brentford Brigittines--were inveigled or cowed into temporary submission, but later reverted to the position of More and Fisher, and suffered accordingly. The Greenwich Observants refused submission altogether, and were dissolved.

[Sidenote: "The Bishop of Rome"]

Before the administration of the oath, the news of Clement's decision had come from Rome, with a Bull of Excommunication to follow. It was well for Henry that Francis could be relied on to keep Charles in check; for the foreign amba.s.sadors, whether well-informed or mainly because the wish was father to the thought, were reporting serious disaffection in the country, which otherwise might have led to armed intervention by the Emperor. The answer to Rome however took the emphatic form of a declaration by Convocation and the Universities that "the Bishop of Rome has no more authority in England than any other foreign Bishop"; in addition to the Acts of Parliament already recorded.

[Sidenote 1: Parliament (Nov.)]

[Sidenote 2: Treasons Act]

Before the end of the year (1534) Parliament was again in session. The argument submitted to the Pope before the pa.s.sing of the Annates Act--that it pressed with undue severity on the bishops--was shown in its true character by a new Annates Act which appropriated to the King the funds of which the Pope had been deprived. The relief of the bishops was ignored. By the "Act of the Supreme Head," Parliament also professedly confirmed the declaration of Convocation in 1531; but omitted the saving [Footnote: See p. 125] clause; and by a fresh Act of Succession, regularised the treatment of More and Fisher, enforcing the oath in the form in which it had been submitted to them, retrospectively. Then came the Treasons Act, the coping stone of Resolute Government; bringing into the category of Treason not only the specific overt actions to which it had been limited by the Act of Edward III., but also "verbal treason" and even the refusal to answer incriminating questions. It is easy to see what vast opportunities were thus given for fastening a practically irrefutable charge of treason on any victim selected, when the recognised principle was that the _onus probandi_ lay with the accused. An irresistible instrument of tyranny was created, justified of course by the usual argument that without such powers it was not possible to deal adequately with the abnormal dangers of the situation. It need only be remarked that where there is practically no check on the abuse of such powers save the scrupulosity of the persons in whom they are vested, the risk of flagrant injustice becomes almost incalculable. Since the days of Edward III., no monarch had occupied the throne with less risk of serious treason than Henry VIII. Under all save Henry V. there had been active rebellion, and under him there was at least one serious plot. Yet the treason statute of Edward III. had under them been held sufficient. The new Act was in truth but one step in the systematic development of autocracy under const.i.tutional forms to which the policy of Thomas Cromwell was devoted.

[Sidenote 1: 1529-34 The New Policy]

[Sidenote 2: Cromwell]

When Wolsey fell in 1529 the Duke of Norfolk became ostensibly the King's most powerful subject. But it is impossible to trace to him or to his following among the n.o.bility the formulation of any sort of definite policy. Nevertheless, a quite definite policy had been initiated after a short lapse of time. Starting with the checking of palpable ecclesiastical abuses, it had gone on to a.s.sert with steadily increasing rigour the subjection of the entire clerical organisation to the Supreme Head, and to embody the a.s.sertion of the theory in practical legislation, and dictation to Convocation. It had threatened the papacy, till the threats issued virtually in an ultimatum followed by repudiation of papal authority. It had placed papal and ecclesiastical perquisites under gradual restrictions, till by the last Annates Act it began transferring them openly to the Crown. In many instances, the initiative had been ostensibly taken by Parliament; in others, the King had exercised direct pressure on the clergy, but had obtained from Parliament a ratification of the ecclesiastical concessions. The whole trend of the policy, culminating in the Treasons Act, was to concentrate effective control in the hands of the sovereign, by consent of Parliament. And now Cromwell emerges as the man who was to give that policy tremendous effect, and by inference at least as its probable creator and organiser from the close of 1530. It is not till 1535 however that he becomes openly and indisputably first minister; Wolsey's successor in Henry's confidence--and to Henry's grat.i.tude.

[Sidenote: 1535 More and Fisher]

Before the prorogation of Parliament in February (1535) the two recalcitrants in the Tower, More and Fisher, were attainted High Treason for maintaining their refusal to take the prescribed oath under the Act of Succession. It was perhaps in the hope that the King might hesitate to proceed to extremities, in the face of a very marked expression of sentiment, that the new Pope, Paul III., proceeded to nominate Fisher a Cardinal. It ought to have been obvious that the very contrary effect would have been produced: the step was naturally looked upon as a challenge. More and Fisher were condemned to death and executed in the summer--martyrs a.s.suredly to conscience. The whole of their offence consisted in the single fact that they could not and would not recant their belief in the validity of Katharine's marriage. Had they sought to make converts to that opinion, or to make it a text for preaching sedition, there might have been some colour of justice in their punishment. As it was, such danger as there might be in their holding that view lay entirely in the advertis.e.m.e.nt of it by insistence on the oath. All Europe shuddered, and half England trembled at the demonstration of ruthless power, when those two were struck down-- the aged bishop whose spotless character and saintly life had for many a year given the lie to those who included all the higher clergy in a universal condemnation; and the ex-chancellor, the friend of Erasmus, whose wide learning, kindly wit, intellectual eminence, and unswerving rect.i.tude had won for him a European reputation greater than that of any other Englishman of his time. The Carthusians, Brigittines, and Observants who had been induced to give way on the question of the Oath reverted to the position of More and Fisher. Their heads also were put to death, and the houses broken up.

The wrath of the Pope was expressed in a Bull of Deposition; which however on second thoughts he found it advisable to hold in suspense till three years later.

[Sidenote: Cromwell made Vicar-General]

When More and Fisher opposed themselves obstinately to the King's will, there was no doubt that the King would see to it that they paid the penalty. But we may suspect that it was not Henry's brain but Cromwell's which devised the policy of presenting them with the fatal dilemma. Before they were put to death, the minister's supremacy was already established by his appointment as Vicar-General, with full power to exercise on the King's behalf all the rights vested in the Supreme Head of the Church: rights which--however it might be a.s.serted that they were and had been at all times inherent in the sovereign--were now to be interpreted in a novel and comprehensive spirit. But besides the development alike in extent and intensity of the attack on the clerical organisation, we now find foreign policy taking a new direction for which Cromwell was a.s.suredly responsible.

[Sidenote 1: The German Lutherans]

[Sidenote 2: Overtures]

Hitherto, since the fall of Wolsey, the Emperor had been in steady antagonism to the English King: so had the Pope, except when he had hopes of the Imperial pressure on him being removed. France had on the whole given support to England, usually of a lukewarm character. But it does not appear that, until this time, Henry had learnt to look upon the German Lutherans as an available political force: while his active hostility to the Lutheran theology seemed to preclude anything in the nature of a _rapprochement_ with the Protestant princes. Yet the Lutherans, like Henry, had repudiated papal authority. Recently the French King had taken up the idea of bringing about a compromise between the Pope on one side, and the Lutherans and English on the other, which would place Charles in dangerous straits. The prospect however was unpromising at the best; a reconciliation with Rome was really impossible. Cromwell, then, conceived the idea of a Protestant league, which would suggest to Francis the advantage of following Henry's lead in throwing off the Roman allegiance, and ranging himself with the Lutherans and the English. Henry's own theological predilections stood in the way, and the Lutherans regarded him with suspicion: but Cromwell looked to political expediency as a potent salve for healing controversial differences. Thus in the late summer of 1535, the first advances were made in the direction of seeking a mutual understanding with the German Protestants--not without hints that Henry had an open mind on the subject of the Augsburg Confession. The Germans however were in no haste to accept Henry as a brand plucked from the burning; rather, they had a not unnatural suspicion that he merely wanted to make use of them. They propounded conditions, which Cromwell submitted to Gardiner, at this time amba.s.sador at Paris. Whatever Gardiner's views were as to papal ascendancy, he was no Lutheran; and he pointed out that to accept the terms would deprive England of her ecclesiastical independence. Thus the negotiations fell through--as might have been expected. Nevertheless, the desire for the Lutheran alliance remained at the back of Cromwell's policy; not avowed but latent; and it was in an attempt to entangle Henry irrevocably in that policy that he committed, not five years later, the blunder which cost him his head.

[Sidenote: Visitation of the Monasteries]

In the same Autumn--1535--Cromwell as Vicar-General opened his great campaign against the monasteries; actuated, according to the historians on one side, by a determination to remove a cancer which was destroying the morality of the nation; according to the historians on the other side, by the vast opportunities afforded for plunder.

[Sidenote: 1536 Suppression of Lesser Houses]