The Age of the Reformation Part 22

[Sidenote: Coverdale, 1488?-1569]

One of the decisive factors in the Reformation again proved to be the English Bible, completed, after the end of Tyndale's labors by a man of less scholarship but equally happy mastery of language, Miles Coverdale. Of little original genius, he spent his life largely in the labor of translating tracts and treatises by the German Reformers into his native tongue. [Sidenote: The English Bible, 1535] His first great work was the completion of the English Bible which was published by Christopher Froschauer of Zurich in 1535, the t.i.tle-page stating that it had been translated "out of Douche and Latyn"--the "Douche"

being, of course, Luther's German version. For the New Testament and for the Old Testament as far as the end of Chronicles, Tyndale's version was used; the rest was by Coverdale. The work was dedicated to the king, and, as Cromwell had already been considering the advisability of authorizing the English Bible, this was not an unwelcome thing. But as the government was as yet unprepared to recognize work avowedly based on German Protestant versions, [Sidenote: 1537] they resorted to the device of re-issuing the Bible with the name of Thomas Matthew as translator, though in fact it consisted entirely of the work of Tyndale and Coverdale. [Sidenote: 1538-9] A light revision of this work was re-issued as the Great Bible, [Sidenote: October 11, 1538] and Injunctions were issued by Cromwell ordering a Bible of the largest size to be set up in every church, and the people to be encouraged to read it. They were also to be taught the Lord's prayer and creed in English, spiritual sermons were to be preached, and superst.i.tions, such as going on pilgrimages, burning candles to saints, and kissing and licking relics, were to be discouraged.

At the same time Cromwell diligently sought a _rapprochement_ with the German Protestants. The idea {301} was an obvious one that, having won the enmity of Charles, England should support his dangerous intestine enemies, the Schmalkaldic princes. In that day of theological politics it was natural to try to find cement for the alliance in a common confession. Emba.s.sy after emba.s.sy made pilgrimages to Wittenberg, where the envoys had long discussions with the Reformers [Sidenote: January, 1536] both about the divorce and about matters of faith. They took back with them to England, together with a personal letter from Luther to Cromwell, [Sidenote: April] a second opinion unfavorable to the divorce and a confession drawn up in Seventeen Articles. In this, though in the main it was, as it was called, "a repet.i.tion and exegesis of the Augsburg Confession," considerable concessions were made to the wishes of the English. Melanchthon was the draughtsman and Luther the originator of the articles.

This symbol now became the basis of the first definition of faith drawn up by the government. Some such statement was urgently needed, for, amid the bewildering acts of the Reformation Parliament, the people hardly knew what the king expected them to believe. The king therefore presented to Convocation a Book of Articles of Faith and Ceremonies, [Sidenote: July 11 The Book of Articles] commonly called the Ten Articles, drafted by Fox on the basis of the memorandum he had received at Wittenberg, in close substantial and frequently in verbal agreement with it. By this confession the Bible, the three creeds, and the acts of the first four councils were designated as authoritative; the three Lutheran sacraments of baptism, penance, and the altar were retained; justification by faith and good works jointly was proclaimed; the use of images was allowed and purgatory disallowed; the real presence in the sacrament was strongly affirmed. The significance of the articles, however, is not so much their Lutheran provenance, as in their promulgation {302} by the crown. It was the last step in the enslavement of religion. "This king," as Luther remarked, "wants to be G.o.d. He founds articles of faith, which even the pope never did."

[Sidenote: The Pilgrimage of Grace]

It only remained to see what the people would say to the new order.

Within a few months after the dissolution of the Reformation Parliament and the publication of the Ten Articles, the people in the north spread upon the page of history an extremely emphatic protest. For this is really what the Pilgrimage of Grace was--not a rebellion against king, property, or any established inst.i.tution, but a great demonstration against the policy for which Cromwell became the scapegoat. In those days of slow communication opinions travelled on the beaten roads of commerce. As late as Mary's reign there is proof that Protestantism was confined to the south, east, and midlands,--roughly speaking to a circle with London as its center and a radius of one hundred miles. In these earlier years, Protestant opinion was probably even more confined; London was both royalist and anti-Roman Catholic; the ports on the south-eastern coast, including Calais, at that time an English station in France, and the university towns had strong Lutheran and still stronger anti-clerical parties.

But in the wilds of the north and west it was different. There, hardly any bourgeois cla.s.s of traders existed to adopt "the religion of merchants" as Protestantism has been called. Perhaps more important was the mere slowness of the diffusion of ideas. The good old ways were good enough for men who never knew anything else. The people were discontented with the high taxes, and the n.o.bles, who in the north retained feudal affections if not feudal power, were outraged by the ascendency in the royal councils of low-born upstarts. Moreover, it seems that the clergy {303} were stronger in the north even before the inroads of the new doctrines. In the suppression of the lesser monasteries Yorkshire, the largest county in England, had lost the most foundations, 53 in all, and Lincolnshire the next most, 37. Irritation at the suppression itself was greatly increased among the clergy by the insolence and thoroughness of the visitation, in which not only monasteries but parish priests had been examined. In resisting the king in the name of the church the priests had before them the example of the most popular English saint, Thomas Becket. They were the real fomenters of the demonstration, and the gentlemen, not the people, its leaders.

Rioting began in Lincolnshire on October 1, 1536, and before the end of the month 40,000 men had joined the movement. A pet.i.tion to the king was drawn up demanding that the church holidays be kept as before, that the church be relieved of the payment of first-fruits and t.i.thes, that the suppressed houses be restored except those which the king "kept for his pleasure only," that taxes be reduced and some unpopular officials banished.

Henry thundered an answer in his most high and mighty style: "How presumptuous then are ye, the rude commons of one shire, and that one of the most brute and beastly of the whole realm, and of least experience to find fault with your prince in the electing of his councillors and prelates!" He at once dispatched an army with orders "to invade their countries, to burn, spoil and destroy their goods, wives and children." [Sidenote: March 1537] Repression of the rising in Lincolnshire was followed by the execution of forty-six leaders.

But the movement had promptly spread to Yorkshire, where men gathered as for a peaceable demonstration, [Sidenote: October 1536] and swore not to enter "this pilgrimage of grace for the commonwealth, save only for the {304} maintenance of G.o.d's faith and church militant, preservation of the king's person, and purifying the n.o.bility of all villein's blood and evil counsellors, to the rest.i.tution of Christ's church and the suppression of heretics' opinions." In Yorkshire it was feared that the money extorted from the abbeys was going to London; and that the new treason's acts would operate harshly. c.u.mberland and Westmoreland soon joined the rising, their special grievance being the economic one of the rise of rents, or rather of the heavy fines exacted by landlords on the renewal of leases. An army of 35,000 was raised by the insurgents but their leader, Robert Aske, did not wish to fight, though he was opposed by only 8,000 royal troops. He preferred a parley and demanded, in addition to a free pardon, the acceptance of the northern demands, the summons of a free Parliament, the restoration of the papal supremacy as touching the cure of souls, and the suppression of the books of Tyndale, Huss, Luther, and Melanchthon.

The king invited Aske to a personal interview, and promised to accede to the demand for a Parliament if the pet.i.tioners would disperse. An act of violence on a part of a few of the northerners was held to absolve the government, and Henry, having gathered his forces, demanded, and secured, a "dreadful execution" of vengeance.

Though the Pilgrimage of Grace had some effect in warning Henry not to dabble in foreign heresies, the policy he had most at heart, that of making himself absolute in state and church, went on apace. The culmination of the growth of the royal power is commonly seen in the Statute of Proclamations [Sidenote: Statute of Proclamations, 1539]

apparently giving the king's proclamations the same validity as law save when they touched the lives, liberty, or property of subjects or were repugnant to existing statutes. Probably, however, the intent of Parliament was not {305} to confer new powers on the crown but to regulate the enforcement of already existing prerogatives. As a matter of fact no proclamations were issued during the last years of Henry's reign that might not have been issued before.

But the reform of the church by the government, in morals and usages, not in doctrine, proceeded unchecked. The larger monasteries had been falling into the king's hands by voluntary surrender ever since 1536; a new visitation and a new Act for the dissolution [Sidenote: 1539] of the greater monasteries completed the process.

[Sidenote: War on relics]

An iconoclastic war was now begun not, as in other countries, by the mob, but by the government. Relics like the Blood of Hailes were destroyed, and the Rood of Boxley, a crucifix mechanically contrived so that the priests made it nod and smile or shake its head and frown according to the liberality of its worshipper, was taken down and the mechanism exposed in various places. At Walsingham in Norfolk was a nodding image of the Virgin, a bottle of her milk, still liquid, and a knuckle of St. Peter. The shrine, ranking though it did with Loretto and Compostella in popular veneration, was now destroyed. With much zest the government next attacked the shrine of St. Thomas Becket at Canterbury, thus revenging the humiliation of another Henry at the hands of the church. The martyr was now declared to be a rebel who had fled from the realm.

[Sidenote: 1536]

The definition of doctrine, coupled with negotiations with the Schmalkaldic princes, continued briskly. The project for an alliance came to nothing, for John Frederic of Saxony wrote that G.o.d would not allow them to have communication with Henry. Two emba.s.sies to England engaged in a.s.siduous, but fruitless, theological discussion. Henry himself, with the aid of Cuthbert Tunstall, drew up a long statement "against {306} the opinions of the Germans on the sacrament in both kinds, private ma.s.ses, and sacerdotal marriage." The reactionary tendency of the English is seen in the _Inst.i.tution of the Christian Man_, [Sidenote: Definitions of Faith] published with royal authority, and still more in the Act of the Six Articles. [Sidenote: 1537] In the former the four sacraments previously discarded are again "found."

[Sidenote: 1539] In the latter, transubstantiation is affirmed, the doctrine of communion in both kinds branded as heresy, the marriage of priests declared void, vows of chast.i.ty are made perpetually binding, private ma.s.ses and auricular confessions are sanctioned. Denial of transubstantiation was made punishable by the stake and forfeiture of goods; those who spoke against the other articles were declared guilty of felony on the second offence. This act, officially ent.i.tled "for abolishing diversity in opinions" was really the first act of uniformity. It was carried by the influence of the king and the laity against the parties represented by Cromwell and Cranmer. It ended the plans for a Schmalkaldic alliance. [Sidenote: July 10, 1539] Luther thanked G.o.d that they were rid of that blasphemer who had tried to enter their league but failed.

By a desperate gamble Cromwell now tried to save what was left of his pro-German policy. Duke William of Cleves-Julich-Berg had adopted an Erasmian compromise between Lutheranism and Romanism, in some respects resembling the course pursued by Henry. In this direction Cromwell accordingly next turned and induced his master to contract a marriage with Anne, [Sidenote: January 6, 1540] the duke's sister. As Henry had offered to the European audience three tragedies in his three former marriages, he now, in true Greek style, presented in his fourth a farce or "satyric drama." The monarch did not like his new wife in the least, and found means of ridding himself of her more speedily than was usual even with him. Having shared her bed for six months {307} he divorced her on the ground that the marriage had not been consummated.

[Sidenote: July 28, 1540] The ex-queen continued to live as "the king's good sister" with a pension and establishment of her own, but Cromwell vicariously expiated her failure to please. He was attainted, without trial, for treason, and speedily executed.

[Sidenote: Bluebeard's wives]

On the same day Henry married Catharine Howard, a beautiful girl selected by the Catholics to play the same part for them that Anne Boleyn had played for the Lutherans, and who did so more exactly than her backers intended. Like her predecessor she was beheaded for adultery on February 13, 1542. On July 12, 1543, Bluebeard concluded his matrimonial adventures by taking Catharine Parr, a lady who, like Sieyes after the Terror, must have congratulated herself on her rare ability in surviving.

[Sidenote: Catholic reaction]

As a Catholic reaction marked the last eight years of Henry's reign, it may perhaps be well to say a few words about the state of opinion in England at that time. The belief that the whole people took their religion with sheepish meekness from their king is too simple and too dishonorable to the national character to be believed. That they _appeared_ to do this is really a proof that parties were nearly divided. Just as in modern times great issues are often decided in general elections by narrow majorities, so in the sixteenth century public opinion veered now this way, now that, in part guided by the government, in part affecting it even when the channels by which it did so are not obvious. We must not imagine that the people took no interest in the course of affairs. On the contrary the burning issues of the day were discussed in public house and marketplace with the same vivacity with which politics are now debated in the New England country store. "The Word of G.o.d was disputed, rhymed, sung and jangled in every alehouse and {308} tavern," says a contemporary state paper. In private, graver men argued with the high spirit reflected in More's dialogues.

Four parties may be plainly discerned. First and most numerous were the strict Anglicans, orthodox and royalist, comprising the greater part of the crown-loving, priest-hating and yet, in intellectual matters, conservative common people. Secondly, there were the pope's followers, still strong in numbers especially among the clergy and in the north. Their leaders were among the most high-minded of the nation, but were also the first to be smitten by the king's wrath which, as his satellites were always repeating in Latin proverb, meant death. Such men were More and Fisher and the London Carthusians executed in 1535 for refusing the oath of supremacy. Third, there were the Lutherans, an active and intelligent minority of city merchants and artisans, led by men of conspicuous talents and generally of high character, like Coverdale, Kidley, and Latimer. With these leaders were a few opportunists like Cranmer and a few Machiavellians like Cromwell. Lastly there was a very small contingent of extremists, Zwinglians and Anabaptists, all cla.s.sed together as blasphemers and as social agitators. Their chief notes were the variety of their opinions and the unanimity of their persecution by all other parties. Some of them were men of intelligible social and religious tenets; others furnished the "lunatic fringe" of the reform movement. The proclamation banishing them from England [Sidenote: 1538] on pain of death merely continued the previous practice of the government.

The fall of the Cromwell ministry, if it may be so termed by modern a.n.a.logy, was followed by a government in which Henry acted as his own prime minister. {309} He had made good his boast that if his shirt knew his counsel he would strip it off.[1] Two of his great ministers he had cast down for being too Catholic, one for being too Protestant.

Having procured laws enabling him to burn Romanists as traitors and Lutherans as heretics, he established a regime of pure Anglicanism, the only genuine Anglican Catholicism, however much it may have been imitated in after centuries, that ever existed.

[Sidenote: Anti-protestant measures]

Measures were at once taken towards suppressing the Protestants and their Bible. One of the first martyrs was Robert Barnes, a personal friend of Luther. Much stir was created by the burning, some years later, of a gentlewoman named Anne Askewe and of three men, at Smithfield. The revulsion naturally caused by this cruelty prepared the people for the Protestant rule of Edward. The Bible was also attacked. The translation of 1539 was examined by Convocation in 1540 and criticized for not agreeing more closely with the Latin. In 1543 all marginal notes were obliterated and the lower cla.s.ses forbidden to read the Bible at all.

Henry's reign ended as it began with war on France and Scotland, but with little success. The government was put to dire straits to raise money. A forced loan of 10 per cent. on property was exacted in 1542 and repudiated by law the next year. An income tax rising from four pence to two shillings in the pound on goods and from eight pence to three shillings on revenue from land, was imposed. Crown lands were sold or mortgaged. The last and most disastrous expedient was the debas.e.m.e.nt of the coinage, the old equivalent of the modern issue of irredeemable paper. As a consequence of this prices rose enormously.

[1] The metaphor came from Erasmus, _De lingua_, 1525, _Opera_, iv, 682, where the words are attributed to Caecilius Metellus.

{310}

SECTION 2. THE REFORMATION UNDER EDWARD VI. 1547-1553

[Sidenote: Accession of Edward VI, January 28, 1547]

The real test of the popularity of Henry's double revolution, const.i.tutional and religious, came when England was no longer guided by his strong personality, but was ruled by a child and governed by a weak and shifting regency. It is significant that, whereas the prerogative of the crown was considerably relaxed, though substantially handed on to Edward's stronger successors, the Reformation proceeded at accelerated pace.

[Sidenote: Somerset Regent]

Henry himself, not so much to insure further change as to safeguard that already made, appointed Reformers as his son's tutors and made the majority of the Council of Regency Protestant. The young king's maternal uncle, Edward Seymour, Earl of Hertford, was chosen by the council as Protector and created Duke of Somerset. [Sidenote: 1547]

Mildness was the characteristic of his rule. He ignored Henry's treason and heresy acts even before they had been repealed.

[Sidenote: Repeal of treason and heresy laws]

The first general election was held with little government interference. Parliament may be a.s.sumed to have expressed the will of the nation when it repealed Henry's treason and heresy laws, the ancient act _De Haeretico comburendo_, the Act of the Six Articles, and the Statute of Proclamations.

To ascertain exactly what, at a given time, is the "public opinion" of a political group, is one of the most difficult tasks of the historian.[1] Even nowadays it is certain that the will of the majority is frequently not reflected either in the acts of the legislature or in the newspaper press. It cannot even be said that the wishes of the majority are always public opinion. In expressing the voice of the people there is generally some section more vocal, more powerful on account {311} of wealth or intelligence, and more deeply in earnest than any other; and this minority, though sometimes a relatively small one, imposes its will in the name of the people and identifies its voice with the voice of G.o.d.

[Sidenote: Protestant public opinion]

Therefore, when we read the testimony of contemporaries that the majority of England was still Catholic by the middle of the sixteenth century, a further a.n.a.lysis of popular opinion must be made to account for the apparently spontaneous rush of the Reformation. Some of these estimates are doubtless exaggerations, as that of Paget who wrote in 1549 that eleven Englishmen out of twelve were Catholics. But conceding, as we must, that a considerable majority was still anti-Protestant, it must be remembered that this majority included most of the indifferent and listless and almost all those who held their opinions for no better reason than they had inherited them and refused the trouble of thinking about them. Nearly the solid north and west, the country districts and the unrepresented and mute proletariat of the cities, counted as Catholic but hardly counted for anything else. The commercial cla.s.s of the towns and the intellectual cla.s.s, which, though relatively small, then as now made public opinion as measured by all ordinary tests, was predominantly and enthusiastically Protestant.

If we a.n.a.lyse the expressed wishes of England, we shall find a mixture of real religious faith and of worldly, and sometimes discreditable, motives. A new party always numbers among its const.i.tuency not only those who love its principles but those who hate its opponents. With the Protestants were a host of allies varying from those who detested Rome to those who repudiated all religion. Moreover every successful party has a number of hangers-on for the sake of political spoils, and some who follow its fortunes {312} with no purpose save to fish in troubled waters.

But whatever their const.i.tuency or relative numbers, the Protestants now carried all before them. In the free religious debate that followed the death of Henry, the press teemed with satires and pamphlets, mostly Protestant. From foreign parts flocked allies, while the native stock of literary ammunition was reinforced by German and Swiss books. In the reign of Edward there were three new translations of Luther's books, five of Melanchthon's, two of Zwingli's, two of Oecolampadius's, three of Bullinger's and four of Calvin's. Many English religious leaders were in correspondence with Bullinger, many with Calvin, and some with Melanchthon. Among the prominent European Protestants called to England during this reign were Bucer and f.a.gius of Germany, Peter Martyr and Bernardino Ochino of Italy, and the Pole John Laski.

The purification of the churches began promptly. [Sidenote: 1547]

Images, roods and stained gla.s.s windows were destroyed, while the buildings were whitewashed on the inside, properly to express the austerity of the new cult. Evidence shows that these acts, countenanced by the government, were popular in the towns but not in the country districts.

[Sidenote: Book of Common Prayer, 1549]

Next came the preparation of an English liturgy. The first Book of Common Prayer was the work of Cranmer. Many things in it, including some of the most beautiful portions, were translations from the Roman Breviary; but the high and solemn music of its language must be credited to the genius of its translator. Just as the English Bible popularized the Reformation, so the English Prayer Book strengthened and broadened the hold of the Anglican church. Doctrinally, it was a compromise between Romanism, Lutheranism and Calvinism. Its use was enforced by the Act of Uniformity, [Sidenote: 1549] {313} the first and mildest of the statutes that bore that name. Though it might be celebrated in Greek, Latin or Hebrew as well as in English, priests using any other service were punished with loss of benefices and imprisonment.

At this time there must have been an unrecorded struggle in the Council of Regency between the two religious parties, followed by the victory of the innovators. [Sidenote: End of 1549] The pace of the Reformation was at once increased; between 1550 and 1553 England gave up most of what was left of distinctively medieval Catholicism. For one thing, the marriage of priests was now legalized. [Sidenote: Accelerated Reformation] That public opinion was hardly prepared for this as yet is shown by the act itself in which celibacy of the clergy is declared to be the better condition, and marriage only allowed to prevent vice. The people still regarded priests' wives much as concubines and the government spoke of clergymen as "sotted with their wives and children." There is one other bit of evidence, of a most singular character, showing that this and subsequent Acts of Uniformity were not thoroughly enforced. The test of orthodoxy came to be taking the communion occasionally according to the Anglican rite. This was at first expected of everyone and then demanded by law; but the law was evaded by permitting a conscientious objector to hire a subst.i.tute to take communion for him.