Henry VIII Part 25

[Footnote 796: _Ibid._, v., 120.]

[Footnote 797: _L. and P._, v., 171. This and other incidents (see p. 289) form a singular comment on Brewer's a.s.sertion (_ibid._, iv., Introd., p.

dcxlvii.) that "there is scarcely an instance on record, in this or any succeeding Parliament throughout the reign, of a parliamentary patriot protesting against a single act of the Crown, however unjust and tyrannical it might be".]

[Footnote 798: _L. and P._, v., 171.]

Primed by communion with their neighbours, members of Parliament a.s.sembled once more on 15th January, 1532, for more important (p. 289) business than they had yet transacted. Every effort was made to secure a full attendance of Peers and Commons; almost all the lords would be present, thought Chapuys, except Tunstall, who had not been summoned; Fisher came without a summons, and apparently no effort was made to exclude him.[799] The readiness of the Commons to pa.s.s measures against the Church, and their reluctance to consent to taxation, were even more marked than before. Their critical spirit was shown by their repeated rejection of the Statutes of Wills and Uses designed by Henry to protect from evasion his feudal rights, such as reliefs and primer seisins.[800] This demand, writes Chapuys,[801] "has been the occasion of strange words against the King and the Council, and in spite of all the efforts of the King's friends, it was rejected".[802] In the matter of supplies they were equally outspoken; they would only grant one-tenth and one-fifteenth, a trifling sum which Henry refused to accept.[803] It was during this debate on the question of supplies that two members moved that the King be asked to take back Catherine as his wife.[804] They would then, they urged, need no fresh armaments and their words are reported to have been well received by the House.

The Commons were not more enthusiastic about the bill restraining the payment of annates to the Court at Rome.[805] They did not pay (p. 290) them; their grievance was against bishops in England, and they saw no particular reason for relieving those prelates of their financial burdens. Cromwell wrote to Gardiner that he did not know how the annates bill would succeed;[806] and the King had apparently to use all his persuasion to get the bill through the Lords and the Commons.

Only temporal lords voted for it in the Upper House, and, in the Lower, recourse was had to the rare expedient of a division.[807] In both Houses the votes were taken in the King's presence. But it is almost certain that his influence was brought to bear, not so much in favour of the principle of the bill, as of the extremely ingenious clause which left the execution of the Act in Henry's discretion, and provided him with a powerful means of putting pressure on the Pope.

That was Henry's statement of the matter. He told Chapuys, before the bill was pa.s.sed, that the attack on annates was being made without his consent;[808] and after it had been pa.s.sed he instructed his representatives at Rome to say that he had taken care to stop the mouth of Parliament and to have the question of annates referred to his decision.[809] "The King," writes the French envoy in England at the end of March, "has been very cunning, for he has caused the n.o.bles and people to remit all to his will, so that the Pope may know that, if he does nothing for him, the King has the means of punishing him."[810] The execution of the clauses providing for the (p. 291) confirmation and consecration of bishops without recourse to Rome was also left at Henry's option.

[Footnote 799: _L. and P._, v., 737.]

[Footnote 800: Henry had ordered Cromwell to have a bill with this object ready for the 1531 session (_L. and P._, v., 394), and another for the "augmentation of treasons"; apparently neither then proved acceptable to Parliament.]

[Footnote 801: _L. and P._, v., 805.]

[Footnote 802: _Ibid._, v., 989.]

[Footnote 803: _Ibid._, v., 1046.]

[Footnote 804: _Ibid._, v., 989. This was in May during the second part of the session, after the other business had been finished; redress of grievances const.i.tutionally preceded supply.]

[Footnote 805: Annates were attacked first, partly because they were the weakest as well as the most sensitive part in the papal armour; there was no law in the _Corpus Juris Canonici_ requiring the payment of annates (Maitland in _Engl. Hist. Rev._, xvi., 43).]

[Footnote 806: _L. and P._, v., 723.]

[Footnote 807: _Ibid._, v., 898.]

[Footnote 808: _Ibid._, v., 832.]

[Footnote 809: _Ibid._, v., 886.]

[Footnote 810: _L. and P._, v., 150. This letter is misplaced in _L. and P._; it should be under 23rd March, 1532, instead of 1531. The French envoy, Giles de la Pommeraye, did not arrive in England till late in 1531, and his letter obviously refers to the proceedings in Parliament in March, 1532; _cf._ v., 879.]

But no pressure was needed to induce the Commons to attack abuses, the weight of which they felt themselves. Early in the session they were discussing the famous pet.i.tion against the clergy, and, on 28th February, Norfolk referred to the "infinite clamours" in Parliament against the Church.[811] The fact that four corrected drafts of this pet.i.tion are extant in the Record Office, is taken as conclusive proof that it really emanated from the Court.[812] But the drafts do not appear to be in the known hand of any of the Government clerks. The corrections in Cromwell's hand doubtless represent the wishes of the King; but, even were the whole in Cromwell's hand, it would be no bar to the hypothesis that Cromwell reduced to writing, for the King's consideration, complaints which he heard from independent members in his place in Parliament. The fact that nine-tenths of our modern legislation is drawn up by Government draughtsmen, cannot be accepted as proof that that legislation represents no popular feeling. On the face of them, these pet.i.tions bear little evidence of Court dictation; the grievances are not such as were felt by Henry, whose own demands of the clergy were laid directly before Convocation, without any (p. 292) pretence that they really came from the Commons. Some are similar to those presented to the Parliament of 1515; others are directed against abuses which recent statutes had sought, but failed, to remedy. Such were the citation of laymen out of their dioceses, the excessive fees taken in spiritual courts, the delay and trouble in obtaining probates. Others complained that the clergy in Convocation made laws inconsistent with the laws of the realm; that the ordinaries delayed inst.i.tuting parsons to their benefices; that benefices were given to minors; that the number of holy-days, especially in harvest-time, was excessive; and that spiritual men occupied temporal offices. The chief grievance seems to have been that the ordinaries cited poor men before the spiritual courts without any accuser being produced, and then condemned them to abjure or be burnt. Henry, reported Chapuys, was "in a most gracious manner" promising to support the Commons against the Church "and to mitigate the rigours of the inquisition which they have here, and which is said to be more severe than in Spain".[813]

[Footnote 811: _Ibid._, v., 831.]

[Footnote 812: _Ibid._, v., 1017-23. If the Court was responsible for all the doc.u.ments complaining of the clergy drawn up at this time, it must have been very active. See others in _L. and P._, v., 49, App. 28, vi., 122.]

[Footnote 813: _L. and P._, v., 989.]

After debating these points in Parliament, the Commons agreed that "all the griefs, which the temporal men should be grieved with, should be put in writing and delivered to the King"; hence the drafts in the Record Office. The deputation, with the Speaker at its head, presented the complaints to Henry on 18th March. Its reception is quite unintelligible on the theory that the grievances existed only in the King's imagination. Henry was willing, he said, to consider the Commons' pet.i.tion. But, if they expected him to comply with their wishes, they must make some concession to his; and he recommended (p. 293) them to forgo their opposition to the bills of Uses and Wills, to which the Lords had already agreed. After Easter he sent the Commons'

pet.i.tion to Convocation; the clergy appealed to the King for protection. Henry had thus manoeuvred himself into the position of mediator, in which he hoped, but in vain, to extract profit for himself from both sides.[814] From Convocation he demanded submission to three important claims; the clergy were to consent to a reform of ecclesiastical law, to abdicate their right of independent legislation, and to recognise the necessity of the King's approval for existing canons. These demands were granted. As usual, Henry was able to get what he wanted from the clergy; but from the Commons he could get no more than they were willing to give. They again rejected the bills of Uses and Wills, and would only concede the most paltry supplies. But they pa.s.sed with alacrity the bills embodying the submission of the clergy. These were the Church's concessions to Henry, but it must bend the knee to the Commons as well, and other measures were pa.s.sed reforming some of the points in their pet.i.tion. Ordinaries were prohibited from citing men out of their proper dioceses, and benefit of clergy was denied to clerks under the order of sub-deacon who committed murder, felony, or petty treason; the latter was a slight extension of a statute pa.s.sed in 1512. The bishops, however, led by Gardiner and aided by More,[815] secured in the House of Lords (p. 294) the rejection of the concessions made by the Church to the King, though they pa.s.sed those made to the Commons. Parliament, which had sat for the unusual s.p.a.ce of four months, was prorogued on the 14th of May; two days later, More resigned the chancellorship and Gardiner retired in disfavour to Winchester.

[Footnote 814: Stubbs, _Lectures_, 1887, pp.

320-24; Hall, pp. 784, 785; see also _Lords'

Journals_, 1532.]

[Footnote 815: _L. and P._, v., 1013. More had, as Henry knew, been all along opposed to the divorce, but as More gratefully acknowledged, the King only employed those whose consciences approved of the divorce on business connected with it (vii., 289).]

Meanwhile the divorce case at Rome made little progress. In the highest court in Christendom the facilities afforded for the law's delays were naturally more extended than before inferior tribunals; and two years had been spent in discussing whether Henry's "excusator," sent merely to maintain that the King of England could not be cited to plead before the Papal Court, should be heard or not.

Clement was in suspense between two political forces. In December, 1532, Charles was again to interview the Pope, and imperialists in Italy predicted that his presence would be as decisive in Catherine's favour as it had been three years before. But Henry and Francis had, in October, exhibited to the world the closeness of their friendship by a personal interview at Boulogne.[816] No pomp or ceremony, like that of the Field of Cloth of Gold, dazzled men's eyes; but the union between the two Kings was never more real. Neither Queen was present; Henry would not take Catherine, and he objected so strongly to Spanish dress that he could not endure the sight of Francis's Spanish Queen.[817] Anne Boleyn, recently created Marquis (so she was styled, to indicate the possession of the peerage in her own right) of (p. 295) Pembroke,[818] took Catherine's place; and plans for the promotion of the divorce formed the staple of the royal discussions. Respect for the power of the two Kings robbed the subsequent interview between Emperor and Pope of much of its effect; and before Charles and Clement parted, the Pope had secretly agreed to accord a similar favour to Francis; he was to meet him at Nice in the following summer. Long before then the divorce had been brought to a crisis. By the end of January Henry knew that Anne Boleyn was pregnant. Her issue must at any cost be made legitimate. That could only be done by Henry's divorce from Catherine, and by his marriage with Anne Boleyn.[819]

There was little hope of obtaining these favours from Rome. Therefore it must be done by means of the Archbishop of Canterbury; and to remove all chance of disputing his sentence, the Court of the Archbishop of Canterbury must, before his decision was given, be recognised as the supreme tribunal for English ecclesiastical cases.

[Footnote 816: See P.A. Hamy, _Entrevue de Francois I. avec Henri VIII., a Boulogne en 1532_. Paris, 1898.]

[Footnote 817: _L. and P._, v., 1187.]

[Footnote 818: _L. and P._, v., 1274.]

[Footnote 819: In 1529 Du Bellay had written _si le ventre croist, tout sera gaste_ (_L. and P._, iv., 5679).]

These circ.u.mstances, of which not a hint was suffered to transpire in public, dictated Henry's policy during the early months of 1533. Never was his skill more clearly displayed; he was, wrote Chapuys in December, 1532, practising more than ever with his Parliament,[820]

though he received the Spanish amba.s.sador "as courteously as ever".[821] The difficulties with which he was surrounded might have tried the nerve of any man, but they only seemed to render Henry's course more daring and steady. The date of his marriage with Anne Boleyn is even now a matter of conjecture.[822] Cranmer repudiated (p. 296) the report that he performed the ceremony.[823] He declares he did not know of it until a fortnight after the event, and says it took place about St. Paul's Day (25th January). A more important question was the individuality of the archbishop who was to p.r.o.nounce the nullity of Henry's marriage with Catherine of Aragon. He must obviously be one on whom the King could rely. Fortunately for Henry, Archbishop Warham had died in August, 1532. His successor was to be Thomas Cranmer, who had first suggested to Henry the plan of seeking the opinions of the universities on the divorce, and was now on an emba.s.sy at the Emperor's Court. No time was to be lost. Henry usually gathered a rich harvest during the vacancy of great bishoprics, but now Canterbury was to be filled up without any delay, and the King even lent Cranmer 1,000 marks to meet his expenses.[824] But would the Pope be so accommodating as to expedite the bulls, suspecting, as he must have done, the object for which they were wanted?

[Footnote 820: _L. and P._, v., 1633.]

[Footnote 821: _Ibid._, v., 1579.]

[Footnote 822: Cranmer, _Works_, ii., 246. The antedating of the marriage to 14th November, 1532, by Hall and Holinshed was doubtless due to a desire to shield Anne's character; Stow gives the correct date.]

[Footnote 823: See the present writer's _Cranmer_, p. 60 _n._]

[Footnote 824: _L. and P._, vi., 131.]

For this contingency also Henry had provided; and he was actually using the Pope as a means for securing the divorce. An appearance of friendship with Clement was the weapon he now employed with the greatest effect. The Pope was discussing with the French amba.s.sadors a proposal to remit the divorce case to some neutral spot, such as Cambrai, and delaying that definite sentence in Catherine's favour which imperialists had hoped that his interview with Charles would (p. 297) precipitate;[825] the papal nuncio was being feasted in England, and was having suspiciously amicable conferences with members of Henry's council. Henry himself was writing to Clement in the most cordial terms; he had instructed his amba.s.sadors in 1531 to "use all gentleness towards him,"[826] and Clement was saying that Henry was of a better nature and more wise than Francis I.[827] Henry was now willing to suspend his consent to the general council, where the Pope feared that a scheme would be mooted for restoring the papal States to the Emperor;[828] and he told the papal nuncio in England that, though he had studied the question of the Pope's authority and retracted his defence of the Holy See,[829] yet possibly Clement might give him occasion to probe the matter further still, and to reconfirm what he had originally written.[830] Was he not, moreover, withholding his a.s.sent from the Act of Annates, which would deprive the Pope of large revenues? Backed by this gentle hint, Henry's request not merely for Cranmer's bulls, but for their expedition without the payment of the usual 10,000 marks, reached Rome. The cardinals were loth to forgo their perquisites for the bulls, but the annates of all England were more precious still, and, on 22nd February, Consistory decided to do what Henry desired.

[Footnote 825: _L. and P._, vi., 26. The interview took place at Bologna in December, 1532.]

[Footnote 826: _Ibid._, v., 326.]

[Footnote 827: _Ibid._, v., 555.]

[Footnote 828: _Ibid._, vi., 89, 212.]

[Footnote 829: _E.g._, _ibid._, v., 820, where Henry tells Tunstall that to follow the Pope is to forsake Christ, that it was no schism to separate from Rome, and that "G.o.d willing, we shall never separate from the universal body of Christian men,"

and admits that he was misled in his youth to make war upon Louis XII. by those who sought only their own pomp, wealth and glory.]

[Footnote 830: _Ibid._, vi., 296.]

The same deceptive appearance of concord between King and Pope (p. 298) was employed to lull both Parliament and Convocation. The delays in the divorce suit disheartened Catherine's adherents. The Pope, wrote Chapuys, would lose his authority little by little, unless the case were decided at once;[831] every one, he said, cried out "au murdre" on Clement for his procrastination on the divorce, and for the speed with which he granted Cranmer's bulls.[832] There was a general impression that "he would betray the Emperor," and "many think that there is a secret agreement between Henry and the Pope".[833] That idea was sedulously fostered by Henry. Twice he took the Pope's nuncio down in state to Parliament to advertise the excellent terms upon which he stood with the Holy See.[834] In the face of such evidence, what motive was there for prelates and others to reject the demands which Henry was pressing upon them? The Convocations of Canterbury and York repeated the submission of 1532, and approved, by overwhelming majorities, of two propositions: firstly, that, as a matter of law, the Pope was not competent to dispense with the obstacle to a marriage between a man and his deceased brother's wife, when the previous marriage had been consummated; and secondly, that, as a matter of fact, the marriage between Catherine and Prince Arthur had been so consummated.[835] In Parliament, the Act forbidding Appeals to Rome,[836] and providing for the confirmation and consecration of (p. 299) bishops without recourse to the Papal Court, was discussed. It was, like the rest of Henry's measures, based on a specious conservative plea. General councils had, the King said, decreed that suits should be determined in the place in which they originated;[837] so there was no need for appeals to go out of England. Such opposition as it encountered was based on no religious principle. Commercial interests were the most powerful impulse of the age, and the Commons were afraid that the Act of Appeals might be followed by a papal interdict. They did not mind the interdict as depriving them of religious consolations, but they dreaded lest it might ruin their trade with the Netherlands.[838]

Henry, however, persuaded them that the wool trade was as necessary to Flemings as it was to Englishmen, and that an interdict would prove no more than an empty threat. He was careful to make no other demands upon the Commons. No subsidies were required; no extension of royal prerogative was sought; and eventually the Act of Appeals was pa.s.sed with a facility that seems to have created general surprise.[839]

[Footnote 831: _L. and P._, vi., 142.]