History of England from the Fall of Wolsey to the Death of Elizabeth. Vol. III

April 28. Parliament opens.

Speech from the throne.

The houses assembled to compose the religious differences in the realm.

Committee of opinion.

Suggestions offered by the moderate Reformers.

A heresy court to be appointed, mixed of priests and laymen.

The clergy to be allowed to marry.

The opening was conducted by the king in person, on Monday, the 28th of April. The clerk of the House of Lords has recorded (either as if it was exceptional or as if the circumstances of the time gave to a usual proceeding an unusual meaning) the religious service with which the ceremony was accompanied, and the special prayers which were offered for the divine guidance.⁴⁴⁹ The first week passed in unexplained inactivity. On the Monday following the lord chancellor read the speech from the throne, declaring the object for which parliament had been called. The king desired, if possible, to close the religious quarrels by which the kingdom was distracted. With opinions in so furious conflict, the mode of settlement would demand anxious consideration; his Majesty therefore proposed, if the lords saw no objection, that, preparatory to the general debate, a committee of the upper house should compose a report upon the causes and character of the disagreement. The committee should represent both parties. The peers selected were Cromwell, the two archbishops, the Bishops of Bath, Ely, Bangor, Worcester, Durham, and Carlisle.⁴⁵⁰ It was foreseen that a body, of which Cranmer and Latimer, Lee and Tunstall were severally members, was unlikely to work in harmony. The committee proceeded, however, to their labours; and up to this time even the Privy Council seem to have been ignorant of the course which events would follow. On some points the king had either formed no intention till he had ascertained the disposition of the House of Commons, or else he had kept his intentions carefully to himself. A paper of suggestions, representing the views of the moderate Reformers, was submitted to him by some one in high authority; and the tone in which they were couched implied a belief in the writer that his advice would be favourably received. It was to the effect that a table of heresies should be drawn out; that the judgment of the bench of bishops and the ecclesiastical lawyers should be taken upon it; that it should then be printed, and copies sent to every justice of the peace, to be read aloud at every assizes, court leet, or sessions, and in the charges delivered to the grand juries. A court might be constituted composed of six masters of chancery, mixed of priests and laymen, to whom all accusations would be referred; and the composite character of the tribunal would be a security against exaggeration or fanaticism. Meanwhile a bill should be prepared to be laid before parliament, relieving the clergy finally from the obligations of celibacy, legalizing the marriages which any among them had hitherto contracted, and for the future permitting them all “to have wives and work for their living.” “A little book,” in addition, should be compiled and printed, proving “that the prayers of men that be here living for the souls of them that be dead could in no wise be profitable to them that were dead, and could not help them.”⁴⁵¹

The circumstances of the late rebellion and conspiracies laid before parliament.

Lady Exeter and Lady Salisbury attainted without trial.

It is hard to believe that the king’s resolution was fixed, or even that his personal feelings were known to be decided against the marriage of the clergy, when a person evidently high in office could thus openly recommend to him the permission of it, and the reforming preachers at the court had spoken freely to the same effect before him in their sermons.⁴⁵² For the present, however, this matter with the rest waited the determination of the committee of religion, who remained ten days on their labours, and so far had arrived at no conclusions. In the interval the history of the northern rebellion was laid before the houses, with an account of the late conspiracy of the Marquis of Exeter and Lord Montague. Bills of attainder were presented against many of those who had suffered, and in the preambles their offences were stated, though with little detail. The omission in all but two instances is not important, for the act of parliament could have contained only what was proved upon the trials, and the substance of the accusations is tolerably well known. A more explicit statement might have been desired and expected when a parliamentary attainder was the beginning and end of the process. The Marchioness of Exeter and the Countess of Salisbury were not tried, but they were attainted in common with the rest; and it can be gathered only from the language of the act that circumstances were known to the parliament of which the traces are lost.⁴⁵³

Display of a tunic found in the house of Lady Salisbury.

Lady Salisbury, after her sentence, was removed from Cowdray to the Tower. A remarkable scene took place in the House of Lords on the last reading of the act. As soon as it was passed, Cromwell rose in his place, and displayed, in profound silence, a tunic of white silk, which had been discovered by Lord Southampton concealed amidst the countess’s linen. On the front were embroidered the royal arms of England. Behind was the badge of the five wounds, which had been worn by the northern insurgents.⁴⁵⁴ Cromwell knew what he was doing in the exhibition. It was shown, and it was doubtless understood, as conclusive evidence of the disposition of the daughter of the Duke of Clarence and the mother of Reginald Pole. The bill was disposed of rapidly. It was introduced on the 10th of May; it was concluded on the 12th. There was neither dispute nor difficulty; the interest of both houses was fastened on the great question before the committee.

May 16. The Duke of Norfolk, finding no progress to be made by the committee of religion, proposes an open discussion.

The six articles.

The time passed on. No report was presented, and the peers grew impatient. On the 16th the Duke of Norfolk stated that, so far as he could perceive, no progress was being made in the proper business of the session, and, judging from a conversation which had passed when the committee of opinion was nominated, little progress was likely to be made in a body so composed. He therefore moved that the whole parliament be invited to discuss freely the six ensuing articles. 1. In the eucharist after consecration does there, or does there not, remain any substance of bread and wine? 2. Is communion in both kinds necessary or permitted to the laity? 3. Are vows of chastity deliberately made of perpetual obligation? 4. Is there or is there not any efficacy in private masses to benefit the souls of the dead? 5. Are priests permitted to have wives? 6. Shall auricular confession be retained or be not retained in the Church? The duke’s own opinion on each and every of these points was well known; but the question was not only of the particular opinion of this or that person, but whether difference of opinion was any longer to be permitted; whether after discussion such positive conclusions could be obtained as might be enforced by a penal statute on all English subjects.

The debate opens.

Cranmer speaks in opposition.

Act for the extension of the prerogative.

On the first no disagreement was anticipated. No member of either house, it is likely, and no member of convocation – not even Latimer – had as yet consciously denied the real presence; but the five remaining articles on which an issue was challenged were the special points on which the Lutheran party were most anxiously interested – the points on which, in the preceding summer, negotiations with the Germans were broken off, and on which Cranmer was now most desirous to claim a liberty for the Church, as the basis of an evangelical league in Christendom. Norfolk, therefore, had opened the battle, and it was waged immediately in full fury in both houses of parliament – in both houses of convocation. There were conferences and counter-conferences. Cromwell, perhaps knowing that direct opposition was useless, was inclined to accept in words resolutions which he had determined to neutralize; Cranmer, more frank, if less sagacious, spoke fearlessly for three days in opposition; and the king himself took part in the debate, and argued with the rest. The settlement was long protracted. There were prorogations for further consideration, and intervals of other business, when acts were passed which at any other moment would have seemed of immeasurable importance. The Romans, in periods of emergency, suspended their liberties and created a dictator. The English parliament, frightened at the confusion of the country, and the peril of interests which they valued even more than liberty, extended the powers of the crown. The preamble of the eighth of the thirty-first of Henry VIII.⁴⁵⁵ states that —

In order that the king may not be driven to illegal encroachments,

Fresh powers are conferred on him by parliament.

“Forasmuch as the King’s most Royal Majesty, for divers considerations, by the advice of his council, hath heretofore set forth divers and sundry proclamations, as well concerning sundry articles of Christ’s religion, as for an unity and concord among the loving and obedient subjects of his realm, which, nevertheless, divers and many froward and obstinate persons have contemned and broken, not considering what a king by his royal power may do, for lack of a direct statute, to cause offenders to obey the said proclamations, which, being suffered, should not only encourage offenders to disobedience, but also seem too much to the dishonour of the King’s Majesty, who may full ill bear it, and also give too great heart to malefactors and offenders; considering also that sudden causes and occasions fortune many times, which do require speedy remedies, and that by abiding for a parliament in the mean time might happen great prejudice to the realm; and weighing also that his Majesty, which, by the kingly power given him by God, may do many things in such cases, should not be driven to extend the liberty and supremacy of his regal power and dignity by the wilfulness of froward subjects, it is thought in manner more than necessary that the King’s Highness of this realm for the time being, with the advice of his honourable council, should make and set forth proclamations for the good and politic order of this his realm, as cases of necessity shall require, and that an ordinary law should be provided, by the assent of his Majesty and parliament, for the due punishment, correction, and reformation of such offences and disobediences.”⁴⁵⁶

And royal proclamations are invested with the authority of statutes.

For these reasons the extraordinary privilege was conferred upon the crown of being able, with the consent of the Privy Council, to issue proclamations which should have the authority of acts of parliament; and pains and penalties might be inflicted to enforce submission, provided the specific punishment to follow disobedience was described and defined in each proclamation. A slight limitation was imposed upon this dangerous prerogative. The crown was not permitted to repeal or suspend existing statutes, or set aside the common law or other laudable custom. It might not punish with death, or with unlimited fines or imprisonments. Secondary penalties might be inflicted, on legitimate conviction in the Star Chamber; but they must have been previously defined, both in extent and character. These restrictions interfered with the more arbitrary forms of tyranny; yet the ordinary constitution had received a serious infringement, in order that it might not be infringed further by a compelled usurpation. A measure something larger than the suspension of the Habeas Corpus Act – the most extreme violation of the liberty of the subject to which, in the happier condition of England, we can now be driven, a measure infinitely lighter than the “declaration of a state of siege,” so familiar to the most modern experience of the rest of Europe, was not considered too heavy a sacrifice of freedom, in comparison with the evils which it might prevent.⁴⁵⁷

The king avails himself of the confidence reposed in him,

While the Six Articles Bill was still under debate, the king at once availed himself of the powers conferred upon him, again to address the people. He spoke of the secret and subtle attempts which certain people were making to restore the hypocrite’s religion – the evil and naughty superstitions and dreams which had been abolished and done away; while others, again, he said, were flying in the face of all order and authority, perverting the Scriptures, denying the sacraments, denying the authority of princes and magistrates, and making law and government impossible.⁴⁵⁸ He dwelt especially on his disappointment at the bad use which had been made of the Bible: “His Majesty’s intent and hope had been, that the Scriptures would be read with meekness, with a will to accomplish the effect of them; not for the purpose of finding arguments to maintain extravagant opinions – not that they should be spouted out and declaimed upon at undue times and places, and after such fashions as were not convenient to be suffered.”⁴⁵⁹ So far, it seemed as if the fruit which had been produced by this great and precious gift had been only quarrelling and railing, “to the confusion of those that use the same, and to the disturbance, and in likelihood to the destruction, of all the rest of the king’s subjects.”

And warns the people for the last time to live peaceably.

Such shameful practices he was determined should be brought to an end. His “daily study” was to teach his people to live together, not in rioting and disputing, but in unity, in charity, and love. He had therefore called his parliament, prelates, and clergy to his help, with a full resolution to “extinct diversities of opinion by good and just laws;” and he now gave them his last solemn warning:, if they would escape painful consequences, “to study to live peaceably together, as good and Christian men ought to do.”

The great measure was now in motion; but its advance was still slow, and under the shadow of the absorbing interest which it created, two other statutes passed, without trace of debate or resistance; one of which was itself the closing scene of a mighty destruction; the other (had circumstances permitted the accomplishment of the design) would have constructed a fabric out of the ruins, the incompleteness of which, in these later days, the English Church is now languidly labouring to repair.

The king is empowered to complete the dissolution of the monasteries.

Causes and effects of the final catastrophe.

The creation of a new proprietary.

The thirteenth of the thirty-first of Henry VIII. confirmed the surrender of all the religious houses which had dissolved themselves since the passing of the previous act, and empowered the king to extend the provisions of that act, at his pleasure, to all such as remained standing. Monastic life in England was at an end, and for ever. A phase of human existence which had flourished in this island for ten centuries had passed out and could not be revived. The effort for the reform of the orders had totally failed; the sentiment of the nation had ceased to be interested in their maintenance, and the determined spirit of treason which the best and the worst conducted of the regular clergy had alike exhibited in the late rebellion, had given the finishing impulse to the resolution of the government. The more sincerely “religion” was professed, the more incurable was the attachment to the Papacy. The monks were its champions while a hope remained of its restoration. In the final severance from Rome the root of their life was divided; and the body of the nation, orthodox and unorthodox alike, desired to see their vast revenues applied to purposes of national utility. They were given over by parliament, therefore, to the king’s hands. The sacrifice to the old families, the representatives of the ancient founders, was not only in feeling and associations, but in many instances was substantial and tangible. They had reserved to themselves annual rents, services, and reliefs; they had influence in the choice of superiors; the retainers of the abbeys followed their standard, and swelled their importance and their power.⁴⁶⁰ All this was at an end; and although in some instances they repurchased, on easy terms, the estates which their forefathers had granted away, yet in general the confiscated lands fell in smaller proportions to the old-established nobility than we should have been prepared to expect. The new owners of these broad domains were, for the most part, either the rising statesmen – the novi homines who had been nursed under Wolsey, and grown to manhood in the storms of the Reformation, Cromwell, Russell, Audeley, Wriothesley, Dudley, Seymour, Fitzwilliam, and the satellites who revolved about them; or else city merchants, successful wool-dealers or manufacturers: in all cases the men of progress – the men of the future – the rivals, if not the active enemies, of the hereditary feudal magnates.

Intended extension of the episcopate,

And erection of chapters.

Compulsory curtailment of the scheme.

To such persons ultimately fell by far the largest portion of the abbey lands. It was not, however, so intended. Another act, which Henry drew with his own hand,⁴⁶¹ stated that, inasmuch as the slothful and ungodly life of all sorts of persons, bearing the name of religious, was notorious to all the world, … in order that both they and their estates might be turned to some better account, that the people might be better educated, charity be better exercised, and the spiritual discipline of the country be in all respects better maintained, it was expedient that the king should have powers granted to him to create by letters patent, and endow, fresh bishoprics as he should think fit, and convert religious houses into chapters of deans and prebendaries, to be attached to each of the new sees, and to improve and strengthen those already in existence. The scheme, as at first conceived, was on a magnificent scale. Twenty-one new bishoprics were intended, with as many cathedrals and as many chapters; and in each of the latter (unless there had been gross cause to make an exception) the monks of the abbey or priory suppressed would continue on the new foundation, changing little but the name.⁴⁶² Henry’s intentions, could they have been executed, would have materially softened the dissolution. The twenty-one bishoprics, however, sunk into six;⁴⁶³ and eight religious houses only were submitted to the process of conversion.⁴⁶⁴ The cost of the national defences, followed by three years of ruinous war, crippled at its outset a generous project, and saved the Church from the possession of wealth and power too dangerously great.

May 30.

The Six Articles are determined,

And the resolutions are to be enforced by a penal statute.

The severity of the penalties an act not of the king, but of the bishops.

On the 23d of May parliament was prorogued for a week; on the 30th the lord chancellor informed the peers that his Majesty, with the assistance of the bench of bishops, had come to a conclusion on the Six Articles; which, it was assumed, – from the course possibly which the many debates had taken, – would be acceptable to the two houses. A penal statute would be required to enforce the resolutions; and it was for their lordships to determine the character and the a extent of the punishment which would be necessary. To give room for differences of opinion, two committees were this time appointed, – the first consisting of Cranmer, the Bishops of Ely and St. David’s, and Sir William Petre; the other of the Archbishop of York, the Bishops of Durham and Winchester, and Dr. Tregonwell.⁴⁶⁵ The separate reports were drawn and presented; the peers accepted the second. The cruel character of the resolutions was attributed, by sound authority, to the especial influence of Gardiner.⁴⁶⁶ It was not, in its extreme form, the work of the king, nor did it express his own desires. His opinions on the disputed articles were wholly those contained in the body of the act. He had argued laboriously in their maintenance, and he had himself drawn a sketch for a statute not unlike that which passed into law; but he had added two clauses, from which the bishops contrived to deliver themselves, which, if insisted upon, would have crippled the prosecutions and tied the hands of the Church officials. According to Henry’s scheme, the judges would have been bound to deliver in writing to the party accused a copy of the accusation, with the names and depositions of the witnesses; and, if there was but one witness, let his reputation have stood as high as that of any man in the state, it would have been held insufficient for a conviction.⁴⁶⁷

The whip with the six strings.

The slight effort of leniency was not approved by the House of Lords. In spite of Cranmer’s unwearied and brave opposition, the harshest penalties which were recommended received the greatest favour; and “the bloody act of the Six Articles,” or “the whip with six strings,” as it was termed by the Protestants, was the adopted remedy to heal the diseases of England.

After a careful preamble, in which the danger of divisions and false opinions, the peril both to the peace of the commonwealth and the souls of those who were ensnared by heresy, were elaborately dwelt upon, the king, the two houses of parliament, and the convocations of the two provinces declared themselves, after a great and long, deliberate and advised disputation, to have adopted the following conclusions:⁴⁶⁸—

The real presence.

1. That, in the most blessed sacrament of the altar, by the strength and efficacy of Christ’s mighty word, it being spoken by the priest, was present really, under the form of bread and wine, the natural body and blood of Jesus Christ; and that, after consecration, there remained no substance of bread and wine, nor any other but the substance of Christ.

Communion in both kinds.

2. That communion in both kinds was not essential to salvation; that, under the form of bread, the blood was present as well as the body; and, under the form of wine, the flesh was present as well as the blood.

Priests’ marriages.

3. That it was not permitted to priests, after their ordination, to marry and have wives.

Vows of chastity.

4. That vows of chastity made to God advisedly, by man or woman, ought to be observed, and were of perpetual obligation.

Private masses.

5. That private masses ought to be continued, as meet and necessary for godly consolation and benefit.

Auricular confession.

6. That auricular confession to a priest must be retained, and continue to be used in the Church.

Thanks of parliament to the king.

The lords and commons, in accepting the articles, gave especial thanks to his Majesty for the godly pain, study, and travail with which he had laboured to establish them; and they “prayed God that he might long reign to bring his godly enterprise to a full end and perfection;” and that by these means “quiet, unity, and concord might be had in the whole body of the realm for ever.”

On their side they enacted against such persons as should refuse to submit to the resolutions: —

Pains and penalties.

That whoever, by word or writing, denied the first article, should be declared a heretic, and suffer death by burning, without opportunity of abjuration, without protection from sanctuary or benefit of clergy. Whoever spoke or otherwise broke the other five articles, or any one of them, should, for the first offence, forfeit his property; if he offended a second time, or refused to abjure when called to answer, he should suffer death as a felon. All marriages hitherto contracted by priests were declared void. A day was fixed before which their wives were to be sent to their friends, and to retain them after that day was felony. To refuse to go to confession was felony. To refuse to receive the sacrament was felony. On every road on which the free mind of man was moving, the dark sentinel of orthodoxy was stationed with its flaming sword; and in a little time all cowards, all who had adopted the new opinions with motives less pure than that deep zeal and love which alone entitle human beings to constitute themselves champions of God, flinched into their proper nothingness, and left the battle to the brave and the good.

General satisfaction with the measure felt by the higher classes.

The feelings with which the bill was received by the world may be gathered most readily from two letters, – one written by an English nobleman, who may be taken to have represented the sentiments of the upper classes in this country; the other written by Philip Melancthon, speaking in the name of Germany and of English Protestantism struggling to be born.

The signature and the address of the first are lost; but the contents indicate the writer’s rank.⁴⁶⁹

Unanimity of the temporal peers.

“For news here, I assure you, never prince showed himself so wise a man, so well learned, and so catholic, as the king hath done in this parliament. With my pen I cannot express his marvellous goodness, which is come to such effect that we shall have an act of parliament so spiritual that I think none shall dare to say that in the blessed sacrament of the altar doth remain either bread or wine after the consecration; nor that a priest may have a wife; nor that it is necessary to receive our Maker sub utrâque specie; nor that private masses should not be used as they have been; nor that it is not necessary to have auricular confession. And notwithstanding my Lord Canterbury, my Lord of Ely, my Lord of Salisbury, my Lords of Worcester, Rochester, and St. David’s defended the contrary long time, yet, finally, his Highness confounded them all with God’s learning. York, Durham, Winchester, London, Chichester, Norwich, and Carlisle have shewed themselves honest and well learned men. We of the temporalty have been all of one opinion; and my Lord Chancellor and my Lord Privy Seal as good as we can desire. My Lord of Canterbury and all the bishops have given over their opinions and come in to us, save Salisbury, who yet continueth a lewd fool. Finally, all England hath cause to thank God, and most heartily to rejoice, of the king’s most godly proceedings.”

Spirit of English conservatism.

Protest of Melancthon.

There spoke the conservative Englishman, tenacious of old opinions, believing much in established order, and little in the minds and hearts of living human beings, – believing that all variation from established creeds could only arise from vanity and licentiousness, from the discontent of an ill-regulated understanding.

We turn to Melancthon, and we hear the protest of humanity, the pleading of intellect against institutions, the voice of freedom as opposed to the voice of order – the two spirits “between whose endless jar justice resides.”

The shame of the king and the glory of the martyrs.

The malice of the bishops against the truth.

He reminded the king of the scene described by Thucydides, where the Athenians awoke to their injustice and revoked the decree against Mytilene, and he implored him to reconsider his fatal determination. He was grieved, he said, for those who professed the same doctrines as himself; but he was more grieved for the king, who allowed himself to be the minister of tyranny. For them nothing could happen more glorious than to lose their lives in bearing witness to the truth; but it was dreadful that a prince, who could not plead the excuse of ignorance, should stain his hands with innocent blood. The bishops pretended that they were defending truth; but it was the truth of sophistry, not of God. In England, and through Europe, the defenders of truth were piecing old garments with new cloth, straining to reconcile truth with error, and light with darkness. He was not surprised. It was easy to understand with the reason how such things were; but his feelings recoiled, and pleaded passionately against their hard and cruel hearts. “If that barbarous decree be not repealed,” he said, “the bishops will never cease to rage against the Church of Christ without mercy and without pity; for them the devil useth as instruments and ministers of his fury and malice against Christ – he stirreth them up to kill and destroy the members of Christ. And you, O king! all the godly beseech most humbly that you will not prefer such wicked and cruel oppressions and subtle sophistries before their own just and honest prayers. God recompense you to your great reward if you shall grant those prayers. Christ is going about hungry and thirsty, naked and imprisoned, complaining of the rage and malice of the bishops, and the cruelty of kings and princes. He prays, He supplicates, that the members of his body be not rent in pieces, but that truth may be defended, and the Gospel preached among men; a godly king will hear his words, and obey the voice of his entreaty.”⁴⁷⁰

The king reads to the Anglicans a lesson of moderation.

The dinner at Lambeth.

The extremes of opinion were thus visible on either side. Between them the government steered their arduous way, under such guidance as conscience and necessity could furnish. To pass a statute was one thing: to enforce the provisions of it was another. The peers and bishops expected to be indulged forthwith in the pleasures of a hot persecution. The king’s first act was to teach them to moderate their ardour. In order to soothe the acrimonies which the debate had kindled, the lords spiritual and temporal were requested to repair to Lambeth to “animate and comfort the archbishop,” and to bury the recollection of all differences by partaking of his hospitality. The history of their visit was, perhaps, diluted through Protestant tradition before it reached the pages of Foxe, and the substance only of the story can be relied upon as true. It is said, however, that on this occasion a conversation arose which displayed broadly the undercurrent of hatred between Cromwell and the peers. One of the party spoke of Wolsey, whom he called “a stubborn and churlish prelate, and one that never could abide any nobleman;” “and that,” he added, “you know well enough, my Lord Cromwell, for he was your master.” Cromwell answered that it was true that he had been Wolsey’s servant, nor did he regret his fortune. “Yet was I never so far in love with him,” he said, “as to have waited upon him to Rome, which you, my lord, were, I believe, prepared to have done.” It was not true, the first speaker said. Cromwell again insisted that it was true, and even mentioned the number of florins which were to have paid him for his services. The other said “he lied in his teeth, and great and high words rose between them.”⁴⁷¹