History of England from the fall of Wolsey to the death of Elizabeth Volume III Part 29

CHAPTER XVII.

ANNE OF CLEVES, AND THE FALL OF CROMWELL.

[Sidenote: Increasing impatience of the country for the king's marriage.]

The king's marriage could not be longer delayed. Almost three years had been wasted in fruitless negotiations, and the state of his health threatened, more and more clearly, that his life would not be prolonged to any advanced period. The death of the Duke of Richmond[511] was a fresh evidence of the absence of vital stamina in Henry's male children; and the anxious and impatient people saw as yet but a single fragile life between the country and a disputed succession. The disloyal Romanists alone desired to throw obstacles between the king and a fresh connexion--alone calumniated his motives, and looked forward hopefully to the possible and probable confusion.

[Sidenote: The recommendation of Anne of Cleaves.]

Among the ladies who had been considered suitable to take the place of Queen Jane, the name had been mentioned, with no especial commendation, of Anne, daughter of the Duke of Cleves, and sister-in-law of the Elector of Saxony. She had been set aside in favour of the d.u.c.h.ess of Milan; but, all hopes in this quarter having been abruptly and ungraciously terminated, Cromwell once more turned his eyes towards a connexion which, more than any other, would make the Emperor repent of his discourtesy--and would further at the same time the great object which the condition of Europe now, more than ever, showed him to be necessary--a league of all nations of the Teutonic race in defence of the Reformation. A marriage between the king and a German Protestant princess would put a final end to Anglo-Imperial trifling; and, committing England to a definite policy abroad, it would neutralize at home the efforts of the framers of the Six Articles, and compel the king, whether he desired it or not, to return to a toleration of Lutheran opinions and Lutheran practices.

[Sidenote: The opportunity favourable to a Protestant connexion.]

[Sidenote: Prorogation of parliament.]

[Sidenote: Supposed pre-contract between Anne of Cleves and a Count of Lorraine.]

[Sidenote: Her appearance and accomplishments.]

[Sidenote: Cromwell neglects a warning.]

[Sidenote: Her portrait taken by Holbein.]

[Sidenote: Barnes goes as commissioner into Germany.]

[Sidenote: The persecution in England ceases.]

The opportunity of urging such an alliance on Henry was more than favourable. He had been deceived, insulted, and menaced by the Emperor; his articles of union had been converted by the bishops into articles of a vindictive persecution; and the Anglicans, in their indiscreet animosity, had betrayed their true tendencies, and had shown how little, in a life-and-death struggle with the Papacy, he could depend upon their lukewarm zeal for independence. Affecting only to persecute heterodoxy, they had extended their vengeance to every advocate for freedom, to every enemy of ecclesiastical exemptions and profitable superst.i.tions; and the king, disappointed and exasperated, was in a humour, while s.n.a.t.c.hing their victims from their grasp, to consent to a step which would undo their victory in parliament. The occasion was not allowed to cool. Parliament was prorogued on the 11th of May, with an intimation from the crown that the religious question was not to be regarded as finally settled.[512] The treaty with Cleves was so far advanced on the 17th of July that Lord Hertford[513] was able to congratulate Cromwell on the consent of Anne's brother and mother.[514] The lady had been previously intended for a son of a Duke of Lorraine; and Henry, whom experience had made anxious, was alarmed at the name of a "pre-contract." But Dr. Wotton, who was sent over to arrange the preliminaries, and was instructed to see the difficulty cleared, was informed and believed that the engagement had never advanced to a form which brought with it legal obligations, and that Anne was at liberty to marry wherever she pleased.[515] Of her personal attractions Wotton reported vaguely. He said that she had been well brought up; but ladies of rank in Germany were not usually taught accomplishments. She could speak no language except her own, nor could she play on any instrument.

He supposed, however, that she would be able to learn English in no long time; and he comforted the king by a.s.suring him that at least she had no taste for "the heavy-headed revels" of her countrymen.[516] Wotton could not be accused of having lent himself to a deception as to the lady's recommendations. It would have been well for Cromwell if he too had been equally scrupulous. He had been warned beforehand of an unattractiveness, so great as to have overcome the spontaneous belief in the beauty of royal ladies;[517] but, intent upon the success of his policy, he disregarded information which his conduct proves him to have partially believed. Holbein was despatched to take the princess's picture; and Holbein's inimitable skill would not have failed so wholly in conveying a true impression of the original if he had not received an intimation that an agreeable portrait was expected of him; while, as soon as it was brought into England, Cromwell's agents praised to the king "her features, beauty, and princely proportions," and a.s.sured him that the resemblance was perfect.[518] The German commission was as expeditious as the Spanish had been dilatory. To allay any uneasiness which might remain with respect to the Six Articles, and to furnish a convincing evidence of the toleration which was practised, Dr. Barnes was sent over as one of the English representatives; and he carried with him the comforting a.s.surance that the persecution had been terminated, and that the Gospel had free way. His a.s.sertions were afterwards confirmed by unsuspicious and independent evidence. "There is no persecution," wrote a Protestant in London, a few months later, to Bullinger. "The Word is powerfully preached. Books of every kind may safely be exposed to sale."[519] "Good pastors," wrote another, "are freely preaching the truth, nor has any notice been taken of them on account of the articles."[520] Even the Elector of Saxony, jealous and distrustful as he had ever been of Henry, was so far satisfied as to write to him that he understood "the sharpness of the decree of the Six Articles to be modified by the wisdom and moderation of his Highness, and the execution of it not put in use."[521]

[Sidenote: Cromwell's dangerous game.]

[Sidenote: His att.i.tude towards the peers,]

All promised well; but it is not to be supposed that Cromwell was allowed without resistance to paralyse a measure which had been carried by an almost unanimous parliament. More than half the Privy Council, the Dukes of Norfolk and Suffolk, the Bishops of Winchester, Durham, and Chichester, were openly and violently opposed to him. The House of Lords and the country gentlemen, baffled, as it seemed to them, by his treachery (for he had professed to go along with their statute while it was under discussion), maintained an att.i.tude of sullen menace or open resistance. If the laws against the heretics might not be put in force, they would lend no help to execute the laws against the Romanists.[522]

They despised Cromwell's injunctions, though supported by orders from the crown. They would not acknowledge so much as the receipt of his letters. He was playing a critical and most dangerous game, in which he must triumph or be annihilated. The king warned him repeatedly to be cautious;[523] but the terms on which he had placed himself with the n.o.bility had perhaps pa.s.sed the point where caution could have been of use. He answered haughtiness by haughtiness: and he left his fate to the chances of fortune, careless what it might be, if only he could accomplish his work while life and power remained to him. One ill.u.s.tration of his relation with the temporal peers shall be given in this place, conveying, as it does, other allusions also, the drift of which is painfully intelligible. The following letter is written in Cromwell's own hand. The address is lost, but the rank of the person or persons to whom it was sent is apparent from the contents:--

[Sidenote: Who, to his Majesty's marvel, persist in maintaining the Papistical sect.]

"After my right hearty commendations, the King's Highness, being informed that there be two priests in your town, called Sir William Winstanley, which is now in ward, the other called Sir William Richardson, otherwise Good Sir William, hath commanded me to signify to you that, upon the receipt hereof, you shall send both the said priests. .h.i.ther as prisoners in a.s.sured custody. His Grace cannot a little marvel to hear of the Papistical faction that is maintained in that town, and by you chiefly that are of his Grace's council. Surely his Majesty thinketh that you have little respect either to him, or to his laws, or to the good order of that town, which so little regard him in a matter of so great weight, which, also, his Highness hath so much to heart; and willed me plainly to say to you all and every of you, that in case he shall perceive from henceforth any such abuses suffered or winked at as have been hitherto, in manner in contempt of his most royal estate, his Highness will put others in the best of your rooms that so offend him, by whom he will be better served. It is thought against all reason that the prayers of women, and their fond flickerings, should move any of you to do that thing that should in anywise displease your prince and sovereign lord, or offend his just laws. And, if you shall think any extremity in this writing, you must thank yourselves that have procured it; for neither of yourselves have you regarded these matters, nor answered to many of my letters, written for like purposes and upon like occasions: wherein, though I have not made any accusation, yet, being in the place for these things that I am, I have thought you did me therein too much injury, and such as I am a.s.sured his Highness, knowing it, would not have taken it in good part. But this matter needeth no aggravation, ne I have done anything in it more than hath been by his Majesty thought meet, percase not so much; and thus heartily fare you well.

"Your Lords.h.i.+p's a.s.sured "THOMAS CROMWELL."[524]

[Sidenote: A breach begins to open between the king and the minister.]

[Sidenote: Increasing expenses of the government.]

[Sidenote: Cromwell prepares for his fall.]

[Sidenote: His personal expenditure large, and the sources of his income exceptionable.]

Between the minister and the king the points of difference were large and increasing. The conduct which had earned for Cromwell the hatred or the immense majority of the people, could not but at times have been regarded disapprovingly by a person who shared so deeply as Henry in the English conservative spirit; while Cromwell, again, was lavish in his expenditure; and the outlay upon the fleet and the Irish army, the cost of suppression of the insurrection, and of the defences of the coast, at once vast and unusual, were not the less irritating because they could not be denied to be necessary. A spirit of economy in the reaction from his youthful extravagance, was growing over Henry with his advancing years; he could not reconcile himself to a profusion to which, even with the addition of the Church lands, his resources were altogether unequal, without trespa.s.sing on his subjects' purses; and the conservative faction in the council took advantage of his ill humour to whisper that the fault was in the carelessness, the waste, and the corruption of the privy seal. Cromwell knew it well.[525] Two years previously he had received full warning that they were on the watch to take advantage of any momentary displeasure against him in the king.

They were not likely to have been conciliated subsequently by the deaths of the Marquis of Exeter and Lord Montague, for which he personally was held responsible; and he prepared for the fate which he foresaw, in making settlements on his servants, that they might not suffer by his attainder.[526] The n.o.ble lords possessed, undoubtedly, one serious advantage against him. His own expenses were as profuse as the expenses of the state under his management. His agents were spread over Europe.

He bought his information anywhere, and at any cost; and secret-service money for such purposes he must have provided, like his successor in the same policy, Sir Francis Walsingham, from his own resources. As a self-raised statesman, he had inherited nothing. His position as a n.o.bleman was to be maintained; and it was maintained so liberally, that two hundred poor were every day supplied with food at his gate. The salaries of his offices and the rents of such estates as the king had given to him were inadequate for such irregular necessities. In Cromwell, the questionable practice of most great men of his time--the practice of receiving pensions and presents for general support and patronage--was carried to an extent which even then, perhaps, appeared excessive. It is evident, from his whole correspondence, that he received as profusely as he spent. We trace in him no such ambitious splendour as he had seen in Wolsey. He was contented with the moderate maintenance of a n.o.bleman's establishment. But power was essential to him; and a power like that which Cromwell wielded required resources which he obtained only by exposing his reputation while alive, and his good name in history, to not unmerited blame.

[Sidenote: An attempt to destroy Gardiner.]

[Sidenote: Gardiner escapes;]

[Sidenote: But, with the Bishop of Chichester, is dismissed from the Privy Council.]

[Sidenote: Cromwell's position is not benefited, however.]

Weighted as he was with faults, which his high purposes but partially excuse, he fought his battle bravely--alone--against the world. The German marriage did not pa.s.s without a struggle at the council board.

Cromwell had long recognised his strongest and most dangerous enemy in the person of Stephen Gardiner. So much he dreaded the subtle bishop, that he had made an effort once to entangle him under the Supremacy Act;[527] but Gardiner had glided under the shadow of the act, and had escaped its grasp. Smooth, treacherous, and plausible, he had held his way along the outer edge of the permitted course, never committing himself, commanding the sympathy of English conservatism, the patron of those suspected of Romanism on one side, as Cromwell was the patron of heretics; but self-possessed and clear-headed, watching the times, knowing that the reaction must have its day at last, and only careful to avoid the precipitancy, in future, into which he had blundered after the Six Articles Bill. His rival's counter-move had checked him, but he waited his opportunity; and when Barnes was sent as commissioner into Germany, Gardiner challenged openly before the council the appointment, for such a purpose, of a man who was "defamed of heresy." He was supported, apparently, by the Bishop of Chichester, or the latter ventured to thwart the privy seal in some other manner. Cromwell for the moment was strong enough to bear his opponents down. They were both dismissed from the Privy Council.[528] But this arbitrary act was treated as a breach of the tacit compact by which the opposing parties endured each other's presence. If the Bishop of Durham's chaplain spoke the truth, an attempt was made, in which even Lord Southampton bore a share, to bring Tunstall forward in Gardiner's place.[529] And though this scheme failed, through the caution of the princ.i.p.al persons interested, the grievances remained, embittered by a forced submission: a fresh debt had been contracted, bearing interest till it was paid.

[Sidenote: Protestant imprudence.]

[Sidenote: Persecution of a Catholic preacher in London,]

As great, or a greater, danger embarra.s.sed Cromwell from the folly of his friends. So long as the tide was in their favour, the Protestants indulged in insolent excesses, which provoked, and almost justified the anger with which they were regarded. Hitherto they had held a monopoly of popular preaching. Tradition and authority had been with the Catholics: the rhetoric had been mainly with their adversaries. In the summer the interest of London was suddenly excited on the other side by a Catholic orator of extraordinary powers, a Dr. Watts, unknown before or after this particular crisis, but for the moment a princ.i.p.al figure on the stage. Watts attracted vast audiences; and the Protestants could not endure a rival, and were as little able as their opponents to content themselves with refuting him by argument. He was summoned, on a charge of false doctrine, before the Archbishop of Canterbury; and even moderate persons were scandalized when they saw Barnes sitting by the side of Cranmer as a.s.sessor in a cause of heresy.[530] It appeared, and perhaps it was designed, as an insult--as a deliberately calculated outrage. Ten thousand London citizens proposed to walk in procession to Lambeth, to require the restoration of their teacher; and, although the open demonstration was prevented by the City officers, an alderman took charge of their pet.i.tion, and offered, unless the preacher's offence was high treason, to put in bail for him in the name of the corporation.[531]

[Sidenote: Sept 17. In whose behalf the corporation interfere in vain.]

There were, perhaps, circ.u.mstances in the case beyond those which appear; but, instead of listening to the request of the City, the archbishop spirited away the preacher into Kent, and his friends learned, from the boasts of their adversaries, that he was imprisoned and ill used. He was attached, it seems, to the Victuallers' Company.

"There is no persecution," wrote a Protestant fanatic, "except of the Victuallers; of which sect a certain impostor of the name of Watts, formerly of the order of wry-necked cattle, is now holding forth, oh, shame! in the stocks at Canterbury Bridewell, having been accustomed to mouth elsewhere against the Gospel."[532]

[Sidenote: Charles V. endeavours to prevent the German marriage.]

While England was thus fermenting towards a second crisis, the German marriage was creating no less anxiety on the Continent. As it was Cromwell's chief object to unite England with the Lutherans, so was Charles V. anxious above all things to keep them separate; and no sooner was he aware that the Duke of Cleves had consented to give his sister to Henry than he renewed his offer of the d.u.c.h.ess of Milan. The reply was a cold and peremptory refusal;[533] and the Emperor seeing that the English government would not be again trifled with, determined to repair into Flanders, in order to be at hand, should important movements take place in Germany.[534] To give menace and significance to his journey, he resolved, if possible, to pa.s.s through France on his way, and in a manner so unformal and confidential as, perhaps, might contribute towards substantiating his relations with Francis, or, at least, might give the world the impression of their entire cordiality.

[Sidenote: He proposes a visit to Paris.]

[Sidenote: Reginald Pole submits a paper to the Pope on the condition of England.]

[Sidenote: France and Spain are at last united. Let them proclaim the king a public enemy.]

[Sidenote: Alarm felt in England.]

The proposal of a visit from the Emperor, when made known at Paris, was met with a warm and instant a.s.sent; and many were the speculations to which an affair so unexpected gave occasion in Europe. But the minds of men were not long at a loss, and Henry's intended marriage was soon accepted as an adequate explanation. The danger of a Protestant league compelled the Catholic powers to bury their rivalries; and a legate was despatched from Rome to be present at the meeting at Paris.[535]

Reginald Pole, ever on the watch for an opportunity to strike a blow at his country, caught once more at the opening, and submitted a paper on the condition of England to the Pope, showing how the occasion might be improved. The Emperor was aware, Pole said, that England had been lost to the Holy See in a Spanish quarrel, and for the sake of a Spanish princess; and he knew himself to be bound in honour, however hitherto he had made pretexts for delay, to a.s.sist in its recovery. His Imperial oaths, the insults to his family, the ancient alliance between England and the house of Burgundy, with his own promises so often repeated, alike urged the same duty upon him; and now, at last, he was able to act without difficulty. The rivalry between France and Spain had alone encouraged Henry to defy the opinion of Europe. That rivalry was at an end. The two sovereigns had only to unite in a joint remonstrance against his conduct, with a threat that he should be declared a public enemy if he persisted in his course, and his submission would be instant. He would not dare to refuse. He could not trust his subjects: they had risen once of themselves, and he knew too well the broken promises, the treachery and cruelty with which he had restored order, to risk their fury, should they receive effective support from abroad.

Without striking a single blow, the Catholic powers might achieve a glorious triumph, and heal the gaping wound in the body of Christ.[536]

So wrote, and so thought the English traitor, with all human probabilities in his favour, and only the Eternal Powers on the other side. The same causes which filled Pole with hope struck terror into weak and agitated hearts in the country which he was seeking to betray; the wayfarers on the high-roads talked to each other in despair of the impending ruin of the kingdom, left naked without an ally to the attacks of the world.[537]