History of England from the fall of Wolsey to the death of Elizabeth Volume III Part 32

[Sidenote: Permission granted to bequeath land by will.]

[Sidenote: Monks are released from the vow of poverty.]

[Sidenote: Reduction of the number of sanctuaries, and limitation of their privileges.]

[Sidenote: Act for the maintenance of the navy.]

[Sidenote: May 3. Bill for a subsidy of four fifteenths and four tenths.]

A general intimation of intentions, which being so stated every one would approve, pa.s.sed quietly, and the subject dropped. It is the peculiarity of discourses on theological subjects, that they are delivered and they are heard under an impression, both on the part of the speaker and of his audience, that each is in possession of the only reasonable and moderate truth; and so long as particulars are avoided, moderation is praised, and all men consent to praise it--excess is condemned, and all agree in the condemnation. Five days after, a public mark of the king's approbation was bestowed on Cromwell, who was created Earl of Ess.e.x; and the ordinary legislation commenced quietly.

The complaints against the statute of Uses were met by a measure which silently divided the leading root of the feudal system. Persons holding lands by military tenure were allowed to dispose of two-thirds in their wills, as they pleased. Lands held under any other conditions might be bequeathed absolutely, without condition or restriction.[561] To prevent disputes on t.i.tles, and to clear such confusion of claims as had been left remaining by the Uses Act, sixty years' possession of property was declared sufficient to const.i.tute a valid right; and no claim might be pressed which rested on pretensions of an older date.[562] The Privy Seal's hand is legible in several acts abridging ecclesiastical privileges, and restoring monks, who had been dead in law, to some part of their rights as human beings. The suppression of the religious houses had covered England with vagrant priests, who, though pensioned, were tempted, by idleness and immunity from punishment, into crimes. If convicted of felony, and admitted "to their clergy," such persons were in future to be burnt in the hand.[563] A bill in the preceding year had relieved them from their vows of poverty; they were permitted to buy, inherit, or otherwise occupy property. They were freed by dissolution from obedience to their superiors, and the reflection naturally followed, that the justice which had dispensed with two vows would dispense with the third, and that a permission to marry, in spite of the Six Articles, would soon necessarily follow. Further inroads were made also upon the sanctuaries. Inst.i.tutions which had worn so deep a groove in the habits of men could not be at once put away; nor, while the letter of the law continued so sanguinary, was it tolerable to remove wholly the correctives which had checked its action, and provide no subst.i.tute. The last objection was not perhaps considered a serious one; but prejudice and instinct survived, as a safeguard of humanity. The protection of sanctuary was withdrawn for the more flagrant felonies, for murder, rape, robbery, arson, and sacrilege. Churches and church-yards continued to protect inferior offenders; and seven towns--Wells, Westminster, Manchester, Northampton, York, Derby, and Launceston--retained the same privileges, until, finding that their exemption only converted them into nests of crime, they pet.i.tioned of themselves for desecration. Some other regulations were also introduced into the system. Persons taking refuge in a church were allowed to remain not longer than forty days; at the end of which they were to abjure before the coroner and leave the country, or were to be consigned for life to one of the specified towns, where they were to be daily inspected by the governor, and if absent three days consecutively--no very barbarous condition--were to forfeit their security.[564] An act was pa.s.sed for the better maintenance of the navy; and next, bringing inevitable ill-will with it to the unpopular minister, appeared the standard English grievance, a Money Bill. In the preceding session the Duke of Norfolk had laid before the Lords a statement of the extraordinary expenses which had been cast upon the Crown, and of the inadequacy of the revenue.[565] Twelve months' notice had been given, that the Houses might consider at their leisure the demand which was likely to be made upon them. It appeared in a bill introduced on the 3d of May, requiring a subsidy of four fifteenths and four tenths, the payments to be spread over a period of four years.[566]

[Sidenote: Expenses incurred in the defence of the realm.]

The occasion of a demand of money was always carefully stated: the preamble set forth that the country had prospered, had lived in wealth, comfort, and peace under the king, for thirty-one years. His Highness, in the wisdom which G.o.d had given him, had brought his subjects out of blindness and ignorance to the knowledge of G.o.d and his holy Word. He had shaken off the usurpations of the Bishop of Rome, by whose subtle devices large sums had been annually drained out of the realm. But in doing this he had been forced to contend against insurrections at home and the peril of invasion from the powers of the Continent. He had built a navy and furnished it. He had raised fortresses, laid out harbours, established permanent garrisons in dangerous places, with a.r.s.enals for arms and all kinds of military stores. Ireland after an arduous struggle was at length reduced to obedience; but the conquest was maintained at a great and continuing cost. To meet this necessary outlay, no regular provision existed; and the king threw himself confidently upon his subjects, with an a.s.surance that they would not refuse to bear their share in the burden.

[Sidenote: Four priests and a woman are attainted for high treason.]

The journals throw no light upon the debate, if debate there was. The required sum was voted; we know no more.[567] The sand in Cromwell's hour-gla.s.s was almost run. Once more, and conspicuously, his spirit can be seen in a bill of attainder against four priests, three of whom, Abel, Fetherston, and Powell, had been attached to the household of Queen Catherine, and had lingered in the Tower, in resolute denial of the supremacy; the fourth, Robert Cook, of Doncaster, "had adhered to the late arrogant traitor Robert Aske." In companions.h.i.+p with them was a woman, Margaret Tyrrell, who had refused to acknowledge Prince Edward to be heir to the crown. These five were declared by act of parliament guilty of high treason; their trial was dispensed with; they were sentenced to death, and the bill was pa.s.sed without a dissentient voice.[568] This was on the 1st of June.[569] It was the same week in which the Tower seemed likely to be the destiny of Tunstall and Gardiner; the struggling parties had reached the crisis when one or the other must fall. Nine days more were allowed to pa.s.s; on the tenth the blow descended.

But I must again go back for a few steps, to make all movements clear.

[Sidenote: June. Progress of the misfortune of the marriage.]

[Sidenote: May. Relations between the king and queen.]

[Sidenote: Conversation between Wriothesley and Cromwell.]

From the day of the king's marriage "he was in a manner weary of his life."[570] The public policy of the connexion threatened to be a failure. It was useless abroad, it was eminently unpopular at home; while the purpose for which the country had burdened him with a wife was entirely hopeless.[571] To the queen herself he was kindly distant; but, like most men who have not been taught in early life to endure inconvenience, he brooded in secret over his misfortune, and chafed the wound by being unable to forget it. The doc.u.ments relating to the pre-contract were not sent; his vexation converted a shadow into a reality. He grew superst.i.tious about his repugnance, which he regarded as an instinct forbidding him to do an unlawful thing. "I have done as much to move the consent of my heart and mind as ever man did," he said to Cromwell, "but without success."[572] "I think before G.o.d," he declared another time, "she has never been my lawful wife."[573] The wretched relations continued without improvement till the 9th of May. On that day a royal circular was addressed to every member of the Privy Council, requiring them to attend the king's presence, "for the treaty of such great and weighty matters as whereupon doth consist the surety of his Highness's person, the preservation of his honour, and the tranquillity and quietness of themselves and all other his loving and faithful subjects."[574] It may be conjectured that the king had at this time resolved to open his situation for discussion. No other matter can be ascertained to have existed at the time worthy of language so serious. Yet he must have changed his purpose. For three weeks longer the secret was preserved, and his course was still undecided. On the evening of the 6th or 7th of June Sir Thomas Wriothesley repaired to Cromwell's house with the ordinary reports of public business. He found the minister alone in a gallery, leaning against a window. "Were there any news abroad?" Cromwell asked. Wriothesley said he knew of none.

"There is something," the minister said, "which troubles me. The king loves not the queen, nor ever has from the beginning; insomuch as I think a.s.suredly she is yet as good a maid for him as she was when she came to England." "Marry, sir," Wriothesley answered, "I am right sorry that his Majesty should be so troubled. For G.o.d's sake, devise how his Grace may be relieved by one way or the other." "Yes," Cromwell said, "but what and how?" Wriothesley said he could not tell on the moment; but standing the case as it did, he thought some way might be found.

"Well, well," answered the minister, "it is a great matter." The conversation ended; and Wriothesley left him for the night.

"The next day following," Wriothesley deposed, "having occasion eftsoons for business to repair unto him, I chanced to say, 'Sir, I have thought somewhat of the matter you told me, and I find it a great matter. But, sir, it can be made better than it is. For G.o.d's sake, devise for the relief of the king; for if he remain in this grief and trouble, we shall all one day smart for it. If his Grace be quiet we shall all have our parts with him.' 'It is true,' quoth he; 'but I tell you it is a great matter.' 'Marry,' quoth I, 'I grant; but let the remedy be searched for.' 'Well,' quoth he; and thus brake off from me."[575]

[Sidenote: Wriothesley hints a divorce,]

[Sidenote: From which Cromwell shrinks,]

Wriothesley's remedy was of course a divorce. It could be nothing else.

Yet, was it not a remedy worse than any possible disorder? Cromwell, indeed, knew himself responsible. He it was who, with open eyes, had led the king into his embarra.s.sment. Yet, was a second divorce to give mortal affront to the Lutherans, as the first had done to the Catholics?

Was another marriage scandal to taint a movement which had already furnished too much of such material to insolence? What a triumph to the Pope! What a triumph to the Emperor! How would his own elaborate policy crumble to ruins! It was a great matter indeed to Cromwell.

[Sidenote: But which the English conservatives would be likely to favor.]

But how would the whisper of the word sound in the ears of the English reactionaries? What would the clergy think of it in whose, only not unanimous, convictions the German alliance had been from the first a pollution? What would the parliament think of it, who had seen the fruit of their theological labours so cunningly s.n.a.t.c.hed from them? What would the Anglican bishops think of it, who had found themselves insulted from the pulpit, from behind the s.h.i.+eld of the hateful connexion--with one of their body already in the Tower, and the same danger hanging before them all? Or the laity generally--the wool-growers of the counties, the merchants of the cities, the taxpayers charged with the new subsidy, who, in the connexion with the house of Cleves, saw a fresh cause of quarrel with the Emperor and the ruin of the trade with Flanders; what, to all these, in the heat and rage of party, must have seemed the natural remedy for the king's difficulty? Let Queen Catherine and her friends be avenged by a retribution in kind. Their opinions on the matter were shortly expressed.

[Sidenote: Cromwell begins to totter.]

[Sidenote: Hasty expressions drop from him.]

[Sidenote: The king's promise.]

Meanwhile, the minister who, in the conduct of the mighty cause which he was guiding, had stooped to dabble in these muddy waters of intrigue, was reaping, within and without, the harvest of his errors. The consciousness of wrong brought with it the consciousness of weakness and moody alternations of temper. The triumph of his enemies stared him in the face, and rash words dropped from him, which were not allowed to fall upon the ground, declaring what he would do if the king were turned from the course of the Reformation. Carefully his antagonists at the council-board had watched him for years. They had noted down his public errors; spies had reported his most confidential language. Slowly, but surely, the pile of accusations had gathered in height and weight, till the time should come to make them public. Three years before, when the northern insurgents had demanded Cromwell's punishment, the king had answered that the laws were open, and were equal to high and low. Let an accuser come forward openly, and prove that the Privy Seal had broken the laws, and he should be punished as surely and as truly as the meanest criminal. The case against him was clear at last; if brought forward in the midst of the king's displeasure, the charges could not fail of attentive hearing, and the release from the detested matrimony might be identified with the punishment of the author of it.

[Sidenote: Mixed causes for the hatred against Cromwell.]

For struck down Cromwell should be, as his master Wolsey had been, to rise no more. Not only was he hated on public grounds, as the leader of a revolution, but, in his multiplied offices, he had usurped the functions of the ecclesiastical courts; he had mixed himself in the private concerns of families; he had interfered between wives and husbands, fathers and sons, brothers and sisters. In his enormous correspondence[576] he appears as the universal referee--the resource of all weak or injured persons. The mad d.u.c.h.ess of Norfolk chose him for her patron against the duke. Lady Burgh, Lady Parr, Lady Hungerford,[577] alike made him the champion of their domestic wrongs.

Justly and unjustly, he had dragged down upon himself the animosity of peers, bishops, clergy, and gentlemen, and their day of revenge was come.

[Sidenote: June 10.]

[Sidenote: He is arrested.]

[Sidenote: Treasonable words are sworn against him.]

[Sidenote: Exultation of the reactionaries in London.]

On the 10th of June he attended as usual at the morning sitting of the House of Lords. The Privy Council sat in the afternoon, and, at three o'clock, the Duke of Norfolk rose suddenly at the table: "My Lord of Ess.e.x," he said, "I arrest you of high treason." There were witnesses in readiness, who came forward and swore to have heard him say "that, if the king and all his realm would turn and vary from his opinions, he would fight in the field in his own person, with his sword in his hand, against the king and all others; adding that, if he lived a year or two, he trusted to bring things to that frame that it should not lie in the king's power to resist or let it."[578] The words "were justified to his face." It was enough. Letters were instantly written to the amba.s.sadors at foreign courts, desiring them to make known the blow which had been struck and the causes which had led to it.[579] The twilight of the summer evening found Thomas Cromwell within the walls of that grim prison which had few outlets except the scaffold; and far off, perhaps, he heard the pealing of the church-bells and the songs of revelry in the streets, with which the citizens, short of sight, and bestowing on him the usual guerdon of transcendent merit, exulted in his fall. "The Lord Cromwell," says Hall, "being in the council chamber, was suddenly apprehended and committed to the Tower of London; the which many lamented, but more rejoiced, and specially such as either had been religious men or favoured religious persons; for they banqueted and triumphed together that night, many wis.h.i.+ng that that day had been seven years before, and some, fearing lest he should escape, although he were imprisoned, could not be merry; others, who knew nothing but truth by him, both lamented him and heartily prayed for him. But this is true, that, of certain of the clergy, he was detestably hated; and specially of such as had borne swing, and by his means were put from it; for indeed he was a man that, in all his doings, seemed not to favour any kind of Popery, nor could not abide the snuffing pride of some prelates."[580]

[Sidenote: A trial intended, but exchanged for an act of attainder.]

The first intention was to bring him to trial,[581] but a parliamentary attainder was a swifter process, better suited to the temper of the victorious reactionists. Five Romanists but a few days previously had been thus sentenced under Cromwell's direction. The retribution was only the more complete which rendered back to him the same measure which he had dealt to others. The bill was brought in a week after his arrest.

His offences, when reduced into ordinary prose out of the pa.s.sionate rhetoric with which they were there described, were generally these:--

[Sidenote: He had set at liberty persons convicted or suspected of treason.]

1. He was accused of having taken upon himself, without the king's permission, to set at liberty divers persons convicted and attainted of misprision of high treason, and divers others being apprehended and in prison for suspicion of high treason. No circ.u.mstances and no names were mentioned; but the fact seemed to be ascertained.

[Sidenote: He had issued commissions on his own authority.]

2. He was said to have granted licences for money; to have issued commissions in his own name and by his own authority; and, to have interfered impertinently and unjustly with the rights and liberties of the king's subjects.

[Sidenote: He had encouraged heresy.]

3. Being a detestable heretic and disposed to set and sow common sedition and variance amongst people, he had dispersed into all s.h.i.+res in the realm great numbers of false, erroneous books, disturbing the faith of the king's subjects on the nature of the Eucharist and other articles of the Christian faith. He had openly maintained that the priesthood was a form--that every Christian might equally administer the Sacraments. Being vicegerent of the king in matters ecclesiastical, and appointed to correct heresy, he had granted licences to persons detected or openly defamed of heresy to teach and preach.

[Sidenote: He had released heretics from prison.]

4. He had addressed letters to the sheriffs in various s.h.i.+res, causing many false heretics to be set at liberty, some of whom had been actually indicted, and others who had been for good reason apprehended and were in prison.

[Sidenote: He had rebuked their accusers and prosecutors.]

5. On complaint being made to him of particular heretics and heresies, he had protected the same heretics from punishment; "he had terribly rebuked their accusers," and some of them he had persecuted and imprisoned, "so that the king's good subjects had been in fear to detect the said heretics and heresies."

[Sidenote: He had threatened to maintain them by force.]

6. In fuller explanation of the expressions sworn against him on his arrest, he had made a confederation of heretics, it was said, through the country; and supposing himself to be fully able, by force and strength, to maintain and defend his said abominable treasons and heresies, on declaration made to him of certain preachers, Dr. Barnes and others, preaching against the king's proclamation, "the same Thomas Cromwell affirming the same preaching to be good, did not let to declare and say, 'If the king would turn from it, yet I would not turn; and if the king did turn, and all his people, I would fight in the field, with my sword in my hand, against him and all others; and if that I live a year or two, it shall not lie in the king's power to let it if he would.'"