A History of England Principally in the Seventeenth Century Part 11

[117] Jean Joachim au roi (de France) 15 Feb. 1510, afinche questa opinion (della Faculta di Parigi) insieme con altre opinion delle universita di Angliterra et d'altrove per Mr. Winschier [father of Anne Boleyn] al papa si possino monstrar o presentar.

[118] 'The moste part of the n.o.bles of the realm.' Cranmer's letter to Hawkyns. Archaeologia xviii. 79.

[119] In the treaty of Bologna (1 Feb. 1533) is an article, 'pro administranda just.i.tia super divortio Anglicano et--amputando omnem superfluam dilationem'

[120] Instruccion para el Conde de Cifuentes y Rodrigo Avalos. Papiers d'etat de Granvelle ii. 45

[121] In a later report to the Emperor it is said, that the rights of the Queen and Princess were recognised, 'a l'instante poursuite de S.

Me. Imperiale.' Ibid. ii. 210.

[122] In Halliwell, Letters of the Kings of England i. 337.

CHAPTER V.

THE OPPOSING TENDENCIES WITHIN THE SCHISMATIC STATE.

Among the results of these transactions in England that which most directly concerned the higher interests of the nation was the abolition, by a formal decision of Parliament, on religious grounds, of the hereditary t.i.tle of the King's daughter by his Spanish Queen, and the recognition of the succession of Queen Anne's issue to the throne, even in the case of her having only the one daughter who had been meanwhile born. This does not depend so much on the actual measures taken as on the fact, that now, according to Wolsey's plan, the government had broken with the political system which had prevailed hitherto, and indeed in a sense that went far beyond his views. Not merely was a French alliance avoided; the separation from the Church of Rome was to become the basis of the whole dynastic settlement of England.

At home men felt most the harshness and violence of basing a political rule on Church ideas. The statute contains threats of the sharpest punishments against all who should do or write or even say anything against it: a commission was appointed, in which we find the Dukes of Norfolk and Suffolk, which could require every one to take an oath of conformity to it. It was to be carried out with the full weight of English adherence to the law.

It was to this very statute that Bishop Fisher of Rochester and Sir Thomas More fell victims. They did not refuse to acknowledge the order of succession itself thus enacted, for this was within the competence of Parliament, but they would not confirm with their oath the reason laid down in the statute, that Henry's marriage with Catharine was against Scripture and invalid from the beginning. More ranks among the original minds of this great century: he is the first who learnt how to write English prose; but in the great currents of the literary movement he shrank back from the foremost place: after he had aided them by writings in the style of Erasmus, he set himself as Lord Chancellor of England to oppose their onward sweep with much rigour: he would not have the Church community itself touched. Of the last statute he said, it killed either the body if one opposed it, or the soul if one obeyed: he preferred to save his soul. He met his death with so lively a realisation of the future life, in which the troubles of this life would cease, that he looked on his departure out of it with all the irony which was in general characteristic of him. The fact that the Pope at this moment had named Bishop Fisher cardinal of the Roman Church seems to have still more hastened his execution. They both died as martyrs to the ideas by which England had been hitherto linked to the Church community of the West and to the authority of the Papacy.

If we turn our eyes abroad, the succession statute above all must have made a most disagreeable impression on the Emperor Charles V. He saw in it a political loss, an injury to his house, and indeed to all sovereign families, and a danger to the Church. With a view to opposing it, he formed the plan of drawing the King of France into an enterprise against England. He proposed to him the marriage of his third son, the Duke of Angouleme, with the Princess Mary, who was recognised as the only lawful heiress of England by the Apostolic See, and whose claims would then accrue to this prince.[123] And they would not be difficult, so he said, to establish, as a great part of the English abhorred the King's proceedings, his second marriage, and his divergence from the Church. At the same time the Emperor proposed the closest dynastic union of the two houses by a double marriage of his two children with a son and a daughter of Francis I. What in the whole world would he not have attained, if he had won over France to himself! His combination embraced as usual West and East, Church and State, Italian German and Northern affairs.

Perhaps the success of such a scheme was not probable; but independently of this, Henry VIII had good cause to prepare himself to meet the superior power of the Emperor, with whom he had so decidedly broken. As we have already hinted, he could have no want of allies in this struggle. It was under these circ.u.mstances that he entered into relations with the powerful demagogues who were then from their central position at Lubeck labouring to transform the North, and to sever it from all Netherlandish-Burgundian influence. But it was of still more importance to him to form an alliance with the Protestant princes and estates of Germany proper, who had gradually become a power in opposition to Pope and Emperor. In the autumn of 1535 we find English amba.s.sadors in Germany, who attended the meeting of the League at Schmalkald, and the most serious negociations were entered on. Both sides were agreed not to recognise the Council which was then announced by the Pope, for the very reason that the Pope announced it, who had no right to do so. The German princes demanded an engagement that if one of the two parties was attacked, the other should lend no support to its enemy; for the King this was not enough; he wished, in case he was attacked, to be able to reckon on support from Germany in cavalry, infantry, and ships, in return for which he was ready to give a very considerable contribution to the chest of the League. It was even proposed that he should undertake the protection of the League.[124]

All this however was based on a presupposition, which could not but lead the English to further ecclesiastical changes. It was not a schism affecting the const.i.tution and administration of justice, but a complete system of dissentient Church doctrines, with which Henry VIII came in contact. The German Protestants made it a condition of their alliance with England, that there should be full agreement between them as to doctrine.

We may ask whether this was altogether possible.

If we compare the Church movements and events that had taken place during the last years in Germany and in England, their great difference is visible at a glance. In Germany the movement was theological and popular, corresponding to the wants and needs of the territorial state; in England it was juridico-canonical, not connected with appeals to the people or with free preaching, but based on the unity of the nation. Though the German Diet had for a moment inclined to the Reform and had once even given it a legal sanction, it afterwards by a majority set itself against it: to carry it through became now the part of the minority, the Protesting party. In England on the contrary all proceeded from the plan of the sovereign and the resolutions of Parliament, in which the bishops themselves with few exceptions took part. Perhaps a more deep-seated ground of difference may be that the German bishops were more independent than the English, and that an Emperor was then ruling who, being at the same time King of Spain and Naples, troubled himself little about the unity of Germany in particular; while in England a newly-formed strong political power existed which made the national interests its own and upheld them on all sides.

Despite all this the English Schism had nevertheless a deep inner a.n.a.logy with the German Reformation.

From the beginning the dispute as to jurisdiction was based on the historical point of view, on which Luther too laid much stress.

Standish, who has been already mentioned, derived the right to limit the ecclesiastical prerogatives, from this among other grounds, that there were Christian churches in which they were altogether rejected, for instance the rule as to the celibacy of the clergy was not accepted by the Greeks. He inferred too, that, as no one disputed the claim of the Greek Church to be Christian, the conception of the universal Church must be different from that which Romanism a.s.serts.

Both countries also found the groundwork of the true church-community in Scripture. In the chief instance before them, that of the divorce, the German theologians were not of the same mind as the English; but both sides agreed in this, that there was a revealed will of G.o.d, which the ecclesiastical power might not contravene: the conviction took root that the Papacy did not represent the highest communion of men with divine things, but that this rested on the divine record alone. The use of Scripture had at last influenced various questions in England also. For abolishing the Annates it was argued that such an impost contradicts a maxim of the Apostle Paul; for doing away the Papal jurisdiction, that no place of Scripture justifies it. This is what was meant when the a.s.sertion that the Papacy is of divine right was denied. This becomes quite clear when Henry VIII instead of the previous prohibitions against distributing the Bible in the vernacular gave his licence for it. As he once declared with great animation, the advancement of G.o.d's word and of his own authority were one and the same thing.[125] The engraved t.i.tle-page of the translation which appeared with his _privilegium_ puts into his mouth the expression 'Thy word is a light to my feet.' The order soon followed to place a copy of the Book of books in every church: there every man might look into the disputed places, and convince himself, by this highest of codes, as to the rightfulness of the procedure that had been chosen.

But then it was impossible to stop at mere divergences of jurisdiction. The German interpretation of Scripture gained ground in every direction: a theological school grew up, though only here and there, which adhered to it more or less openly.

It must needs have had the greatest effect, that the followers of this view obtained a great number of bishoprics. The archbishopric of Canterbury had already fallen to the lot of a man who had completed his theological training in Germany: this very man, Thomas Cranmer, had carried through the divorce; his was one of those natures which must have the support of the supreme power to help them to follow out their own views; as they then appear enterprising and courageous, so do they become pliant and yielding when this favour fails them; they do not shine through moral greatness, but they are well suited to preserve, under difficult circ.u.mstances, what they have once embraced, for better times. Hugh Latimer was cast in a sterner mould; he actually dared, in the midst of the persecutions, to admonish the King, whose chaplain he was, of the welfare of his soul and his duty as King. However little this act effected for the moment, yet he may have thus contributed to enlighten the King (who now and then showed him personal goodwill) as to his t.i.tle of 'Defender of the Faith.'

Latimer was a fervent and effective preacher: he was made bishop of Worcester. Nicolas Shaxton, Bishop of Salisbury, Hilsey of Rochester, Bisham of S. Asaph's and then S. David's, Goodrich of Ely, were all disposed to Protestantism. Edward Fox who had been named Bishop of Hereford, had at Schmalkald openly declared the Pope to be Antichrist, and a.s.sured the Protestants in the strongest manner of his sovereign's inclination to attach himself to their Confession. It was the grand union of these biblical scholars among the bishops, which in the Convocation of 1536 undertook to carry through the work of drawing their church nearer that of Germany. Latimer opened the war by a fervent sermon against image-worship, indulgences, purgatory, and other doctrines or rites which were at variance with the Bible.

Cranmer proved that Holy Scripture contains all that is necessary for man to know for the salvation of his soul, and that tradition is not needed. The Bishop of Hereford communicated it, as an experience of his journey, that the laity everywhere would now be instructed only out of the Revelation. Thomas Cromwell, who took part in the sittings as the King's representative, lent them much support, and once brought with him a Scottish scholar who had just returned from Wittenberg, to combat the received doctrine of the Sacrament.[126] On the other side also stood men of weight and consideration, Lee archbishop of York who had expressly opposed himself, together with his clergy, to the adoption of the King's new t.i.tle, Stokesley of London who broke a lance for the seven sacraments, Gardiner of Winchester and Longland of Lincoln who after contributing materially to the King's divorce nevertheless rejected any alteration in doctrine, Tonstall of Durham, Nix of Norwich.

It seems as though the King, who was still busied in the Parliament itself with the confirmation of his church regulations, thought he detected in this party too much predilection for the Papacy. He found another motive in the necessity of having allies for the coming Council; he decisively took the side of Reform. Ten articles were laid before the Convocation in his name, the first five of which are taken from the Augsburg Confession or from the commentaries on it; as to these the Bishop of Hereford agreed with the theologians of Wittenberg. In them the faithful were referred exclusively to the contents of the Bible, and the three oldest creeds; only three sacraments were still recognised, Baptism, Penance, and the Lord's Supper. The real presence was maintained in them, in the words of those commentaries, and entirely in Luther's original sense.[127] But still this tendency was not yet so strong as to be able to make itself exclusively felt. In the following articles, the veneration, even the invocation, of saints, and no small part of the existing ceremonies, were allowed--though in terms which with all their moderation cannot disguise the rejection of them in principle. Despite these limitations the doc.u.ment contains a clear adoption of the principles of religious reform as they were carried out in Germany. It was subscribed by 18 bishops, 40 abbots and priors, 50 members of the lower house of Convocation: the King, as the Head of the Church, promulgated it for general observance. His vicegerent in Church affairs commanded all the clergy entrusted with a cure of souls to explain the articles, and also at certain times to lay before the people the rightfulness of the abrogation of Papal authority. He required them to give warnings against image-worship, belief in modern miracles, and pilgrimages.

Children were henceforth to learn the Lord's Prayer, the articles of the Creed, and the Ten Commandments in English.[128] It was the beginning of the Church service in the vernacular, which was rightly regarded as the chief means of withdrawing the national Church from Romish influence.

But Cromwell was also engaged in another enterprise, not less hostile and injurious to the Papacy.

As many of the great men in State and Church thought, so thought also the pious members of the monasteries and cloistered convents; they opposed the Supremacy, not as they said from inclination to disobedience, but because Holy Mother Church ordered otherwise than King and Parliament ordained.[129] The apology merely served to condemn them. In the rules they followed, in the Orders to which they belonged, the intercommunion of Latin Christianity had its most living expression; but it was exactly this which King and Parliament wished to sever. Wolsey had already, as we know, and with the help of Cromwell himself, taken in hand to suppress many of them: but in the new order of things there was absolutely no more place for the monastic system; it was necessarily sacrificed to the unity of the country, and at the same time to the greed of the great men.

But it cannot be imagined that innovations which struck so deep could be carried through without opposition. After all the efforts of the old kings to establish Christianity in agreement with Rome, after the victories of the Papacy when the kings quarrelled with it, and the violent suppression of all dissent, it was inevitable that the belief of the hierarchic ages, which is besides so peculiarly adapted to this end, had in England as elsewhere sunk deep into men's minds, and in great measure still swayed them. Was what had been always held for heresy no longer to merit this name because it was avowed by the ruling powers? In the northern counties neither the clergy nor the people would hear of the King's supremacy; they continued to pray for the Pope; Cromwell's injunctions were disregarded. It may be that horrible abuses and vices were prevalent in the cloisters, but all did not labour under such reproaches; many were objects of reverence in their own districts, and centres of hospitality and charity. It would have been wonderful if their violent destruction had not excited popular discontent. And this temper was shared by those who enjoyed the chief consideration in the provinces. Among the n.o.bles there were still men like Lord Darcy of Templehurst, who had borne arms against the Moors in the service of Isabella and Ferdinand: how offensive to them must innovations be which ran counter to all their reminiscences!

The lords in these provinces were believed to have pledged their word to each other to suppress the heresies, as they called the Protestant opinions, together with their authors and abettors. The country people, who apprehended yet further encroachments, were easily stirred up to commotion; collections of money were made from house to house, and the strongest men of each parish provided with the necessary weapons: in the autumn of 1536 open revolt broke out. A lawyer, Robert Aske, placed himself at its head; he set before the people all the damage that the suppression of the monasteries did to the country around, by diverting their revenues and abstracting their treasures.

In a short time he had gained over the whole of the North. The city of York joined him; Darcy admitted him into the strong castle of Pomfret: in that broad county only one single castle still held out in its obedience to the government: then the neighbouring districts also were carried away by the movement: Aske saw an army of thirty thousand men around him. He took the road to London to, as he said, drive base-born men out of the King's council, and restore the Christian church in England: he called his march a 'Pilgrimage of Grace.' But when he came into contact with royal troops at Doncaster he paused; for it was not a war, which would cost the country too dear, but only a great armed remonstrance in favour of the old system that he contemplated. He contented himself with presenting his demands--suppression of heresies, rest.i.tution of the supreme charge of souls to the Pope, restoration of the monasteries, and in particular the punishment of Cromwell with his abettors, and the calling of a Parliament.[130]

When we consider that Ireland was in revolt, Cornwall in a state of ferment, men's Catholic sympathies stirred up by foreign princes, it is easy to understand how some voices in the King's Privy Council were raised in favour of concession. Henry VIII, a true Tudor, was not the man to give in on such a point. He upbraided the rebels in haughty words with their ignorance and presumption, and repeated that all he did and ordered was in conformity with G.o.d's law and for the interests of the country; but it was mainly by promising to call a Parliament at York that he really laid the gathering storm. But at the first breach of the law that occurred he revoked this promise;[131] if he had relaxed the maintenance of his prerogative for a moment, he exercised it immediately after all the more relentlessly. He at last got all the leaders of the revolt into his hands, and appeared to the world to be conqueror. But we cannot for this reason hold that the movement did not react upon him. His plan was not, and in fact could not be, to incur the hostility of his people or endanger the crown for the sake of dogmatic opinions. True, he held to his order that the Bible should be promulgated in the English tongue, for his revolt from the hierarchy, and demand of obedience from all estates, rested on G.o.d's written word: nor did he allow himself to swerve from the legally enacted suppression of the monasteries; but he abandoned further innovations, and an altered tendency displayed itself in all his proclamations. Even during the troubles he called on the bishops to observe the usual church ceremonies: he put forth an edict against the marriage of priests (although he had been inclined to allow it) from regard to popular opinion. The importation of books printed abroad, and any publication of a work in England itself without a previous censorship, were again prohibited. Processions, genuflexions, and other pious usages, in church and domestic life, were once more recommended. The sharpest edicts went forth against any dissent from the strict doctrine of the Sacrament and against any extreme variations in doctrine. The King actually appeared in person to take part in confuting the misbelievers. He would prove to the world that he was no heretic.

It had also already become evident that no invasion by the Emperor was at present impending. Soon after his overtures to the King of France, Charles V perceived that he could not win him over to his side. In the Spanish Council of State they took it into consideration that Henry VIII, if anything was undertaken against him, would at all times have the King of France on his side, and in his pa.s.sionate temperament might be easily instigated to take steps which they would rather avoid.[132] After Catharine's death they made mutual advances, which it is true did not bring about a good understanding, but yet excluded actual hostilities. It would only disturb our view if we were here to follow one by one the manifold fluctuations in the course of these political relations and negociations. One motive in favour of peace under all circ.u.mstances was supplied by the ever-growing commerce between England and the Netherlands, on which the prosperity of both countries depended, and the destruction of which would have been injurious to the sovereigns themselves. When, some time after, the prospect of an alliance with France against England was presented to him by the interposition of the new Pope, Paul III, Charles declined it. He remarked that the German Protestants, to whom his attention must be mainly directed, would be strengthened by it.[133] At the most an interruption of this system could only be expected in case civil disturbances in England invited the Emperor to make a sudden attack.

Once it even appeared as if a Yorkist movement might be combined with the religious agitation. A descendant of Edward IV, the Marquis of Exeter, formed the plan of marrying the Princess Mary, and undertaking the restoration of the old church system. He found much sympathy in the country for this plan; the co-operation of the Emperor with him might have been very dangerous.

Henry lost no time in fortifying the harbours and coasts against such an attack.

But the chief means of preventing all dangers of this kind lay in cutting from under them the ground on which they rested. Henry VIII was not minded to yield a jot of the full power he had inherited: on the contrary his supremacy in church matters was confirmed in 1539 by a new act of Parliament: another finally ordained the suppression of the greater abbeys also, whose revenues served to endow some new bishoprics, but mainly pa.s.sed into the possession of the Crown and the Lords: the unity of the Church and the exclusive independence of the country were still more firmly established. But the more Henry was resolved to abide by his const.i.tutional innovations, the more necessary it seemed to him, in reference to doctrine, to avoid any deviation that could be designated as heretical. And though he some years before made advances to the Protestants because he needed their support against the Emperor and the Pope, things were now on the contrary in such a state that he could feel himself all the safer, the less connexion he had with the Germans. Under quite different auspices of home and foreign politics was the religious debate, that had led in 1536 to the Ten Articles, resumed three years later. The bishops who held to the old belief were as steady as ever and, so far as we know, bound together still more closely by a special agreement. They knew how to get rid of the old suspicion of their having thought of restoring the Papal supremacy and jurisdiction, by showing complete devotion to the King. On the other hand the Protestants had suffered a very sensible loss in Bishop Fox of Hereford, who had always possessed much influence over the King, but had died lately. An understanding between the two parties on questions which were dividing the whole world was not to be thought of; they confronted each other as irreconcilable antagonists. The debates were transferred on Norfolk's proposal to Parliament and Convocation; at last it was thought best that each of the two parties should bring in the outline of a bill expressing its own views. This was done: but first both bills were delivered to the King, on whose word, according to the prevailing point of view, the decision mainly depended. We may as it were imagine him with the two religious schemes in his hand. On the one side lay progressive innovation, increasing ferment in the land, and alliance with the Protestants: on the other, change confined to the advantages already gained by the crown, the contentment of the great majority of the people, who adhered to the old belief, peace and friendship with the Emperor. The King himself too had a liking for the doctrines he had acknowledged from his youth. The balance inclined in favour of the bishops of the old belief: Henry gave their bill the preference. It was the b.l.o.o.d.y bill of the Six Articles, mainly, so far as we know, the work of Bishop Gardiner of Winchester.

The doctrine of transubstantiation and all the usages connected with it, private ma.s.ses and auricular confession, and the binding force of vows, were sanctioned anew; the marriage of priests and the giving the cup to the laity were prohibited; all under the severest penalties.

The whole of the high n.o.bility to a man agreed to it: the Lower House raised the resolutions of the clergy into law.

How completely did the German amba.s.sadors, who had come over with the expectation of seeing the victory in England of the theologians who were friendly to them, find themselves deceived! They still however cherished the hope that these resolutions would never be carried out.

Their ground for hope lay in the King's marriage with a German Protestant princess, which was just then being arranged.

Some years before Anne Boleyn had fallen a victim to a dreadful fate.

How had the King extolled her shortly before his marriage as a mirror of purity, modesty and maidenliness! hardly two years afterwards he accused her of adultery under circ.u.mstances which, if they were true, would make her one of the most depraved creatures under the sun. If we go through the statements that led to her condemnation, it is difficult to think them complete fictions: they have been upheld quite recently. If on the other hand we read the letter, so full of high feeling and inward truthfulness, in which Anne protests her innocence to the King, we cannot believe in the possibility of the transgressions for which she had to die. I can add nothing further to what has been long known, except that the King, soon after her coronation, in November 1533, already showed a certain discontent with her.[134] Was it after all not right in the eyes of the jealous autocrat that his former wife's lady in waiting now as Queen wore the crown as well as himself? Anne Boleyn too might not be without blame in her demeanour which was not troubled by any strict rule. Or did it seem to the King a token of the divine displeasure against this marriage also, that Anne Boleyn in her second confinement brought a stillborn son into the world? It has been always said that the lively interest she took in the progress of the outspoken Protestantism, whose champions were almost all her personal friends, contributed most to her fall. For the house from which she sprung she certainly in this respect went too far. In the midst of religious and political parties, pursued by suspicion and slander, and in herself too tormented by jealousy, endangered rather than guarded by the possession of the highest dignity, she fell into a state of excitement bordering on madness.

On the day after her execution the King married one of her maids of honour, the very same who had awakened her jealousy, Jane Seymour. She indeed brought him the son for whom his soul longed, but she died in her confinement.

In the rivalry of parties Cromwell after some time formed the plan of strengthening his own side by the King's marriage with a German princess; he chose for this purpose Anne of Cleves, a lady nearly related to the Elector of Saxony, and whose brother as possessor of Guelders was a powerful opponent of the Emperor. This was at the time when the Emperor on his way to the Netherlands paid a visit to King Francis, and an alliance of these sovereigns was again feared. But by the time his new wife arrived all anxiety had already gone by, and with it the motive for a Protestant alliance for the King had ceased.

Anne had not quite such disadvantages of nature as has been a.s.serted: she was accounted amiable:[135] but she could not enchain a man like Henry; he had no scruple in dissolving the marriage already concluded; Anne made no opposition: the King preferred to her a Catholic lady of the house of Howard. But the consequent alteration was not limited to the change of a wife. The hopes the Protestants had cherished now completely dwindled away: it was the hardest blow they could receive.

Cromwell, the person who had been the main instrument in carrying out the schism by law, and who had then placed himself at the head of the reformers, was devoted to destruction by the now dominant party. He was even more violently overthrown than Wolsey had been. In the middle of business one day at a meeting of the Privy Council he was informed that he was a prisoner; two of his colleagues there tore the orders which he wore from his person, since he was no longer worthy of them;[136] that which had been the ruin of so many under his rule, a careless word, was now his own.

Now began the persecution of those who infringed the Six Articles, on very slight grounds of fact, and with an absence of legal form in proving the cases, that held a drawn sword over innocent and guilty alike. Bishops like Latimer and Shaxton had to go to the Tower. But how many others atoned for their faith with their life! Robert Barnes, one of the founders of the higher studies at Cambridge, well known and universally beloved in Germany, who avowed the doctrines imbibed there without reserve, lost his life at the stake. For what the peasants had once demanded now again came to pa.s.s;--the heretics perished by fire according to the old statutes.

After some time a check was given to extreme acts of violence. Legal forms were supplied for the b.l.o.o.d.y laws, which softened their severity. To Archbishop Cranmer, who was likewise attacked, the King himself stretched out a protecting hand. When he once more made common cause with the Emperor against France, and undertook a war on the Continent, he previously ordered the introduction of an English Litany, which was to be sung in processions. The fact that the Bible was read in the vernacular, and popular devotional exercises retained in use, saved the Protestant ideas and efforts, despite all persecution, from extinction.

It gives a disagreeably grotesque colouring to the government of Henry VIII to see how his matrimonial affairs are mixed up with those of politics and religion. Queen Catharine Howard, whose marriage with him marked also the preponderance of the Catholic principle, was without any doubt guilty of offences like those which were imputed to her predecessor Anne: at her fall her relations, the leaders of the anti-Protestant party, lost their position and influence at court. The King then married Catharine Parr, who had good conduct and womanly prudence enough to keep him in good temper and contentment. But she openly cherished Protestant sympathies; and she was once seriously attacked on their account. Henry however let her influence prevail, as it did not clash with his own policy.

Now that once the sanct.i.ty of marriage had been violated, the place of King's wife became as it were revocable; the antagonistic factions sought to overthrow the Queen who was inconvenient to them; that which has been at various times demanded of other members of the household, that they should be in complete agreement with the ruling system, was then required with respect to their wives, and indeed to the wife of the sovereign himself; the importance of marriage was now shown only by the violence with which it was dissolved.

This self-willed energetic sovereign however by no means so completely followed merely his own judgment as has been a.s.sumed. We saw how after Wolsey's fall he at first inclined to the protestant doctrines, and then again persecuted them with extreme energy. He sacrificed, as formerly Empson and Dudley, so Wolsey and now Cromwell to the public opinion roused against them. He recognised with quick penetration successive political necessities and followed their guidance. The most characteristic thing is that he always seemed to belong body and soul to these tendencies, however much they differed from each other: he let them be established by laws contradictory to each other, and insisted with relentless severity on the execution of those laws.

Under him, if ever, England appears as a commonwealth with a common will, from which no deviation is allowed, but which moves forward inclining now to the one side now to the other. It was no part of Henry VIII's Tudor principles and inclinations to call the Parliament together; but for his Church-enterprise it was indispensable. He gave its tendencies their way and respected the opinion which it represented: but at the same time he knew how to keep it at all times under the sway of his influence. Never has any other sovereign seen such devoted Parliaments gathered round him; they gave his proclamations the force of law, and allowed him to settle the succession according to his own views; they then gave effect to what he determined.

In this way it was possible for Henry VIII to carry through a political plan that has no parallel. He allowed the spiritual tendencies of the century to gain influence, and then contrived to confine them within the narrowest limits. He would be neither Protestant nor Catholic, and yet again both; an unimaginable thing, if it had only concerned these opinions: but he retained his hold on the nation because his plan of separating the country from the Papal hierarchic system, without taking a step further than was absolutely necessary, suited the people's views.

In the earlier years it appeared as though he would alienate Ireland by his religious innovations, since there Catholicism and national feeling were at one. And there really were moments when the insurgent chiefs in alliance with Pope and Emperor boasted that with French and Scotch help they would attack the English on all sides and drive them into the sea. But there too it proved of infinite service to him that he defended dogma while he abandoned the old const.i.tution. In Ireland the monasteries and great abbeys were likewise suppressed; the O'Briens, Desmonds, O'Donnels, and other families were as much gratified as the English lords and gentlemen with the property almost gratuitously offered them. Under these circ.u.mstances they recognised Henry VIII as King of Ireland, almost as if they had a feeling of the change of position as regards public law into which they thus came: they received their baronies from him as fiefs and appeared in Parliament.