Henry VIII Part 24

All these phenomena, the Reformation in Germany, heresy at home, and the anti-sacerdotal prejudices of his subjects, were regarded by Henry merely as circ.u.mstances which might be made subservient to his own particular purpose; and the skill with which he used them is a (p. 276) monument of farsighted statecraft.[766] He did not act on the impulse of rash caprice. His pa.s.sions were strong, but his self-control was stronger; and the breach with Rome was effected with a cold and calculated cunning, which the most adept disciple of Machiavelli could not have excelled. He did not create the factors he used; hostility to the Church had a real objective existence. Henry was a great man; but the burdens his people felt were not the product of Henry's hypnotic suggestion. He could only divert those grievances to his own use. He had no personal dislike to probate dues or annates; he did not pay them, but the threat of their abolition might compel the Pope to grant his divorce. Heresy in itself was abominable, but if heretics would maintain the royal against the papal supremacy, might not their sins be forgiven? The strength of Henry's position lay in the fact that he stood between two evenly balanced parties. It is obvious that by favouring the anti-clericals he could destroy the power of the Church.

It is not so certain, but it is probable that, by supporting the Church, he could have staved off its ruin so long as he lived.

Parliament might have been urgent, but there was no necessity to call it together. The Reformation Parliament, which sat for seven years, would probably have been dissolved after a few weeks had Clement granted the divorce. It met session after session, to pa.s.s one measure after another, each of which was designed to put fresh pressure on the Pope. It began with the outworks of the papal fortress; as soon (p. 277) as one was dismantled, Henry cried "Halt," to see if the citadel would surrender. When it refused, the attack recommenced. First one, then another of the Church's privileges and the Pope's prerogatives disappeared, till there remained not one stone upon another of the imposing edifice of ecclesiastical liberty and papal authority in England.

[Footnote 766: _Cf._ A. Zimmermann, "Zur kirchlichen Politik Heinrichs VIII., nach den Trennung vom Rom," in _Romische Quartalschrift_, xiii., 263-283.]

CHAPTER XI. (p. 278)

"DOWN WITH THE CHURCH."

The Reformation Parliament met for its first session on the 3rd of November, 1529, at the Black Friars' Hall in London.[767] No careful observer was in any doubt as to what its temper would be with regard to the Church. It was opened by the King in person, and the new Lord Chancellor, Sir Thomas More, delivered an address in which he denounced his predecessor, Wolsey, in scathing terms.[768] Parliament had been summoned, he said, to reform such things as had been used or permitted in England by inadvertence. On the following day both Houses adjourned to Westminster on account of the plague, and the Commons chose, as their Speaker, Sir Thomas Audley, the future Lord Chancellor.

One of their first duties was to consider a bill of attainder against Wolsey,[769] and the fate of that measure seems to be destructive of one or the other of two favourite theories respecting Henry VIII.'s Parliaments. The bill was opposed in the Commons by Cromwell and thrown out; either it was not a mere expression of the royal will, or Parliament was something more than the tool of the Court. For it is hardly credible that Henry first caused the bill to be introduced, and then ordered its rejection. The next business was Henry's (p. 279) request for release from the obligation to repay the loan which Wolsey had raised; that, too, the Commons refused, except on conditions.[770]

But no such opposition greeted the measures for reforming the clergy.[771] Bills were pa.s.sed in the Commons putting a limit on the fees exacted by bishops for probate, and for the performance of other duties then regarded as spiritual functions. The clergy were prohibited from holding pluralities, except in certain cases, but the act was drawn with astonishing moderation; it did not apply to benefices acquired before 1530, unless they exceeded the number of four. Penalties against non-residents were enacted, and an attempt was made to check the addiction of spiritual persons to commercial pursuits.

[Footnote 767: _L. and P._, iv., 6043-44.]

[Footnote 768: Hall, _Chronicle_, p. 764.]

[Footnote 769: _L. and P._, iv., 6075.]

[Footnote 770: That it pa.s.sed at all is often considered proof of parliamentary servility; it is rather an ill.u.s.tration of the typical Tudor policy of burdening the wealthy few in order to spare the general public. If repayment of the loan were exacted, fresh taxation would be necessary, which would fall on many more than had lent the King money. It was very irregular, but the burden was thus placed on the shoulders of those individuals who benefited most by Henry's ecclesiastical and general policy and were rapidly acc.u.mulating wealth. Taxation on the whole was remarkably light during Tudor times; the tenths, fifteenths and subsidies had become fixed sums which did not increase with the national wealth, and indeed brought in less and less to the royal exchequer (see _L. and P._, vii., 344, "considerations why subsidies in diverse shires were not so good in Henry's seventh year as in his fifth"; _cf._ vii., 1490, and xix., ii., 689, where Paget says that benevolences did not "grieve the common people").]

[Footnote 771: _L. and P._, iv., 6083.]

These reforms seem reasonable enough, but the idea of placing a bound to the spiritual exaction of probate seemed sacrilege to Bishop Fisher. "My lords," he cried, "you see daily what bills come hither from the Common House, and all is to the destruction of the (p. 280) Church. For G.o.d's sake, see what a realm the kingdom of Bohemia was; and when the Church went down, then fell the glory of the kingdom. Now with the Commons is nothing but 'Down with the Church!' And all this, meseemeth, is for lack of faith only."[772] The Commons thought a limitation of fees an insufficient ground for a charge of heresy, and complained of Fisher to the King through the mouth of their Speaker.

The Bishop explained away the offensive phrase, but the spiritual peers succeeded in rejecting the Commons' bills. The way out of the deadlock was suggested by the King; he proposed a conference between eight members of either House. The Lords' delegates were half spiritual, half temporal, peers.[773] Henry knew well enough that the Commons would vote solidly for the measures, and that the temporal peers would support them. They did so; the bills were pa.s.sed; and, on 17th December, Parliament was prorogued. We may call it a trick or skilful parliamentary strategy; the same trick, played by the _Tiers etat_ in 1789, ensured the success of the French Revolution, and it was equally effective in England in 1529.

[Footnote 772: Hall, _Chronicle_, p. 766.]

[Footnote 773: _Cf._ Stubbs, _Lectures_, 1887, p.

317.]

These mutterings of the storm fell on deaf ears at Rome. Clement was deaf, not because he had not ears to hear, but because the clash of imperial arms drowned more distant sounds. "If any one," wrote the Bishop of Auxerre in 1531, "was ever in prison or in the power of his enemies, the Pope is now."[774] He was as anxious as ever to escape responsibility. "He has told me," writes the Bishop of Tarbes to Francis I. on the 27th of March, 1530, "more than three times in (p. 281) secret that he would be glad if the marriage (with Anne Boleyn) was already made, either by a dispensation of the English legate or otherwise, provided it was not by his authority, or in diminution of his power as to dispensation and limitation of Divine law."[775] Later in the year he made his suggestion that Henry should have two wives without prejudice to the legitimacy of the children of either. Henry, however, would listen to neither suggestion.[776] He would be satisfied with nothing less than the sanction of the highest authority recognised in England. When it became imperative that his marriage with Anne should be legally sanctioned, and evident that no such sanction would be forthcoming from Rome, he arranged that the highest ecclesiastical authority recognised by law in England should be that of the Archbishop of Canterbury.

[Footnote 774: _L. and P._, v., 562.]

[Footnote 775: _L. and P._, iv., 6290.]

[Footnote 776: See above p. 207.]

Meanwhile, the exigencies of the struggle drove Clement into a.s.sertions of papal prerogative which would at any time have provoked an outburst of national anger. On 7th March, 1530, he promulgated a bull to be affixed to the church doors at Bruges, Tournay and Dunkirk, inhibiting Henry, under pain of the greater excommunication, from proceeding to that second marriage, which he was telling the Bishop of Tarbes he wished Henry would complete.[777] A fortnight later he issued a second bull forbidding all ecclesiastical judges, doctors, advocates and others to speak or write against the validity of Henry's marriage with Catherine.[778] If he had merely desired to prohibit discussion of a matter under judicial consideration, he should have imposed silence also on the advocates of the marriage, and not (p. 282) left Fisher free to write books against the King and secretly send them to Spain to be printed.[779] On the 23rd of December following it was decreed in Consistory at Rome that briefs should be granted prohibiting the Archbishop of Canterbury from taking cognisance of the suit, and forbidding Henry to cohabit with any other woman than Catherine, and "all women in general to contract marriage with the King of England".[780] On the 5th of January, 1531, the Pope inhibited laity as well as clergy, universities, parliaments and courts of law from coming to any decision in the case.[781]

[Footnote 777: _L. and P._, iv., 6256.]

[Footnote 778: _Ibid._, iv., 6279.]

[Footnote 779: _L. and P._, iv., 6199, 6596, 6738; v., 460.]

[Footnote 780: _Ibid._, iv., 6772.]

[Footnote 781: _Ibid._, v., 27.]

To these fulminations the ancient laws of England provided Henry with sufficient means of reply. "Let not the Pope suppose," wrote Henry to Clement, "that either the King or his n.o.bles will allow the fixed laws of his kingdom to be set aside."[782] A proclamation, based on the Statutes of Provisors, was issued on 12th September, 1530, forbidding the purchasing from the Court of Rome or the publishing of any thing prejudicial to the realm, or to the King's intended purposes;[783] and Norfolk was sent to remind the papal nuncio of the penalties attaching to the importation of bulls into England without the King's consent.

But the most notorious expedient of Henry's was the appeal to the universities of Europe, first suggested by Cranmer.[784] Throughout 1530 English agents were busy abroad obtaining decisions from (p. 283) the universities on the question of the Pope's power to dispense with the law against marrying a deceased brother's wife. Their success was considerable. Paris and Orleans, Bourges and Toulouse, Bologna and Ferrara, Pavia and Padua, all decided against the Pope.[785] Similar verdicts, given by Oxford and Cambridge, may be as naturally ascribed to intimidation by Henry, as may the decisions of Spanish universities in the Pope's favour to pressure from Charles; but the theory that all the French and Italian universities were bribed is not very credible.

The cajolery, the threats and the bribes were not all on one side; and in Italy at least the imperial agents would seem to have enjoyed greater facilities than Henry's. In some individual cases there was, no doubt, resort to improper inducements; but, if the majority in the most famous seats of learning in Europe could be induced by filthy lucre to vote against their conscience, it implies a greater need for drastic reformation than the believers in the theory of corruption are usually disposed to admit. Their decisions were, however, given on general grounds; the question of the consummation of Catherine's marriage with Arthur seems to have been carefully excluded. How far that consideration would have affected the votes of the universities can only be a.s.sumed; but it does not appear to have materially influenced the view taken by Catherine's advocates. They allowed that Catherine's oath would not be considered sufficient evidence in a court of law; they admitted the necessity of proving that urgent reasons existed for the grant of the dispensation, and the only (p. 284) urgent reason they put forward was an entirely imaginary imminence of war between Henry VII. and Ferdinand in 1503. Cardinal Du Bellay, in 1534, a.s.serted that no one would be so bold as to maintain in Consistory that the dispensation ever was valid;[786] and the papalists were driven to the extreme contention, which was certainly not then admitted by Catholic Europe, that, whether the marriage with Arthur was merely a form or not, whether it was or was not against Divine law, the Pope could, of his absolute power, dispense.[787]

[Footnote 782: _Ibid._, iv., 6759.]

[Footnote 783: _Ibid._, iv., 6615; v., 45.]

[Footnote 784: See the present writer's _Cranmer_, pp. 39-41. Cranmer's suggestion was made early in August, 1529, and on the 23rd Du Bellay writes that Wolsey and the King "appeared to desire very much that I should go over to France to get the opinions of the learned men there about the divorce" (_L.

and P._, iv., 5862). In October Stokesley was sent to France and Croke to Italy (_ibid._, p. 2684); Cranmer did not start till 1530.]

[Footnote 785: _L. and P._, iv., 6332, 6448, 6491, 6632, 6636.]

[Footnote 786: _L. and P._, vii., App. 12.]

[Footnote 787: _Ibid._, v., 468.]

Pending the result of Henry's appeal to the universities, little was done in the matter in England. The lords spiritual and temporal signed in June, 1530, a letter to the Pope urging him to comply with their King's request for a divorce.[788] Parliament did not meet until 16th January, 1531, and even then Chapuys reports that it was employed on nothing more important than cross-bows and hand-guns, the act against which was not, however, pa.s.sed till 1534. The previous session had shown that, although the Commons might demur to fiscal exactions, they were willing enough to join Henry in any attack on the Church, and the question was how to bring the clergy to a similar state of acquiescence. It was naturally a more difficult task, but Henry's ingenuity provided a sufficient inducement. His use of the statutes of _praemunire_ was very characteristic. It was conservative, it was legal, and it was unjust. Those statutes were no innovation designed to meet his particular case; they had been for centuries the law of the land; and there was no denying the fact that the clergy had broken the law by recognising Wolsey as legate. Henry, of course, had (p. 285) licensed Wolsey to act as legate, and to punish the clergy for an offence, at which he had connived, was scarcely consistent with justice; but no King ever showed so clearly how the soundest const.i.tutional maxims could be used to defeat the pleas of equity; it was frequently laid down during his reign that no licence from the King could be pleaded against penalties imposed by statute, and not a few parliamentary privileges were first a.s.serted by Henry VIII.[789]

So the clergy were cunningly caught in the meshes of the law. Chapuys declares that no one could understand the mysteries of _praemunire_; "its interpretation lies solely in the King's head, who amplifies it and declares it at his pleasure, making it apply to any case he pleases". He at least saw how _praemunire_ could be made to serve his purposes.[790]

[Footnote 788: _Ibid._, iv., 6513.]

[Footnote 789: _Cf. L. and P._, iv., 6199. Chapuys writes on 6th February, 1530, "I am told the King did not wish the Cardinal's case to be tried by Parliament, as, if it had been decided against him, the King could not have pardoned him".]

[Footnote 790: _Ibid._, iv., 6488, 6699.]

These, at the moment, were two. He wanted to extract from the clergy a recognition of his supremacy over the Church, and he wanted money. He was always in need of supplies, but especially now, in case war should arise from the Pope's refusal to grant his divorce; and Henry made it a matter of principle that the Church should pay for wars due to the Pope.[791] The penalty for _praemunire_ was forfeiture of goods and imprisonment, and the King probably thought he was unduly lenient in granting a pardon for a hundred thousand pounds, when he might (p. 286) have taken the whole of the clergy's goods and put them in gaol as well. The clergy objected strongly; in the old days of the Church's influence they would all have preferred to go to prison, and a unanimous refusal of the King's demands would even now have baulked his purpose. But the spirit was gone out of them. Chapuys instigated the papal nuncio to go down to Convocation and stiffen the backs of the clergy.[792] They were horrified at his appearance, and besought him to depart in haste, fearing lest this fresh const.i.tutional breach should be visited on their heads. Warham frightened them with the terrors of royal displeasure; and the clerics had to content their conscience with an Irish bull and a subterfuge. "Silence gives consent," said the Archbishop when putting the question; "Then are we all silent," cried the clergy. To their recognition of Henry as Supreme Head of the Church, they added the salvo "so far as the law of Christ allows". It was an empty phrase, thought Chapuys, for no one would venture to dispute with the King the point where his supremacy ended and that of Christ began;[793] there was in fact "a new Papacy made here".[794] The clergy repented of the concession as soon as it was granted; they were "more conscious every day," wrote Chapuys, (p. 287) "of the great error they committed in acknowledging the King as sovereign of the Church"; and they made a vain, and not very creditable, effort to get rejected by spiritual votes in the House of Lords the measures to which they had given their a.s.sent in Convocation.[795] The Church had surrendered with scarcely a show of fight; henceforth Henry might feel sure that, whatever opposition he might encounter in other quarters, the Church in England would offer no real resistance.

[Footnote 791: _Cf. ibid._, vi., 1381 [3], "that if the Pope attempts war, the King shall have a moiety of the temporal lands of the Church for his defence".]

[Footnote 792: _L. and P._, v., 62. Dr. Stubbs (_Lectures_, 1887, p. 318) represents the nuncio as being pressed into the King's service, and the clergy as resisting him as the Commons had done Wolsey in 1523. But this independence is imaginary; "it was agreed," writes Chapuys, "between the nuncio and me that he should go to the said ecclesiastics in their congregation and recommend them to support the immunity of the Church.... They were all utterly astonished and scandalised, and without allowing him to open his mouth they begged him to leave them in peace, for they had not the King's leave to speak with him."]

[Footnote 793: _L. and P._, v., 105.]

[Footnote 794: _Ibid._, v., 112.]

[Footnote 795: _L. and P._, v., 124.]

In Parliament, notwithstanding Chapuys' remark on the triviality of its business, more than a score of acts were pa.s.sed, some limiting such abuses as the right of sanctuary, some dealing in the familiar way with social evils like the increase of beggars and vagabonds. The act depriving sanctuary-men, who committed felony, of any further protection from their sanctuary was recommended to Parliament by the King in person. So was a curious act making poisoning treason.[796]

There had recently been an attempt to poison Fisher, which the King brought before the House of Lords. However familiar poisoning might be at Rome, it was a novel method in England, and was considered so heinous a crime that the ordinary penalties for murder were thought to be insufficient. Then the King's pardon to the clergy was embodied in a parliamentary bill. The Commons perceived that they were not included, took alarm, and refused to pa.s.s the bill. Henry at first a.s.sumed a superior tone; he pointed out that the Commons could not prevent his pardoning the clergy; he could do it as well under the Great Seal as by statute. The Commons, however, were not satisfied.

"There was great murmuring among them," says Chapuys, "in the (p. 288) House of Commons, where it was publicly said in the presence of some of the Privy Council that the King had burdened and oppressed his kingdom with more imposts and exactions than any three or four of his predecessors, and that he ought to consider that the strength of the King lay in the affections of his people. And many instances were alleged of the inconveniences which had happened to princes through the ill-treatment of their subjects."[797] Henry was too shrewd to attempt to punish this very plain speaking. He knew that his faithful Commons were his one support, and he yielded at once. "On learning this," continues Chapuys, "the King granted the exemption which was published in Parliament on Wednesday last without any reservation."

The two acts for the pardon of the spiritualty and temporalty were pa.s.sed concurrently. But, whereas the clergy had paid for their pardon with a heavy fine and the loss of their independence, the laity paid nothing at all. The last business of the session was the reading of the sentences in Henry's favour obtained from the universities.[798]

Parliament was then prorogued, and its members were enjoined to relate to their const.i.tuents that which they had seen and heard.