History of the Reformation in the Sixteenth Century Volume V Part 14

Among Mary's attendents was the youthful Anne Boleyn. Her father, Sir Thomas Boleyn, had been charged by Henry, conjointly with the bishop of Ely, with the diplomatic negotiations preliminary to this marriage.

Anne had pa.s.sed her childhood at Hever Castle, surrounded by all that could heat the imagination. Her maternal grandfather, the earl of Surrey, whose eldest son had married the sister of Henry the Seventh's queen, had filled, as did his sons also, the most important offices of state. At the age probably of fourteen, when summoned by her father to court, she wrote him the following letter in French, which appears to refer to her departure for France:--

"SIR,--I find by your letter that you wish me to appear at court in a manner becoming a respectable female, and likewise that the queen will condescend to enter into conversation with me; at this I rejoice, as I do to think, that conversing with so sensible and elegant a princess will make me even more desirous of continuing to speak and to write good French; the more as it is by your earnest advice, which (I acquaint you by this present writing) I shall follow to the best of my ability.... As to myself, rest a.s.sured that I shall not ungratefully look upon this fatherly office as one that might be dispensed with; nor will it tend to diminish my affection, quest [wish], and deliberation to lead as holy a life as you may please to desire of me; indeed my love for you is founded on so firm a basis that it can never be impaired. I put an end to this my lucubration after having very humbly craved your good will and affection. Written at Hever, by

"Your very humble and obedient daughter, ANNA DE BOULLAN."[243]

[243] The French original is preserved among Archbishop Parker's MSS.

at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge. The translation in the text is (with a slight variation) from Sir H. Ellis's Collection of royal and other letters. vol. ii. second series.

[Sidenote: MARY MARRIES BRANDON.]

Such were the feelings under which this young and interesting lady, so calumniated by papistical writers, appeared at court.

The marriage was celebrated at Abbeville on the 9th of October 1514, and after a sumptuous banquet, the king of France distributed his royal largesses among the English lords, who were charmed by his courtesy. But the morrow was a day of trial to the young queen. Louis XII had dismissed the numerous train which had accompanied her, and even Lady Guildford, to whom Henry had specially confided her. Three only were left,--of whom the youthful Anne Boleyn was one. At this separation, Mary gave way to the keenest sorrow. To cheer her spirits, Louis proclaimed a grand tournament. Brandon hastened to France at its first announcement, and carried off all the prizes; while the king, languidly reclining on a couch, could with difficulty look upon the brilliant spectacle over which his queen presided, sick at heart yet radiant with youth and beauty. Mary was unable to conceal her emotion, and Louisa of Savoy, who was watching her, divined her secret. But Louis, if he experienced the tortures of jealousy, did not feel them long, for his death took place on the 1st January 1515.

Even before her husband's funeral was over, Mary's heart beat high with hope. Francis I, impatient to see her wedded to some unimportant political personage, encouraged her love for Brandon. The latter, who had been commissioned by Henry to convey to her his letters of condolence, feared his master's anger if he should dare aspire to the hand of the princess. But the widowed queen, who was resolved to brave every thing, told her lover: "Either you marry me in four days or you see me no more." The choice the king had made of his amba.s.sador announced that he would not behave very harshly. The marriage was celebrated in the abbey of Clugny, and Henry pardoned them.

[Sidenote: OXFORD.]

While Mary returned to England, as Wolsey had predicted, Anne Boleyn remained in France. Her father, desiring his daughter to become an accomplished woman, intrusted her to the care of the virtuous Claude of France, _the good queen_, at whose court the daughters of the first families of the kingdom were trained. Margaret, d.u.c.h.ess of Alencon, the sister of Francis, and afterwards queen of Navarre, often charmed the queen's circle by her lively conversation. She soon became deeply attached to the young Englishwoman, and on the death of Claude took her into her own family. Anne Boleyn was destined at no very remote period to be at the court of London a reflection of the graceful Margaret, and her relations with that princess were not without influence on the English Reformation.

And indeed the literary movement which had pa.s.sed from Italy into France appeared at that time as if it would cross from France into Britain. Oxford exercises over England as great an influence as the metropolis; and it is almost always within its walls that a movement commences whether for good or evil. At this period of our history, an enthusiastic youth hailed with joy the first beams of the new sun, and attacked with their sarcasms the idleness of the monks, the immorality of the clergy, and the superst.i.tion of the people. Disgusted with the priestcraft of the middle ages, and captivated by the writers of antiquity and the purity of the Gospel, Oxford boldly called for a reform which should burst the bonds of clerical domination and emanc.i.p.ate the human mind. Men of letters thought for a while that they had found the most powerful man in England in Wolsey, the ally that would give them the victory.

He possessed little taste for learning, but seeing the wind of public favour blow in that direction, he readily spread his sails before it.

He got the reputation of a profound divine, by quoting a few words of Thomas Aquinas, and the fame of a Maecenas and Ptolemy, by inviting the learned to his gorgeous entertainments. "O happy cardinal," exclaimed Erasmus, "who can surround his table with such torches!"[244]

[244] Cujus mensa talibus luminibus cingitur. Erasm. Ep. 725.

At that time the king felt the same ambition as his minister, and having tasted in turn the pleasures of war and diplomacy, he now bent his mind to literature. He desired Wolsey to present Sir Thomas More to him.--"What shall I do at court?" replied the latter. "I shall be as awkward as a man that never rode sitteth in a saddle." Happy in his family circle, where his father, mother, and children, gathering round the same table, formed a pleasing group, which the pencil of Holbein has transmitted to us, More had no desire to leave it. But Henry was not a man to put up with a refusal; he employed force almost to draw More from his retirement, and in a short time he could not live without the society of the man of letters. On calm and starlight nights they would walk together upon the leads at the top of the palace, discoursing on the motions of the heavenly bodies. If More did not appear at court, Henry would go to Chelsea and share the frugal dinner of the family with some of their simple neighbours. "Where,"

asked Erasmus, "where is the Athens, the Porch, or the Academe, that can be compared with the court of England?... It is a seat of the muses rather than a palace.... The golden age is reviving, and I congratulate the world."

[Sidenote: THE MONASTERIES a.s.sAILED.]

But the friends of cla.s.sical learning were not content with the cardinal's banquets or the king's favours. They wanted victories, and their keenest darts were aimed at the cloisters, those strong fortresses of the hierarchy and of uncleanness.[245] The abbot of Saint Albans, having taken a married woman for his concubine, and placed her at the head of a nunnery, his monks had followed his example, and indulged in the most scandalous debauchery. Public indignation was so far aroused, that Wolsey himself--Wolsey, the father of several illegitimate children, and who was suffering the penalty of his irregularities[246]--was carried away by the spirit of the age, and demanded of the pope a general reform of manners. When they heard of this request, the priests and friars were loud in their outcries. "What are you about?" said they to Wolsey. "You are giving the victory to the enemies of the church, and your only reward will be the hatred of the whole world." As this was not the cardinal's game, he abandoned his project, and conceived one more easily executed.

Wis.h.i.+ng to deserve the name of "Ptolemy" conferred on him by Erasmus, he undertook to build two large colleges, one at Ipswich, his native town, the other at Oxford; and found it convenient to take the money necessary for their endowment, not from his own purse, but from the purses of the monks. He pointed out to the pope twenty-two monasteries in which (he said) vice and impiety had taken up their abode.[247] The pope granted their secularization, and Wolsey having thus procured a revenue of 2000 sterling, laid the foundations of his college, traced out various courts, and constructed s.p.a.cious kitchens. He fell into disgrace before he had completed his work, which led Gualter to say with a sneer: "He began a college and built a cook's shop."[248] But a great example had been set: the monasteries had been attacked, and the first breach made in them by a cardinal. Cromwell, Wolsey's secretary, remarked how his master had set about his work, and in after-years profited by the lesson.

[245] Loca sacra etiam ipsa Dei templa monialium stupro et sanguinis et seminis effusione profanare non verentur. Papal bull. Wilkins, Concilia, p. 632.

[246] Morbus venereus. Burnet.

[247] Wherein much vice and wickedness was harboured. Strype, i. 169.

The names of the monasteries are given. Ibid. ii. 132.

[248] Inst.i.tuit collegium et absolvit popinam. Fuller, cent. xvi. p.

169.

[Sidenote: COLET PREACHES THE REFORMATION.]

It was fortunate for letters that they had sincerer friends in London than Wolsey. Of these were Colet, dean of St. Paul's, whose house was the centre of the literary movement which preceded the Reformation, and his friend and guest Erasmus. The latter was the hardy pioneer who opened the road of antiquity to modern Europe. One day he would entertain Colet's guests with the account of a new ma.n.u.script; on another, with a discussion on the forms of ancient literature; and at other times he would attack the schoolmen and monks, when Colet would take the same side. The only antagonist who dared measure his strength with him was Sir Thomas More, who, although a layman, stoutly defended the ordinances of the church.

But mere table-talk could not satisfy the dean: a numerous audience attended his sermons at St. Paul's. The spirituality of Christ's words, the authority which characterizes them, their admirable simplicity and mysterious depth, had deeply charmed him: "I admire the writings of the apostles," he would say, "but I forget them almost, when I contemplate the wonderful majesty of Jesus Christ."[249]

Setting aside the tests prescribed by the church, he explained, like Zwingle, the Gospel of St. Matthew. Nor did he stop here. Taking advantage of the Convocation, he delivered a sermon on _conformation_ and _reformation_, which was one of the numerous forerunners of the great reform of the sixteenth century. "We see strange and heretical ideas appear in our days, and no wonder," said he. "But you must know there is no heresy more dangerous to the church than the vicious lives of its priests. A reformation is needed; and that reformation must begin with the bishops and be extended to the priests. The clergy once reformed, we shall proceed to the reformation of the people."[250]

Thus spoke Colet, while the citizens of London listened to him with rapture, and called him a new Saint Paul.[251]

[249] Ita suspiciebat admirabilem illam Christi majestatem. Erasm.

Epp. 707.

[250] Colet, Sermon to the Convocation.

[251] Pene apostolus Paulus habitus est. (Polyd. Virg. p. 618.) He was accounted almost an apostle Paul.

Such discourses could not be allowed to pa.s.s unpunished. Fitzjames, bishop of London, was a superst.i.tious obstinate old man of eighty, fond of money, excessively irritable, a poor theologian, and a slave to Duns Scotus, the _subtle doctor_. Calling to his aid two other bishops as zealous as himself for the preservation of abuses, namely, Bricot and Standish, he denounced the dean of St. Paul's to Warham.

The archbishop having inquired what he had done: "What has he done?"

rejoined the bishop of London. "He teaches that we must not wors.h.i.+p images; he translates the Lord's Prayer into English; he pretends that the text _Feed my sheep_, does not include the temporal supplies the clergy draw from their flock. And besides all this," he continued with some embarra.s.sment, "he has spoken against those who carry their ma.n.u.scripts into the pulpit and read their sermons!" As this was the bishop's practice, the primate could not refrain from smiling; and since Colet refused to justify himself, Warham did so for him.

[Sidenote: GREEKS AND TROJANS.]

From that time Colet laboured with fresh zeal to scatter the darkness.

He devoted the larger portion of his fortune to found the celebrated school of St. Paul, of which the learned Lilly was the first master.

Two parties, the _Greeks_ and the _Trojans_, entered the lists, not to contend with sword and spear, as in the ancient epic, but with the tongue, the pen, and sometimes the fist. If the _Trojans_ (the obscurants) were defeated in the public disputations, they had their revenge in the secret of the confessional. _Cave a Graecis ne fias hereticus_,[252] was the watchword of the priests--their daily lesson to the youths under their care. They looked on the school founded by Colet as the monstrous horse of the perjured Sinon, and announced that from its bosom would inevitably issue the destruction of the people.

Colet and Erasmus replied to the monks by inflicting fresh blows.

Linacre, a thorough literary enthusiast,--Grocyn, a man of sarcastic humour but generous heart,--and many others, reinforced the _Grecian_ phalanx. Henry himself used to take one of them with him during his journeys, and if any unlucky _Trojan_ ventured in his presence to attack the tongue of Plato and of Saint Paul, the young king would set his h.e.l.lenian on him. Not more numerous were the contests witnessed in times of yore on the cla.s.sic banks of Xanthus and Simois.

[252] Beware of the Greeks, lest you should become a heretic.

CHAPTER XII.

Wolsey--His first Commission--His complaisance and Dioceses--Cardinal, Chancellor, and Legate--Ostentation and Necromancy--His Spies and Enmity--Pretensions of the Clergy.

[Sidenote: WOLSEY.]

Just as everything seemed tending to a reformation, a powerful priest rendered the way more difficult.

One of the most striking personages of the age was then making his appearance on the stage of the world. It was the destiny of that man, in the reign of Henry VIII, to combine extreme ability with extreme immorality; and to be a new and striking example of the wholesome truth that immorality is more effectual to destroy a man than ability to save him. Wolsey was the last high-priest of Rome in England, and when his fall startled the nation, it was the signal of a still more striking fall--the fall of popery.

Thomas Wolsey, the son of a wealthy butcher of Ipswich, according to the common story, which is sanctioned by high authority, had attained under Henry VII the post of almoner, at the recommendation of Sir Richard Nanfan, treasurer of Calais and an old patron of his. But Wolsey was not at all desirous of pa.s.sing his life in saying ma.s.s. As soon as he had discharged the regular duties of his office, instead of spending the rest of the day in idleness, as his colleagues did, he strove to win the good graces of the persons round the king.

Fox, Bishop of Winchester, keeper of the privy-seal under Henry VII, uneasy at the growing power of the earl of Surrey, looked about for a man to counterbalance them. He thought he had found such a one in Wolsey. It was to oppose the Surreys, the grandfather and uncles of Anne Boleyn, that the son of the Ipswich butcher was drawn from his obscurity. This is not an unimportant circ.u.mstance in our narrative.

Fox began to praise Wolsey in the king's hearing, and at the same time he encouraged the almoner to give himself to public affairs. The latter was not deaf,[253] and soon found an opportunity of winning his sovereign's favour.

[253] Haec Wolseius non surdis audierit auribus. (Polyd. Virg. 622.) Wolsey heard these words, not with deaf ears.

[Sidenote: HIS FIRST SERVICES UNDER HENRY VII.]

The king having business of importance with the emperor, who was then in Flanders, sent for Wolsey, explained his wishes, and ordered him to prepare to set out. The chaplain determined to show Henry VII how capable he was of serving him. It was long past noon when he took leave of the king at Richmond--at four o'clock he was in London, at seven at Gravesend. By travelling all night he reached Dover just as the packet-boat was about to sail. After a pa.s.sage of three hours he reached Calais, whence he travelled post, and the same evening appeared before Maximilian. Having obtained what he desired, he set off again by night, and on the next day but one reached Richmond, three days and some few hours after his departure. The king, catching sight of him just as he was going to ma.s.s, sharply inquired, why he had not set out. "Sire, I am just returned," answered Wolsey, placing the emperor's letters in his master's hands. Henry was delighted, and Wolsey saw that his fortune was made.