History of the Reformation in the Sixteenth Century Volume V Part 48

[855] Ibid. p. 365.

[856] More's life, p. 116.

[Sidenote: HE IS INTERROGATED BY MORE.]

After some interval the merchant was again brought before his judges.

"You are accused," said More, "of having bought Martin Luther's tracts; of maintaining those who are translating the Scriptures into English; of subscribing to get the New Testament printed in English, with or without glosses; of having imported it into the kingdom; and, lastly, of having said that faith alone is sufficient to save a man."[857]

[857] Strype's Mem. i. p. 490.

There was matter enough to burn several men. Monmouth, feeling convinced that Wolsey alone had power to deliver him, resolved to apply to him. "What will become of my poor workmen in London and in the country during my imprisonment?" he wrote to the cardinal. "They must have their money every week; who will give it them?... Besides, I make considerable sales in foreign countries, which bring large returns to his majesty's customs.[858] If I remain in prison, this commerce is stopped, and of course all the proceeds for the exchequer." Wolsey, who was as much a statesman as a churchman, began to melt; on the eve of a struggle with the pope and the emperor, he feared, besides, to make the people discontented. Monmouth was released from prison. As alderman, and then as sheriff of London, he was faithful until death, and ordered in his last will that thirty sermons should be preached by the most evangelical ministers in England, "to make known the holy word of Jesus Christ."--"That is better," he thought, "than founding ma.s.ses." The Reformation showed, in the sixteenth century, that great activity in commerce might be allied to great piety.

[858] Strype, Records, i. p. 367.

CHAPTER III.

Political Changes--Fresh Instructions from the Pope to Campeggio--His delays--He unbosoms himself to Francis--A Prediction--Arrival of Campeggio--Wolsey's Uneasiness--Henry's Satisfaction--The Cardinal's Project--Campeggio's Reception--First Interview with the Queen and with the King--Useless Efforts to make Campeggio part with the Decretal--The Nuncio's Conscience--Public Opinion--Measures taken by the King--His Speech to the Lords and Aldermen--Festivities--Wolsey seeks French Support--Contrariety.

[Sidenote: THE POPE CHANGES.]

While these persecutions were agitating the fields and the capital of England, all had changed in the ecclesiastical world, because all had changed in the political. The pope, pressed by Henry VIII and intimidated by the armies of Francis I, had granted the decretal and despatched Campeggio. But, on a sudden, there was a new evolution; a change of events brought a change of counsels. Doria had gone over to the emperor; his fleet had restored abundance to Naples; the army of Francis I, ravaged by famine and pestilence, had capitulated, and Charles V, triumphant in Italy, had said proudly to the pope: "We are determined to defend the queen of England against King Henry's injustice."[859]

[859] c.u.m Caesar materterae suae causam contra injurias Henrici propugnaverit. Sanders, p. 28.

Charles having recovered his superiority, the affrighted pope opened his eyes to the justice of Catherine's cause. "Send four messengers after Campeggio," said he to his officers; "and let each take a different road; bid them travel with all speed and deliver our despatches to him."[860] They overtook the legate, who opened the pope's letters. "In the first place," said Clement VII to him, "protract your journey. In the second place, when you reach England, use every endeavour to reconcile the king and queen. In the third place, if you do not succeed, persuade the queen to take the veil. And in the last place, if she refuses, do not p.r.o.nounce any sentence favourable to the divorce without a new and express order from me.

This is the essential: _Summum et maximum mandatum_." The amba.s.sador of the sovereign pontiff had a mission to do nothing. This instruction is sometimes as effective as any.

[860] Quatuor nuncios celerrimo cursu diversis itineribus ad Campegium misit. Ibid. et Herbert, p. 253.

Campeggio, the youngest of the cardinals, was the most intelligent and the slowest; and this slowness caused his selection by the pope.

He understood his master. If Wolsey was Henry's spur to urge on Campeggio, the latter was Clement's bridle to check Wolsey.[861] One of the judges of the divorce was about to pull forwards, the other backwards; thus the business stood a chance of not advancing at all, which was just what the pope required.

[861] Fuller, book v. p. 172.

The legate, very eager to relax his speed, spent three months on his journey from Italy to England. He should have embarked for France on the 23rd of July; but the end of August was approaching, and no one knew in that country what had become of him.[862] At length they learnt that he had reached Lyons on the 22nd of August. The English amba.s.sador in France sent him horses, carriages, plate, and money, in order to hasten his progress; the legate complained of the _gout_, and Gardiner found the greatest difficulty in getting him to move. Henry wrote every day to Anne Boleyn, complaining of the slow progress of the nuncio. "He arrived in Paris last Sunday or Monday," he says at the beginning of September; "Monday next we shall hear of his arrival in Calais, and then I shall obtain what I have so longed for, to G.o.d's pleasure and both our comforts."[863]

[862] State Papers, vii. p. 91, 92.

[863] Pamphleteer, No. 43, p. 117.

[Sidenote: ANNE'S LETTER TO WOLSEY.]

At the same time, this impatient prince sent message after message to accelerate the legate's rate of travelling.

Anne began to desire a future which surpa.s.sed all that her youthful imagination had conceived, and her agitated heart expanded to the breath of hope. She wrote to Wolsey:

"This shall be to give unto your grace, as I am most bound, my humble thanks for the great pain and travail that your grace doth take in studying, by your wisdom and great diligence, how to bring to pa.s.s honourably the greatest wealth [well-being] that is possible to come to any creature living; and in especial remembering how wretched and unworthy I am in comparison to his highness.... Now, good my lord, your discretion may consider as yet how little it is in my power to recompense you but alonely [only] with my good will; the which I a.s.sure you, look what thing in this world I can imagine to do you pleasure in, you shall find me the gladdest woman in the world to do it."[864]

[864] Ibid. p. 151.

[Sidenote: A CRUEL PROPHECY.]

But the impatience of the king of England and of Anne seemed as if it would never be satisfied. Campeggio, on his way through Paris, told Francis I that the divorce would never take place, and that he should soon go to _Spain_ to see Charles V.... This was significative. "The king of England ought to know," said the indignant Francis to the duke of Suffolk, "that Campeggio is _imperialist_ at heart, and that his mission in England will be a mere mockery."[865]

[865] The cardinal intended not that your Grace's matter should take effect, but only to use dissimulation with your Grace, for he is entirely imperial. Suffolk to Henry, State Papers, vii. p. 183.

In truth, the Spanish and Roman factions tried every manuvre to prevent a union they detested. Anne Boleyn, queen of England, signified not only Catherine humbled, but Charles offended; the clerical party awakened, perhaps destroyed, and the evangelical party put in its place. The Romish faction found accomplices even in Anne's own family. Her brother George's wife, a proud and pa.s.sionate woman, and a rigid Roman catholic, had sworn an implacable hatred against her young sister. By this means wounds might be inflicted, even in the domestic sanctuary, which would not be the less deep because they were the work of her own kindred. One day we are told that Anne found in her chamber a book of pretended prophecies, in which was a picture representing a king, a queen shedding tears, and at their feet a young lady headless. Anne turned away her eyes with disgust. She desired, however, to know what this emblem signified, and officious friends brought to her one of those pretended wise men, so numerous at all times, who abuse the credulity of the ignorant by professing to interpret such mysteries. "This prophetic picture," he said, "represents the history of the king and his wife." Anne was not credulous, but she understood what her enemies meant to insinuate, and dismissed the mock interpreter without betraying any signs of fear; then turning to her favourite attendant, Anne Saville, "Come hither, Nan," said she, "look at this book of prophecies; this is the king, this the queen wringing her hands and mourning, and this (putting her finger on the bleeding body) is _myself_, with my head cut off."--The young lady answered with a shudder: "If I thought it were true, I would not myself have him were he an emperor."--"Tut, Nan," replied Anne Boleyn with a sweet smile, "I think the book a bauble, and am resolved to have him, that my issue may be royal, whatever may become of me."[866] This story is based on good authority, and there were so many predictions of this kind afloat that it is very possible one of them might come true; people afterwards recollected only the prophecies confirmed by the events. But, be that as it may, this young lady, so severely chastised in after-days, found in her G.o.d an abundant consolation.

[866] Wyatt, p. 430.

[Sidenote: ARRIVAL OF CAMPEGGIO.]

At length Campeggio embarked at Calais on the 29th of September, and unfortunately for him he had an excellent pa.s.sage across the channel.

A storm to drive him back to the French coast would have suited him admirably. But on the 1st of October he was at Canterbury, whence he announced his arrival to the king. At this news, Henry forgot all the delays which had so irritated him. "His majesty can never be sufficiently grateful to your holiness for so great a favour," wrote Wolsey to the pope; "but he will employ his riches, his kingdom, his life even, and deserve the name of _Restorer of the Church_ as justly as he has gained that of _Defender of the Faith_." This zeal alarmed Campeggio, for the pope wrote to him that any proceeding which might irritate Charles would inevitably cause the ruin of the church.[867]

The nuncio became more dilatory than ever, and although he reached Canterbury on the 1st of October, he did not arrive at Dartford until the 5th, thus taking four days for a journey of about thirty miles.[868]

[867] Sanga to Campeggio, from Viterbo, 27th September. Ranke, Deutsche Gesch. iii, p. 135.

[868] State Papers, vii. p. 94, 95.

Meanwhile preparations were making to receive him in London. Wolsey, feeling contempt for the poverty of the Roman cardinals, and very uneasy about the equipage with which his colleague was likely to make his entrance into the capital, sent a number of showy chests, rich carpets, litters hung with drapery, and harnessed mules. On the other hand Campeggio, whose secret mission was to keep in the back-ground, and above all to do nothing, feared these banners, and trappings, and all the parade of a triumphal entry. Alleging therefore an attack of gout in order to escape from the pomps his colleague had prepared for him, he quietly took a boat, and thus reached the palace of the bishop of Bath, where he was to lodge.

While the nuncio was thus proceeding unnoticed up the Thames, the equipages sent by Wolsey entered London through the midst of a gaping crowd, who looked on them with curiosity as if they had come from the banks of the Tiber. Some of the mules however took fright and ran away, the coffers fell off and burst open, when there was a general rush to see their contents; but to the surprise of all they were empty. This was an excellent jest for the citizens of London. "Fine outside, empty inside; a just emblem of the popedom, its emba.s.sy, and foolish pomps," they said; "a sham legate, a procession of masks, and the whole a farce!"

[Sidenote: ANNE'S INDECISION TERMINATED.]

Campeggio was come at last, and now what he dreaded most was an audience. "I cannot move," he said, "or endure the motion of a litter."[869] Never had an attack of gout been more seasonable.

Wolsey, who paid him frequent visits, soon found him to be his equal in cunning. To no purpose did he treat him with every mark of respect, shaking his hand and making much of him;[870] it was labour lost, the Roman nuncio would say nothing, and Wolsey began to despair. The king, on the contrary, was full of hope, and fancied he already had the act of divorce in his portfolio, because he had the nuncio in his kingdom.

[869] Despatch from the bishop of Bayonne, 16th October, 1529. Le Grand, Preuves, p. 169.

[870] Quem saepius visitavi et amantissime sum complexus. (State Papers, vii, p. 103.) Whom often I have visited, and most lovingly embraced.

The greatest effect of the nuncio's arrival was the putting an end to Anne Boleyn's indecision. She had several relapses: the trials which she foresaw, and the grief Catherine must necessarily feel, had agitated her imagination and disturbed her mind. But when she saw the church and her own enemies prepared to p.r.o.nounce the king's divorce, her doubts were removed, and she regarded as legitimate the position that was offered her. The king, who suffered from her scruples, was delighted at this change. "I desire to inform you," he wrote to her in English, "what joy it is to me to understand of your conformableness with reason, and of the suppressing of your inutile and vain thoughts and fantasies with the bridle of reason. I a.s.sure you all the greatness of this world could not counterpoise for my satisfaction the knowledge and certainty thereof.... The unfeigned sickness of this well-willing legate doth somewhat r.e.t.a.r.d his access to your person."[871] It was therefore the determination of the pope that made Anne Boleyn resolve to accept Henry's hand; this is an important lesson for which we are indebted to the _Vatican letters_. We should be grateful to the papacy for having so carefully preserved them.

[871] Pamphleteer, No. 43. p. 123.

[Sidenote: CAMPEGGIO'S INTERVIEW WITH THE QUEEN.]

But the more Henry rejoiced, the more Wolsey despaired; he would have desired to penetrate into Clement's thoughts, but could not succeed.

Imagining that De Angelis, the general of the Spanish Observance, knew all the secrets of the pope and of the emperor, he conceived the plan of kidnapping him. "If he goes to Spain by sea," said he to Du Bellay, "a good brigantine or two would do the business; and if by land, it will be easier still." Du Bellay failed not (as he informs us himself) "to tell him plainly that by such proceedings he would entirely forfeit the pope's good will."--"What matter?" replied Wolsey, "I have nothing to lose." As he said this, tears started to his eyes.[872] At last he made up his mind to remain ignorant of the pontiff's designs, and wiped his eyes, awaiting, not without fear, the interview between Henry and Campeggio.

[872] Du Bellay to Montmorency, 21st October. Le Grand, Preuves, p.

185.