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ENGLAND UNDER THE TUDORS
BY ARTHUR D. INNES
SOMETIME SCHOLAR OF ORIEL COLLEGE, OXFORD
FOURTH EDITION
INTRODUCTORY NOTE
BY THE GENERAL EDITOR
In England, as in France and Germany, the main characteristic of the last
twenty years, from the point of view of the student of history, has been
that new material has been accumulating much faster than it can be
assimilated or absorbed. The standard histories of the last generation need
to be revised, or even to be put aside as obsolete, in the light of the new
information that is coming in so rapidly and in such vast bulk. But the
students and researchers of to-day have shown little enthusiasm as yet for
the task of re-writing history on a large scale. We see issuing from the
press hundreds of monographs, biographies, editions of old texts,
selections from correspondence, or collections of statistics, mediaeval and
modern. But the writers who (like the late Bishop Stubbs or Professor
Samuel Gardiner) undertake to tell over again the history of a long period,
with the aid of all the newly discovered material, are few indeed. It is
comparatively easy to write a monograph on the life of an individual or a
short episode of history. But the modern student, knowing well the mass of
material that he has to collate, and dreading lest he may make a slip
through overlooking some obscure or newly discovered source, dislikes to
stir beyond the boundary of the subject, or the short period, on which he
has made himself a specialist.
Meanwhile the general reading public continues to ask for standard
histories, and discovers, only too often, that it can find nothing between
school manuals at one end of the scale and minute monographs at the other.
The series of which this volume forms a part is intended to do something
towards meeting this demand. Historians will not sit down, as once they
were wont, to write twenty-volume works in the style of Hume or Lingard,
embracing a dozen centuries of annals. It is not to be desired that they
should--the writer who is most satisfactory in dealing with Anglo-Saxon
antiquities is not likely to be the one who will best discuss the
antecedents of the Reformation, or the constitutional history of the Stuart
period. But something can be done by judicious co-operation: it is not
necessary that a genuine student should refuse to touch any subject that
embraces an epoch longer than a score of years, nor need history be written
as if it were an encyclopaedia, and cut up into small fragments dealt with
by different hands.
It is hoped that the present series may strike the happy mean, by dividing
up English History into periods that are neither too long to be dealt with
by a single competent specialist, nor so short as to tempt the writer to
indulge in that over-abundance of unimportant detail which repels the
general reader. They are intended to give something more than a mere
outline of our national annals, but they have little space for controversy
or the discussion of sources, save in periods such as the dark age of the
5th and 6th centuries after Christ, where the criticism of authorities is
absolutely necessary if we are to arrive at any sound conclusions as to the
course of history. A number of maps are to be found at the end of each
volume which, as it is hoped, will make it unnecessary for the reader to be
continually referring to large historical atlases--tomes which (as we must
confess with regret) are not to be discovered in every private library.
Genealogies and chronological tables of kings are added where necessary.
C. OMAN
CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION
THE TUDOR PERIOD, 1485-1603 An era of Revolutions--The Intellectual
Movement--The Reformation and Counter-Reformation--The New World--The
Constitution--Nobility, Clergy, and Gentry--International Relations.
CHAPTER I
HENRY VII (i), 1485-1492-THE NEW DYNASTY 1485. Henry's Title to the Crown--
Measures to strengthen the Title--1486. Marriage--The King and his Advisers
--Henry's enemies--1487. Lambert Simnel--The State of Europe--France and
Brittany--1488. Henry intervenes cautiously--England and Spain--1489.
Preparations for war with France--Spanish treaty of Medina del Campo--The
Allies inert--1490. Object of Henry's Foreign Policy--1491. Apparent Defeat
--1492. Henry's bellicose Attitude--Treaty of Etaples.
CHAPTER II
HENRY VII (ii), 1492-1499-PERKIN WARBECK Ireland; 1485--1487-1492. The Earl
of Kildare--1491. Perkin Warbeck's Appearance--Riddle of his imposture--
1492-5. Perkin and Margaret of Burgundy--Diplomatic Intrigues--Ireland:
Poynings, 1494-6--1495. Survey of the Situation--Perkin attempts Invasion
--Success of Henry's Diplomacy--1496. Perkin and the King of Scots--A
Scottish Incursion--1497. The Cornish rising--Its suppression--Perkin's
final effort and failure--The Scottish Truce--The End of Perkin Warbeck:
1497-9--1498. The situation.
CHAPTER III
HENRY VII (iii), 1498-1509-THE DYNASTY ASSURED Scotland and England--
Henry's Scottish Policy--France and Scotland--Relations in 1498--Marriage
Negotiations; 1498-1503--Marriage of James IV. and Margaret, 1503--Spain
and England; Marriage Negotiations, 1488-1499--France, 1499--Spain;
Marriage Negotiations, 1499-1501--1501; the Spanish Marriage--1502. New
Marriage Schemes--1504. The Papal Dispensation--The Earl of Suffolk;
1499-1505--1505. Henry's Position--Schemes for Re-marriage--1506: The
Archduke Philip in England--Philip's Death--1507-8. Matrimonial Projects
--The League of Cambrai--Wolsey--1509. Death of Henry.
CHAPTER IV
HENRY VII (iv), 1485-1509--ASPECTS OF THE REIGN 1485; Henry's Position
--Studied Legality--Policy of Lenity--Repression of the Nobles--The
Star-Chamber--Henry's Use of Parliament--Financial Exactions--Sources of
Revenue--Henry's Economics--Trade Theories--Commercial Policy--The
Netherlands Trade--The Hansa--The Navigation Acts--Voyages of Discovery--
The Rural Revolution--The Church--Henry and Rome--Learning and Letters--
Appreciation.
CHAPTER V
HENRY VIII (i), 1509-1527--EGO ET REX MEUS Europe in 1509--England's
Position--The New King--Inauguration of the reign--Henry and the Powers--
1512. Dorset's Expedition--Rise of Wolsey--1513. The French War--Scotland
(1499-1513)--The Flodden Campaign--The Battle--Its Effect--Recovery of
English Prestige--1514. Foreign Intrigues--The French Alliance and Marriage
--1515. Francis I.--Marignano--1516-7. European changes--1518-9. Wolsey's
Success--1519. Charles V.--The Imperial Election--1520. Wolsey's Triumph--
Rival Policies--Field of the Cloth of Gold--Wolsey's Aims--Charles V. and
Francis I.--Scotland: 1513-1520--1520-1. Affairs Abroad--1521. Buckingham
--Wolsey's Diplomacy--1522. A Papal Election--War with France--Scotland--
1523. Progress of the War--Election of Clement VII.--1524. Wolsey's
difficulties--Intrigues in Scotland--1525. Pavia--The Amicable Loan--A
Diplomatic struggle--1526-7. Wolsey's success--A new Factor.
CHAPTER VI
HENRY VIII (ii), 1509-1532--BIRTH OF THE REFORMATION _The Reformation in
England_--Its true Character--Religious Decadence--The Scholar-
Reformers--Ecclesiastical Demoralisation--Monastic Corruption--The
Proofs--Corruption of Doctrine--Evidence from Colet and More--Later
Evidence--Dean Colet--His Sermon: 1512--Erasmus--The _Utopia_: 1516--
Exaggerated attacks--Clerical Privileges--Tentative Reforms--The
Educational Movement--Wolsey and the Reformation--_The Lutheran
Revolt_: 1517--Luther's Defiance--The Diet of Worms; 1521--The German
Peasants' Revolt; 1524--Its Effect in England--1525. The Empire and the
Papacy--The Sack of Rome, 1527--Diet of Augsburg, 1530-The Swiss Reformers;
1520-1530--English Heretics Abroad--Contrasted Aims.
CHAPTER VII
HENRY VIII (iii), 1527-1529--THE FALL OF WOLSEY "The King's Affair"--Story
of the Marriage--Anne Boleyn--1527. The King Prepares--Theoretical
Excuses--The Need of an Heir--The Plea of Invalidity--Conjunction of
Incentives--The Orleans Betrothal--Conclusions--The first Plan--The second
Plan--Knight's Mission--Its Failure--The Pope and the Cardinal--1528.
Gardiner's Mission--Wolsey's Critical Position--Campeggio and Wolsey--
Henry's Attitude--1529. The Trial--The Storm Gathers--The Storm Breaks--
Wolsey's fall--1530. Wolsey's Death--His Achievement--Appreciation of
Wolsey.
CHAPTER VIII
HENRY VIII (iv), 1529-1533--THE BREACH WITH ROME 1529. No Revolt Yet--
Growth of Anti-clericalism--Thomas Cranmer--Appeal to the Universities
--The New Parliament--Thomas Cromwell--Pope, Clergy, and King--Double
Campaign Opens--1530. Answer of Universities--Preoccupation of the
Clergy--Menace of Praemunire--1531. "Only Supreme Head"--Proceedings in
Parliament--1532. Parliament--Supplication against the Ordinaries--
Resistance of Clergy--"Submission of the Clergy"--Mortmain, Benefit of
Clergy, and Annates--The Powers and the Divorce--The Turn of the Year--
1533. The Crisis--Restraint of Appeals--Cranmer Archbishop--The Decisive
Breach.
CHAPTER IX
HENRY VIII (v), 1533-1540--MALLEUS MONACHORUM 1533. Ecclesiastical Parties
--Pope or King?--1534. Confirmatory Acts--The Pope's Last Word--The Nun of
Kent--The Act of Succession--The Oath Refused--The "Bishop of Rome"--
Parliament--Treasons Act--1529-1534: The New Policy--Thomas Cromwell--1535.
More and Fisher--Cromwell Vicar--General--The German Lutherans--Overtures--
Visitation of the Monasteries--1536. Suppression of Lesser Houses--The
Evidence--The Black Book--The Consequent Commission--The Policy--Anne
Boleyn Threatened--Her Condemnation and Death--The Succession--Punishment
of Heresy--The Progressive Movement--The Ten Articles--The Lincolnshire
Rising--The Pilgrimage of Grace--Aske Beguiled--1537. Suppression of the
Rising--Turned to Account--Scotland, 1533-6--1536-7. Naval Measures--1537.
An Heir--1538. Diplomatic Moves--The Exeter Conspiracy--1539. Cromwell
Strikes--Menace of Invasion--The King and Lutheranism--The Six Articles--
Final Suppression of Monasteries--Royal Proclamations Act--Anne of Cleves--
1540. The Marriage--Fall of Cromwell.
CHAPTER X
HENRY VIII (vi), 1540-1547--HENRY'S LAST YEARS 1540. Katharine Howard--The
King his own Minister--England and the Powers--Scotland and England; 1541--
Cardinal Beton--1542--Solway Moss--1543. Henry's Scottish Policy--Alliance
with Charles V.--French War--1544. Domestic Affairs--Intrigues in Scotland
--Sack of Edinburgh--French War--Peace of Crepy--1545. Ancram Moor--A
French Armada--1546. Peace concluded--1532-1549. _Europe_--Lutherans
and the Papacy--Conference of Ratisbon-Council of Trent: first stages--
Death of Luther-Charles and the League of Schmalkald--The Jesuit Order--
Calvin--_England_: the Ecclesiastical Revolution--Progressives and
Reactionaries--1543. The King's Book-1546. Surrey--1547. Death of Henry.
CHAPTER XI
HENRY VIII (vii), 1509-1547--ASPECTS OF HENRY'S REIGN _Ireland_:
1509-1520--Surrey in Ireland, 1520--Irish Policy, 1520-1534--Fitzgerald's
Revolt--1535-1540: Lord Leonard Grey--1540: St. Leger--"King of Ireland"--
_England_: Wolsey's work--The Army--The Navy--The New World--
Absolutism--The Parliamentary Sanction--Depression of the Nobles--
Parliament and the Purse--Finance--The Land--Learning and Letters--The
_Utopia_--Surrey and Wyatt--_Appreciation of Henry VIII._: Morals
and Character--Abilities and Achievement--Dominant Personality--
Conclusions.
CHAPTER XII
EDWARD VI (i), 1547-1549--THE PROTECTOR SOMERSET 1547. The New Government--
Relations with France and Scotland--with Charles V.--Somerset's Scottish
Policy--Pinkie--The Advanced Reformers--Benevolent Legislation--
Ecclesiastical Legislation--1548. Progress of the Reformation--Somerset's
Ideas--The French in Scotland--The Augsburg Interim--Parliament--1549. A
New Liturgy--The Treason of the Lord Admiral: 1547-9--1549--Troubles in the
Provinces--The Western Rising--Ket's Insurrection--The Protector's
Attitude--The Council attacks him--His Fall--Ireland: St. Leger and
Bellingham.
CHAPTER XIII
EDWARD VI (ii), 1549-1553--THE DUDLEY ASCENDANCY 1549. Foreign Relations--
State of England--1550. Terms with France--Protestant zeal of Warwick--
Treasons Act--Protestant Fanaticism-1551. The Council and Charles V.--His
Difficulties--Groups among the Reformers--Somerset--His final overthrow--
1552. Execution of Somerset--Pacification of Passau--English Neutrality--
The Reformation: its Limits hitherto--Revision of the Liturgy--
Nonconformity--Parliament--1553. A New Parliament--Northumberland's
Programme--Plot to change the Succession--Adhesion of King and Council--
Death of Edward VI.--Willoughby and Chancellor.
CHAPTER XIV
MARY (i), 1553-1555-THE SPANISH MARRIAGE The Marian Tragedies--1553.
Proclamation of Queen Jane--The People support Mary--Collapse of the Plot--
Mary's Leniency--Cause of the Popular Loyalty--Problems: Marriage and the
Reformation--Possible Claimants--Moderate Reaction--Proposed Spanish Match
--Parliament: Repeal of Edward's Legislation--1554. Wyatt's Rebellion and
the Lady Elizabeth--Subsequent Severities--The Marriage Treaty-Pole,
Renard, and Gardiner--Public Tension--Parliament; Reconciliation with Rome
--Reaction consummated, 1555.
CHAPTER XV
MARY (ii), 1555-1558-THE PERSECUTION Mary's early Policy--The Persecution--
Who was Responsible?--Comparison with other Persecutions--Some
Characteristic Features--1555. The First Martyrs--Trial of Cranmer--Ridley
and Latimer--Fate of Cranmer--His Record and Character--Policy of Philip--
Paul IV.--Mary disappointed of an Heir--A New Parliament--Gardiner's Death
and Character--Mary's Difficulties--1556. The Dudley Conspiracy--Foreign
Complications--1557. War with France--1558. Loss of Calais--National
Depression--Mary's Death and Character.
CHAPTER XVI
ELIZABETH (i), 1558-1561-A PASSAGE PERILOUS
1558. Accession--Mary Stewart's Claim--Strength of Elizabeth's Position--
Sir William Cecil--Finance--Philip II. and Elizabeth's Marriage--The
Religious Question--A Protestant Policy--1559. Parliament: Act of
Supremacy--The Prayer-Book--France and Peace--State of Scotland--Arran and
Elizabeth--The Archduke Charles--Wynter in the Forth--1560. Difficulties of
France--Vacillations of Elizabeth--Siege of Leith--Treaty of Edinburgh--
Elizabeth's Methods--The Dudley Imbroglio--The Huguenots--The Pope--1561.
Return of Mary to Scotland.
CHAPTER XVII
ELIZABETH (ii), 1561-1568-QUEENS AND SUITORS 1561. The Situation--Council
of Trent--France; State of Parties--1561-8. France: Catholics and Huguenots
--The Netherlands: Philip's Policy--Prelude to War--1561. The Queens'
suitors--1562. Mary in Scotland--1562-3. Elizabeth and the Huguenots--The
English Succession-1564. Darnley and Others--1565. The Darnley Marriage--
Mary and Murray--1566. The Murder of Rizzio--1567. Kirk o' Field--The
Bothwell Marriage--Mary at Loch Leven--Murray Regent--1568. Langside, and
the Flight to England--1562-8. Protestantism of Elizabeth's Government--
Religious Parties--1566-7. Parliament and the Queen's Marriage--The Queen
and the Archduke.
CHAPTER XVIII
ELIZABETH (iii), 1568-1572--THE CATHOLIC CHALLENGE 1568. Mary in England--A
Commission of Enquiry--Proceedings at York--Attitude of Philip--The
Commission at Westminster--Comment on the Enquiry--Seizure of Spanish
Treasure--1569. The Incident passed over--The Northern Rebellion--1570.
Murder of Murray--The Bull of Deposition--The Anjou Match--1570-1. The
Ridolfi Plot--1571. Parliament--Collapse of the Anjou Match--The Ridolfi
Plot Develops--1572. Parliament and Mary Stewart--Lepanto--The Netherlands
Revolt--The Alencon Match--St. Bartholomew.
CHAPTER XIX
ELIZABETH (iv), 1572-1578--VARIUM ET MUTABILE Elizabeth's Diplomacy--The
Queen's Subjects--Development of Protestantism--1572. Katharine de Medici
--The Aim of Elizabeth--England and the Massacre--Spain seeks Amity--1573.
A Spanish Alliance--Scotland: End of the Marian Party--The Netherlands,
France, and Spain--The Netherlands, England, and Spain--1574. Amicable
Relations of England and Spain--1575. A Deadlock--1576. Attitude of the
Nation--The Queen evades War--Alencon and the Huguenots--The Netherlands
and Don John--Elizabeth's Attitude--1577. The Political Kaleidoscope--The
Archduke Matthias--1578. Mendoza--Orange and Alencon--Death of Don John--
NOTE: The Portuguese Succession.
CHAPTER XX
ELIZABETH (v), 1558-1578--IRISH AND ENGLISH 1549-58--1558. Shan O'Neill--
The Antrim Scots--1560-1. Shan and the Government--1562. Shan in England--
1563-5. Shan's supremacy in Ulster recognised--1566. Sir Henry Sidney
Deputy--Overthrow of O'Neill--Catholicism in Irish Politics--1568. The
Colonising of Munster--1569. Insurrection in Munster--Ireland and Philip--
Experimental Presidencies--1573-4. Essex in Ulster--1576-8. Sidney's second
Deputyship.
CHAPTER XXI
ELIZABETH (vi), 1578-1583--THE PAPAL ATTACK 1579. The Union of Utrecht--
1578. The Matrimonial Juggle--Alencon's wooing--1579. Popular Hostility to
the Match--Loyalty to Elizabeth--Yea and Nay--The Papal Plan of Campaign--
1580. Philip annexes Portugal--_Ireland_: 1579; the Desmond Rising--
1580: Fire and Sword--Development of the Rebellion--Smerwick: and after--
_Scotland_: 1579-1581--_England_: 1580--The Jesuit Mission--
Walsingham at Work--1581. An Anti-papal Parliament--Alencon redivivus--His
visit to England--1582. Alencon in the Netherlands--1583. Exit
Alencon--Scotland.
CHAPTER XXII
ELIZABETH (vii), 1583-1587-THE END OF QUEEN MARY 1583. Throgmorton's
Conspiracy--Catholics abroad sanguine--Division in their Counsels--The Plot
discovered--1584. Assassination of Orange--The "Association"--1585. Its
Ratification--France: The Holy League--Elizabeth's agreement with the
States--Drake's Cartagena Raid--Elizabeth's Intrigues-1586. Leicester in
the Netherlands--The Trapping of Mary--Babington's Plot--Trial of the
Queen of Scots--Elizabeth and Mary--1587. Execution of Mary.
CHAPTER XXIII
ELIZABETH (viii), 1558-1587-THE SEAMEN The New World--The English Marine
before Elizabeth--The Royal Navy--Privateering--"Piracy"--Reprisal--The
Explorers--Spain in America--John Hawkins, 1562-6--San Juan d'Ulloa, 1567--
Francis Drake--Darien Expedition, 1572--Oxenham, 1575--_Drake's Great
Voyage_: 1577--Drake in the Pacific, 1578--in the North Pacific, 1579--
his Return, 1580--_Various Voyages_: 1576-1587--Raleigh--Humphrey
Gilbert--Virginia.
CHAPTER XXIV
ELIZABETH (ix), 1587-1588-THE ARMADA 1587. Results of Mary's Death--
Attitude of Philip--Attitude of Elizabeth--The situation--Drake's Cadiz
Expedition--Negotiations with Parma--Elizabeth's Diplomacy--French Affairs
--Preparations for the Armada--1588. Plans of Campaign--Forces of the
Antagonists--The New Tactics--Defective Arrangements--The Land Forces--May
to July--The Fleets off Plymouth--The Fight off Portland--The Fight off the
Isle of Wight--Effect on the Fleets--The Armada at Calais--The Battle off
Gravelines--Flight and Ruin of the Armada.
CHAPTER XXV
ELIZABETH (x), 1588-1598-BRITANNIA VICTRIX After the Armada--A new
Phase--Death of Leicester--France, 1588-9--England aggressive--Alternative
Naval Policies--Don Antonio--Plan of the Lisbon Expedition--1589. The
Expedition; Corunna and Peniche--The Lisbon Failure--Policies and Persons--
France, 1589-1593--1590. Death of Walsingham--The Year's Operations--1591.
Grenville's Last Fight--France, 1590-3--Operations, 1592-4--Survey, 1589-94
--Spain and the English Catholics--Scottish Intrigues--Ireland: 1583-1592
--Tyrone, 1592-4--1595. Drake's Last Voyage--1596. The Cadiz Expedition--
Ireland--The Second Armada--1597. The Island Voyage--1598. Condition of
Spain--Death of Philip--Death of Burghley: Appreciation.
CHAPTER XXVI
ELIZABETH (xi), 1598-1603--THE QUEEN'S LAST YEARS A new Generation--1598.
Ireland--The Earl of Essex--1599. Essex in Ireland--His Downfall--Catholic
Factions--Philip III.--1600--Ireland--Succession Intrigues--The End of
Essex--Robert Cecil--1601. Ireland: Rebellion broken--1602. The Succession
--Last Intrigues--1603. Death of Elizabeth.
CHAPTER XXVII
ELIZABETH (xii), 1558-1603--LITERATURE Birth of a National Literature--
_Prose_: before 1579--1579-1589--_Euphues_--Sidney--Hooker--
_Verse_: before 1579--1579-1590--_Drama_: before Elizabeth--
early Elizabethan--_The Younger Generation>_: pervading
Characteristics Displayed in the Drama--and other Fields--Breadth of
view--Patriotism--Normal Types.
CHAPTER XXVIII
ELIZABETH (xiii), 1558-1603--ASPECTS OF THE REIGN Features of the Reign--
_Religion_: State and Church--The State and the Catholics--The Church
and the Puritans--Archbishop Whitgift--The Persecutions--_Economic
Progress_--Retrenchment--Wealth and Poverty--Trade Restrictions and
Development--_Travellers_--Maritime Expansion--_The Constitution--
Elizabeth_: her People--her Ministers--Appreciation.
APPENDICES
APPENDIX A--TABLES
I. CONTEMPORARY RULERS--1475-1542
II. CONTEMPORARY RULERS--1542-1603
III. THE LENNOX STEWARTS
IV. HOWARDS AND BOLEYNS
V. HABSBURGS
VI. VALOIS AND BOURBONS
VII. GUISES
DESCENDANTS OF EDWARD III.
THE PORTUGUESE SUCCESSION
APPENDIX B
CLAIMS TO THE THRONE
APPENDIX C
THE QUEEN OF SCOTS
APPENDIX D
BIBLIOGRAPHY
MAPS
I. THE WORLD: AS KNOWN _circa_ 1485-1603.
II. WESTERN EUROPE: _circa_ 1558
III. ENGLAND AND IRELAND
IV. SPANISH AMERICA: _circa 1580
V. THE LOW COUNTRIES AND THE CHANNEL
THE FLODDEN CAMPAIGN
INDEX
ENGLAND UNDER THE TUDORS
INTRODUCTION
THE TUDOR PERIOD, 1485-1603
[Sidenote: An era of Revolutions]
The historian of the future will, perhaps, affirm that the nineteenth
century, with the last years of the eighteenth, has been a period more
fraught with momentous events in the development of the nations than any
equal period since the Christian era commenced. Yet striking as are the
developments witnessed by the last four generations, the years when England
was ruled by Princes of the House of Tudor have a history hardly if at all
less momentous. For though what we call the Tudor period, from 1485 to
1603, is determined by a merely dynastic title affecting England alone, the
reign of that dynasty happens to coincide in point of time with the
greatest territorial revolution on record, a religious revolution
unparalleled since the rise of Mohammed, and an intellectual activity to
match which we must go back to the great days of Hellas, or forward to the
nineteenth century: revolutions all of them not specifically English, but
affecting immediately every nation in Europe; while one of them extended
itself to every continent on the globe. Moreover, the accompanying social
revolution, though comparatively superficial, was only a little less marked
than the others. Nor was there any country in Europe more influenced by the
general Revolution in any one of its aspects than England.
_Nihil per saltum_ is no doubt as true of historical movements as of
physical evolution. Before Columbus sighted Hispaniola, Portuguese sailors
had told tales of some vast island seen by them far in the west.
Botticelli had passed out of Filippo Lippi's school, and Leonardo was
thirty, before Raphael was born; the printing press had reached England,
and Greek had been re-discovered, in the last years of the previous
"period"; the Byzantine Empire had fallen; the power of the old Baronage in
England and France had been broken before Richard fell on Bosworth
field. There were Lollards at home and Hussites abroad before Luther came
into the world. The changes did not begin in 1485, or in any particular
year. In Italy the intellectual movement had already long been active, and
had indeed produced its best work; outside of Italy, its appearances had
been quite sporadic. At that date, the Ocean movement was in its initial
stages. There had been foreshadowings of the Reformation; and, to speak
metaphorically, the castles which had maintained the power of the nobility,
overshadowing the gentry and the burghers, were already in ruins. But the
fame of every one of the great English names which are landmarks in every
one of these great movements belongs essentially to the years after 1485.
And every one of those movements had definitely and decisively set its mark
on the world before Elizabeth was laid in her grave.
[Sidenote: The Intellectual Movement]
The intellectual movement to which we apply the name Renaissance in its
narrower sense [Footnote: In the more inclusive sense the Renaissance of
course began in the time of Cimabue and Dante, but it was not till the
latter half of the fifteenth century that it became a pervading force
outside of Italy.] has many aspects. Whatever views we may happen to hold
as to schools of painting and architecture, it is indisputable that a
revolution was wrought by the work of Raphael and Leonardo, Michael Angelo
and Titian, and the crowd of lesser great men who learned from them. The
limitations imposed on Art by ecclesiastical conventions were deprived of
their old rigour, and it was no longer sought to confine the painter to
producing altar pieces and glorified or magnified missal-margins. The
immediate tangible and visible results were however hardly to be found
outside of Italy and the Low Countries; and if English domestic
architecture took on a new face, it was the outcome rather of the social
than the artistic change: since men wanted comfortable houses instead of
fortresses to dwell in. The Renaissance in its creative artistic phase
touched England directly hardly at all.
On its literary side, the movement was not creative but scholarly and
critical, though a great creative movement was its outcome. In the earlier
period the name of Ariosto is an exception; but otherwise the greatest of
the men of Letters are perhaps, in their several ways, Erasmus and
Macchiavelli abroad and Thomas More in England. Scholars and students were
doing an admirable work of which the world was much in need; displacing the
schoolmen, overturning mediaeval authorities and conventions, reviving the
knowledge of the mighty Greek Literature which for centuries had been
buried in oblivion, introducing fresh standards of culture, spreading
education, creating an entirely new intellectual atmosphere. An enormous
impulse was given to the new influences by the very active encouragement
which the princes of Europe, lay and ecclesiastical, extended to them, the
nobility following in the wake of the princes. The best literary brains of
the day however were largely absorbed by the religious movement. The great
imaginative writers, unless we except Rabelais, appear in the latter half
of the sixteenth century--Tasso and Camoens and Cervantes, [Footnote:
_Don Quixote_ did not appear till 1605; but Cervantes was then nearly
sixty.] Spenser and Marlowe and Shakespeare, as well as Montaigne. But even
in the first half of the century, Copernicus enunciated the new theory that
the Sun, not the Earth, is the centre of the astronomical system; and
before the end of our period, the new methods had established themselves in
the field of science, to be first formulated early in the new century by
one who had already mastered and applied them, Francis Bacon. Essentially,
the modern Scientific Method was the product of the Tudor Age.
[Sidenote: The Reformation and the Counter-Reformation]
For many centuries, Christendom had in effect been undivided. There had
indeed been a time when it was uncertain whether the Arian heresy might not
prevail over orthodoxy, but that was a thousand years ago. The Byzantine
Church later had separated from the Roman on a subtle point of Theology;
but in spite of various dissensions, and efforts on the part of kings and
of Churches which may be called national to assert a degree of
independence, all Western Europe had acknowledged the supremacy of the
papacy; and though reformers had arisen, the movements they initiated had
either been absorbed by orthodoxy or crushed almost out of sight. The Tudor
period witnessed that vast schism which divided Europe into the two
religious camps, labelled--with the usual inaccuracy of party labels--
Catholic and Protestant: the latter, as time went on, failing into infinite
divisions, still however remaining agreed in their resistance to the common
foe. Roughly--very roughly--in place of the united Christendom of the
Middle Ages, the end of the period found the Northern, Scandinavian, and
Teutonic races ranged on one side, the Southern Latin races on the other;
and in both camps a very much more intelligent conception of religion, a
much more lively appreciation of its relation to morals. The intellectual
revolution had engendered a keen and independent spirit of inquiry, a
disregard of traditional authority, an iconoclastic zeal, a passion for
ascertaining Truth, which, applied to religion, crashed against received
systems and dogmas with a tremendous shock rending Christendom in twain.
But the Reformers were not all on one side; and those who held by the old
faiths and acknowledged still the old mysteries included many of the most
essentially religious spirits of the time. If the Protestants won a new
freedom, the Catholics acquired a new fervour and on the whole a new
spirituality. For both Catholic and Protestant, religion meant something
which had been lacking to latter-day mediaevalism: something for which it
was worth while to fight and to die, and--a much harder matter than dying
--to sever the bonds of friendship and kinship. That these things should
have needed to be done was an evil; that men should have become ready to do
them was altogether good. The Reformation brought not peace but a sword;
Religion was but one of the motives which made men partisans of either
side; yet that it became a motive at all meant that they had realised it as
an essential necessity in their lives.
[Sidenote: The New World]
It is hardly necessary to dwell at length on the magnitude of the
maritime expansion; the Map [Footnote: See Map 1]is more eloquent than
words. In 1485 the coasts that were known to Europeans were those of
Europe, the Levant, and North Africa. Only such rare adventurers as
Marco Polo had penetrated Asia outside the ancient limits of the Roman
Empire. In 1603, the globe had been twice circumnavigated by Englishmen.
Portuguese fleets dominated the Indian waters; there were Portuguese
stations both on the West Coast of India and in the Bay of Bengal;
Portuguese and Spaniards were established in the Spice Islands whence
there was an annual trade round the Cape with the Spanish Peninsula:
the English East India Company was already incorporated, and its first
fleet, commanded by Captain Lancaster, had opened up the same waters
for English trade. Mexico and Peru and the West Indies were Spanish
posses-*
** Two pages missing from original book here
[Sidenote: Nobility, clergy and gentry]
In the business of managing the Estates, the problem was further simplified
to the Tudors because circumstances enabled them arbitrarily to replenish
their treasuries largely from sources which did not wound the
susceptibilities of the Commons. Henry VII. could victimise the nobles by
fines or benevolences, and Henry VIII. could rob the Church, without
arousing the animosity of the classes which were untouched; while neither
the nobility nor the clergy were strong enough for active resentment. In
each case the King made his profit out of privileged classes which got no
sympathy from the rest--who did not grudge the King money so long at least
as they were not asked to provide it themselves, and in fact felt that the
process diminished the necessity for making demands on their own pockets.
The disappearance of the old almost princely power of the greater barons,
completed by the repressive policy of Henry VII., with the redistribution
of the vast monastic estates effected by his son, were the leading factors
which changed the social and political centre of gravity. The old nobility
were almost wiped out by the civil wars; generation after generation, their
representatives had either fallen on the battlefield, or lost their heads
on the scaffold and their lands by attainder. The new nobility were the
creations of the Tudor Kings, lacking the prestige of renowned ancestry and
the means of converting retainers into small armies. With the exception of
the Howards, scarce one of the prominent statesmen of the period belonged
to any of the old powerful families. For more than forty years the chief
ministers were ecclesiastics; after Wolsey's fall, the Cromwells, Seymours,
Dudleys, and Pagets, the Cecils and Walsinghams, and Bacons, the Russels,
Sidneys, Raleighs, and Careys, were of stocks that had hardly been heard of
in Plantagenet times, outside their own localities. It was the Tudor policy
to foster and encourage this class of their subjects, who from the Tudor
times onward provided the country with most of her statesmen and her
captains, and in the aggregate mainly swayed her fortunes. At the same time
the political influence of the Church was reduced to comparative
insignificance by the treatment of the whole hierarchy almost as if it were
a branch, and a rather subordinate branch, of the civil administration; by
the appropriation of its wealth to secular purposes, to the enrichment of
individuals and of the royal treasury; and by the suppression of the
monastic orders. The effect of this last measure, limiting the clerical
ranks to the successors of the secular clergy, was to restrict them much
more generally to their pastoral functions; and at any rate after the death
of Gardiner and Pole, no ecclesiastic appears as indubitably first minister
of the Crown, and few as politicians of the front rank. England had no
Richelieu, and no Mazarin. Lastly while the diminution in the importance of
the ecclesiastical courts increased the influence of the lay lawyers, the
great development in the prosperity of the mercantile classes, due in part
at least to the deliberate policy of the Tudor monarchs, led in turn to
their wealthy burgesses acquiring a new weight in the national counsels
which, however, did not take full effect till a later day.
[Sidenote: International relations]
Finally we have to observe that in this period the whole system of
international relations underwent a complete transformation. At its
commencement, there was no Spanish kingdom; there was no Dutch Republic;
the unification even of France was not completed; England had a chronically
hostile nation on her northern borders; the Moors still held Granada; the
Turk had only very recently established himself in Europe, and his advance
constituted a threat to all Christendom, which still very definitely
recognised one ecclesiastical head in the Pope, and--very much less
definitely--one lay head in the Emperor. Elizabeth's death united England
and Scotland at least for international purposes; France and Spain had each
become a homogeneous state; Holland was on the verge of entering the lists
as a first-class power. The theoretical status of the Emperor in Europe had
vanished, but on the other hand, the co-ordination of the Empire itself as
a Teutonic power had considerably advanced. The Turk was held in check, and
the Moor was crushed: but one half of Christendom was disposed to regard
the other half as little if at all superior to the Turk in point of
Theology. The nations of Western Europe had approximately settled into the
boundaries with which we are familiar; the position of the great Powers had
been, at least comparatively speaking, formulated; and the idea had come
into being which was to dominate international relations for centuries to
come--the political conception of the Balance of Power.
CHAPTER I
HENRY VII (i), 1485-92--THE NEW DYNASTY
[Sidenote: 1485 Henry's title to the Crown]
On August 22nd, 1485, Henry Earl of Richmond overcame and slew King Richard
III., and was hailed as King on the field of victory. But the destruction
of Richard, an indubitable usurper and tyrant, was only the first step in
establishing a title to the throne as disputable as ever a monarch put
forward. To establish that title, however, was the primary necessity not
merely for Henry himself, but in the general interest; which demanded a
secure government after half a century of turmoil.
Henry's hereditary title amounted to nothing more than this, that through
his mother he was the recognised representative of the House of Lancaster
in virtue of his Beaufort descent from John of Gaunt, [Footnote: See
_Front_. and Appendix B. The prior hereditary claims of the royal
Houses of Portugal and Castile and of the Earl of Westmorland were
ignored.] father of Henry IV.; whereas the House of York was descended in
the female line from Lionel of Clarence, John of Gaunt's elder brother, and
in unbroken male line from the younger brother Edmund of York. On the
simple ground of descent therefore, any and every member of the House of
York had a prior title to Henry's; the most complete title lying in
Elizabeth, eldest daughter of Edward IV.; while the young Earl of Warwick,
son of George of Clarence, was the first male representative, and John de
la Pole, Earl of Lincoln, son of Edward's sister, had been named by Richard
as heir presumptive.
But Henry could support his hereditary title, such as it was, by the actual
fact that it was he and not a Yorkist who had challenged and overthrown the
usurper Richard.
[Sidenote 1: Measures to strengthen the title]
[Sidenote 2: 1486 Marriage]
Now the idea that the rivalry of the Houses of York and Lancaster should be
terminated and their union be effected by the marriage of the two
recognised representatives had been mooted long before. But in Henry's
position, it was imperative that he should assert his own personal right to
the throne, not admitting that he occupied it as his wife's consort. His
strongest line was to claim the Crown as his own of right and procure the
endorsement of that claim from Parliament, [Footnote: The intricacies of
descent, and the position of the crowd of hypothetical claimants, are set
forth in detail in Appendix B, and the complete genealogical chart
(_Front_.).] as Henry IV. had done on the deposition of Richard II. He
could then without prejudice to his own title effectively bar other rivals
by taking as his consort Elizabeth of York; since the Yorkists, as a group,
would at any rate hesitate to assert priority of title to hers for either
Warwick or De la Pole (who in fact never himself posed as a claimant for
the throne). In accordance with this plan of operations, the contemplated
marriage with Elizabeth of York was in the first instance postponed as a
matter for later consideration. Henry proceeded forthwith to London,
entering the City _laetanter_, amidst public rejoicings; [Footnote:
Gairdner, _Memorials of Henry VII_., p. xxvi, where a curious
misapprehension is explained for which Bacon is mainly responsible.] writs
for a new Parliament being issued a few days later. The coronation took
place on October 30th; a week afterwards Parliament met, and an Act was
promptly passed, declaring--without giving any reasons, which might have
been disputed--that the "inheritance of the Crowns of England and France
be, rest, remain and abide, in the person of our now Sovereign Lord, King
Harry the Seventh, and in the heirs of his body". This was sufficiently
decisive; but the endorsement of Henry's title in the abstract was
confirmed by further enactments which assumed that he had been King of
right, before the battle of Bosworth (thus repudiating title by conquest),
since they attainted of treason those who had joined Richard in levying war
against him. Thus Henry had affirmed his own inherent right to the throne;
and had hedged that round with an unqualified parliamentary title. In the
meantime he had also disqualified one possible figure-head for the Yorkists
by lodging the young Earl of Warwick in the Tower. It remained for him to
convert the other and principal rival into a prop of his own dignities by
marrying Elizabeth of York. Accordingly he was formally petitioned by
Parliament in December to take the princess to wife, to which petition he
graciously assented, and the union of the red and white roses was
accomplished in January. Any son born of this marriage would in his own
person unite the claims of the House of Lancaster with those of the senior
branch of the House of York.
[Sidenote: The King and his advisers]
It is difficult to think of the first Tudor monarch as a young man; for his
policy and conduct bore at all times the signs of a cautious and
experienced statesmanship. Nevertheless, he was but eight and twenty when
he wrested the kingdom from Richard. His life, however, had been passed in
the midst of perpetual plots and schemes, and in his day men developed
early--whereof an even more striking example was his son's contemporary,
the great Emperor Charles V. Young as Henry was, there was no youthful
hot-headedness in his policy, which was moreover his own. But he selected
his advisers with a skill inherited by his son; and the most notable
members of the new King's Council were Reginald Bray; Morton, Bishop of
Ely, who soon after became Archbishop of Canterbury and was later raised to
the Cardinalate; and Fox, afterwards Bishop of Durham and then of
Winchester, whose services were continued through the early years of the
next reign. Warham, afterwards Archbishop, was another of the great
ecclesiastics whom he promoted, and before his death he had discovered the
abilities of his son's great minister Thomas Wolsey. For two thirds of his
reign, however, Bray and Morton were the men on whom he placed chief
reliance.
[Sidenote: Henry's enemies]
Difficult as it was after Henry's union with Elizabeth to name any
pretender to the throne with even a plausible claim, Bosworth had been
in effect a victory for the Lancastrian party, and many of the Yorkists
were still prepared to seize any pretext for attempting to overthrow
the new dynasty. Not long after the marriage, Henry started on a
progress through his dominions; and while he was in the north, Lord
Lovel and other adherents of the late king attempted a rising which was
however suppressed with little difficulty. A considerable body of
troops was sent against the rebels, while a pardon was proclaimed for
all who forthwith surrendered. Many of the insurgents came in; the
promise to them was kept. Of the rest, one of the leaders was executed,
Lovel escaping; but the affair, though abortive, illustrated the
general atmosphere of insecurity which was to be more seriously
demonstrated by the insurrection in favour of Lambert Simnel in the
following year--some months after the Queen had given birth to a son,
Prince Arthur.
Outside Henry's own dominions, the Dowager Margaret of Burgundy, widow
of Duke Charles the Bold and sister of Edward IV., was implacably
hostile to Henry, and her court was the gathering place of dissatisfied
Yorkist intriguers. Within his realms, Ireland, where the House of York
had always been popular, offered a perpetual field in which to raise
the standard of rebellion, any excuse for getting up a fight being
generally welcomed. In that country the power of the King's government,
such as it was, was practically confined to the limits of the Pale--and
within those limits depended mainly on the attitude of the powerful
Irish noble, Fitzgerald, Earl of Kildare, who held the office of Deputy.
[Sidenote: 1487 Lambert Simnel]
At the close of the fifteenth century accurate information did not travel
rapidly, but vague rumours were readily spread abroad. Rumours were now
rife that one of the princes murdered by Richard III. had really escaped
and was still living; and on the other hand that the boy Warwick was dead
in the Tower. Some one devised the idea of producing a fictitious Richard
of York, or Warwick. A boy of humble birth named Lambert Simnel was taught
to play the part, carried over to Ireland, and produced after some
hesitation as the Earl of Warwick. Presumably the leaders of the Yorkists
intended to use the supposititious earl only until the real one could be
got into their hands; but Lincoln, who certainly knew the facts, espoused
the cause of the pretender, in complicity with Lovel and Margaret of
Burgundy. In Ireland, Simnel was cheerfully and with practical unanimity
accepted as the king, and a band of German mercenaries, under the command
of Martin Swart, was landed in that country to support him; though in
London the genuine Warwick was paraded through the streets to show that he
was really there alive. Lincoln, who had first escaped to Flanders, joined
the pretender; they landed in Lancashire in June. Within a fortnight,
however, the opposing forces met at Stoke, and after a brief but fierce
conflict the rebel army, mainly composed of Irish and of German
mercenaries, was crushed, Lincoln and several leaders were slain, and their
puppet was taken captive. Henry's action was the reverse of vindictive, for
Simnel was merely relegated to a position, appropriate to his origin, in
the royal kitchen, and was subsequently promoted to be one of the King's
falconers. Kildare, [Footnote: The narrative in the _Book of Howth_
gives the impression that Kildare was at Stoke, and was made prisoner; but
this is probably a misinterpretation arising from a lack of dates.] in
spite of his undoubted complicity in the rebellion and the actual
participation therein of his kinsmen, was even retained in the office of
Deputy. Twenty-eight of the rebels, however, were attainted in the new
Parliament which was summoned in November, the Queen's long-deferred
coronation taking place at the same time.
The same Parliament is noteworthy as having given a definitely legal status
to the judicial authority of the Council by the establishment of the Court
thereafter known as the Star Chamber, of which we shall hear later. Besides
this, however, it had the duty of voting supplies for embroilments
threatening on the Continent.
The complexities of foreign affairs form so important a feature in the
history of the next forty years that it is important to open the study of
the period with a clear idea of the position of the Continental powers.
[Sidenote: The state of Europe]
Lewis XI., the craftiest of kings, had died in 1482, leaving a tolerably
organised kingdom to his young son Charles VIII., under the regency of Anne
of Beaujeu. With the exception of the Dukedom of Brittany, which still
claimed a degree of independence, and of Flanders and Artois which, though
fiefs of France, were still ruled by the House of Burgundy, the whole
country was under the royal dominion; which had also absorbed the Duchy of
Burgundy proper. The daughter of Charles the Bold, wife of Maximilian of
Austria, inherited as a diminished domain the Low Countries and the County
of Burgundy or Franche Comte.
East of the Rhine, the kingdoms, principalities, and dukedoms of Germany
owned the somewhat vague authority of the Habsburg Emperor Frederick, but
the idea of German Unity had not yet come into being. On the south-east the
Turks who had captured Constantinople some thirty years before (1453) were
a militant and aggressive danger to the Empire and to Christendom; while
the stoutest opponent of their fleets was Venice. Switzerland was an
independent confederacy of republican States: Italy a collection of
separate States--dukedoms such as Milan, kingdoms such as Naples, Republics
such as Venice and Florence, with the Papal dominions in their midst. In
the Spanish peninsula were the five kingdoms of Navarre, Portugal, the
Moorish Granada, Aragon, and Castile. The last two, however, were already
united, though not yet merged into one, by the marriage of their respective
sovereigns Ferdinand and Isabella. Sardinia and Sicily were attached to
Aragon.
Finally we have to note that Maximilian, son of the Emperor, had married
Mary of Burgundy; but on Mary's death the Netherlanders recognised as their
Duke not Maximilian but his young son Philip--the father exercising only a
very precarious authority as the boy's guardian; while the Dowager
Margaret, the second wife of Charles the Bold, the lady whose hostility to
the House of Lancaster has been already noted, possessed some dower-towns,
and considerable influence. In 1486 Maximilian was elected "King of the
Romans," in other words his father's presumed successor as Emperor.
[Sidenote: France and Brittany]
For the time, then, the consolidation of France was more advanced than that
of any other Power; her desire was to complete the process by the
absorption of Brittany. Spain, i.e., Castile and Aragon, had made
considerable progress in the same direction, but for her the conquest of
Granada was still the prime necessity.
The absorption of Brittany, however, was opposed alike to the interests of
Maximilian, of the Spanish monarchs, and of England. To the former two, any
further acquisition of power by France was a possible menace. To the last,
France was traditionally the enemy, and if Breton ports became French
ports, the strength of France in the Channel would be almost doubled. Henry
personally was under great obligations both to France and to Brittany,
especially to France; but political exigencies evidently compelled him to
favour the maintenance of Breton independence.
During 1487 France had been carrying on active hostilities in Brittany, but
the results had been small and a treaty had been signed. Lewis, Duke of
Orleans, and others of the French nobility who were hostile to the regency
of Anne of Beaujeu, were actively promoting the Breton cause within the
dukedom; there was no longer an active French party there; and now that
Henry in England had suppressed the Simnel rising France became anxious to
secure English neutrality. But, if Henry could not keep clear of the
complication altogether; if once the parties in the contest began appealing
to him; he was liable to find himself forced to take part with one side or
the other. Hence the necessity for calling upon Parliament to vote money
for armaments.
[Sidenote: 1488 Henry intervenes cautiously]
Thus in the opening months of 1488 we find Henry on the one hand fitting
out ships, and on the other offering friendly mediation both to France and
to Brittany: while his policy was not simplified by the unauthorised
interposition of his queen's uncle Edward Woodville, who secretly sailed
with a band of adventurers to support the Bretons. Henry repudiated
Woodville's action, and extended the existing treaty of peace with France
to January, 1490. In the same month (July, 1488) the Bretons suffered a
complete defeat, and the Duke was obliged to sign a treaty on ignominious
terms. Within a fortnight, however, the Duke was dead, and his daughter
Anne, a girl of twelve, succeeded him.
The result was the renewal of war; since Anne of Beaujeu and the Breton
Marshal de Rieux both claimed the wardship of the young Duchess, for whose
hand the widower Maximilian was already a prominent suitor. Now up to this
point Henry had refused to adopt a hostile attitude towards France, and had
treated overtures from Maximilian with frigidity. But in six months' time
he was concluding alliances both with Brittany and with Maximilian.
[Sidenote: England and Spain]
The determining factor in this change of attitude, practically involving a
French war, is probably to be found in Henry's relations with Spain. It was
of vital importance to him to get his dynasty recognised in an emphatic
form by foreign Powers. In Spain under its very able rulers he saw the most
valuable of allies, and during the first half of 1488 he had made it his
primary concern to procure the betrothal of his own infant son Arthur to
their infant daughter Katharine. And virtually his hostility to France was
the price they demanded. The preliminaries were settled in July, 1488; the
treaty was not definitively signed till March of the next year; and as the
essential nature of the Spanish requirements became more apparent, Henry
found himself compelled to accept active antagonism to France as part of
the bargain. With his subjects, a French war was always secure of a certain
popularity, though the provision of funds for it would entail a degree of
opposition. Moreover, though foreign wars might give extreme malcontents
their opportunity, it is a commonplace of politics that they distract
attention from domestic grievances. Thus it is easy to perceive how the
benefits of the Spanish alliance would very definitely turn the scale. And
we shall still find that Henry had no intention of expending an ounce of
either blood or treasure which might be saved consistently with the
ostensible fulfilment of the Spanish Compact.
[Sidenote 1: 1489 Preparations for war with France]
[Sidenote 2: Spanish treaty of Medina del Campo]
So in December, 1488, Henry was sending friendly embassies to all the
Powers, but while that to France was merely offering mediation, the envoy
to Brittany was offering military assistance--on terms. In January a new
Parliament was asked for, and after considerable debate granted, L100,000.
In February the embassy to Maximilian concluded an alliance for mutual
defence; while that to Brittany pledged Henry to defend the young Duchess,
but exacted in return the occupation by the English of sundry military
positions in the duchy, and the right to forbid any marriage or alliance
except with Maximilian or Spain. Then in March the Spanish treaty was
completed: whereof the terms were very significant. The children were to be
betrothed. If Spain declared war on France, England was to support her.
Spain might retire independently if she recovered the small districts of
Roussillon and Cerdagne, which had been surrendered (though only in pledge)
to Lewis XI.; England might similarly withdraw if she got back Guienne--a
very much more visionary prospect. Otherwise, one was not to retire without
the other being equally satisfied. If England attacked France, Spain was to
help; but occupied as she was with Granada the amount of aid likely to be
forthcoming was problematical. In brief, Henry was prepared to pay for the
marriage, and Spain could exact a high price.
France then was occupied in the west with the contest in Brittany, and in
the north she was supporting the Flemings in their normal resistance to
Maximilian. The English could use Calais as a base for operations on this
side, and also began to throw troops into Brittany. Incidentally there was
a rising in the north of England headed by Sir John Egremont, of which the
pretext was resistance to the levying of taxes; this, however, did not take
very long to suppress, nor was any one of importance involved in it. Still
the hostilities with France were carried on in a very half-hearted fashion;
being confined to defensive operations in Brittany which were supposed to
be no violation of the peace recently prolonged to January, 1490.
[Sidenote: The allies inert]
Henry was satisfied to make a show of fighting, and Spain made no haste to
help him, England not being formally at war. As early as July, Maximilian,
shiftiest and most impecunious of princes, concluded at Frankfort an
independent treaty with France; who agreed to give up the places she
occupied in Brittany if Henry were compelled to withdraw his garrisons;
while there were signs that she might cede Roussillon and thus deprive
Henry of his claim to Spanish support. Within the duchy itself, the Marshal
de Rieux and his ward were in a state of antagonism; since he wished her to
marry the Sieur D'Albret, a powerful Gascon noble who was not too
submissive to the French monarchy; while the Duchess declared she would
rather enter a convent. Anne at last announced her adhesion to the treaty
of Frankfort; but as Henry had no intention of evacuating his forts,
nothing particular resulted. The English King could not afford simply to
drop the contest, and when the New Year came in, he demanded and obtained
from Parliament fresh supplies for carrying on the war.
[Sidenote: 1490 Object of Henry's foreign policy]
The game Henry had to play in 1490 was a sufficiently difficult one: and he
played it with consummate skill. He meant to hold his position in Brittany
until he received adequate indemnities; he had to satisfy his own subjects
that he was not going to draw back before the power of France; and he had
to carry out the letter of his obligations to Spain under the treaty of the
previous March, On the other hand, he had in fact no ambitious military
projects, and while Spain abstained from sending active assistance in
force, she could not complain if he merely stood on the defensive. The
Duchess, finding herself no better off for accepting the Frankfort treaty,
adopted the alternative policy of throwing herself on his protection. So he
welcomed a mediatorial embassy from the Pope and showed no unwillingness to
negotiate, but continued to strengthen his own position; while he could
exhibit a sound reason for abstaining from aggressive action and still
accumulate war-funds.
By Midsummer France had enlarged her demands since the treaty of Frankfort,
requiring the withdrawal of the English from Brittany as a preliminary not
to her own withdrawal but to arbitration on her claims. In September the
shifty King of the Romans reverted to an alliance with Henry for mutual
defence; and the scheme of his marriage with the Duchess Anne was pressed
on. Marshal de Rieux had by this time become reconciled to the Duchess,
thrown over D'Albret, and come into agreement with Henry. At this time,
moreover, Henry ratified publicly the Spanish treaty which had been
accepted by Ferdinand and Isabella eighteen months before; but he also
submitted an alternative treaty [Footnote: Busch, _England under the
Tudors_. pp. 59, 330; and Gairdner's note, p. 438.] (which Spain
rejected) modifying the portions which placed the contracting Powers on an
unequal footing. By this step he forced the Spanish monarchs to resign any
pretence of having treated him generously or having placed him under an
obligation; and the step itself was significant of the increased confidence
he had acquired in the stability of his own position. In December
Maximilian was married by proxy to Anne--whom he had never seen--and not
long afterwards she assumed the style of Queen of the Romans.
[Sidenote: Apparent defeat of Henry's policy]
Ostensibly, the object of Henry's diplomacy had failed. Spain had rejected
his proposals: and the direct results of Anne's marriage were that the
activity of France was renewed; Spain, with the pretext of the Moorish war
to plead, was less inclined than ever to render assistance; Maximilian as a
matter of course proved a broken reed; D'Albret, his pretensions being
finally shattered, surrendered Nantes to the French by arrangement. England
was apparently to bear the entire brunt of the war. Henry was justified in
appealing to his subjects for every penny that could be raised, and
resorted to "benevolences"--an insidious method of extortion which had been
declared illegal in the previous reign, but under the existing abnormal
conditions could hardly be resisted. A great demonstration of warlike
ardour was made, on the strength of which Spain was urged to pledge herself
to throw herself into the war next year with more energy and on more
reasonable terms than the existing treaty of Medina del Campo provided for.
But in the meantime the French were reducing Brittany, and held the Duchess
besieged in Rennes. The French King, Charles VIII., proposed that the
marriage with a husband whom she had never seen should be annulled, and the
dispute be terminated by his wedding her himself. Resistance seemed
hopeless; Anne assented; the necessary dispensations were secured from
Rome, and Anne of Brittany became Queen of France.
[Sidenote: 1492 Henry's bellicose attitude]
Now the defence of Brittany had been the primary ground of England's
quarrel with the French; with Henry himself, however, this object had been
secondary to the matrimonial alliance with Spain, from which the latter was
now not likely to withdraw. Henry, moreover, had made use of the whole
affair to acquire a full money-chest; and since it was of vital importance
that this should be done without turning his subjects against him, it had
been necessary to lend the war as popular a colour as possible. Hence it
was part of his policy to emphasise at home as his ultimate end the
recovery of the English rights in the French Crown, so successfully
utilised by his predecessor Henry V. in the first quarter of the century.
It would have been manifestly dangerous for him in establishing his dynasty
to recede from a claim which both Yorkists and Lancastrians had maintained.
Incidentally also, there was the matter of indemnities owing to him by Anne
of Brittany for which Maximilian had been made responsible.
[Sidenote 1: France makes peace]
[Sidenote 2: Treaty of Etaples (Dec.)]
Since then it was impracticable simply to retire, the alternative course
was to demonstrate; and Henry spent the greater part of 1492 in making the
greatest possible display of preparation for war on a great scale--with a
view to obtaining satisfying terms of peace. The one real piece of military
work taken in hand was the siege and capture of Sluys in Flanders (in
conjunction with Albert of Saxony, on behalf of Maximilian); from which
port much injury of a piratical order had been wrought upon English
merchants. Meantime negotiations had been carried on, but with no
appearance of success. At last in October the King actually crossed the
Channel to take command of the army of invasion; and sat down before
Boulogne. Then on a sudden the air cleared. Charles in fact did not want a
serious English war, out of which he could make nothing. But he had
developed a very keen ambition to enter Italy and win the Crown of Naples.
Henry by himself, or even in conjunction with the much offended Maximilian,
was hardly likely to penetrate very far into France, if the forces of that
kingdom were arrayed against him; but while he threatened, Charles could
not move on Italy; moreover, his presence was an encouragement to those of
the nobility whose allegiance was doubtful. So the French King resolved to
buy off the English King at his own price. Lewis XI., threatened by Edward
IV., had agreed to pay what Edward called a tribute, in return for which he
held his claim to the French throne in abeyance. Henry need have no qualms
about following his Yorkist predecessor's example. Beyond that, Charles was
prepared to pay off the Brittany indemnities. Thus Henry secured Peace with
Honour and a solid cash equivalent for his expenditure; besides being able
to silence the complaints of the warlike by emphasising the gravity of
embarking on a great campaign with winter coming on. He threw over
Maximilian, but the faithlessness of the King of the Romans was so palpable
and notorious that at the worst Henry was only paying him back in his own
coin. As to Spain, Henry knew that the monarchs had been endeavouring to
negotiate a separate peace, and they had never carried out their part of
the contract. So far as he was breaking engagements with his allies, their
own conduct had given him ample warrant. The event had justified Henry's
management of a very difficult situation. The Peace of Etaples was ratified
in December; and Henry emerged from the war with England's continental
prestige restored to a respectable position, a full treasury, and his
throne in England infinitely more secure than it had been three years
before. He was never again driven to enter upon a foreign war; and now the
appearance of Perkin Warbeck on the scene, though it kept England in a
state of uneasiness for some years, was incomparably less dangerous than it
would have proved at an earlier stage.
CHAPTER II
HENRY VII (ii), 1492-99--PERKIN WARBECK
[Sidenote: Ireland, 1485]
Before entering upon the career of Perkin Warbeck, we must give somewhat
closer attention to the affairs of the sister island, to which reference
has already been made in connexion with the Simnel revolt. Ireland had
never been really brought under English dominion. Within the district known
as the English Pale, there was some sort of control, extending even less
effectively over the province of Leinster, and beyond that practically
ceasing altogether, except in a few coast towns; the Norman barons who had
settled there having so to speak turned Irish, and even in some cases
having translated their names into Celtic forms. The most powerful of the
nobles at this time were the Geraldines, at whose head were the Earls of
Kildare and of Desmond, and the Butlers whose chief was the Earl of
Ormonde. But the primacy belonged to Kildare, who moreover had stood high
in favour with the House of York. It had been the practice for the English
kings to appoint a nominal absentee governor, whose functions were
discharged by a Deputy; and Kildare was Deputy under both Edward IV. and
Richard.
[Sidenote: 1487-92 The Earl of Kildare]
Henry, on his accession, had seen that the one chance of keeping the
country in any degree quiet lay in securing Kildare's allegiance and
support; and proposals for his continuation in the office of Deputy had
been under discussion when Lambert Simnel was hailed as King and crowned,
with the open support not only of Kildare but of nearly all the barons and
bishops. It did not suit Henry's policy to attempt punishment under these
conditions; he preferred conciliation; and after Stoke, Kildare was
retained as Deputy, when he and Simuel's principal adherents had sworn
loyalty. In 1490 Henry had found it necessary to reprimand Kildare for
sundry breaches of the law, commanding his presence in England within ten
months. Kildare made no move, but at the end of the ten months wrote to say
that he could not possibly come over, as the state of the country made his
presence there imperative. The letter was written in the name of the
Council, and signed by fifteen of its members. This was backed by another
letter from Desmond and other nobles in the south-west, declaring that they
had persuaded the Deputy that the peace of Ireland quite forbade his
departure.
Probably it was much about this period--that is, some time in 1491--that a
new claimant to Henry's throne (Perkin Warbeck) appeared in the south-west
of Ireland, declaring himself to be that Richard Duke of York who was
reported to have been murdered in the Tower along with his brother Edward
V. Desmond espoused his cause, while Kildare and others coquetted with him.
Agents from Desmond and the pretender visited the court of the young King
of Scots James IV., in March, 1492, and in the summer Charles VIII., whose
territories Henry was then ostentatiously preparing to invade, invited the
young man over to France where he was received as the rightful King of
England. The conclusion of peace, however, at the end of the year, made it
necessary for the French King to withdraw his countenance from Henry's
enemies; and the pretender retired to the congenial atmosphere of the court
of Margaret of Burgundy. In the meantime Kildare, whose complicity with
Desmond it had become impossible entirely to ignore, had been deprived of
his office, and a new Deputy appointed.
[Sidenote 1: 1491 Perkin Warbeck's appearance]
[Sidenote 2: Riddle of his imposture]
The self-styled Richard of York is known to history as Perkin Warbeck. The
account of his early career subsequently given to the world in his own
confession is generally accepted as genuine. The son of a Tournai boatman,
he served during his boyhood under half a dozen different masters in three
or four Netherland cities and in Lisbon. At the age of seventeen he took
service with one Pregent Meno, a Breton merchant, and incidentally appeared
at Cork where he paraded in costly array. Such was the effect of his
appearance and bearing that the citizens of Cork declared he must be a
Plantagenet. Taxed with being in reality either the Earl of Warwick or an
illegitimate son of Richard III., he swore he was nothing of the kind; but
his admirers declared that in that case he could only be Richard of York,
who had somehow been saved from sharing his brother's fate in the Tower.
Perkin found himself unable to resist such importunity, accepted the
dignity thrust upon him, and set himself to learn his part. The partisans
of the White Rose had shown in the case of Lambert Simnel their preference
for even a palpable impostor bearing their badge, as compared with the
objectionable Tudor; and a genuine Duke of York would have the advantage of
a claim stronger even than that of his sister Elizabeth, Henry's queen.
Perkin, however, must have acted up to his part with no little skill to
have maintained himself as a plausible impostor up to the time when
Margaret of Burgundy received him--even though he met no one in whose
interest it was to pose him with inconvenient questions. So apt a pupil
would then have had little difficulty in assimilating the instructions of
Margaret; and, after a couple of years' training with her, in at least
supporting his role with plausibility. That Perkin himself told this story
is not very conclusive, since the confession was produced under
circumstances quite compatible with the whole thing having been dictated to
him; yet difficult as it is to believe, it is less incredible than the
alternative--that he was the real duke, who had been smuggled out of the
Tower eight years before he was produced, and kept in concealment all
through the interval, even while the Yorkist leaders had been reduced to
setting up a supposititious Earl of Warwick for a figurehead.
[Sidenote: 1492-95 Perkin and Margaret of Burgundy]
It certainly does not seem that on Perkin's appearance in Ireland he had
any active supporters outside that country, or that he caused any
perturbation in Henry's mind. Foreign princes, whether they regarded him as
genuine or as an impostor, would certainly not espouse his cause unless
they were at enmity with Henry. Even Charles VIII. made no haste to lend
him countenance until it seemed almost certain that there was to be a war
with England on a great scale; and he had no hesitation in dismissing the
pretender when peace was concluded; while the Spanish sovereigns, though
quite ready to intrigue against their Tudor ally, had no intention of
committing themselves to an open breach with him. The peace, however, which
dismissed Perkin from France, gave him a zealous adherent in the person of
Maximilian, who was now filled with a righteous animosity to Henry; and the
young lord of the Netherlands, his son Philip, Duke of Burgundy, declared
that he had no power to control the Dowager Margaret, dwelling on her own
estates. So Perkin made her court his head-quarters--a useful tool for the
weaving of Yorkist intrigues. Henry might, if he would, have legitimately
founded a _casus belli_ on this attitude, but he preferred to
institute a commercial war; from which, however, the English merchants
suffered little less than the Flemings.
In 1493 the Emperor died, and was in effect succeeded by the King of the
Romans, though his election to the Imperial throne did not take place for
some years. Maximilian, however, remained impecunious and inefficient;
Charles VIII. was giving his entire attention to his Italian projects; the
whole affair of Perkin Warbeck was carried on mainly below the surface on
both sides, by a process of mining and counter-mining. Henry was well
served by Sir Robert Clifford and others, who wormed themselves into the
confidence of the Yorkist plotters, revealing what they learnt to the King.
When the time was ripe (January, 1495), Henry's hand fell suddenly on the
unsuspecting conspirators in England; whose chiefs, including Sir William
Stanley, who was supposed to be one of the King's most trusted supporters,
were sent to the block. It was this same Sir William Stanley who, striking
in at Bosworth on the side of Henry, had been mainly instrumental in
deciding the fortunes of the day; and he had been rewarded with the office
of Chamberlain.
[Sidenote: Diplomatic intrigues]
During the two years following the Treaty of Etaples Charles VIII. had
early made his peace also with Spain by the treaty of Barcelona and with
Maximilian by that of Senlis. The desired provinces, Roussillon and
Cerdagne, were restored to Ferdinand and Isabella, who adopted a distant
attitude to Henry. The French King, free to follow his own devices, entered
Italy towards the close of 1494, marched south without opposition, and was
crowned at Naples in February, 1495, the reigning family fleeing before
him. So early and important an accession of strength to the French Crown
had hardly been anticipated, and the European sovereigns made haste to form
a League against France. Spain was desirous of bringing England into the
league; but the wayward Maximilian was still determined to support Perkin
Warbeck, apparently thinking that by substituting a Yorkist prince for
Henry he would secure a more amenable ally.
[Sidenote: 1492-95 Ireland]
Meanwhile, Ireland also had been undergoing judicious treatment. Kildare,
removed from the Deputy-ship in 1492, came over to England to give an
account of himself in the following year. Here he was detained until, in
the autumn of 1494, the King appointed a new three-year-old Governor in the
person of his second son Henry, whom he also created Duke of York, making
Sir Edward Poynings Deputy. Poynings was an experienced and capable
soldier, who had been in command before Sluys in the recent campaign; and
on his departure for Ireland Kildare went with him. Both the ex-Deputy and
the Earl of Ormonde promised to render loyal service; but it was no very
long time before Kildare was sent back to England under accusations of
treason. We may here anticipate matters by observing that this was the last
case of misbehaviour on his part. He won his way once more into the royal
favour, and when Poynings left Ireland in 1496 Kildare yet again went back
as Deputy, which office he retained for the remainder of Henry's reign, and
a portion of his son's also.
It is curious to observe in the turbulent Deputy traits of that audacious
humour which we are wont to regard as peculiarly Irish: a characteristic
fully appreciated by the English King. When taken to task for burning the
Cathedral at Cashel, he is reported to have said that he would not have
done so, only the bishop was inside. His casual announcement on a previous
occasion that he could not obey the royal summons to England because the
country could not get on without him was paralleled either in 1493 or 1495
--it is uncertain which--by his defence against the Bishop of Meath's
charges. He said he must be represented by Counsel; the King replied that
he might have whom he would. "Give me your hand," quoth the Earl. "Here it
is," said the King. "Well," said Kildare, "I can see no better man than
you, and by St. Bride I will choose none other." Said the Bishop, "You see
what manner of man he is. All Ireland cannot rule him." "Then," said the
King, "he must be the man to rule all Ireland."
[Sidenote: Poynings in Ireland 1494-96]
The government of Poynings was not prolonged, but it was very much to the
point. "Poynings' Law," passed by the Parliament assembled at Drogheda in
December, 1494, fixed Constitutional procedure for a very long time. Irish
Parliaments were to be summoned only with the approval of the King's
Council in England, and only after it had also approved the measures which
were to be submitted to them by the Irish Deputy and Council. In effect,
however, these legislative functions at this time were hardly more limited
than those of English Parliaments, which were summoned at the King's
pleasure, and only had what might be called "Government Bills" submitted to
them. The royal Council was practically in the position of a Cabinet
holding office as representing not the parliamentary majority but the
King's personal views. The Parliament might discuss and accept or reject,
but had not as yet acquired a practical initiative itself. At the same time
that this law was passed, a declaratory Act abolished the theory which had
grown up at an early stage of the conflict between the White and Red Roses,
of regarding Ireland as a country where a rebel in England was a free man:
a notion which had greatly facilitated the intrigues of both Lambert Simnel
and Perkin Warbeck on Irish soil. Further, besides some enactments for
checking feudal customs which tended to disorder, it was ordained that the
principal castles should always be under the command of Englishmen.
Poynings also endeavoured, by bestowing pensions (on terms) on some of the
principal chiefs outside the Pale--such as O'Neill in Ulster and O'Brien in
the west--to convert their position into one of semi-official
responsibility to the official Government. A basis for the maintenance of
law and order having thus been provided, the Irish difficulty was solved
for the time when "the man to rule all Ireland," benevolently disposed to a
King who had shown that he knew the right way to take him, was restored to
the office of Deputy.
[Sidenote: 1495 Survey of the situation]
In the early spring, then, of 1495, this was the position of affairs.
Perkin Warbeck lay at the court of Margaret of Burgundy; but his plans had
been upset by Clifford's information and the punishment of the ringleaders
in England. Poynings was in Ireland, and the prospect of keeping that
country in reasonable order was unusually promising. Charles VIII. had just
made himself master of Naples; and the Spanish sovereigns (who had
completed the destruction of the Moorish dominion in Granada some three
years earlier) were now occupied in forming with the Pope, Venice, Milan,
and Maximilian the Holy League against French aggression; into which they
were anxious to draw Henry, whose weight if thrown into the other scale
would be of considerable value to France. For the last two years, since the
treaty of Barcelona, they had evaded the recognition or reconstruction of
any compact with England; but under the changed conditions, while they
would not admit that the old engagements were binding, they offered to
frame new treaties for Henry's inclusion in the League, at the same time
confirming the project of the marriage between their daughter Katharine and
the Prince of Wales. Henry, however, was now in a much stronger position at
home; and though he desired the Spanish alliance, he had no intention of
allowing that bait to seduce him into making himself a cat's-paw. France
was offering a counter-inducement in the shape of a marriage with the
daughter of the Duke of Bourbon; Henry indicated that while Maximilian was
fostering the pretensions of the impostor Warbeck, it was not serious
politics to talk of being associated with him in the League. Spain might
make promises on Maximilian's behalf, but could not ensure that he would
keep them.
[Sidenote: 1495 Warbeck attempts invasion]
Time was working in Henry's favour. In July (1495) an expedition sailed
from Flanders to place Perkin on the English throne. Maximilian's hopes
were high: he bragged to the Venetians that the "Duke of York" would
immediately unseat the Tudor, and when he was on the throne, England would
be at the beck of the League. The Emperor's impracticability was
sufficiently shown by his having procured from Perkin his own recognition
as heir, if the pretender should die without issue. The expedition
attempted to land at Deal, but the men of Kent assembled in arms, and drove
it off with ignominious ease. For once Henry was severe, and put to death
no fewer than 150 of Warbeck's followers, who had been taken prisoners.
Warbeck himself did not even set foot on the realm he claimed, but made for
Ireland where he had first been so warmly welcomed. Here his old supporter
Desmond took up his cause again, and Waterford was attacked by sea and
land; but there was no general rising, and Poynings had no difficulty in
raising the siege. Foiled both in England and Ireland, Perkin now betook
himself to Scotland to obtain the help of the young King, James IV.
[Sidenote: Success of Henry's diplomacy]
The affair showed conclusively how small was the danger in England of a
Yorkist rising in favour of the pretender--a fact very fully recognised by
Ferdinand and Isabella, though Maximilian clung pertinaciously to his
protege. Moreover, the position of the League was somewhat precarious,
since both Ludovico Sforza, Duke of Milan, and the Venetians, were
suspected with justice of readiness to make their own terms with France. It
was more than ever necessary to bring Henry into the combination; and
Henry, still diplomatically suave, was less than ever prepared to accept
conditions which would fetter him inconveniently. He would not commit
himself to make war on France except at his own time; and Maximilian must
definitely and conclusively repudiate Warbeck. At last in July, 1496, the
new League was concluded. Henry's diplomacy achieved a distinct triumph.
His alliance had been won, but only on his own terms; all he wished to
secure had been secured. The Spanish sovereigns were so far from feeling
that they could make a tool of him that they were in considerable
trepidation lest he should still throw them over if a tolerably legitimate
excuse offered, and were anxious to do all they could to conciliate him
without betraying the full extent of their fears. Henry had already, in
February, terminated the commercial war with the Flemings by the treaty
with Philip known as the _Intercursus Magnus_, which included a
proviso against the admission into Philip's territories of rebels against
the English King.
[Sidenote: 1496 Warbeck and the King of Scots]
When Perkin Warbeck made his way to Scotland the young King of that country
was already fully informed as to the nature of his claims. James, when a
boy of sixteen, had taken part in the rebellion headed by Douglas Earl of
Angus, in which his father the late King had been overthrown at Sauchie
Burn and murdered after the battle. He was now twenty-four years of age, of
brilliant parts, no mean scholar, an admirable athlete, and ambitious to
raise the name of Scotland among the nations. His weakness lay mainly in a
boyish impulsiveness, which often caused him to mar well-laid plans on the
spur of the moment, and in an exaggerated fondness for chivalric ideas more
appropriate to a knight-errant than to a king or a leader of armies. Perkin
appealed to him as early as 1492; and before the pretender's expedition
sailed, Tyrconnel, chief of the O'Donnells of the north-west of Ireland,
presented himself in Scotland to renew the appeal. The antagonism of
Scottish feeling to the ruling powers in England was chronic. There was a
treaty of peace between England and Scotland, but the unfailing turbulence
of the borders kept each country constantly provided with a tolerable
excuse for accusing the other of having broken its engagements. James was
well within his rights in receiving the claimant; of the justice of whose
title he evidently persuaded himself, since he bestowed a kinswoman of his
own upon him in marriage, Lady Katharine Gordon. In the summer of 1496 he
was making active preparations for an incursion into England on Warbeck's
behalf; largely influenced no doubt by the promise that, should it prove
successful, Berwick, which had been finally ceded to England fourteen years
before, was to be once more surrendered to the Scots. The astute Henry
turned all this to account, by impressing on the Spanish and Venetian
agents the urgent necessity laid on him to abstain from military operations
against France while Scotland was so threatening.
[Sidenote 1: A Scottish incursion (Sept.)]
[Sidenote 2: 1497]
James did in fact raid the North of England in September; but the incursion
was a raid and nothing more. Perkin, to the surprise and even contempt both
of Scots and English, protested against the sanguinary methods of border
warfare, on behalf of the people whom he aspired to rule over. But the
people themselves would have none of him. The expedition withdrew without
having produced even the semblance of a Yorkist rising. After that, James
no longer felt eager to plunge into a war on behalf of the pretender: but
was inclined to retain him as a political asset. When, in the following
year (1497), Charles VIII.--with a precisely similar object in view--
offered him a considerable sum if he would send his guest over to France,
the Scots King declined. In July, however, Perkin sailed from Scotland,
apparently with intent to try Ireland again, where Kildare was once more
Deputy. Henry had utilised the raid to obtain the recommendation of a large
grant and loans from the Great Council forthwith; Parliament, which was
called for January (1497), ratifying the grant as a subsidy. The raising of
the loans had, however, been proceeded with, without waiting.
[Sidenote: The Cornish rising]
The defence of England against invading Scots was a matter of much
importance to the northern counties, but lacked personal interest in
Cornwall. Year after year the King had been receiving subsidies to arm for
impending wars, borrowing, and levying benevolences. When a hostile France
was the excuse, the population might murmur but was quite as willing to pay
as could reasonably be expected. But the Scots had never invaded Cornwall,
and the Cornishmen felt that it was time to protest. They would march to
London--peaceably, of course--to demand according to custom the removal of
the King's evil counsellors; Morton and Bray, to wit, who probably used
their influence in reality to mitigate rather than intensify the royal
demands. The insurgent leaders were a blacksmith, Joseph, and a lawyer,
Flamock--appropriate chiefs for working men trying honestly enough to
formulate what they had been led to regard as a grievance of what we should
now call an unconstitutional character. With bills and bows, some thousands
of them started on their march; preserving their peaceable character, till
at Taunton the appearance of a commissioner for collecting the tax proved
too much for their self-restraint, and the man was killed. A little later
they were joined by Lord Audley, who became their leader. They expected the
men of Kent, who of old had risen under Wat Tyler and again under Jack
Cade, to take up the cause: but Kent did not recognise the similarity of
the present conditions and gave them no welcome.
[Sidenote: The suppression (June)]
Meantime, Henry had not been idle; but he saw that the insurgents were not
rousing the country as they progressed, and therefore he judged that the
further they were drawn away from their own country the better. Except for
a slight skirmish at Guildford, the Cornishmen were not actively interfered
with till they encamped on Blackheath. Then, on June 17th, the royal forces
proceeded to envelop them. Some two thousand were slain on the field.
Audley, the lawyer, and the blacksmith, were put to death as traitors; the
rest were pardoned, as having been not so much rebels as victims of
demagogic arts.
[Sidenote: Warbeck's final failure (Sept.)]
The policy of leniency was not entirely successful, for the Cornishmen
imagined it merely meant that the King recognised the impossibility of
dealing sternly with every one who thought as they did. Warbeck, now in
Ireland, where he was not finding the sympathy for which he had hoped,
received messages to the effect that if he came to Cornwall he would find
plenty of supporters. He came promptly, with a scanty following enough; but
only a few thousand men joined him. He marched on Exeter, but that loyal
town stoutly refused to admit him, and his attempts to carry gates and
walls failed completely. Royal troops were on the march: the gentlemen of
Devon, headed by the Earl, were up for the King. Perkin marched to Taunton,
and then fled by night to take sanctuary at Beaulieu in Hampshire, where he
was surrounded, and very soon submitted himself to the King's clemency.
[Sidenote: The Scottish truce]
In the meantime the Scottish King, though his sentiments towards Perkin had
sensibly cooled, had no intention of leaving him in the lurch, and had
advanced on Norham Castle very shortly after his protege had sailed for
Ireland. The Earl of Surrey, however, who commanded in the north, was well
prepared, and very soon took the field with twenty thousand men. James was
obliged to withdraw, and though he challenged the Earl to single combat
with Berwick as the stake, Surrey replied that Berwick was not his property
but his master's, and he must regretfully decline the proposed method of
arbitrament. He advanced over the border, making some captures and doing
considerable damage; but after a week, commissariat difficulties made him
retire in turn. In September Perkin's Cornish rising collapsed, and a seven
years' treaty was entered upon between the two countries.
[Sidenote: The end of Perkin Warbeck 1497-99]
Towards the pretender and his followers, the King behaved with his usual
leniency. A few leaders only were put to death; other penalties were
reserved. Warbeck was compelled publicly to read at Exeter and later in
London a confession of the true story of his own origin and that of the
conspiracy; and was then relegated to not very strict confinement under
surveillance. His supporters were allowed to purchase their pardon by heavy
fines, which satisfactorily aided in the replenishment of the royal
treasury.
The end of the pretender's story may be told in anticipation. It was
ignominious and less creditable in its accompanying circumstances to Henry.
In the summer of the next year, 1498, Perkin tried to escape, was promptly
recaptured, set in the stocks, and required to read his confession publicly
both in Westminster and London. He was then placed in strict confinement in
the Tower, where the luckless Warwick had been kept a prisoner for thirteen
years. The son of Clarence, still little more than a boy, was the only
figure-head left for Yorkist malcontents. Another attempt to impersonate
him by a youth named Ralph Wilford was nipped in the bud at the beginning
of 1499; but Henry's nerve seems to have been seriously shaken by it, and
probably he now began to make up his mind to get rid of his kinsman. Then
some kind of conspiracy was concocted, in which both Warbeck and Warwick
were involved; on 23rd November, 1499, Perkin was hanged, and five days
later Warwick was beheaded, dying as he had lived a victim to his name;
suffering for no treason or wrong-doing of his own, but simply because he
was the nephew of Edward IV.
[Sidenote: 1498 The situation]
When the year 1497 closed, the preliminaries of a Scottish peace had been
agreed upon; Perkin Warbeck was a prisoner: and the French King had already
found his position in Italy untenable, and agreed to evacuate Naples and
surrender the crown. His death and the accession of the Duke of Orleans as
Lewis XII. in April of the next year further altered the face of
international politics, already changing with the final collapse of Warbeck
and his disappearance as a pawn in the game.
CHAPTER III
HENRY VII (iii), 1498-1509-THE DYNASTY ASSURED
[Sidenote: Scotland and England]
From time immemorial almost, it might be said that Scotland had been a
perpetual menace to her southern neighbour. Since the days of Bruce she
had, it is true, been torn by ceaseless dissensions; a succession of long
royal minorities with intrigues over the regency, family feuds between the
great barons, strong kings who found themselves warring on a turbulent
nobility, weak ones who could exercise no control, had not given the
country much chance of consolidation; but the one binding sentiment that
could be relied on in a crisis was antagonism to England. To settle the
question by conquest had been proved impossible. Scotland might be
over-run, but she could not be held in subjection. If England's eyes were
bent on France, she must still manage to keep a watch on the north: but so
long as dissensions were raging, there was not much fear of anything more
serious than raiding expeditions.
[Sidenote: Henry's Scottish policy]
To keep Scotland innocuous was a primary object with the Tudor King. At the
time when he grasped the sceptre of England, the King of Scots, James III.,
was a feeble ruler surrounded by unpopular favourites, with a baronage
preparing to rise against him, and there was little danger to be
apprehended. He was over-thrown and murdered in 1488. But James IV, who
succeeded to the throne was of a different type. He was only a boy,
however, and Henry was not long in initiating a policy, more fully
developed by his descendants, of purchasing the support of leading nobles,
notably at this time and for forty years to come, the Earls of Angus-with
whom there was a compact as early as 1491. James, however, soon proved
himself a popular and vigorous monarch, of a type which attracted the
loyalty of his subjects, with a strong disposition to make his country a
serious factor in the politics of the time, and by no means devoid of
political sagacity despite his unfortunate impulsiveness and want of
balance. To block Scotland out of the field by the simple process of
keeping her thoroughly occupied with internal factions was not practicable
under these conditions, and the attitude of James in the affair of Perkin
Warbeck showed that he must be taken into serious account. Henry's
political acuteness recognised in alliance with Scotland a more hopeful
solution of the national problem than in eternal strife. The idea of a
matrimonial connexion had indeed once before, since the days of Edward I.,
taken shape in the union of James I. to Jane Beaufort; but with little
practical effect. This idea Henry revived in a form destined ultimately to
revolutionise the relations of the two kingdoms. His own eldest daughter
Margaret was but eighteen years younger than the King of Scots--quite near
enough for compatibility. From the time of the peace entered upon after
Warbeck's capture, Henry began to work with this marriage as one of his
objects. His foresight and sagacity is marked by the fact that he
recognised--and did not shrink from the possibility--that a Scottish
monarch might thus one day find himself heir to the throne of England.
[Sidenote 1: France and England]
[Sidenote 2: 1498]
The peace-policy towards Scotland was facilitated by the development of
friendly relations with France, especially after the accession of Lewis
XII.: for the traditional "auld alliance," between France and Scotland, had
proved times out of mind too strong to be over-ridden by English treaties.
If France wanted Scottish help, or Scotland wanted French help, there was
always some excuse for rendering it; the plain truth being that no treaties
could restrain the forays and counter-forays of the border clans on both
sides of the Tweed, whether the Wardens of the Marches winked at them or
not; so that there was, in either country, a standing pretext for declaring
that the other had broken truce. An instance of these border difficulties
occurred within a few months of the truce of December, 1497. A small party
of Scots crossed the border, and appeared in the neighbourhood of Norham.
They were challenged, and replied--with insolence or with proper spirit,
according to the point of view. Thereupon they were attacked by superior
numbers; some were slain; in the pursuit, damage was done on the north side
of the border. The Scots King felt that he had been outraged, and was on
the verge of breaking off all negotiations with his brother of England. It
required all the diplomatic skill of Fox (at this time Bishop of Durham),
and the mediatorial efforts of the Spaniard Ayala to prevent a serious
breach from resulting.
[Sidenote: Marriage negotiations, 1498-1503]
The opportunity, however, was seized by Fox to emphasise his master's
pacific intentions by bringing forward the proposal for the marriage of
James with Margaret. Nevertheless, for the next twelve months, Henry
displayed no eagerness in the matter. Margaret was only in her eighth year,
so that in any case the marriage could not be completed for some time; but
apart from that, there was already existing a project of marriage between
James and one of the Spanish princesses--which Spain had no real wish to
carry out, while James was disposed to push it. It would appear, therefore,
that Henry meant to give effect to his own scheme, but did not intend Spain
to feel free of the complication while it could be used as a means of
pressure.
[Sidenote: Marriage of James IV, and Margaret 1503]
At last, however, in July, 1499, a fresh treaty of peace was concluded with
Scotland, but it was not till January, 1502, that the marriage treaty was
finally ratified; the marriage to take place in September, 1503 (when
Margaret would be nearly thirteen), and the two Kings to render each other
mutual aid in case either of them was attacked. James, however, declined to
bind himself permanently to refuse renewal of the French alliance. There
was much characteristic haggling over dower and jointure, matters in which
the Tudors always drove the hardest bargain they could. The ceremony was
performed by proxy, after the fashion of the times, the day after the
treaty was ratified; and the actual marriage took place at the time fixed,
in the autumn of 1503--a momentous event, since it brought the Stuarts into
the direct line of succession, next to descendants of Henry in the male
line; and--inasmuch as one of Henry's sons had no children, and the other
no grandchildren--ultimately united on one head the Crowns of England and
Scotland, exactly one hundred years after the marriage.
[Sidenote: Spain and England: marriage negotiations, 1488-99]
In the meantime the other and much older project for the union between the
Prince of Wales and a daughter of Spain had been carried out. Originally,
Henry's prime motive in this matter had been to secure a decisive
recognition of his dynasty by the sovereigns, whom he regarded as the
greatest political force in Europe. By this time, however, (1498), the
stability of his throne and of the succession was no longer in peril; but
Spain was still the Power whose alliance would give the best guarantees
against hostile combinations. Neither Spain nor England wished to be
involved in war with France; but neither country could view her
aggrandisement with complete equanimity. At the same time, while her
ambitions were chiefly directed to Italy both could afford for the most
part to abstain from active hostilities. On the other hand, times had
changed since Henry had been ready to go almost cap-in-hand to Ferdinand
and Isabella for their support. The Spanish sovereigns were now quite as
much afraid of his joining France as he was of any step that they could
take. So the marriage treaty was ratified in 1497 on terms satisfactory
enough to Henry; and both in 1498 and 1499 proxy ceremonies took place. In
the latter year, clauses left somewhat vague in the earlier treaties were
given a clearer definition in a sense favourable to Henry.
[Sidenote: 1499 Lewis XII]
The accession of Lewis XII. in 1497 affected French policy. Lewis required
in the first place, to gain the friendship of the Pope Alexander VI., in
order to obtain a divorce from his wife and a dispensation to marry
Charles's widow, Anne of Brittany, so as to retain the duchy. In the second
place, he claimed Milan as his own in right of his descent from Valentina
Visconti (not as an appanage of the French Crown). He was anxious then to
conciliate both Spain and England, and ready to make concessions to both in
order to hold them neutral. His first steps, therefore, aimed at satisfying
them, and at detaching the Archduke Philip from his father Maximilian; all
of which objects were rapidly accomplished, England obtaining the renewal
of the treaty of Etaples, with additional undertakings in the matter of
harbouring rebels. Lewis made separate treaties with Spain and with Philip;
but the former remained none the less anxious on the score of a possible
further _rapprochement_ between France and England.
[Sidenote: The Spanish marriage negotiation, 1499-1501]
So long as Perkin Warbeck had been able to pose as Richard of York, he was
necessarily, to all who believed in him, the legitimate King of England.
Setting him aside, it was still possible to argue for the Earl of Warwick
as against his cousin Elizabeth, Henry's queen. But when Perkin and Warwick
were both put to death at the end of 1499, there was no arguable case for
any one outside Henry's own domestic circle. Even if it were held that
Henry's title was invalid, and that a woman could not herself reign in her
own right, Elizabeth's son had indisputably a title prior to any other
possible claimant. It was stated, though the truth of the statement is
doubtful, that the Spanish sovereigns had never felt at ease as to the
stability of the Tudor dynasty till November, 1499; but, at any rate, after
that date they could not even for diplomatic purposes pretend to feel any
serious apprehensions. The year 1500 presents the somewhat curious
spectacle of Henry on one side and Ferdinand and Isabella on the other,
each quite determined to carry through the marriage of Arthur and
Katharine, but each also determined to make a favour of it. In this
diplomatic contest, Henry proved the more skilful bargainer, though the
Spaniards were adepts. He frightened them not a little by crossing the
Channel and holding a conference with the Archduke Philip, which was
suspected of having for its object the negotiation of another marriage for
the Prince of Wales with Philip's sister (Maximilian's daughter) Margaret,
who was already a widow. [Footnote: Margaret had been married to Don John,
son of Ferdinand and Isabella; while Philip married their second daughter
Joanna. Their eldest daughter married the Portuguese Infant.] In fact,
there was no such intention; but an agreement was actually made that Prince
Henry should many Philip's daughter, while the youngest Tudor princess,
Mary, should be betrothed to Philip's infant son Charles, then a babe of
four months, in after years the great Emperor Charles V.
[Sidenote: Marriage of Prince Arthur and Katharine 1501]
So the marriage treaty was once more ratified. But it was not till the
summer of the next year (1501) that Katharine sailed from Spain; and in
November the actual marriage took place with no little display. It is
probable, however, that Arthur and Katharine were still husband and wife in
name only when, six months later, the Prince of Wales was stricken with
mortal illness and died; leaving his brother Henry heir to the throne, and
a fresh crop of matrimonial schemes to be matured.
[Sidenote 1: 1502 New marriage schemes]
[Sidenote 2: 1504 Dispensation granted]
The truth was that Ferdinand of Aragon and Henry of England were men of
very much the same type. Both were crafty diplomatists, cautious and
long-headed, not to be inveigled into rash schemes, keenly suspicious,
masters of the art of committing themselves irrevocably to nothing; both
had a keen appreciation of the value of money, and were experts at striking
a bargain; while each wanted the political support of the other. Each had
been working up to the matrimonial alliance which was now nullified by
Arthur's death. Ferdinand had already paid over half his daughter's dower;
he now declared that the Princess and her dower ought to be returned to
Spain. Henry argued on the other side that the balance of the dower should
be paid over. The Spaniards then proposed that the young widow should be
betrothed to the still younger prince, Henry; but at a comparatively early
stage in the negotiations over the new project, Henry's own queen died
(February, 1503), and it was no long time before the English King began to
contemplate a new marriage for himself. He is even said [Footnote:
Gairdner, _Henry VII._ (_Twelve English Statesmen_), p. 190. The
rumour was current, but it is doubtful whether it was more than a rumour;
_cf._ Busch, p. 378.] to have thought of proposing that he should take
his own son's widow to wife. Logically, of course, as a mere question of
affinity, the idea was not more inadmissible than that of Katharine's
marriage with Henry Prince of Wales; but it was infinitely more repellent,
and Isabella was horrified at the suggestion. At any rate, nothing came of
it, and an agreement for the marriage of Katharine with the younger Henry
was ratified in the course of the year [Footnote: It was in the August of
this same year (1503) that the other marriage, between James of Scotland
and Henry's elder daughter Margaret, was finally concluded.]--subject, of
course, to a papal dispensation. This was obtained, during 1504, from the
successor of Alexander VI., Pope Julius II., and Isabella had the
satisfaction of seeing it before her death. Political exigencies had only
recently been accepted by Pope Alexander as justifying a dispensation for
the divorce of Lewis XII. from his wife, to enable him to marry Anne of
Brittany; but this dispensation of Pope Julius was destined to an immense
importance in history--to be the hinge whereon swung open the gates of the
English Reformation.
[Sidenote: 1499-1506 Affairs on the Continent]
The years from 1498 to 1503 had not been without importance in Franco-
Spanish relations, more particularly with reference to the position of the
two Powers in Italy. Lewis had made himself master of Milan in 1499; but
the kingdom of Naples presented a more difficult problem; since, after
disposing of the reigning family, the French King would still find a rival
claimant in Ferdinand of Spain. In 1500 these two monarchs agreed to a
partition; but French and Spaniards quarrelled, war broke out, the Spanish
captain Gonsalvo de Cordova expelled the French; and in 1508 Naples was
annexed to Aragon. A renewed attempt of France upon Naples in the following
year proved a complete failure.
In 1503 died the Borgia Pope, Alexander VI.--poisoned, as it was believed,
by the cup he had intended for another. The personal wickedness of
Alexander and his relatives was the climax of papal iniquity, the
_reductio ad absurdum_ of the claim of the Roman Pontiff to be the
representative of Christ on earth. His immediate successor hardly survived
election to the Holy See; and was followed by Julius II., an energetic and
militant Pope, who was bent on forming the Papal States into an effective
temporal principality.
In the next year Isabella of Castile died, and by her death the European
situation was again materially affected. While she lived she worked in
complete accord with her husband, Ferdinand of Aragon; her name stands high
among the ablest of European sovereigns. But with her death the Crowns of
Castile and Aragon were no longer united. Ferdinand was not King of
Castile; the sceptre descended to the dead Queen's daughter Joanna,
[Footnote: The elder sister was already dead, as well as the one brother.]
and in effect to her husband, the Archduke Philip, Maximilian's son, and
after her to their son Charles. At the most, Ferdinand could hope only to
exercise a dominant influence (converted after Philip's death in 1506 into
practical sovereignty as Regent), with a perpetual risk of Maximilian
turning his flighty ambitions towards asserting himself as a rival.
[Sidenote: The Earl of Suffolk 1499-1505]
Although both Warbeck and Warwick had been removed in 1499, Henry had not
been altogether free from Yorkist troubles in the succeeding years. Edmund
de la Pole, Earl of Suffolk, was brother of that Earl of Lincoln who had
fallen at the battle of Stoke, and son of a sister of Edward IV. The Earl
had not hitherto come forward as a claimant to the throne; but in 1499 he
developed a personal grievance against the King, and betook himself to the
Continent, where a certain Sir Robert Curzon espoused his cause with
Maximilian. At the time, nothing came of the matter; Henry was not afraid
of Suffolk, whom he induced to return to England with a pardon. In 1501,
however, the Earl again betook himself to the Continent and made a direct
appeal to Maximilian for assistance. But Henry was now on particularly good
terms with the Archduke Philip, and Maximilian was inclining to revert to
friendly relations with England. He was in his normal condition of
impecuniosity, and Henry was prepared to provide a loan to help him in a
Turkish war if his own rebellious subjects were handed over. The issue of
these negotiations, towards the end of 1502, was a loan from Henry of fifty
thousands crowns, and a promise from Maximilian to eject Suffolk and his
supporters. In the meantime several of Suffolk's accomplices were executed
in England, including James Tyrrel who had abetted Richard III. in the
murder of the Princes in the Tower; and [Footnote: See genealogical table
(_Front_.).] William de la Pole and William Courtenay (son of the Earl
of Devonshire) were imprisoned on suspicion of complicity. Suffolk,
however, remained at Aix la Chapelle, Maximilian making him many promises
and providing inadequate supplies, while with equal lightness of heart--
having got his loan--he left his pledges to Henry unfulfilled by anything
more substantial than professions that he was doing his best to carry them
out. In 1504 the migratory Earl had the misfortune to fall into the hands
of the Duke of Gueldres, who detained him for use as circumstances might
dictate--to the annoyance of the Kings of France and Scotland, both of whom
wished him to be handed over to the King of England.
[Sidenote: 1505 Henry's position]
In 1505 then Henry's relations with all foreign Powers were satisfactory:
that is, none of them were hostile and most of them were anxious for his
friendship. In these later years, however, of Henry's reign he appears
consistently in a more definitely unamiable light than before. The two
counsellors who, however thoroughly they endorsed his policy, had probably
exercised a moderating and refining influence--Cardinal Morton and Reginald
Bray--were now both dead, and there is no doubt that Elizabeth of York,
popular herself, had been a very judicious helpmeet to her husband.
Moreover, though he was still by no means an old man, Henry was becoming
worn out; yet he could never escape from dynastic anxieties, the younger
Henry being now his only son. Marriage schemes had always been prominent
features in his policy, and the marriage schemes for himself which he
evolved one after the other in the closing years of his reign show him in a
singularly unattractive light, at the same time that his financial methods
were growing increasingly mean, and his evasions of honourable obligations
increasingly unscrupulous.
Now the Duke of Gueldres was in conflict with the Archduke Philip--at this
time not only lord of the Burgundian domains, but also in right of his wife
King of Castile and not on the best of terms with his father-in-law of
Aragon. In 1505 Philip got possession in his turn of the person of Suffolk,
by capturing the town where the Duke of Gueldres held him. Therefore during
this year Henry became particularly anxious to make friends with Philip,
and lent him money; having got which, Philip preferred placing his hostage
again in the hands of the Duke of Gueldres, who had submitted to him.
[Sidenote: Schemes for his marriage]
Out of these conditions rose another futile suggestion of a marriage for
Henry: who had already considered and dismissed the idea of marrying the
younger of the two living ex-Queens of Naples--both named Joanna--a niece
of Ferdinand of Aragon. The wife now proposed was Philip's sister,
Margaret, who on her first widowhood had been spoken of as a possible
alternative to Katharine for Arthur of Wales. Since then, she had become
Margaret of Savoy, the name by which she is generally known; but had been
widowed a second time. This proposal probably came from Philip, but was
resolutely resisted by Margaret herself.
[Sidenote: 1506 Philip in England]
In 1506 fortune favoured Henry. Philip sailed from the Netherlands in
January to take possession of the throne of Castile: but was driven on to
the English shores by stress of weather. The English King received him
royally, but while the utmost show of friendliness prevailed, Philip found
that he had no alternative to acceptance of Henry's suggestions. Before the
King of Castile departed, he had not only entered on a treaty for mutual
defence against any aggressor, but had actually delivered over the person
of the unhappy Suffolk [Footnote: So Busch. Gairdner is doubtful.] to his
sovereign, though under promise that he should not be put to death. The
prisoner, however, was committed to the Tower, and though Henry kept his
word, he is reported to have advised his son that the promise would not be
binding on him. At any rate Suffolk was executed, apparently without
further trial, early in the next reign. His brother Richard, known as the
"White Rose," who had abetted him, remained abroad, and was ultimately
killed in the service of Francis I. at the battle of Pavia in 1525, leaving
no children.
Philip had hardly departed from England when a new commercial treaty which
he had authorised was signed with the Netherlands, terminating the war of
tariffs which had again become active in recent years. This treaty, it is
not surprising to remark, was so favourable to England that in
contradistinction to the older _Intercursus Magnus_ the Flemings
entitled it the _Intercursus Malus_.
[Sidenote: Death of Philip]
The few remaining months of Philip's life were troubled. The position in
Castile was difficult enough, and in his absence the Duke of Gueldres again
revolted, with some assistance from France. Henry interfered, as he was
bound to do by the recent treaty, not without some effect. But Philip's
death in September left his wife Joanna Queen of Castile, with her father
Ferdinand as Regent, and her young son Charles Lord of the Netherlands,
with Margaret of Savoy at the head of the Council of Regency. Under these
new conditions Henry agreed to modifications in the new commercial treaty,
which indeed, as it stood, was almost impossible of fulfilment; probably in
the hope that his project of marriage with Margaret of Savoy might still be
carried out, the dowry she would bring being very much more satisfactory
than that of Joanna of Naples.
[Sidenote: 1507-8 Matrimonial projects]
In a very short time, however, Margaret had another rival, at least for the
purposes of diplomacy. This was Joanna of Castile, Philip's widow, whom
Henry had seen in the spring of 1506. That her sanity was already very much
in question seems to have made very little difference. Throughout the
greater part of 1507 and 1508 the English King was making overtures to
Margaret herself, and for Joanna to Ferdinand, blowing hot and cold in the
matter of his son Henry and Katharine, and pushing on the betrothal of his
younger daughter Mary with the boy Charles--a proposal brought forward,
when the latter was but four months old, in 1500, but not at that time
sedulously pressed. In part, at least, the explanation of all this
diplomatic play lies in Henry's relations with Ferdinand. The King of
Aragon, having lost his wife Isabella, wished to retain control of Castile;
at the same time he was in difficulties about paying up the balance of
Katharine's dowry, without which Henry would not allow her marriage with
his son to go forward, while the luckless princess was kept scandalously
short of supplies. Henry certainly wished to put all the pressure possible
on Ferdinand to get the dowry; perhaps he seriously contemplated marriage
with Joanna as a means of himself depriving Ferdinand of control in
Castile; the marriage of Charles to his daughter Mary would have a similar
advantage. On the other hand, if he married Margaret of Savoy he would get
control of the Netherlands, and still grasp at the control of Castile
through Charles, while playing off the boy's two grandfathers, Maximilian
and Ferdinand, against each other. Henry was in fact paying Ferdinand back
in his own coin; but the picture is an unedifying one, of craft against
craft, working by sordid methods for ends which had very little to do with
patriotism and no connexion with justice.
[Sidenote: 1508 The League of Cambrai]
If, however, it was now Henry's primary object to isolate Ferdinand so that
he could impose his own terms on him, the object was not attained.
Maximilian had just taken up a new idea--the dismemberment of Venice; an
object which appealed both to Lewis of France and to Pope Julius.
Ferdinand could generally reckon that if he joined a league he would manage
to get more than his share of the spoils for less than his share of the
work. The League of Cambrai--a simple combination for robbery without
excuse--was formed at the end of 1508. Henry was left out, for which,
indeed, he cared little, knowing that the process of spoliation would
inevitably result in quarrels among the leaguers. But though he advanced
the arrangements for the marriage of Charles and Mary so far as to have a
proxy ceremony performed, the marriage project with Joanna was withdrawn,
and his overtures were also finally declined by Margaret of Savoy.
[Sidenote: Wolsey]
In the last year of his life, however, his diplomatic successor--destined
to outshine him in his own field--came into employment as a negotiator. It
was Thomas Wolsey who probably carried through the arrangement for the
union with Charles; Wolsey also who re-established friendly relations with
Scotland, which had been becoming seriously strained. In 1505 James had
more definitely promised not to renew the French alliance; but had
considered himself absolved from this and other obligations, on the usual
ground of border raids, in which Wolsey himself admitted that the English
had been very much more guilty than the Scots.
[Sidenote: 1509 Death of Henry VII.]
But Henry's own days were numbered. As a boy and as a young man he had
lived a hard life; throughout the four-and-twenty years of his reign he had
never been free from the strain of anxiety, never relaxed his labours,
never allowed himself to cast his cares upon other shoulders. In 1508 he
had a serious illness, from which he never fully recovered; in the early
spring of 1509 his health finally and fatally broke down. On April 21st
the founder of the Tudor dynasty and of the Tudor system left the throne,
which he had won by the sword, to a son, whose right by inheritance was
beyond dispute.
CHAPTER IV
HENRY VII (iv), 1485-1509--ASPECTS OF THE REIGN
[Sidenote: 1485 Henry's position]
The task before Henry when he ascended the throne was a difficult one. He
had to establish a new dynasty with a very questionable title, under
conditions which could not have allowed any conceivable title to pass
without risk of being challenged. It was therefore necessary for him not
merely to buttress his hereditary claim by marrying the rival whose title
was technically the strongest, and securing the pronouncement of Parliament
in his favour, together with such adventitious sanction as a Papal Bull
afforded; but further to make his subjects contented with his rule.
Two things were definitely in his favour. The old nobility who between the
spirit of faction and the love of fighting had kept the country in a state
of turmoil for half a century were exhausted--not merely decimated but
almost wiped out; while the mass of the population was weary of war and
ready to welcome almost any one who could and would provide orderly
government. The country was craving to have done with anarchy.
[Sidenote: Studied legality]
A firm hand and a resolute will were thus the primary necessities; but
tired as the nation was, it was still ready to resent a flagrant tyranny.
The Yorkist Kings had seen that absolutism was the condition of stability;
Henry perceived that, applied as they had applied it, the stability would
still be wanting. He had to find a mean between the wantonly arbitrary
absolutism which had been attempted a century before by Richard II. and
recently by Edward IV. and Richard III. on the one hand, and on the other
hand the premature application of constitutional ideas under the House of
Lancaster. The actual method evolved was the concentration of all control
in the hands of the King, accompanied by an ostentatious deference to the
forms of procedure which were liable to be put forward as popular rights,
and a very keen attention to the limits of popular endurance.
Thus Henry's first step was to summon Parliament and follow the Lancastrian
precedent of obtaining its ratification of his own title to the throne. The
next step, necessitated by his position, was to cut the claws of the
Yorkists as a faction by striking at Richard's principal supporters. This
could only be done effectively by treating them as traitors--a proceeding
which could not but savour of tyranny, since they had at any rate been
supporting the _de facto_ King: so again Henry took the only means of
minimising the arbitrary character of his action, by obtaining
parliamentary sanction. Some ten years later, at the time of Perkin
Warbeck's attempted landing at Deal, he procured the remarkable enactment
that support of a _de facto_ King should not in the future be
accounted as treason to the successor who dethroned him--a measure
characterised by Bacon, writing a hundred years later, as too magnanimous
to be politic. In 1485 it would have been so; but at the actual time Henry
was himself the _de facto_ monarch; he had no wish to punish his
predecessor's supporters further; and he was really providing an inducement
to his subjects to be loyal to the ruling dynasty. At the same time he
could pose as advocating abstract justice in preference to the prevailing
practice by which he had himself profited; strengthening his own hands in
fact, while in theory he was introducing into politics the recognition of
an ethical principle which--as it happened--no longer conflicted with his
own advantage.
[Sidenote: Policy of lenity]
In fact Henry had an unusual perception of the political uses of a
judicious leniency: but the leniency was deliberate and considered. He
could also strike hard, on occasion. The rebels who were taken in the
fighting near Deal met with scant mercy; and a very few months earlier, the
execution of the apparently trusted and powerful William Stanley had been a
sharp reminder that the royal clemency could not be taken for granted.
Three years later he carried severity altogether beyond the limits of
justice in executing Warwick. But as a rule he was lenient to a degree
which had even its dangers. Simnel was treated as of too small account to
be worth punishing. Warbeck from his capture till his attempt to escape was
maintained in comfort and almost in freedom. Suffolk's earlier escapades
were pardoned. Kildare was repeatedly forgiven, and really converted into a
loyal subject. The Cornish insurgents of the Blackheath episode were dealt
with so tenderly that they took clemency for weakness. Warbeck's Cornish
rising was turned conveniently to account for the replenishment of the
royal treasury by the infliction of fines, but no one who had supported it
could complain of harsh treatment; rather they must have felt in every case
that they had been let off very easily according to all precedents.
Even when Lovel's and Simnel's risings were in actual progress, pardons
were offered to such of the rebels as would make haste to repent; and there
was no withdrawal of those pardons afterwards on more or less plausible
pretexts, in the manner of preceding Kings and of Henry's successor after
the Pilgrimage of Grace. Broadly speaking it was the King's policy to
emphasise the fact that he had no intention of attempting to play the
tyrant, or to vary a rash generosity by capricious blood-thirstiness, like
Richard III. The sole victim of tyrannous treatment in this sense
throughout the reign was the unhappy Warwick.
[Sidenote: Repression of the nobles]
But the attitude of strict conformity to law was entirely compatible with
that steady concentration of all real control in the King's hands, which
was the leading object of Henry's policy. For this purpose the primary
condition was that none of his subjects should be sufficiently powerful to
challenge his authority and raise the standard of revolt, as the King-Maker
and others had done in the past. The old nobility were practically wiped
out. Insignificant husbands were chosen for the daughters of York. The
blood of the Plantagenets ran in the veins of the house of Buckingham; but
it was only in the last generation that the De la Poles had mated with the
royal house, and their estates were much diminished; the Howards had
suffered as supporters of Richard. Surrey indeed was deservedly restored
to grace; but no amount of personal loyalty or of royal favour exempted the
nobles from the severe restriction of the old practice of maintaining
retainers in such numbers as to form a working nucleus for a fighting
force; nor were they allowed to accumulate wealth dangerously. Henry was
well pleased that his subjects should gather sufficient riches to feel a
strong interest in the maintenance of order, but not enough to use it to
create disorder.
Beyond this, however, he was careful to employ the nobles as ministers no
more than he could help. He laid the burdens of statesmanship as much as
possible on the clergy--on Morton and Fox and Warham. Fox, as Bishop of
Durham, played a part in the relations of England and Scotland at least as
influential as that of Surrey. After Morton's death Warham became
Chancellor. Yet each of these three bishops felt happier in the conduct of
his ecclesiastical functions than as a minister of the Crown. All three did
worthy and conscientious service, but would willingly have withdrawn from
affairs of State. They were counsellors, not rulers; the one real ruler was
the King himself.
While the King restrained the power of the nobility as military factors in
the situation, he developed his own control of military force by the
revival of the militia system, always theoretically in force, but
practically of late displaced by the baronial levies; and his hands were
further strengthened by the possession of the only train of artillery in
the realm, the value of which was markedly exemplified in the suppression
of the Cornish insurgents.
[Sidenote: The Star Chamber]
Another instrument in the King's hands, invaluable for the purpose of
holding barons and officials in check, was the institution which came to be
known as the Star Chamber. [Footnote: _Cf._ Maitland in _Social
England_, vol. ii., p. 655, ed. 1902; Busch, p. 267.] Beside the
development of the House of Peers as the highest court of judicature in the
realm, the development of the Great Council on similar lines had long been
going on. The two bodies differed somewhat in this way--that the peers had
the right of summons to the former, when the judges might be called in to
their assistance; whereas there were _ex officio_ members of the
Council who were not peers, and considerable uncertainty prevailed as to
the right of peers as peers to attend the Council. The customary powers of
the Council arose from the need of a court too powerful and independent to
be in danger of being intimidated or bribed by influence or wealth, able to
penalise gross miscarriage of justice fraudulently procured, and to take in
hand cases with which the ordinary courts would have had grave difficulty
in dealing. In exercising this function the Council practically came to
resolve itself into a judicial committee, meeting in a room known as the
Star Chamber, and its authority was regularised by Act of Parliament in
1487. Absorbing into its hands offences in the matter of "maintenance" and
"livery,"--_i.e._, broadly speaking, practices which the nobility had
indulged in for the magnification of their households, and the provision of
a military following--and being peculiarly subject to the royal influence,
it was exceedingly useful to the King in keeping the baronage within
bounds. Following, on the other hand, a procedure analogous to that of the
ecclesiastical courts, unchecked by juries, and having authority to punish
officers of the law whom it found guilty of illegal or corrupt practices,
its influence was gradually extended, so that the fear of it guided the
judgments of inferior courts. Under Henry VII., however, its functions were
exercised at least mainly in the cause of justice--they were used, not
abused--to the public satisfaction, as well as to the strengthening of the
King's own hands. The moderation with which Henry used the powers he was
accumulating concealed the latent possibility of the misuse of those same
powers by a capricious or arbitrary monarch.
[Sidenote: Henry's use of Parliament]
Not less conspicuous is Henry's application of the same principles in his
dealings with Parliament. He was careful, as we have seen, to secure for
his own claims the sanction of the National Assembly, and to give due
recognition to the authority of the estates of the realm. But he gave it no
opportunity of acquiring powers of initiative, and he directed his
financial policy to placing himself in such a position that he could escape
that extension of its controlling powers, which naturally followed whenever
a King found himself dependent on it for supplies. Throughout the first
half of his reign he summoned frequent Parliaments, obtaining considerable
grants on the pretext of foreign wars which were in themselves popular; but
he turned the wars themselves to account by evading extensive military
operations, and securing cash indemnities when peace was made. He even
resorted, when a serious emergency arose, to benevolences, which were
illegal; but he first secured the approval of the Council, which could
still act to some degree as a substitute for Parliament when the
Legislature was not in session, and he afterwards obtained the ratification
of Parliament itself. By this means he obtained more than sufficient for
the actual expenditure; in the meantime accumulating additional treasure by
forfeitures from rebels and fines for transgression of the law. We have
already observed his method of consistently resorting to pecuniary
penalties as an apparently lenient form of punishment, which conveniently
replenished his treasury. Thus, during the latter part of his reign, he was
able to do without Parliaments almost entirely; supplementing his revenues
through his agents Empson and Dudley, who made it their business to
discover pretexts for enforcing fines under colour of law, and often with
the flimsiest pretence of real justice.
[Sidenote: Financial exactions]
It was in this field that Henry overstepped his normal policy of not only
working through the law but avoiding misuse of it. For the filling of
Henry's treasury, the law was abused. The exactions of Empson and Dudley
were made possible by the statute of 1495, empowering judges, upon
information received, to initiate in their own courts trials of offenders
who were supposed to have escaped prosecution through the corruption or
intimidation of juries. Empson and Dudley being appointed judges found it
an easy task to provide informers, who laid before them charges on which a
case could be made out for fining the accused. In theory, of course, the
King was not responsible, and the guilty judges paid the penalty with their
lives early in the following reign. But the King did in fact get his full
share of the discredit attaching; and perhaps his methods in this
particular have been emphasised out of proportion to other traits in his
character and policy by popular writers. There is some reason to doubt if
Henry was ever quite fully aware of the extent to which these extortions
were distortions of law; and there is no doubt at all that Empson and
Dudley did not conduct their operations with a single eye to their master's
benefit, but contrived to intercept ample perquisites on their own account.
The statute was soon repealed under Henry VIII.
[Sidenote: Trade theories]
Modern economic theories depend for their validity on the postulates of the
transferability of capital and of labour. In proportion to the limitation
of the industries possible to a community, their laws apply, or fail to
apply, within that community. The development of a new industry may be
impossible, in the competition with established rivals, without artificial
assistance--assistance given to that industry at the expense of the
community at large; the preservation of an existing industry may demand
like assistance. When the labour and capital employed can be transferred
productively to another industry, it is obviously better that the transfer
should take place, and the failing industry lapse, than that the community
should be charged with maintaining an industry which cannot support itself
--whether or no the competitors driving it out of the market are enabled to
do so only by like extraneous assistance. When the capital and the labour
cannot be transferred, but the industry can be maintained by assistance,
the question becomes one of weighing the cost of maintenance to the
community against the injury to the community from the collapse of the
industry. Thus in any state with its commerce in the making, when the
transferability of capital and labour is at best in dispute, the theory of
buying in the cheapest market, wherever it is to be found, is not in
favour. It is held better to raise the prices to the point at which the
native product pays its native producers. In mediaeval times the foreigner
was _prima facie_ a person who came not to bring trade but to
appropriate it. Hence he was subjected to regulations, limitations and
charges for permission to carry on his operations. The next stage is
reached when reciprocal free trade is recognised as an advantage and mutual
concessions are made, restrictions and duties becoming, so to speak,
implements of war, often enough proving two-edged.
[Sidenote: Henry's commercial policy]
Henry VII. was not an economist far in advance of the theories of his age;
but economic considerations, as they were then understood, carried much
more weight, and generally played a much larger part in his policy than was
customary with the king-craft of the times, or with state-craft outside the
commercial republic of Venice, the commercial association of German Free
cities known as the Hansa or Hanseatic League, and the Netherlands.
Accordingly we find him using every available means to obtain a footing in
fresh foreign markets for the main English products of his day--wool and
woollen goods; to secure for English merchants the rights and privileges
which would enable them to compete on equal terms with the foreigner, and
to curtail those privileges of the foreigner in England. In the matter of
wool, the primacy of the English article was so thoroughly established that
little extraneous aid was required. But with manufactured woollen goods the
case was different, since the Flemings held the lead; and shipping also
demanded artificial encouragement--first, because it was necessary to
enterprise in the development of the export trade, at present largely
carried on in foreign bottoms; second, because the King was, at least to
some extent, alive to the strategic uses of a fleet which could be
requisitioned for war purposes.
[Sidenote: The Netherlands trade]
The great mart for English wool was the Netherlands, whose manufacturing
business required the raw product: the Netherlanders were more dependent on
England than the English were on them. Hence this trade was used by Henry
throughout his reign as a political lever--a means to political ends rather
than an end in itself. If his own subjects suffered from a customs war,
Philip's suffered more. So long as Burgundy made trouble on behalf of
Perkin Warbeck the battle went on. In 1496 Philip gave up the contest, and
the _Intercursus Magnus_ followed. Soon after the beginning of the new
century the fight was renewed, to be terminated by what the Flemings called
the _Intercursus Malus_, an arrangement so one-sided and pressing so
hard on them that its terms were practically impossible of fulfilment; and
Henry assented to their modification before his death, partly with a view
to overcoming the reluctance of Margaret of Savoy to accept his matrimonial
overtures.
[Sidenote: The Hansa]
When Henry came to the throne, he found the export trade mainly in the
hands of two foreign groups--the Hansa, who had acquired privileges in
England which they did not reciprocate, and the Venetians, who held their
own without privileges by superior commercial acuteness--and of two English
groups, the Merchants of the Staple, who controlled the wool markets, and
the Merchant Adventurers, who were mainly interested in the manufactured
goods. The King therefore followed a consistent policy of straining, in a
restrictive sense, the interpretation of the concessions made to the Hansa,
of emphasising grievances against them and of pressing for counter-
privileges; and he successfully negotiated with Denmark in 1489 a
commercial treaty, which interfered with the Hansa monopoly of the
Scandinavian trade, by placing English merchants on a competitive footing
with them. In a similar manner, he brought pressure to bear on the
Venetians by opening direct relations with the Florentines at their port of
Pisa. It is curious to note incidentally that the export dues on raw wool
were enormously heavier than those on the manufactured goods; the
difference being made in order to encourage the home sale of the wool and
to stimulate the home manufacture by this means, as well as by encouraging
the foreign sale of the manufactured goods. It is also observable that when
an attempt was made by the London merchants to capture the worsted trade,
Henry nipped it in the bud. It was no part of his policy to allow
corporations--any more than individuals--to become powerful enough to
demand terms for their political support.
[Sidenote: The Navigation Acts]
Recognising, as we saw, the commercial advantage to England of doing her
own carrying trade and of multiplying ships and seamen, Henry--tentatively
at first, but with increasing confidence--adopted artificial methods of
encouraging this branch of industry, at the expense of free competition.
Very early in the reign a Navigation Act required that goods shipped for
England from certain foreign ports should be embarked on English vessels,
during a specified period. Then the Act was renewed for a longer period,
and finally without a time limit, and with more extended application. A
great impetus was given to English shipping, with momentous results which
can hardly have entered into Henry's calculations. He could not have
anticipated the vast extensions of empire which were to be the prize of the
nations with ocean-going navies, with the ocean itself for the great
battlefield; or even the extent to which commerce and naval preponderance
were destined to go hand in hand. The monopoly of the States with a
Mediterranean sea-board was coming to an end.
[Sidenote: Voyages of discovery]
Yet it was in his reign that the vast change was initiated. In 1492
Christopher Columbus made his great voyage: in 1497 Vasco da Gama sailed
for India, not westwards but southwards and eastwards round the Cape of
Good Hope. Ten years later, Albuquerque was founding a Portuguese Empire in
the Indian seas. Spain and Portugal, pioneers of the great movement, led
the way, one in the new world of the West, the other in the fabled world of
the East; where for many a year to come they were to divide a monopoly
authorised by the Papal Bull of Alexander VI. Before another century
closed, their dominion was to be challenged by England grown mighty and by
Holland emancipated. As yet, however, men dreamed only formless if gorgeous
dreams of what the unknown realms might bring forth. England played no very
large part in these early voyages. Christopher Columbus, craving to
discover a westerly route to the Indies, and failing of Portuguese support,
sent his brother Bartholomew to petition the English King for aid; but
Bartholomew was captured by pirates. Ultimately he reached England, but
before he could achieve his purpose, Christopher had found other helpers;
the prize fell to Ferdinand and Isabella. The first historic expedition
which sailed from English ports was captained not by an Englishman but by
another Italian, John Cabot, and his son Sebastian, in 1497. The Cabots
were Venetians who had for some time been established at Bristol. They
aimed for a north-west passage, and found Labrador and Newfoundland, cold,
inhospitable, producing no wealth: the explorers who sailed under Spanish
auspices struck the wealthy and entrancing regions of the south. There was
little enough material inducement beyond the simple spirit of enterprise to
attract capital to expend itself in aid of the Bristol men who followed in
the wake of Cabot. Henry deserves full credit for the encouragement and
actual pecuniary help which he rendered at first, and no blame for its
discontinuation. The daring of the adventurers was but ill repaid for the
time; yet a mighty harvest was to be reaped by England in the days to come.
[Sidenote: The rural revolution]
If England, however, did not for more than half a century turn the new
discoveries to material account, wealth and prosperity did increase greatly
in the towns, and the country recovered her lost position among the
commercial nations--partly from Henry's policy directed to that end, partly
from the comparatively settled conditions of life which gradually
prevailed. In the agricultural districts, however, this was hardly the
case, owing to the increasing tendency to substitute pasture for
cultivation. The country had no difficulty in producing sufficient for its
own consumption; and the development of the woollen manufacture made
sheep-farming in particular much more lucrative. But sheep-farming called
for the employment of many fewer hands; proprietors dispossessed small
tenants to make large sheep-runs; migration from the rural districts to the
nascent manufacturing centres was not a simple matter; and thus there was
no little distress, and a great multiplication of beggars and vagabonds.
The monasteries, which in the past had been progressive farmers, had
degenerated into landlords easy-going indeed but without enterprise. The
wealth of the gentry increased, but unemployment increased also, and labour
at the same time became cheaper. The evil was to a great extent realised;
in the Isle of Wight, which was rapidly becoming depopulated, an attempt
was made to improve matters by limiting the size of farms; the heavy export
duties on raw wool were doubtless intended actually to restrict the output
as well as to divert it to English rather than foreign manufacturers; but
since this did not effectively check the growing demand at home, the
production of wool remained so lucrative that it continued to be more
attractive than cultivation. Attempts were made to transfer labour from
agriculture to manufacture by interfering with, the restrictions imposed by
the trade-guilds (which always aimed at making themselves close bodies),
the object of such legislation being quite as much to prevent idleness as
to relieve distress. Nevertheless, the evil grew. Sir Thomas More in his
introduction to the _Utopia_, written early in the next reign, gives a
vigorous sketch of the prevalent vagabondage just before the death of
Cardinal Morton, adding to the causes above mentioned the number of lackeys
employed by the wealthy who when dismissed became a useless burden on the
community. He also charges the land-owners, expressly including many abbots
and others of the clergy, with causing depopulation and misery by forcing
up rents. From him too as well as from other sources we learn of the
frequency of crimes of violence, attributed by him to the reckless
employment of the death penalty for minor offences, encouraging the
fugitive criminal--already doomed if caught--to take life without
hesitation.
[Sidenote: The Church]
To a certain extent, then, we have to note among the causes of change in
rural districts the failure of the monasteries to discharge their old
function of agricultural leadership. In other respects, also, these
communities had fallen from the high standards of earlier days. Discipline
was lax. Visitations instituted by Cardinal Morton revealed the presence of
gross immorality, not only among the very small houses, but in so great an
institution as the Abbey of St. Albans, where the highest officials were
guilty of the gravest misbehaviour; and the correspondence seems to imply
that the disapprobation was by no means in proportion to the offences, from
which it is fair to infer that no high standard was normally expected. The
most to be looked for was an absence of flagrant misconduct. The clergy
were much more particular about ceremonial observances and ecclesiastical
privileges than about the morals either of themselves or of their flocks.
But as yet there was no sign of a coming Reformation. Lollardry, it is
true, had never been killed; its anti-clerical propaganda was by no means
inactive. But it worked beneath the surface, and could not be taken to
indicate an approaching convulsion. The greatest Churchmen of the day,
Morton, Warham and Fox, were absorbed--albeit reluctantly--in affairs of
State. Blameless, even austere in their own lives, patrons of learning,
sincerely pious, they lacked the Reformer's passion, without which it was
vain to combat the _vis inertiae_; generated by long years of clerical
sloth, and of the formalism by which the highest Mysteries were vulgarly
distorted into superstitions and Faith into ceremonial observances.
[Sidenote: Henry and Rome]
The first Tudor himself was a pious man, as piety was reckoned: punctual in
observances, commended and complimented by Popes. His chapel in Westminster
Abbey is evidence of his zeal in one direction; he gave alms with a
business-like regard to their post-mortem efficacy. Throughout his reign
the Popes made much talk of a new crusade, and Henry seems to have been the
one European monarch who took the idea seriously. It is true that when
Alexander VI. appealed in 1500 for funds to that end, the English King
preferred to be excused; but the polite irony of his refusal was more than
justified by his confidence that if the Pope got the money it would not be
expended for the benefit of Christendom; moreover, he did actually hand
over four thousand pounds. In fact, he took the Church as he found it.
There was but one almost infinitesimal curtailment of ecclesiastical
privileges in his reign, necessitated by political considerations and
accepted by the Pope, whereby the right of Sanctuary was withdrawn in cases
of treason.
[Sidenote: Learning and letters]
Practically it is only in the beginnings of an educational revival that we
find promise of the dawn of a new order. It was in Henry's reign that the
study of Greek, and with it the new criticism, began to establish itself.
Grocyn and Linacre led the way. In the last decade of the century John
Colet was lecturing at Oxford, the apostle of the new learning on its
religious side; calling his pupils to the study of the Scriptures
themselves, rather than of the schoolmen or doctors of the Church; treating
them as organic treatises, not as collections of texts. There he won the
friendship of young Thomas More; thither on flying visits came Erasmus
twice. Colet, made Dean of St. Paul's about 1505, continued to carry on his
educational work as the founder of the famous St. Paul's School; winning
renown also as a great preacher and a fearless moralist; a man of rich
learning, of a reverent enthusiasm, of a splendid sincerity, of a noble
simplicity; the prophet of much that was best, and of nothing that was not
best, in the coming Reformation.
But during Henry's reign Colet's figure is almost the only one--apart from
such representatives of erudition and scholarship as Grocyn and Linacre--
which stands forth holding out a promise of intellectual and moral
progress. In effect there was no literature; in this respect Scotland was
in advance of England with the verse of William Dunbar. More's
_Utopia_ was still unwritten. When Henry died the Universities had not
yet, or had only just, received within their portals the men who were to
fight the theological battle of the Reformation. More than half a century
was to pass before the splendid sunrise of the Shakespearian era.
[Sidenote: Henry's character]
It has hardly, perhaps, been the custom to render full justice to the
founder of the Tudor dynasty. His reign is stamped with a character sordid
and unattractive. There is no romance in it, no clashing of arms, no
valiant deeds, no suggestion of the heroic. The King's enemies are, for the
most part, contemptible persons; the King himself is a cold-blooded,
long-headed ruler, merciful indeed, but from policy, not from generosity,
and of a meanness in money matters very far from royal. Yet he was not
without virtues. He was not unjust; he was a statesman more loyal to his
pledges than most of his contemporaries or their successors. He gave
something like order and rest to a distracted land, and raised her again to
a position at least respectable among the nations, securing himself on a
most unstable throne without resorting to the usual methods of the tyrant.
Had he died when Morton died, the baser aspects of his reign would never
have achieved so unlovely a prominence as they have done.
The truth is, indeed, that judged by the first half of his reign alone
Henry might have been numbered among the princes with a title to be
regarded almost with affection. It is only in the light of the later years
that even his financial policy really assumes a mean aspect, though
occasionally it came perilously near what may be called sharp practice--and
the excuse was great, seeing that a full treasury was an absolutely
necessary condition of establishing the new rule. The imprisonment of
Warwick was an act of palpable injustice, yet the risk of letting him go
free would have been enormous. In another ruler than Henry, the leniency
which we attribute to astute policy would have been freely described as
surprising magnanimity. He never betrayed a loyal servant. His genuine
appreciation of the true spirit of chivalry was shown when he took Surrey
[Footnote: Surrey, the son of "Jockey of Norfolk," Richard's supporter, was
imprisoned in the Tower. At the time of Simnel's insurrection his gaoler
offered to let him escape, but he refused, saying that the King had sent
him to confinement, and only from the King would he accept release.] from
the Tower to entrust him with high command in the North. The luckless Lady
Katharine Gordon, the wife of Perkin Warbeck, was treated with remarkable
courtesy and liberality. There was even a genial humour in the King's
behaviour to Kildare. His own marriage he doubtless looked upon as a purely
political affair; but while his wife lived his loyalty to his marriage vow
is in strong contrast to the general licentiousness of the princes of his
day; and the picture of Henry and Elizabeth striving in turn to comfort
each other on Prince Arthur's death, as recorded by a contemporary,
[Footnote: Gairdner, _Chron._, i., p. 36; Leland's _Collectanea_,
v., p, 373.] can hardly be fitted on to the conception of Henry as a man
almost without the more tender feelings of humanity.
[Sidenote: Deterioration after 1499]
Yet all this is forgotten or discoloured by reason of the ugly picture of
those later days when Morton and Prince Arthur and Elizabeth were gone. It
seems, indeed, as though a certain moral deterioration had set in from the
time when Henry made up his mind to do violence to his conscience by making
away with Warwick in 1499. Morton, his wisest counsellor, of whom More
gives a most attractive portrait in the _Utopia_, died the next year;
Arthur, whom he loved, in the spring of 1502; Elizabeth, always a refining
and softening influence, within a twelvemonth of Arthur. To these latter
years belong almost entirely the extortions of Empson and Dudley; the harsh
treatment of Katharine of Aragon, a helpless hostage in his hands; the
revolting proposal for a union with the crazy Joanna of Castile. This view
is further borne out when we observe that in these years also his political
foresight degenerates into craftiness, personal animosities playing a
larger part. The intellectual falling off is hardly less marked than the
moral. For the personal repute of a King who was almost, if not quite, one
of the great, it is to be regretted that his last years have cast a
permanent cloud over a reign which emphatically made for the good of the
nation over which he ruled.
CHAPTER V
HENRY VIII (i), 1509-27--EGO ET REX MEUS
[Sidenote: Europe in 1509]
Roughly speaking, the forty years preceding the accession of Henry VIII.
had witnessed the birth of modern Europe. The old feudal conception of
Christendom had passed away: the modern conception of organic States had
taken its place. The English Kings had for some time ceased to hold sway in
France, whether as claimants to the throne or as great feudatories. France
herself had become a united and aggressive nation; the fusion of the
Spanish monarchies was almost completed: the Emperor was no longer regarded
as the titular secular head of Christendom, but was virtually the chief of
a loose Germanic confederation. The Turk, finally established in Eastern
Europe, was shortly to find himself regarded as a possible ally of
Christian Powers; Christendom still reckoned the Pope as its spiritual
head, but the cataclysm was already preparing; and the enterprise of daring
seamen had but just rent the veils that had hidden from the nations of
Europe the boundless possibilities of a new world in the West and an
ancient world in the East, converting the pathless ocean into the great
Highway.
[Sidenote: England's position in Europe]
Since the death of the conqueror Henry V., England herself had been rent
and torn by internal broils. For many a long year she had taken but little
share in the affairs of Europe. But it had been the part of the first Tudor
King to win for her breathing time; to secure a period for rest and
internal recuperation, which should fit her to hold her own in the counsels
of Europe should her interests demand it. The civil broils were ended;
trade had revived; wealth had been accumulating. Henry had not sought
military glory, but he had played the game of diplomacy with acuteness and
finesse. When he ascended the throne, the princes of Europe had regarded
England as a Power that might safely be neglected unless she could be used
as a cat's-paw; but before he died they had learned that they could no
longer negotiate with him except on equal terms. In a sense, perhaps, it is
true that England was still reckoned as no more than a third-rate
[Footnote: _Cf._ Brewer, _Reign of Henry VIII._, i., p.3;
Creighton, _Wolsey_, p. 11. The estimate, however, seems to be rather
the outcome of an inclination to magnify Wolsey's achievement.] power,
since her military prestige had fallen and the chances of its restoration
were untested, while her interests would not naturally lead her into active
participation in European complications; but she had at least achieved
sufficient importance for the Powers to desire her favour rather than her
ill-will, and for herself to be able to put a price on her support when it
was asked.
[Sidenote: The new King]
So far, however, it was rather respect for the personal ability of Henry
VII. than a high estimate of the English nation that had secured the
English position; and when the astute old monarch was succeeded on the
throne by a frank, high-spirited lad of eighteen, the Princes of Europe
flattered themselves that England would revert to the position of a
cat's-paw. From this point of view the first beginnings of the reign were
promising. Europe, however, was soon to be undeceived; to discover that the
young King had an unfailing eye for a capable minister, a sincere devotion
to his own interests, and an unparalleled power of reconciling the dictates
of desire and conscience.
At home, circumstances combined to render Henry extraordinarily popular.
Handsome, endowed with a magnificent physique, a first-rate performer in
all manly exercises, gifted with many accomplishments, scholar enough to be
proud of his scholarship, open of hand, frank and genial of manner, with a
boyish delight in his endowments and a boyish enthusiasm for chivalric
ideals, all English hearts rejoiced in his accession. The scholars looked
forward to a Saturnian age; his martial ardour fired the hopes of the
fighting men; the populace hailed with joy a King who began his rule by
striking down the agents of extortion to whom he owed the wealth inherited
from his economical sire. Henry in fact was blessed with the most valuable
of all possessions for a ruler of men, a magnetic personality, which made
his servants ready to go through fire and water, to stifle conscience, to
forgo their own convictions at his bidding.
When he ascended the throne, however, none had the glimmering of a
suspicion whither that imperious will was to direct the destinies of the
nation: his earliest acts gave little indication of the later developments
of his character and policy.
[Sidenote: 1509 Marriage]
His first step was to complete the marriage with Katharine of Aragon, to
whom he had been betrothed, under the papal dispensation, on the death of
his elder brother, her husband. It is not without interest to note, in view
of a plea put forward against the "divorce" in later years, that the bride
was arrayed for the wedding as one who was not a widow but a maiden.
Shortly afterwards Empson and Dudley, his father's unpopular agents, were
brought to the block after attainder on a not very credible charge of
treason, [Footnote: Brewer, i., p. 44; _L. & P._, i., 1212.] since the
misdeeds of which they had been guilty could hardly be construed into
capital offences.
Now, however, events on the Continent were to offer a field for Henry's
ambitions, and incidentally to disillusion, at least in part, his young
enthusiasms.
[Sidenote: The Powers: 1509-12]
The three great Powers--France, Spain, and the Empire--which had been
evolved out of the mediaeval European system, were united in the desire of
preventing Italy from following their example and consolidating into a
nation. Venice, as the one Italian State strong enough to have some chance
of combining the rest under her leadership, was the object not only of
their jealousy but also of the Pope's. A few months before the death of
Henry VII., these four combined in the League of Cambrai, for the
dismemberment of Venice. The allies, however, were not guided in their
actions by any altruistic motives--any excessive regard for the interests
of their associates. The French King, Lewis XII., by prompt and skilful
action, made himself master of the north of Italy before the rest were
ready to move. This was by no means to the taste of Ferdinand or of Pope
Julius; but as yet Maximilian had seen no reason to be displeased.
Ferdinand would not risk a quarrel with Maximilian, which might have led to
that monarch's interference in Castile on behalf of the boy Charles--his
grandson as well as Ferdinand's--the nominal King of that portion of what
Ferdinand looked on as his own dominions. So the crafty old King bided his
time, dropping a quiet hint to young Henry in England that a moment might
be approaching favourable to an English attack on France, in revival of the
ancient claim to the crown, or at any rate to Guienne.
Henry, as yet unskilled in the tortuous diplomacy of his father-in-law, was
well content to be guided by his advice. Ferdinand intrigued to unite
Julius and Maximilian against France, and to shift the burden of battle,
when it should come, off his own shoulders on to Henry's. Meantime, the
outward professions to France remained of the most amicable character.
[Sidenote: 1512 Dorset's expedition]
Then Lewis made a blunder which gave his enemies their opening. He called a
General Council at Pisa which was in effect an attack on the spiritual
authority of Rome. By the end of 1510, Julius was at open war with the
French King; Ferdinand was in alliance with the Pope; in the course of the
next year, the Holy League was formed; a combined attack was concerted; and
in June, 1512, an English expedition, under the command of Lord Dorset,
landed in Spain, on the theory that it was to be assisted by Ferdinand in
the conquest of Guienne.
The expedition was a melancholy failure. The English troops and their
commander were alike inexperienced in war; Ferdinand would not move against
Guienne, urging with some plausibility that the securing of Navarre was a
needful preliminary; the soldiers wanted beer and had to put up with
Spanish wines; finally they insisted on returning to England, and Dorset
had to put the best face he could on a very awkward situation. Officially
it was announced that the withdrawal was made with Ferdinand's approval.
So far, the European anticipations of England's incapacity had been duly
fulfilled. A military fiasco had accompanied an innocence of diplomatic
guile which looked promising to the Continental rulers. But the promise was
to be disappointed.
[Sidenote: Rise of Wolsey]
Henry VII. had avoided war and had been his own foreign minister; when he
died, he left to form his son's Council some capable subordinates like Fox
the Bishop of Winchester, but no one experienced in the responsibilities of
control. Among the noble houses, the Howards were shortly to display at
least a fair share of military capacity. But it was to a minister of at
best middle-class origin, a rising ecclesiastic who had, however, hitherto
held no office of the first rank, that England was to owe a surprisingly
rapid promotion to European equality with the first-class Powers.
With that skill in selecting; invaluable servants which distinguished his
entire career, Henry VIII. by the time he was one-and-twenty had already
discovered in Thomas Wolsey the man on whose native genius and unlimited
power of application he could place complete reliance.
Wolsey had been employed on diplomatic missions by the old King; whose
methods he had gauged and whose policy he had assimilated, but only as a
basis for far-reaching developments. He was brought into the Royal Council
by Fox, partly no doubt in the hope that he would counteract the influence
of Thomas Howard, Earl of Surrey, and others of the nobles who were
martially inclined and imbued with a time-honoured hostility to France. It
was no long time before he outshone his patron, who, however, had rightly
judged his tendencies. Wolsey was no friend to war, and had no hostility to
France, for the plain reason that he preferred diplomatic to military
methods, and was quite as well pleased to advance English interests by
alliance with France as by alliances against her if he saw his way to
profit thereby. It is probable enough that he would have avoided the war
with France if he had had the power; since he had not, he devoted his
energies to making the war itself as successful as possible.
[Sidenote: 1513 The French war]
The arrangements for the Guienne expedition had not unnaturally been
singularly defective. Wolsey devoted himself with untiring zeal to the
organisation of a new expedition in the following spring. Nothing was left
to chance over which it was possible for one man's energy to exercise
supervision. The first outcome was a naval engagement off Brest on 25th
April, wherein the English admiral, Sir Edward Howard, restored at least
the English reputation for valour, falling--overwhelmed by numbers--on the
deck of the French flag-ship which he had boarded almost single-handed. The
French fleet was much larger than that of the English, and the attack on it
which he led was a desperate enterprise in which his ships were beaten off;
but those who had jeered at the failure in Guienne were silenced, and Henry
was enabled to land his troops undisturbed at Calais at the end of June.
Both the King and Wolsey were with the army, and proceeded to lay siege, on
1st August, to Terouenne, which was partially re-victualled by the bold
dash of a relief party of horsemen through the besieger's lines. Here the
besiegers were shortly joined by a contingent under Maximilian (who
professed himself a mere volunteer under the English King). The advancing
French array was put to complete rout in the "battle of the Spurs"--the
consequence of a sudden panic--and on August 22nd Terouenne
surrendered. Tournai followed suit a month later.
In the meantime, events of moment had been taking place on the Scottish
border.
[Sidenote: Scotland 1499-1513]
James IV., as we have seen, had by no means been on continuously good terms
with Henry VII., and had lent a good deal more than merely moral support to
the pretensions of Perkin Warbeck. At the close of the adventurer's active
career in the end of 1497, a treaty was made between England and Scotland
which was to remain in force till a year after the death of either monarch;
and there were further treaties when James married Margaret Tudor in 1503.
On the other hand, James had always maintained the traditional alliance
with France, and in 1507 had declined the papal invitation to enter the
league then formed to resist French aggression. Since the accession of
Henry VIII., the relations between the two countries had been exceedingly
strained. There were personal quarrels about jewels retained in England
which James claimed for his wife. Scottish sea-captains had been treated as
pirates by the English authorities. Henry, having joined the league against
France, wished to patch up the quarrel with James; James, incited by the
French, would not make friends with the active enemy of France; the French
Queen sent him a message bidding him strike a blow on English ground as her
knight. West, [Footnote: Brewer, _Henry VIII._, p.29. _L & P_.,
i., 1926, 3128, 3129, 3811, 3838, 3882.] the English ambassador, gives a
highly uncomplimentary account of James's bearing at this time, but his
evidence may be coloured. At any rate, there can have been little doubt in
James's mind that a successful war with France would leave Henry ready to
make himself extremely unpleasant to Scotland, even though he might not
patently set the treaty aside; and for himself there was a degree of
obligation to help France when she came to open hostilities with England;
while Henry's instructions to West are hardly consistent with a character
for stainless and unassailable honour. [Footnote: _Cf._ Lang,
_Hist. Scot._, i., p.375; commenting on Brewer, _Henry VIII._,
pp.28, 29 _q.v._]
[Illustration: Map: Campaign of FLODDEN showing Surrey's March]
[Sidenote: 1513 James invades England (Aug.)]
At any rate, the conclusion of the matter was that when Henry sailed for
Calais, James soon made up his mind, with the support of most of the
nobility, to declare war, and sent Henry his defiance--as he had promised
West to do before opening hostilities. On 22nd August he was in England at
the head of a great army; by the end of the month, Norham Castle, Ford, and
other strongholds were in his hands. [Footnote: _Cf._ Lang, _Hist.
Scot._, i., p. 377.] Thereafter, he entrenched himself on Flodden Ridge,
and awaited the approach of the English army.
Queen Katharine and the Earl of Surrey had been left in charge at home when
the King with Wolsey and Fox also crossed the channel. To the Queen's
energy the successful results were in no small degree due, as well as to
the military skill and audacity of the Howards, and to James's reckless
disregard of strategical and tactical principles.
Had the Scottish monarch held to his plans, his campaign could hardly have
failed to be successful. His army was large, and well victualled; his
position on Flodden Edge was exceedingly strong; he had secured the
fortresses which might otherwise have threatened him on flank or rear. His
object was to entice the English commander, Surrey, away from his base, and
force him to fight at a disadvantage, or to see his levies melt away, for
lack of provisions. Surrey, advancing from Alnwick to Wooler, tried to
inveigle him into descending from the Ridge to the open plain, but James
was not to be tempted.
[Sidenote: Flodden (Sept.)]
Eastward of Flodden the Till flows north to join the Tweed. Surrey put the
Till between himself and the Scottish army, and marched north, his movement
masked by hills on his left, with the intention of reaching Berwick, or of
threatening the Scottish communications. Arrived at Barmoor Wood, the
Admiral, Thomas Howard, Surrey's son, proposed to march west, cross the
Till, and move south again, threatening the rear of James's position. The
operation, involving a very hard march, was carried out. The main army
crossed at Twizel Mill, the rearguard fording the stream as high up as
Sandyford; the junction being effected behind Branxton Marsh. The passage
of the troops might easily have been prevented; but James, very
inefficiently served in scouting, knew nothing of what was going on. When
the approach of the English became known, he suddenly resolved to descend
and give battle [Footnote: The traditions concerning the King and the old
Earl of Angus on this occasion have been very untenderly handled by
Mr. Andrew Lang, _Hist. Scot._, 1., p. 390.] on the plain, instead of
remaining in his almost impregnable position. So on the afternoon of
September 9th was fought the bloody and decisive battle of Flodden. Of the
two armies, the Scottish was probably the larger; but the English captains
had their troops better in hand than the border lords on the Scottish left,
or the highland chiefs on their right. After fierce fighting, the Scottish
wings were broken, and the Scottish centre was completely enveloped. There,
headed by the King, fought the pick of the Scottish chivalry. The stand
made was magnificent, the slaughter appalling. The English victory this
time was one not of the bow--as so often before--but of the bill or axe
against the spears in which the northern nation trusted. By hewing away the
spear-heads, the English disabled their opponents; yet they fought on, till
man by man they fell around their monarch. The King himself, brave as any
man on the field, was slain; in the ring of his dead companions in arms
were found the bodies of thirteen earls, three bishops, and many valiant
lords. There were few families in Scotland which did not contribute to that
hecatomb, whereof the memory is enshrined in the national song of
lamentation, "The Flowers of the Forest".
[Effects of Flodden]
For many a long year the military power of Scotland was broken on the black
day of Flodden. From that quarter Henry was to have no more serious fears.
Great and decisive, however, as Surrey's [Footnote: Surrey was rewarded
with the Dukedom of Norfolk, held by his father. Accordingly, after this he
becomes "Norfolk," and his son Thomas becomes "Surrey". In 1524 the son
succeeded to the Dukedom, and is the "Norfolk" of the latter half of the
reign, the "Surrey" of its last years being his son Henry.] triumph was,
the English also had paid a heavy price, and were unable to follow up
victory by invasion. But Scotland had not only lost the best and bravest of
her sons; the King's death left the Crown to a babe not eighteen months
old, and the government of the country to the babe's mother, Margaret, the
sister of Henry VIII., and to a group of nobles, to whose personal feuds
and rivalries, constantly fomented by English diplomacy, the interests of
the Scottish nation were completely subordinated.
[Sidenote: Recovery of English prestige]
The year 1513 had completely restored the reputation of the English
arms. The sea-fight off Brest, the successes at Terouenne and Tournai, and,
finally, the great victory of Flodden, proved beyond dispute that
Englishmen only needed to be well led to show themselves as indomitable as
ever they had been in the past. The march of 8th and 9th September
immediately before Flodden was a feat which not many commanders would have
cared to attempt, and few troops could have carried out. And it had become
evident that generalship was not, after all, a lost art. It was now time
for Europe to discover that England, habitually inferior to other nations
in the arts of diplomacy, possessed in Wolsey a diplomatist of the highest
order. The old King had indeed been as little susceptible to the
beguilement of fair promises, as shrewd in detecting his neighbours'
designs, little less capable of concealing his own, little less tenacious
in pursuing them; but his designs themselves had not the amplitude of
Wolsey's, who shewed all Henry's skill combined with a far greater audacity
in execution, commensurate with the greater audacity and scope of his
conceptions. Wolsey was one of those statesmen, rare in England, who for
half a generation aimed, with a large measure of success, at dominating the
combinations of the European Powers without involving the country in any
tremendous war.
[Sidenote: 1514 Foreign intrigues]
Before the winter of 1513 Henry VIII. returned to England, with every
intention of following up his successes in the French war in the ensuing
year. The campaign, however, had not been at all to the liking of
Ferdinand, who gained nothing by the English victories in the north-west.
These tended to strengthen his grandson Charles in the Netherlands, where
Maximilian's influence over him was stronger; while Ferdinand was bent
above all things on maintaining his own control over the boy, and by
consequence over Castile. So Ferdinand set about making his own peace
privily with France, and trying to draw off Maximilian so as to isolate
Henry. In April, 1514, he accomplished his object, and a truce was declared
between Ferdinand, the Emperor, and France.
In mid-winter Henry had been struck down by small-pox; he recovered to find
these intrigues in active progress, and was highly indignant. His martial
projects were, of course, thrown entirely out of gear. Ferdinand, however,
had found his match. The English King, when the dictates of his personal
interests, translated into terms of conscience, did not obscure the issues
at stake, had an acute perception of political expediency, untrammelled by
the traditional sentiment which biased the judgment of advisers of the type
of Surrey (now raised to the Dukedom of Norfolk). It was Wolsey who swayed
his counsels, and Wolsey perceived in an alliance with France an effective
alternative to the collapsed alliance against her.
[Sidenote: Policy of French alliance ]
No sooner had he detected the intrigues of Ferdinand than he set his
counterplot on foot through the medium of the Duc de Longueville, who had
been taken prisoner at the battle of the Spurs and sent over to
England. The death of the French Queen, Anne of Brittany, gave him a
convenient opening as early as January.
Throughout this century, as in the reign of Henry VII., royal betrothals
and royal marriages play an immense part in international negotiations:
princesses are the shuttlecocks of statesmen. This particular form of
diplomatic recreation now springs again into sudden prominence.
[Sidenote 1: The French marriage]
[Sidenote 2: 1515 Francis I]
Henry's younger sister Mary was plighted to the young Charles of Castile
and the Netherlands, who was to marry her in the ensuing summer; he being
now fourteen, and she about seventeen. The boy's two grandfathers, now both
disposed to leave England detached and isolated, began finding excuses for
deferring the match. Wolsey pressed them, while secretly negotiating for
Mary's marriage with Lewis of France. Thus when his plans were ripe, and
not before, he found himself able to declare that the breach was entirely
the fault of the other side, whose objects were frustrated by the new
alliance, which had not entered into their reckoning. There was no further
prospect of keeping France and England embroiled while they appropriated
the spoils. Mary was married to the French King in October, and Henry was
certainly projecting, in conjunction with him, an aggressive movement
against his former allies, on the plea that his wife Katharine shared with
her sister the succession to Castile, when the tangible results of the
marriage were nullified by the death on January 1st of Lewis, and the
succession to the French throne of his cousin Francis I., a prince who was
some years younger than Henry himself, and quite as much athirst for
military glory.
Again diplomacy intrigued about the person of Lewis's widow. Charles
Brandon, [Footnote: Edmund de la Pole, Earl of Suffolk in the last reign,
and Yorkist intriguer, was executed, apparently without further trial, in
1513. The Dukedom of Suffolk was bestowed on Brandon whom Mr. Froude's
imagination has somehow developed into "the ablest soldier of the age," but
he never did anything to justify a high estimate of his abilities.] Duke of
Suffolk, an intimate personal friend of Henry's and a stout man-at-arms,
who was also personally devoted to the Princess Mary, was selected by
Wolsey as a better negotiator than one of the anti-French party. Henry and
Francis were both keen hands at a bargain, and there was serious trouble as
to Mary's dower and the financial arrangements connected with her
return. Francis gained his purposes by alarming Mary and at the same time
encouraging Suffolk to marry her out of hand; which he did, secretly. After
that, there could be no more talk of Mary's dowry being repaid; and Henry
had to content himself with making heavy demands on Suffolk's purse. The
event is of further significance, because Henry at present had no
offspring, and the young King of Scotland, son of his sister Margaret, was
heir presumptive to the throne; whereas if his younger sister Mary should
have children, it was certain that there would be a party to support their
claim in preference to that of the Scottish monarch. In fact, ultimately,
Mary's grandchild Lady Jane Grey was actually put up as a claimant to the
throne.
[Sidenote: Marignano (Sept.)]
The general effect however was, that Francis drew away from the English
alliance, and associated himself more closely with Ferdinand; having
Italian conquests and more particularly Milan in view. In the summer he set
out, crossed the Alps with unexpected success, and in September won the
great victory of Marignano, routing the Swiss troops which had hitherto
been reputed invincible. Such triumphant progress however was more than the
other monarchs or the Pope, Leo X., had reckoned for, and there was a rapid
and general reaction in favour of checking the French King's career. The
inflation of the power of France was satisfactory to no one else; but
incidentally the effect was not disadvantageous to Wolsey, since it forced
Pope Leo into an attitude of compliance with English demands in order to
secure English support, with the result that Wolsey was raised to the
Cardinalate, having recently been made Archbishop of York. "The Cardinal of
York" is the title by which he is named in official references from this
time (Nov., 1515).
Here it may be noted that a daughter, afterwards Queen Mary, was born to
the King early in 1516. Before this time, two sons at least--according to
some authorities no fewer than four--had been born, but had died either at
birth or shortly after.
[Sidenote: 1516-17 European changes]
During the winter, Wolsey--having no wish to plunge England into war--
persuaded Maximilian (by means of a very able diplomatic agent, Richard
Pace) to take up arms against Francis in Italy. As a rule, Maximilian took
sides with any one whose gold he expected to divert into his own pocket;
but Pace managed to keep the English subsidies, which were to pay the Swiss
Mercenaries, out of the Emperor's hands; so the Emperor retired from the
war in the spring. Early in this year, too, Ferdinand died, leaving Charles
lord of all Spain as well as of the Netherlands. This left the young King
to the guidance of advisers whose interests were mainly Flemish, and who
were consequently anxious in the first place for the friendship of
France. Hence in August the treaty of Noyon was contracted between Francis
and Charles; in which the Emperor shortly afterwards joined when he found
that England would not provide him with funds unless he earned
them. Wolsey's real strength lay in the fact that neither Maximilian nor
Charles could afford any serious expenditure without his financial support;
Francis was waking up to the fact that as allies they were both broken
reeds, though in active combination with Wolsey against him they would be
dangerous; and as the year 1517 passed, the inclination for France and
England to revert to amicable relations revived; becoming more marked in
the following year when the birth of a dauphin suggested his betrothal to
the little Princess Mary.
[Sidenote: 1518-19 Wolsey's success]
During these two years, the reality of Wolsey's control of the situation
was further demonstrated by his management of the Pope, who refused him the
office of legate after having reluctantly made him Cardinal. Leo however,
like other Princes, was in want of cash, and sent legates to the European
Courts to raise funds under colour of a crusade: whereupon Henry declined
to admit Cardinal Campeggio to England, on the ground that to receive a
legate _a latere_ was against the rule of the realm. Wolsey seized the
opportunity to suggest that if he himself, being an English prelate, were
placed on the same official footing as Campeggio, the objection might be
withdrawn; and Leo had to agree.
In the result, an alliance was concluded with France under which the
infants were betrothed, Tournai was restored to France. France was to pay
60,000 crowns and promise not to interfere in Scottish affairs to the
detriment of England, and Wolsey was enabled to pose as the pacificator of
Europe; the other Powers with more or less reluctance all finding
themselves constrained to give their adherence to the new treaty of
Universal Peace.
Thus when the year 1519 opened, Wolsey's policy was triumphant. France was
bound to England; the young King of Spain wanted her friendship; Maximilian
was still looking to her for money; and the Pope was obliged to applaud her
for having usurped his official function as peacemaker. But in the days
when war and peace and the movements of armies turned habitually on the
personal predilections, quarrels, and amours of monarchs, the political
atmosphere was liable to violent disturbances without warning. In January,
1519, Maximilian died suddenly; and his death in fact involved a complete
rearrangement of ideas as to the positions of the Powers.
[Sidenote 1: 1519 Charles V.]
[Sidenote 2: The Imperial election]
Ten years before, when Henry came to the throne, he was the only young man
among the European sovereigns. The Emperor and the King of France were both
more than middle-aged: so was the King of Aragon who was virtually King of
Spain and the Sicilies. Before six years were out there was a youthful King
of France; not much later, all Spain was under the dominion of a boy. These
three Kings were now twenty-eight, twenty-four, and nineteen respectively,
while the succession to the Empire lay with the Electoral Princes. Charles
was an obvious candidate, since the Habsburgs had actually retained the
office among themselves for three generations; yet the Electors were in no
way bound to maintain the tradition. In ability and in character, one of
their number was fit for the purple--Frederick of Saxony; but Saxony was
only one among a number of German States, and Frederick himself had no mind
to undertake the office. Thereupon ensued the somewhat curious spectacle of
the French King entering the lists, he being the one possible rival of
Charles. Of all the Continental Princes, these two alone were powerful
enough to sustain the burden of the Empire: yet either of them, achieving
it, would have his power dangerously expanded, and would become a serious
menace to the Pope.
So Charles and Francis both intrigued and bribed the Electors; the Pope
tried to avoid helping either; Wolsey promised support to both; and the
Electors themselves watched for opportunities of raising the price of their
suffrages. And presently Henry himself conceived the idea of getting
himself put forward as a third candidate, through whom a way of escape
might be found for those who regarded Francis and Charles as Scylla and
Charybdis. The combination however of the Crown of England with the
Imperial diadem was no improvement in their eyes. Leo did not wish to find
himself in Wolsey's grip. The scheme must almost inevitably have been
fraught with disaster both to England and the Empire. Wolsey of necessity
made himself the instrument of his master's desires; but while he selected
as his agent Pace, the most astute of his subordinates, Pace's own
correspondence is a good deal concerned with hints that an over-zealous
pursuit of the policy would be a bartering of the substance for the shadow
of power, and with explanations of the impracticability of an effective
electoral campaign. Pace, in fact, went very little beyond sounding the
Electors and declaring the results to be extremely unpromising; a state of
things to which we may infer that neither he nor Wolsey had any
objection. In the end, the influence of England was employed in favour of
Charles, who was chosen Emperor in the middle of summer. The three
sovereigns, Charles V., Francis I., and Henry VIII., dominated Europe for
nearly thirty years to come--an unusually long period for three princes to
reign side by side.
It was now Wolsey's difficult business to keep both Francis and Charles as
suitors for the favour of England; and, having placated the latter in the
contest for the Empire, to turn his attention to the former.
[1520 Wolsey's triumph]
Francis was at this time ready to meet Wolsey more than half way. He was
particularly desirous of holding a formal interview and a personal
interchange of courtesies with the King of England; and to this end he
actually appointed Henry's minister his own plenipotentiary, a position
without precedent or parallel for an English subject. Wolsey prepared to
make the meeting an occasion for such a display of magnificence as has
rarely been witnessed. At the same time he emphasised the independent
position of England by arranging for a separate preliminary interview
between Henry and the Emperor, and making it clear that herein it was not
the Emperor who was doing the King a favour, but the contrary. If Charles
wished to meet Henry, he must come to England for the purpose. Meantime
both monarchs sought to obtain the great minister's goodwill by promises of
support when the Papacy should become vacant--promises which Wolsey would
not permit to influence his plans; whether because he rated them at their
true value, or because he had no great anxiety to barter the position he
had already secured for one which, however magnificent, however dominant in
theory, might convey actual power of a much less substantial kind.
[Sidenote: Rival policies]
The French alliance, it must be observed, was never popular in England.
Tradition was against it; the nobles of the old families were against it;
the Queen was also naturally against it and very anxious for close and
friendly relations with Spain. A degree of antagonism was thus generated
between Katharine and the Cardinal, who held resolutely to his policy of
maintaining the balance and never so committing himself to one party as to
preclude a _rapprochement_ with the other.
There was much intriguing on the part of Francis to bring on the meeting of
the Kings before Charles could visit England. The state of the French
Queen's health on one side and of the English Queen's wardrobe on the other
figured largely as conclusive reasons for haste or delay. Wolsey however
gained the day. The meeting was fixed to take place early in June between
Guisnes and Ardres. In the last week of May (1520), Charles came to
England, remaining three days; a week later, Henry sailed for Calais.
[Sidenote: Field of the Cloth of Gold]
It might almost be said that the entire courts of England and France,
nobles and knights and ladies, met on the famous "field of the Cloth of
Gold". Jousts and feastings were the order of the day. Wolsey understood
how to impress the popular imagination; and he had a magnificent scorn or a
cynical contempt for the enmities and jealousies aroused, of which he
himself, as responsible for all the arrangements, became the centre. It may
be doubted, however, whether any great goodwill between the two nations was
born of all the display of amity; nor were there any very marked diplomatic
results. If it was Wolsey's particular object to evolve a triple league, he
was disappointed. The two Kings met and parted, Henry proceeding to a fresh
conference with his nephew of Spain, from which Francis, in his turn, was
excluded. Neither Charles nor Francis knew in the end which of them stood
in the more favourable position with England; but the little Princess Mary,
betrothed to the Dauphin, was half-pledged to Charles himself; while
Charles was still formally betrothed to the French Princess Charlotte, and
was inclining to substitute for both the well-dowered Infanta Isabella
[Footnote: Otherwise called Elizabeth. The names are interchangeable.] of
Portugal. Among all the surprising matrimonial complications of this
half-century, one particular feature appears to be tolerably constant--that
when Charles was not actually married, he was rarely without at least one
fiancee actual, and another prospective.
At any rate, the total result in 1520 was that Henry was in separate
alliance with Francis on one side and with Charles on the other; alliances
which neither could afford to break, but on which neither could rely.
[Sidenote: Wolsey's aims]
The main interest of Wolsey's career, from the national point of view,
attaches to his conduct of foreign policy: and in the confusion of
alliances and counter-alliances it is not always easy to recognise the
objects of that policy or its fundamental consistency. The aim always in
view was to prevent any Power or combination of Powers from dominating
Europe; to substitute diplomacy for the actual arbitrament of arms; to
secure for England recognition as the true arbiter without involving her in
war. The three first-class Powers of the earlier years were reduced to two
by the combination under one head, Charles V., of Spain and the Empire,
with France as the sole Continental rival.
But behind Wolsey's own policy was the traditional one of hostility to
France, popular in the country, supported by the nobility, and offering
attractions to an ambitious and martial-minded monarch who was not yet
thirty years of age: whose Queen moreover was by birth and sympathy a
strong partisan of Spain. Hence the Cardinal was liable to be forced out of
his mediatorial position into one of hostility to France.
[Sidenote: Charles and Francis]
On the other hand, Francis and Charles each desired to strengthen his own
position at the expense of the other. Each therefore desired an alliance
with England close enough to secure her aid in an aggressive programme. But
while Charles required active assistance and subsidies, seeking to throw on
England the real burden of accomplishing his designs, Francis was
comparatively satisfied with English neutrality. Again, while an
aggressive alliance with Charles offered some uncertain prospects of the
acquisition of French territory, circumstances were once more tending to
enable Francis to utilise the ancient Scottish alliance as a means of
holding England in check.
[Sidenote: Scotland 1513-20]
Since the decisive battle of Flodden, Scotland had not to any marked degree
influenced Wolsey's European diplomacy. The blow dealt to her had been too
serious: and the nobles, always turbulent, had never been more so than
during the years which followed the great defeat. Queen Margaret, sister of
the English King, a woman of only five and twenty when James was killed,
made haste to marry the young Earl of Angus within a year of the event. The
Douglases had frequently headed the Anglicising factions of the Scottish
nobility, whereas the country at large constantly favoured the traditional
alliance with France and hostility to the Southron. At present, the
Douglases of whom Angus was the chief headed one faction: the Hamiltons,
whose chief was Arran, headed the other. The marriage put an end to the
arrangement under which Margaret had been Regent; there was intriguing and
fighting to obtain possession of the person of the infant King; the Duke of
Albany, [Footnote: Albany's father had been brother of James III.; their
sister was Arran's mother.] of the royal house, who had been bred in
France, was sent for, in the hope that as Regent he would compose discords.
In the summer of 1515 he arrived. In the meantime, Dacre, in charge of the
English border, had been fomenting quarrels [Footnote: _Lang_,
_Hist. of Scotland_, i., 395. L. & P., ii., 779, 795.] and suborning
outlaws to raid and devastate in the border counties, and plotting
unsuccessfully to have James carried off into England to the tender care of
his uncle. Albany, for his part, demanded the custody of the child, which
was refused by Margaret; who however was forced to surrender with a show of
friendliness. But she herself very shortly took refuge in England.
In 1517 Albany withdrew to France with a view to resuscitating the French
alliance; the rivals Arran and Angus were again the two most powerful of
the nobles; Margaret returned to Scotland, but quarrelled with her husband.
In 1520 Albany was still in France which he probably found more cheerful
than his own country. Angus got the better of Arran, who fled to France.
There however Francis was still aiming at close alliance with England; and
under such a combination of favourable conditions the truce between England
and Scotland, entered upon in 1514 and now about to terminate, was extended
for a couple of years. But Margaret herself being now hostile to Angus,
there was every prospect that, should Albany return to Scotland, Wolsey
would have to reckon seriously with the anti-English party there as a
factor in his diplomatic relations with France.
[Sidenote: 1520-21 Affairs abroad]
The closing months of 1520 arid the opening months of 1521 witnessed events
of importance at the time-and one at least which had very far-reaching
consequences. The Emperor's wide do-minions were disturbed by a local
outbreak in Germany, a revolt in Spain, and an attempt on the part of the
claimant to the throne of Navarre to recover that territory. The Diet of
the Empire met at Worms, and Martin Luther was cited before it; with the
result that the Empire was practically divided into two camps, Charles
ranging himself on the papal side. As Henry VIII. was so far a loyal son of
the Church, wielding an anti-Lutheran pen in theological controversy, while
the French King's reverence for the papacy was under suspicion, the present
tendency of this event was favourable to the union of Charles and Henry
with the Pope against Francis. On the other hand there was very little
question that the troubles in the Emperor's dominions were fostered by
Francis, who was preparing for an Italian expedition. Had Charles and
Wolsey trusted each other, their alliance would certainly have been drawn
closer; but Wolsey was not the man to take up Charles's cause without
securing an adequate return, while Charles wished to involve England on the
strength of promises which he expected subsequently to find no necessity
for carrying out. Charles found his justification in the unexpected success
of his arms in Navarre, in Spain, and in Germany. Good fortune relieved
him from the more pressing need of English aid, and thus the prospect of a
close and active alliance faded.
[Sidenote: 1521 Buckingham]
In the late spring of 1521 there occurred in England a domestic episode
which must have impressed both Charles and Francis with the power wielded
in England by Henry; the first notable instance among the numerous
executions marking the reign for which treason was the pretext. [Footnote:
Unless we except that of Edmund de la Pole, Earl of Suffolk, in 1513.] The
Duke of Buckingham stood at the head of the nobility; accepted as
representing the House of Lancaster, next in order to the Tudors.
[Footnote: The Staffords of Buckingham on one side descended, like Henry,
from the Beauforts. They were also the representatives of Thomas of
Woodstock, the youngest son of Edward III. See _Front_, and p. 9,
note.] The Duke no doubt had a sufficiently strong dislike to Wolsey, and
had used very incautious language about him, and the Cardinal was popularly
held responsible for his downfall, though there is no evidence that this
was actually the case. Buckingham had consulted soothsayers, and was
reputed to have used compromising expressions about tyrants and the
succession. At any rate, he suddenly found himself arrested for high
treason. The King had made preliminary inquiry on his own account--not in
the presence of Wolsey--and had made up his own mind that Buckingham was to
die. The peers were summoned to try him on May 10th, under the presidency
of Norfolk. The depositions of the witnesses against the Duke were read;
there was no cross-examination; he denied the charges, but was not allowed
counsel. The decision was of course a foregone conclusion. One by one the
peers pronounced him guilty; he was condemned to death, and executed. No
one was found to challenge the justice of the sentence, though on a review
of the evidence it is almost incredible that any human being could have
honestly endorsed it. The world at large however knew nothing about the
evidence, and merely accepted the judgment as final and indisputable. By a
single ruthless act, Henry had practically established his own right to
judge cases of treason on the hypothesis not that guilt had to be
demonstrated but that the accused must prove his own loyalty or suffer the
extreme penalty. For the King to entertain an accusation was tantamount to
condemnation. Even to plead on behalf of such a one was dangerous: to
maintain his innocence would have been a short way to the block.
[Sidenote: Wolsey's diplomacy]
By the execution of Buckingham, Henry vindicated his own authority in
England while popular opinion laid the responsibility on the Cardinal's
machinations. In the meantime, an impetus was given to the anti-French
policy of Charles by the death of his Burgundian minister Chievres. As the
summer advanced, the prospect of keeping the peace between the rival
monarchs grew fainter. The parties however agreed to hold a conference at
Calais, at which Wolsey should act as mediator. But matters looked as if
England would be forced to take a side in a European war; and if she did so
the balance of advantage to her lay on the side of the Emperor.
In August the conference met. Ostensibly with a view to obtaining from
Charles himself more concessions to France than his envoys would allow, the
Cardinal visited him at Bruges; where however he was really engaged in
coming to comparatively satisfactory terms as to the conditions upon which
Charles should receive English assistance. These included the deferring of
actual participation in hostilities, and indemnification for the inevitable
loss of the Tournai purchase-money, of which France had paid only a part.
Wolsey returned to Calais with a secret treaty, and the conference
continued, the Cardinal still making every effort to avert war; but towards
the end of November it became clear that his endeavours must be fruitless,
and the conference was broken up. He was followed to England by the news of
Imperial successes both in Italy and in Picardy--which went far to justify
Charles in his refusal to postpone hostilities for his own part. Henry,
whose own predilections were in favour of war, was very well pleased with
the result, and rewarded his minister by presenting him to the vacant and
lucrative office of Abbot of St. Albans. Such were the conveniences of
being served by an ecclesiastic.
[Sidenote: 1522 A papal Election]
The year closed with an event of importance. Leo X. died unexpectedly and
there was an election to the papacy. There is no doubt that Wolsey desired
the papal crown; and both Francis and Charles in courting his favour had
held out as a bait the influence they were prepared to promise on his
behalf. But he had not allowed these offers to influence his actions.
Charles now gave him fair words, but evidently intended his real support to
be given to some candidate whom he expected to be more pliant. The man he
would have chosen was the Cardinal de Medici, afterwards Clement VII.: but
Italian party spirit among the Cardinals ran too high for this to prove
practicable, and Adrian VI. who had been tutor to Charles was the new Pope.
Wolsey can hardly have been disappointed, and never gave undue weight to
the Emperor's promises: but the event was not calculated to increase his
confidence or his goodwill. The present fact however of the alliance
between the Emperor and England, with the corollary that England must
before long be at war with France, remained unaltered.
[Sidenote 1: War with France]
[Sidenote 2: Scotland]
By the end of May the war could no longer be postponed, and was duly
declared. It was still some months before Surrey took the field in France
at the head of the English forces--conducting his campaign on the general
principles of Anglo-Scottish border warfare--ravaging, burning, and rousing
the hatred of the country population, but striking no blow. If Henry
seriously contemplated the idea of reviving old claims to the French crown,
he could have adopted no worse policy. Charles of course gave no practical
assistance, and the allies each blamed the other for the futility of the
operations. Albany on the other hand had been back in Scotland for some
months; and in opposition to Angus--in conjunction therefore with Margaret
--threatened an invasion as soon as the French expedition started. The
ingenious Lord Dacre however by sheer bluff--there is no other word--
succeeded in procuring an armistice when the English border was all but
defenceless. After this exhibition, Albany found it as well to retire to
France; while Wolsey used the occurrence to urge upon Charles that Scotland
required too much attention to allow French expeditions to be practicable.
[Sidenote: 1523 Progress of the war]
With 1523 events took a turn more favourable to Charles. The Duke of
Bourbon, Constable of France, turned against the King, on the ground of
insults more or less fancied, and of a genuine attempt to deprive him of
his inheritance by legal process. The idea was revived in Henry's mind that
in alliance with some of the French nobility he might make himself King of
France as Henry V. had done; so Wolsey had to develop an active policy
against France. His hand being thus forced, the Cardinal devoted his
energies to making the combination against the French King really serious,
coercing Venice into the coalition. The military operations however were
not in train till the autumn; Suffolk, whose military skill was extremely
limited, commanded the English expedition, and marched into the interior
instead of falling on Boulogne as Wolsey had advised; Bourbon did nothing
useful; Charles's troops gave their attention to Fontarabia instead of to a
combined operation. From the English point of view the whole campaign was a
complete fiasco. Wolsey had been set to carry out a policy of which he
disapproved, with instruments of whose incompetence he was fully conscious;
and the results were probably neither better nor worse than what he and the
cooler onlookers like Sir Thomas More expected. The one thing that Wolsey
could do, he had done: he had placed Surrey on the Northern border to deal
with the inevitable return to Scotland of Albany with threats of invasion.
Surrey was successful: Albany having advanced into England was obliged to
fall back, and the border country was subjected to the usual process of
raiding and harrying.
[Sidenote: Election of Pope Clement VII.]
Once again, the closing months of the year witnessed a papal election; and
for the second time Wolsey was disappointed. The reign of Adrian closed in
September. It had been brief, well intentioned, and honest: but
ineffective. The Pope's efforts at reform had been met by the solid _vis
inertiae_ of the ecclesiastical world. His successor, the Medici,
Clement VII., was destined to play a much more important part in history,
and, buffeted by forces which he could not control, to become the
instrument whereby England was severed from Rome. In this election Charles
played the same part as before. He promised Wolsey his support, wrote
letters to Rome which were delayed till too late, and actually expended his
influence on behalf of Medici. Again, though Wolsey's anxiety to achieve
the papacy has probably been much exaggerated, he would have been more than
human if he had not inwardly resented the Emperor's behaviour. It is to be
noted in connexion with this election that Wolsey actually proposed the
employment of armed coercion to secure a convenient choice--a rather gross
method of condemning the theory that the Conclave reached its decision by
Divine guidance.
[Sidenote: 1524 Wolsey's difficulties]
The year had but six weeks more to run when Clement was finally elected. In
1524 the belligerents were all desirous of ending the war, but none was
willing to make concessions to hasten that end. The allies had good reason
to suspect each other of trying to make separate terms with Francis; each
hoped to extract concessions from the French King as the price of
defection. Wolsey in fact was neither able nor willing to carry on active
hostilities. England had gone into the war with a light heart; but when
Parliament was called upon in the summer of 1523 to vote the necessary
funds, the light-heartedness was modified, and the funds were voted with
extreme reluctance, under something very near akin to compulsion; and the
collecting of the taxes aroused angry complaint--the blame being as usual
laid on the Cardinal. He was well aware that any increase in the burden
would be a dangerous matter to propose, and very dangerous indeed to try
and carry through; yet without more funds an active campaign was
impossible. Therefore, as concerned the Continent, Wolsey on the one hand
sought to induce Charles to assent to a fresh conference where England
should mediate as to the claims and counter-claims of Charles and Francis;
and on the other made private overtures to Francis.
[Sidenote: Intrigues in Scotland]
In Scotland, the game of intrigue was actively carried on. Albany retired
permanently to France soon after the failure of his invasion. While he was
in Scotland, Margaret had sided with him; now she began to fall in with the
English policy, and was eager for the "erection" of her son--that is for
his recognition as actual King though he was barely twelve years old.
Throughout the summer, schemes were on foot for a peace conference--the
real object being the kidnapping of Beton, the Archbishop of St. Andrews,
coadjutor of Albany, Chancellor of Scotland, and the most resolute opponent
of the Anglicising party and policy. Wolsey is quite explicit on this point
in a letter to Dacre, though Surrey, who had just succeeded to the Dukedom
of Norfolk by the death of the victor of Flodden, never grasped this
peculiar method of diplomacy. Beton declined to be trapped; still, the
"erection" was carried through. [Footnote: _L. & P._, vol. iv., part
i., 549. _Cf._ Lang, _Hist. Scot_., pp. 405, 406. Beton was to
have a safe-conduct, and the kidnapping was to be done by Angus, at the
time in England, quite as a private personal matter. Angus had come to
England from France, whither he had been removed by Albany.] By dint of
bribery, many of the anti-English party had now changed sides along with
Margaret, with the curious result that Angus, who was bound to be in
opposition to his wife, allied himself to Beton. Next year, however, the
French or anti-English party in Scotland suffered a serious blow when the
French King was vanquished and taken prisoner at the battle of Pavia.
[Sidenote: 1525 Pavia]
Meantime, Wolsey had found Francis not too ready to accept his overtures,
and had therefore set about making a show of pursuing a more actively
antagonistic policy in conjunction with Bourbon. The Cardinal however,
whose object was to make Francis think it necessary to conciliate him--not
to be forced into expeditions and armaments--intentionally made his
conditions to Bourbon such as the Constable would not agree to; while
obtaining the desired result of moving Francis to enter seriously on
negotiations. He even felt that matters were progressing favourably enough
to justify a "diplomatic episode"--the interception of the Imperial
ambassador's dispatches, his virtual imprisonment, and the lodging of a
protest against his conduct with the Emperor. But the battle of Pavia
wrecked Wolsey's schemes, as well as those of his adversaries in Scotland.
For the disaster to Francis wakened anew in Henry's breast the belief that
the French crown was still attainable: and the minister found himself
forced to seek means to provide war-funds, while he was alive to the
practical impossibility of persuading Parliament to grant them.
For Wolsey to protest would have been vain. He did not in any way dominate
Henry, who was ready enough to follow his advice or allow him to carry out
his own policy so long as it fell in with the royal views. But if the King
chose to lay down a different policy, the Cardinal had to carry it out as
best he could--or else to retire in disfavour. And he could not afford to
retire in disfavour, since, if the royal countenance were once withdrawn,
the malignity of his many enemies would be given rein, and his utter ruin
would be inevitable. Therefore, while watching for any opportunity to
convert the King from his martial designs, he made a desperate effort to
fill the exchequer.
[Sidenote: The Amicable Loan]
Two years before, when Parliament had been called, it had been induced to
vote the money asked for. But (according to Hall) the Speaker, Sir Thomas
More, had taken the opportunity to resist Wolsey's high-handed methods, to
insist on parliamentary privileges, and to refuse to debate the matter in
the Cardinal's presence, though he actually exerted his influence in favour
of the grant. To repeat the demand now would be to risk rebellion; at the
best, to court an inevitable refusal. Therefore Wolsey reverted to ancient
precedents, and demanded an "Amicable Loan," on the ground that the King
was going to lead his armies, and must therefore go fittingly equipped. The
loan was to amount to about one-sixth of a man's property. Very soon
however it became clear that this was more than the country would endure.
Wolsey revoked the demand and called for a "Benevolence". London replied
that benevolences were illegal, by reason of the statute of Richard III.
Wolsey protested against appealing to the laws of a tyrant; but the
Londoners remarked that the fact of Richard having been a tyrant did not
annul the excellence of good laws when he made them. In Norwich the
aggrieved populace assembled in force, and presented their case
allegorically, but convincingly, to the Duke of Norfolk, who was sent to
deal with them. The Cardinal's attempt to raise money was a failure. The
King grasped the situation and remitted the demand, taking all the credit
for his clemency, while his minister had the odium for the proposal. For
the first time, Wolsey had failed to carry his master's wishes through, for
the simple reason that the task set him was an impossible one. The
soundness of his own antagonism to the French war was conclusively
demonstrated, since without the funds war could not be waged: but the cost
of the demonstration was the increase of his unpopularity, and an
appreciable diminution of Henry's favour. He did what he could to mollify
the King by presenting him with his palace of Hampton Court--a present
graciously accepted.
[Sidenote 1: A diplomatic struggle]
[Sidenote 2: 1526-27 Success of Wolsey]
Now, however, a _rapprochement_ with France was again possible.
Charles and Wolsey returned to the attitude of mutually desiring nothing so
much as to prove their complete accord, their own anxiety to fulfil all
obligations, provided only that the other would reasonably recognise his
own obligations in return. Each wanted to extract what he could from
Francis without regard to his ally: each wanted an excuse for evading his
contract with that ally--the Emperor because he now perceived the more
immediate pecuniary profit of the Portuguese marriage. In the diplomatic
contest Wolsey had the advantage, that Charles, in spite of Pavia, could
not bring the necessary pressure to bear on his captive, if the support of
England was felt to be withdrawn. He had something to lose by an open
breach: Wolsey had not--provided the responsibility for the breach could
plausibly be laid on Charles. Moreover, although the French King was the
Emperor's prisoner, the French Government was much less bitterly opposed to
the English demand for money than to the Imperial demand for territory.
Thus by the end of the year Wolsey achieved his end--a treaty with France,
involving the payment of two million crowns to England, and including
Scotland in its terms. Charles being isolated made his own peace with his
prisoner in the following February (1526); but Francis, before signing,
declared that his promises were extorted and not binding, and after his
release repudiated their validity. The Cardinal in fact had extricated
England from a very awkward situation, recovered her position as arbiter,
and once more made the rival European monarchs feel that they could neither
of them afford to have her definitely ranged as an enemy. As the year
advanced, the tendency for the French alliance to draw closer, and for the
Imperial alliance to dissolve became more marked. Charles, in his desire to
dominate Italy, allowed a Spanish force to enter Rome and terrorise the
Pope--though he disavowed their actions. In 1527, while he was continuing
this policy, and preparing for the sack of Rome and the seizure of the
Pope's person in May, Wolsey was carrying through a new French alliance, by
which Orleans (afterwards Henry II.) was betrothed to the Princess Mary,
and France not only bound herself to make heavy payments but also
surrendered Boulogne and Ardres. It seemed as though the isolation of
Charles was about to be completed, his opponents becoming the champions of
the papacy--while his own antagonism to the Pope had been emphasised at the
Diet of Spires by the withdrawal of the anti-Lutheran decrees, and the
temporary recognition of each State's right to adopt or reject the
Reformer's doctrines in its own territories.
[Sidenote: 1527 A new factor]
But in 1527 Henry had developed a single purpose; he had set his mind on
one object to the achievement whereof every political consideration was to
be subordinated. The state-craft of the great minister was dominated by and
subjected to the king-craft of a master who never brooked opposition to his
will; and Wolsey, failing to carry out that will, was hurled without
remorse from his high estate. The Cardinal's fall, the breach with Rome,
the defining of the shape which the Reformation was to take in England,
were all the outcome of Henry's resolve to be released from the wife to
whom he had been wedded for eighteen years. Hitherto we have made only
incidental allusion to the Reformation; it is now time to examine the
development of that movement, down to the moment when Henry took into his
own hands the conduct of it within his own realms.
CHAPTER VI
HENRY VIII (ii), 1509-32--BIRTH OF THE REFORMATION
[Sidenote: The Reformation in England]
Down to a comparatively recent date, the popularly accepted accounts of the
Reformation in England treated it as a spontaneous outburst of the deep
religious spirit pervading the mass of the people; a passionate repudiation
of the errors of Rome, born of the secret study of the Bible in defiance of
persecution, and of repulsion from the iniquities of the monastic system.
Then there arose a picturesque historian, who recognised in Henry VIII. and
Thomas Cromwell the men who created the Reformation; and having once
imagined them as the captains of a great and righteous cause, succeeded in
interpreting all their actions on the basis of postulating their single-
eyed devotion to reform as their ever-dominant motive. A view so difficult
to reconcile with some other stereotyped impressions has invited criticism;
and it is not unusual now to be told that the changes effected by the
Reformation were small, except in so far as the Church was robbed by the
destruction of the monasteries.
[Sidenote: Its true character]
As a matter of fact the change which took place was very great and very
far-reaching for the nation, though it is easy to exaggerate the deviations
from Roman doctrine imposed by it on the clergy of the Anglican Communion.
But the movement was one in which many factors were at work. Moralists,
theologians, and politicians, all had their share in it; some who were
prominent promoters of it in one phase were its no less active antagonists
in another; and not infrequently were guided by purely personal ambitions
and interests throughout. In its essence however the Reformation was a
revolt against conventions which had lost the justification of the
conditions that had brought them into being, and had become fetters upon
intellectual and spiritual progress instead of aids to its advancement.
Each group of reformers was ready enough to impose on the world a new set
of conventions of its own manufacture, but no group succeeded in dominating
the aggregate of groups; and thus in the long run toleration became the
only working policy, though its practice was by no means what the Reformers
had set before themselves. After long years, religious liberty was the
outcome of their work; but few indeed were the martyrs whose blood was
consciously shed in that great cause. The men who died rather than submit
their own convictions to the dictation of others were for the most part
ready, when opportunity offered, to sit in judgment on those who would not
accept their own dictation.
[Sidenote: Religious decadence]
The prevailing conditions of the Church at the dawn of the Reformation were
exceedingly corrupt, with the corruption of worn out institutions; but they
appeared to be part of the necessary order of things. Hitherto, occasional
heretics had arisen, but (superficially at least) they had been suppressed
without serious difficulty. The State, in England and elsewhere, had
entered upon conflicts with the priesthood; secular monarchs had even
challenged the authority of the Pope; but such quarrels had ended in
compromises formal or practical. Moral reforming movements like that of
St. Francis had arisen within the Church herself; they had not been
antagonistic to her, and they had thriven and decayed without producing
revolutionary results. Clerical abuses had been for centuries the objects
of satire, but the satirists rarely had any inclination for the role of
revolutionaries or martyrs. The recent revival of learning had developed a
scepticism which was however habitually accompanied by a decent profession
of orthodoxy. That there was prevalent unrest had long been obvious; that
there was risk of disturbing developments was not unrecognised; but that
these things were the prelude to a vast revolution had been realised
neither by Churchmen, Statesmen, nor literati.
[Sidenote: The Scholar-Reformers]
It did not appear, then, that the revolt of Wiclif in England and of Huss
in Europe was about to be renewed: though they had in fact prepared the
soil to receive the new seed. Lollardry had been driven beneath the
surface. Still, so far at least as it represented anti-clericalism rather
than a theological system, its secret disciples were accorded a
considerable measure of popular sympathy; though it numbered few professors
among the cultivated classes, it had semi-adherents even among the
wealthier burgesses of London; it was active enough to cause some alarm to
Convocation, and to excite reactionary bishops. But it was not in this
quarter primarily that any notable movement seemed likely to arise. The
demand for Reformation during the first quarter of the century was
formulated by scholars who were not heretics--Dean Colet of St. Paul's;
Thomas More; the cosmopolitan Erasmus, who was but a bird of passage in
this country, yet one who was warmly and generously welcomed.
To men of this school, a schism in the Church never presented itself as a
desirable end. Luther had not yet burned Pope Leo's Bull when Colet died;
Lutheranism changed More into a reactionary, as, centuries later, the
French Revolution changed Edmund Burke; Erasmus would not range himself
beside the stormy controversialists of Germany and Switzerland. To the
scholars, the Roman system was not irreconcilable with truth; its defects
were accidents, excrescences, curable by the application of common-sense
and moral seriousness. In the eyes of Luther and Zwingli, the corruption of
Rome was vital, organic, incurable. Ecclesiastical Authority was the
corner-stone of the Roman system: Colet and More never attacked it; Luther
attacked it because it maintained opinions which he held to be
fundamentally false; but in England it is possible to doubt whether the
attitude of More and Colet would ever have been officially discarded, had
it not been for the political and personal considerations which led Henry
and Cromwell to trample ecclesiastical authority under foot. Nevertheless,
by their attacks on ecclesiastical abuses, Colet and More helped
intelligent people to perceive that the abuses were intolerable, and to
acquiesce even in the extreme remedy of schism rather than continue to
endure the burden.
[Sidenote: Ecclesiastical demoralisation]
It is not disputable that the existing corruption was so serious that some
kind of Reformation was absolutely necessary. Where the head is corrupt,
there cannot be much general health. If the spiritual head of Christendom
were unworthy of his office the ecclesiastical body was certain to suffer;
nor could much spirituality be looked for therein, if it habitually
acquiesced in the election of Popes in whom spirituality was the last
quality recognisable. The climax was perhaps reached when a Borgia--
Alexander VI.--was raised to the papal throne; a man who revelled in the
practice of every imaginable vice, and shrank from no conceivable crime.
The mere fact that such an election was possible is sufficient proof of the
utter absence of religious feeling in the ruling ranks of the clergy: nor
was its presence compatible with the appointment either of his free living
and warlike successor Julius II. or of Leo X. who followed--a person of no
little culture, a patron of art and of letters, whose morals were not
exceptionally lax as compared with those of the average Italian noble, but
in all essentials a pagan. With few exceptions, the princes of the Church
owed their position to their connexion, by birth or otherwise, with great
families; not a few of them were territorial lords of considerable
dominions, for whom it was a sheer necessity to be politicians first,
whether they were scholars, ministers of the Gospel, or mere pleasure-
seekers afterwards. Italians completely dominated the college of cardinals,
looking upon the control of the Church as a national prerogative. The
characteristics of the ecclesiastical princes were shared in due degree by
bishops and abbots. The fact that until recent years learning had been
practically a clerical monopoly necessarily made the clergy the fittest
instruments for carrying on much State business, thereby withdrawing many
of the better men from the service of religion to the service of politics.
In brief, the whole system tended to entangle the able members of the
ecclesiastical body in the temptations not so much of the Flesh and the
Devil as of the World.
[Sidenote: Monastic corruption]
Further, the monastic system had utterly fallen away from its pristine
ideals. It had served a great purpose. Born as it was when the world was
just emerging from paganism, and the Roman civilisation was being engulfed
in the flood of barbarian invasion, the men and women who withdrew from the
desperate turmoil without to the sheltering walls of the monastery or the
convent, invested with a sacrosanct character which was at least in part
respected, found therein the opportunity for prayer, meditation and study
which was denied them elsewhere. They could maintain a standard of piety,
and keep a rudimentary education from altogether dying out. For centuries
they were the only source of alms and succour to which the afflicted and
needy could turn; and so long as the rules of the Orders were observed in
the spirit and in the letter, they were a genuine help towards a life of
self-devotion, of self-abnegation whereof the ultimate motive was not
always a subtle form of self-seeking. But as time passed, the monasteries
became the recipients of the bounty of pious benefactors. Their
inhabitants, in spite of ascetic regulations, found that life was none so
hard--at least in comparison with that of serfdom or villeinage; luxuries
were not less available than to the laity. The privileges of the sacred
office gave increasing opportunities for vicious indulgence when once
corruption had entered a Religious house. Promotion became the prize of
intrigue instead of the recognition of piety; till it came to be no scandal
when a political priest was rewarded for his services by presentation to
the rule of a wealthy abbey, with which he was connected only as the chief
recipient of its revenues, as when Wolsey had St. Albans bestowed on him in
return for his diplomatic labours. Apart from the diatribes of zealots and
the evidence of interested informers, apart also from the inclination to
generalise from well authenticated but extreme examples, it is evident
that, in the absence of a positive religious enthusiasm, the system was
peculiarly liable to grave degeneration; and it was long since there had
been any active spiritual revival to counteract that tendency.
[Sidenote: The proofs]
To these general considerations we have also to add the direct positive
evidence in connexion with Cardinal Morton's visitations of the Monasteries
in the reign of Henry VII. It was neither shown nor attempted to be shown
that the Religious houses _en bloc_ were hotbeds of vice. But it was
shown beyond question that even among the great Abbeys there were to be
found appalling examples of corruption and profligacy, where the heads were
the worst offenders and the rank and file imitated their superiors; and
that small houses were not infrequently conducted in the most scandalous
manner--for the simple reason that, when once corruption had found an
entry, there was no supervising external authority sufficiently interested
to intervene vigorously.
_Mutatis mutandis_, what was true of the Monasteries was also true of
the Mendicant Orders. The class of men who had no desire to dig, and no
shame about begging, found the friar's robe a useful adjunct to the latter
occupation. Long after enthusiasm had ceased to draw any large numbers into
the ranks of the friars, they were increased and multiplied by crowds of
ignorant and idle rogues, who were subjected to no adequate control.
[Sidenote: Corruption of doctrine]
But the corruption of the clerical body fostered also the degeneration of
popular religious conceptions. The actual teaching of the clergy was a
grotesque distortion of the doctrines they professed to expound. The
intelligible doctrine of absolution following on repentance and confession,
and accompanied by penance, had been transformed into that of absolution
purchasable by cash. Reverence for the relics of saints and martyrs had
been degraded by their spurious multiplication. The belief that such relics
were endowed with miraculous properties had been utilised to convert them
into fetishes, and pampered by fraudulent conjuring tricks. The due
performance of ceremonial observances was treated as of far more vital
importance than the practice of the Christian virtues. The images of the
Saints had virtually come to be regarded not as symbols, but as idols
possessed of various degrees of power, the assistance of one and the same
saint proving more or less efficacious according to the shrine favoured by
his suppliant.
[Sidenote: Evidence from Colet and More (1512-18)]
These facts are not disputable. They were fully recognised by Reformers of
the type of Colet and More, who would have had the Church reform herself by
reverting to the primitive and orthodox expression of the doctrines of
which these deformities were a corrupt latter-day misrepresentation, and to
the ideals of life and conduct which had been overlaid by ceremonial
observances. The primitive doctrines they accepted without question; as
regarded the ceremonial observances, they objected to them not in
themselves but only so far as they obscured in practice the much higher
value of moral ideals. In the view of such men the remedy for heresies lay
in the hands of the clergy: would they but bring their lives into some
conformity with primitive ideals, surrendering the pursuit of place,
profit, or pleasure to tread in the footsteps of the apostles, heresy would
perish of inanition.
[Sidenote: Later evidence]
When Colet was preaching at St. Paul's, when More was imagining the
_Utopia_, when Erasmus was preparing his _Praise of Folly_ and
his edition of the Greek Testament, the name of Luther was still unknown.
Their aim was the active propagation of reform; not to exercise thereon a
restraining influence, which at that time would have seemed superfluous.
The only reason they could have had for understating the existing
corruption would have been fear of the authorities, a fear from which both
Colet and More always showed themselves conspicuously free. Colet's most
vigorous exhortations were addressed to prelates and persons in high
places; More never throughout his career hesitated to oppose Chancellors,
or even Tudor Kings, when a principle was involved. We are therefore
entitled to assume that they neither over-coloured nor deliberately toned
down the prevalent conditions. A decade later, when fanaticism had broken
loose, the anathemas hurled at the clergy by irresponsible pamphleteers, or
zealots who were sheltered in the Lutheran States of Germany, were of a
much more sweeping character. Later, again, the reports of the
Commissioners for the suppression of monasteries formed an appalling
indictment. Later still, when the Protestant party won the upper hand after
a season of relentless and embittering persecution, the pictures they
painted of the past were lurid in the extreme. But the evidence of such
witnesses could not be other than passionately biassed, just as the
evidence of persecuted monks and nuns must have been biassed on the other
side: whereas the evidence of Colet, of More in his earlier days, and, with
certain reservations, of Erasmus, is that of honest and high-minded men of
great intellectual capacity, speaking without prejudice of conditions with
which they were in direct contact. Their assertions, and the fair
inferences from their assertions, are a safe basis from which we can
ascertain both the gravity and the limits of the corruption which existed
in England.
[Sidenote: Dean Colet]
John Colet was appointed to the Deanery of St. Paul's four or five years
before the death of Henry VII., being transferred thither from Oxford,
where he had won high repute, not merely for character and learning, but as
the initiator of a new and rational method of Scriptural study in place of
the old scholasticism. At St. Paul's the Dean proved himself a great
preacher, exercising also in private life a powerful influence on all who
came in contact with him, alike from the splendour of his intellect and the
large-hearted purity of his character. His outspoken sermons were by no
means to the liking of his bishop; but some of the leading prelates,
notably Warham of Canterbury and Fox of Winchester, were well disposed to
the new school of learning and exposition and to higher moral standards, as
Cardinal Morton had been. When the young King ascended the throne in 1509,
his accession was hailed by all men of the new school as heralding the
reign of intellectual liberty and enlightenment.
[Sidenote: Colet's sermon, 1512]
Accordingly, when Convocation was summoned in 1512 to discuss the
suppression of heresy, in consequence of some stray reappearances of
Lollardry, the prevalence of a wider spirit was shown by the selection of
Colet to preach the opening sermon, and by the subsequent ignominious
failure of the Bishop of London to have the Dean punished as a heretic. It
is to the sermon preached on this occasion that we must turn to see how
Colet viewed the situation. It was a direct indictment of the manner of
life of the clergy from Wolsey down; a summons to them to amend their ways,
to set a higher example to their flock; an appeal to them to fix their eyes
on apostolic ideals, and so to remove the real incitement which turned
men's minds to heretical speculation. While the positive arguments of the
preacher are evidence not only of the purity of his own aims and his
courage in supporting them, their reception shows that the substantial
justice of the indictment was recognised by the audience at whom it was
personally directed, however little disposed they might be to act
individually on his appeal. On the other hand however, it is a striking
fact that the charges brought are almost exclusively of worldliness,
laxity, indiscipline, unbecoming in pastors and in ministers of the Gospel
of Christ--though these charges were pressed home relentlessly; not at all
of that rampant immorality and vice of which the clergy were so freely
accused in later years. From what Colet did _not_ say, we may fairly
infer a reasonable average of respectability among them.
[Sidenote: Erasmus]
If, in the _Encomium Moriae_ or _Praise of Folly_, which Erasmus
wrote at about the same period (1511), the vices and follies of the Church
were lashed with a mockery still more unsparing, we have to note, first,
that the great scholar drew his picture less from England than from the
Continent; next, that it had no injurious effect on his appointment to the
professorship of Greek at Cambridge. The patronage extended to him by the
Primate, and by Fisher of Rochester, the most orthodox and saintly of the
English bishops, is a sufficient proof that the authorities were not
bigoted enemies of all reform; a proof borne out by the enthusiastic
welcome extended to his edition of the Greek Testament in 1518, by Fox of
Winchester amongst others.
[Sidenote: The _Utopia_, 1516]
From the _Utopia_ of Sir Thomas More we derive precisely the same
impression. In 1516, when the work was published, Luther had not yet defied
the Pope; the German Peasants' War had not yet broken out, nor the spread
of new ideas been associated with Anarchism under the name of Anabaptism.
Persecution, which fifteen years later More advocated and practised as the
unavoidable remedy for the spread of doctrines which he had come to regard
as actively pernicious, was alien to his instincts; in his ideal
Commonwealth, men might expound whatever they honestly held, provided they
did not deny God and the Future Life. More's nature was tolerant and
charitable. But his own convictions were thoroughly orthodox; he had at one
time a strong disposition to enter the priesthood himself; he held the
priestly office in high reverence. Yet his restriction of the number of
priests in _Utopia_ shows his vivid consciousness of the evil wrought
by their unrestricted multiplication in England; and in the description of
English social conditions in the introductory portion of his work, he
refers in emphatic terms to the large proportion of "sturdy vagabonds"
among them. His whole tone in the section of his book devoted to religious
matters implies that he is pointing a contrast between his ideal order of
things and that familiar to his readers, wherein non-essentials are so
emphasised that essentials are practically forgotten. Yet More, like Colet,
makes no sweeping attack on the morality (in the narrower popular sense of
the term) prevalent among the clerical body.
[Sidenote: Exaggerated attacks]
The wholesale condemnation of later days has been largely due to the
acceptance without qualification of denunciations poured forth in the heat
of controversy, in days when men did not mince words and were not given to
the careful weighing of evidence. Typical of such works is the
_Supplicacyon for the Beggers_ produced by one Simon Fish in 1527,
which has been seriously treated as a sober indictment. The Clergy, from
Bishops to "Somners" are a "rauinous cruell and insatiabill generacion"
... "counterfeit holy and ydell beggers and vacabundes" ... "that corrupt
the hole generation of mankind," committing "rapes murdres and treasons".
They are a "gredy sort of sturdy idell holy theues" habitually guilty of
every conceivable form of vice and profligacy. The pamphlet teams with
arithmetical absurdities. It is simply inconceivable that the growth within
the realm of such an organisation as is here depicted would have been
permitted; or that, if there, it would not have been sternly repressed by
Henry VII.; or that if it had survived the first Tudor, the second would
have suffered it to flourish unregarded for eighteen years of his reign.
The exaggeration is so flagrant that we can hardly infer from it even a
substratum of truth. Such diatribes as this must be referred to, not as
being valid evidences against the accused, but as proving the passion of
the controversy, and the hesitation necessary before accepting conclusions
traceable to the wild and whirling words of such controversialists.
[Sidenote 1: Clerical privileges]
[Sidenote 2: Tentative reforms]
In another respect however there was a serious demand for reform; namely
the legal and judicial privileges which the ecclesiastical body had
acquired in the course of centuries, and which had gradually become the
source of serious abuses. The administration of certain branches of the
Civil Law had been absorbed by the Clerics, who were charged with
converting their functions into an elaborate machinery for extorting fees;
and on the Criminal side, what was known as Benefit of Clergy, as well as
the rules of Sanctuary, had become not merely anomalous but an actual
encouragement to crime. Any criminal or accused person who succeeded in
reaching Sanctuary was safe from the secular arm; and any one who could
produce evidence, even of the flimsiest character, that he was a cleric
could claim to be tried by the ecclesiastical instead of the secular
courts. Originally these privileges had been of very great service in the
wild days when judicial treatment was at least more readily obtainable from
the Clergy, when trial by ordeal was common, and the merciless punishments
of the ordinary law gave place to the milder but not ineffective penalties
of Ecclesiastical discipline. Even the legal fictions by which evildoers
were allowed to claim Benefit of Clergy as Clerics had their justification.
But when even murderers could escape with a moderate penance as Clerics,
because they could read, the general public were hardly the better. A
beginning of reform in this direction had been made when Henry VII.
obtained a Bull diminishing the rights of Sanctuary in cases of treason;
and again in 1511 when the rights both of Sanctuary and Benefit of Clergy
were withdrawn from murderers. It was noteworthy however that there was a
protest against even this made by the Clergy in 1515; when one Dr.
Standish, for justifying the measure, was attacked by the Bishops in
Convocation. Warham and Fox both supported the old privileges. The temporal
lords on a commission appointed to enquire into the matter sided with
Standish, and declared that the Bishops had incurred the penalties of
praemunire. Wolsey tried to persuade the King to refer the question to the
Pope, but the King asserted the rights of the Crown in uncompromising
terms. The Bishops had to submit to a sharp rebuke, and Standish was made a
Dean not long after. The episode was a premonition of future events.
[Sidenote: The Educational Movement]
It does not appear that the writings or the preaching of the scholars had
any marked effect on the conduct of the clergy, or aroused any general
reforming zeal. But in one direction, that of education, they exercised a
very material influence on the intellectual attitude of the younger
generation. Dean Colet is known to-day to many even of those who take
little interest in his times, as the founder of St. Paul's School, where he
endeavoured to make the teaching of the young a real training instead of a
drill in pedagogic formulae. And as he set the example which was by degrees
followed in other grammar schools, so the example he had already set at
Oxford was followed both there and at Cambridge by his disciples. To him,
more than to any other man, was due the practical application of the new
knowledge of Greek to the study of the New Testament, resulting primarily
in the treatment of the Pauline Epistles as organic structures; as
connected treatises, instead of collected texts according to the custom of
the schoolmen; who, dragging phrases from their context, expanded,
interpreted and harmonised them with other phrases for fresh expansion and
interpretation; neglecting the apostolic argument to illustrate their own
theses or those of the mediaeval doctors. Fox, of Winchester, when he
founded Corpus Christi College, Oxford, Fisher in the Lady Margaret
foundations at Cambridge, put into them men of the new school. Wolsey
himself had evidently been influenced by the new methods, for his active
connexion with Oxford had not ceased when Colet was there; and when in
later years he founded Cardinal College, afterwards Christ Church, the men
he appointed to it were chosen from the disciples of the school of Colet
and Erasmus. To this higher ideal of University education, perhaps the
strongest impulse was given by Erasmus himself, during the brief time about
1512 when he was Professor of Greek at Cambridge, where he proved himself
the most brilliant exponent of the principles which in part at least he had
imbibed from the Dean. Cranmer, his great rival Gardiner, and many others
among the protagonists in the coming religious struggle, received their
training under the new conditions--conditions very markedly affected by
that edition of the New Testament, to which reference has already been
made, issued by Erasmus from Basle in 1516 after he had left England: a
work in which the Greek text appeared side by side with a new Latin
translation, in place of the orthodox "Vulgate" whereof the stereotyped
phraseology had acquired, through centuries of authorised interpretation, a
meaning often very far removed from that of the original.
[Sidenote: Wolsey and the Reformation]
Thus what the Scholars accomplished was not Reform but the preparation of
men's minds for Reform. What Wolsey the Statesman might have done, if
foreign affairs had not occupied the best of his energies, we can only
guess. His point of view was that of a Politician, not that of a man of
religion. Such reforms as he might have been prepared to introduce would
not have been the outcome of any lofty idealism, but only such as seemed to
be dictated by public decency. As a Statesman, he was alive to the
advantages of education, desired much of the wealth of the Church to be
turned into that channel, and founded colleges, which he staffed with men
of the new school and financed in part from the proceeds of suppressed
religious houses. He went so far as to procure a papal Bull for the
abolition of all Houses numbering less than seven inmates. But it may be
doubted whether the real motive of the suppression was not rather the
appropriation of funds for his favourite schemes than zeal for monastic
morality. As Cardinal and Legate and an aspirant to the Papacy, he could
never have lent himself to a policy calculated to weaken the ecclesiastical
organisation; he could never have associated himself with Colet's campaign
against clerical worldliness, of which there was no more conspicuous
example in the kingdom than he. Having children himself by an illicit
union, he could hardly have taken high ground as a reformer of morals. In
brief, he must have confined his treatment of the situation within the
limits of the work of a politician with educational leanings. What he
actually did was to renew the monastic visitations set on foot by Cardinal
Morton, to suppress some few small houses as corrupt or superfluous, and to
encourage the new school of teaching which no one of authority had hitherto
condemned as heretical. As to actual heresy, he looked on it with the eyes
not of a theologian but of a politician; as a thing to be suppressed if it
threatened public order, but otherwise negligible. He sought also to
diminish the abuses connected with the ecclesiastical courts by the
establishment of a Legatine Court of his own. But there is no sign that he
was ever alive to the volcanic forces at work; or recognised that sooner or
later the revolution which Luther initiated in Europe would have to be
reckoned with in England also. Even at the time when the great Cardinal
fell from power, there were but slight signs within the realm of the coming
revolt, mutterings of a growing storm. No prophet had arisen denouncing the
evil of the times convincingly, no statesman propounding drastic remedies;
only the scholars had been preaching amendment, and occasional zealots had
been bringing discredit on the cause of reformation by the violence of
their incriminations. The far-reaching political effect of the religious
differences was long in being realised on the Continent; in England it was
still longer in making itself felt. Yet the Lutheran revolt was destined
vitally to influence both the international relations and the internal
order of every State in Christendom.
[Sidenote: The Lutheran Revolt, 1517]
In 1517 Pope Leo X. was in want of money: and one of the recognised methods
of obtaining it was the sale of Indulgences--that is to say, remissions in
the duration of Purgatorial sufferings, ratified by His Holiness, and
purchasable for cash. The whole thing being simply a commercial
transaction, the Indulgences were offered at popular prices. There was
nothing new in the method. The Lay Princes had no objections to the sale in
their territories, since they could demand a share in the profits as the
condition of their permission. The system moreover had been held up to
ridicule before. But on this occasion, there were two novel features: one,
the unprecedented scale on which the transaction was to be worked, the
other the nature of the opposition it aroused. Doctor Martin Luther, an
Augustinian monk and Professor at the University of Wittenberg in Saxony
had been coming to the conclusion that the practices of the Church were not
what they should be, and that much of her teaching was false. The affair of
the Indulgences brought things to a head; and when Tetzel the Papal
Commissioner was approaching Saxony, Luther drew up a counterblast in the
form of a series of propositions which he nailed up publicly on the Church
doors. Moreover he received unexpected support from the "Good Elector"
Frederick, who forbade Tetzel to enter his dominions.
[Sidenote: Luther's defiance, 1520]
Leo was occupied with political affairs, which seemed for the time to be
more important than the heretical vagaries of an obscure monk. Wolsey's
diplomacy was working up to the point at which in 1518 he attached France
to England in the alliance which culminated in the "Universal Peace," the
Cardinal having supplanted the Pope as the moderator in the disputes of the
great Powers. Then Maximilian died, and the Imperial Election absorbed
political attention, with the ensuing complications described in a previous
chapter. Meantime however, Luther was waxing increasingly determined;
instead of quailing at threats, he was fully resolved to maintain his
convictions and fight the matter out. As to what he had done, he appealed
to a General Council; what he was going to do he made clear by exhorting
the German Princes to stop their tributes to Rome. The advice had a natural
attraction for the German Princes though they might lack enthusiasm on
questions of theology. Leo issued a Bull condemning Luther. Luther answered
by publicly burning the Bull (December 10th, 1520).
[Sidenote: The Diet of Worms, 1521]
The young Emperor, fresh from his coronation at Aachen, was about to hold
the Diet of the Empire at Worms. It was his policy to maintain friendly
relations with Rome; and Luther was summoned to the Diet under a
safe-conduct. The precedent of Huss showed how little such a safe-conduct
was worth; but the great Reformer was undaunted. Frederick of Saxony,
encouraged by Erasmus, was known to be on his side. He faced the Diet,
reaffirmed his heresies, and emphasised his flat repudiation of Papal
Authority. He had fiery supporters and fiery opponents. His life was in the
gravest danger, and his death would have been followed by a bloody
collision between the two parties. The disaster was averted by the Elector
Frederick who kidnapped him for his own sake and carried him off to a
secure retreat in the Wartburg: where he remained for nearly a year,
working at his translation of the Bible. The Diet however confirmed an
edict condemning Luther and his doctrines. The English King moreover, who
accounted himself no mean theologian, issued a refutation of the Lutheran
heresies which won for him from Pope Leo the title of Defender of the
Faith.
At this time, and for some time to come, the Papacy regarded Francis I.
with hostility, and looked upon his Italian ambitions as dangerous to
itself. Hence there was a natural tendency to alliance between Rome and the
Emperor. 1521 was the year of the ineffectual Conference of Calais,
followed by the death of Leo X., the election of the (Imperial) Pope Adrian
in the next year, and the embroilment of England in the European wars.
Charles was sufficiently occupied with these high political matters, and
was personally withdrawn from Germany, whose affairs were more or less
controlled by an Imperial Council in which Frederick of Saxony was the
guiding spirit; popular sentiment was on Luther's side, and the Worms edict
was practically a dead letter. But the seclusion of the great Reformer
threw the movement largely into the hands of extremists such as Carlstadt
and Muenzer to whose anarchical theories he was opposed as vehemently as to
Rome.
[Sidenote: 1524 The German peasant rising]
Now we shall presently see that in England itself there was strong ground
for discontent with the prevailing social order and the relations between
the peasantry and the landed classes: but in Germany matters were very much
worse. In England there had always been a tendency for the religious
reformers to associate their movements with demands for social reform; and
so it was now to an exaggerated degree in Germany. Social revolution was no
part of the scheme of Luther and his lieutenant Melanchthon; but in defying
the authority of Rome they had awakened the revolutionary spirit. Fired
with religious fanaticism, the demagogues acquired a new character, a
devouring zeal, a reckless courage. At last in 1524 the peasants rose
demanding redress for their grievances. What they asked was indeed bare
justice according to any intelligent modern view; yet the granting of their
demands would have been completely subversive of the existing social order.
The upper classes were united against them, Luther and his associates
denounced them. The fiercest passions broke loose: there were ghastly
massacres and ghastly reprisals, ending in the slaughter of scores of
thousands of peasants, and the complete suppression of the rising.
[Sidenote: Its effect in England]
The Lutherans proper had emphatically dissociated themselves from the
zealots who stirred up the "peasants' war," which did not alter the general
attitude of the Germans on the religious question. But in England, these
things had a serious effect. The Lutheran heresies were condemned as
heresies in this country before the outbreak, and a considerable number of
heretically inclined Englishmen took refuge in the German States, where
they looked to find countenance. Being for the most part men of extreme
tendencies, those tendencies were quickened; whence it resulted that in
importing the new religious doctrines from Germany they combined them more
or less with the doctrines of social revolution. Thus the distinction
between the two movements was lost sight of, and the profession of the new
doctrines was regarded as not merely heretical but in itself anarchical--a
thing which must be suppressed in the interests of public order. Hence we
find the curious paradox of Thomas More, the one-time advocate of a
toleration which was obviously in accord with his instincts, becoming in
course of time the advocate and agent of a rigorous intolerance and a
relentless persecution.
[Sidenote 1: 1525 The Empire and the papacy]
[Sidenote 2: 1527 The sack of Rome]
The Peasants' Revolt was crushed in the summer of 1525. Before this end was
accomplished, the Good Elector passed away--a wise, kindly, tolerant man
who had exercised an immense moderating influence by simple benignity,
shrewdness, and force of character. A little earlier, the ambitious schemes
of Francis I. had been shattered by the disaster of Pavia. In effect, the
whole European situation was changed completely since the death of Leo X.
in 1521. His successor Adrian was a man of good intentions but limited
purview; the great issues at stake were beyond his grasp, and his attempts
at disciplinary reforms were made nugatory by the stolid immobility of the
hierarchy. After a brief reign he was succeeded by Clement VII., a man of
considerable talent and inconsiderable ability: a man shifty and fearful,
not fitted to cope with the stubborn wills of the reigning princes and
their ministers, or with the moral and intellectual forces which were
threatening the supremacy of the historic Church. The collapse of the
French in Italy gave Charles a power which filled Clement with alarm, since
his friendliness was no longer of political moment to the Emperor, while
sentimental considerations would certainly not suffice to retain the active
support of Wolsey and England. In 1526 the insecurity of his position was
emphasised by the attitude of the Imperial Diet held at Spires, where
Charles through his brother Ferdinand withdrew from the position of
anti-Lutheranism to adopt that of impartial toleration, and it was decreed
in effect that each Prince might sanction what religion he would, within
his own territories; thus cancelling the Decree of Worms. The capture and
occupation of Rome by troops mainly Spanish in the same year, despite the
Emperor's repudiation, was another alarming symptom; which received a
terrifying confirmation in 1527, when the Imperial troops, Spanish and
German, headed by the "Lutheran" Frundsberg and the Constable of Bourbon,
turned their arms upon the Holy City, stormed it, sacked it with a savage
thoroughness unparalleled since the days of Alaric, and held the Pope
himself a prisoner.
[Sidenote: 1530 Diet of Augsburg]
Thus the Pope himself was now not merely dominated by the Emperor but
actually in his hands. The successes of Charles however urged Francis--who
had been liberated in 1526--to renewed activity, and for a time it seemed
not unlikely that he would recover his ascendency in Italy, a consummation
as little to Clement's taste as the Imperial dominance. But the French King
misused his opportunities and his armies met with fresh disasters. In 1529,
the Pope and the Emperor were reconciled, with the result that at another
Diet of Spires the Worms edict was revived and the last Spires edict
revoked, in face of the protest of the Lutheran Princes which earned for
them the title of Protestants. That party however was sufficiently strong
to prevent its opponents from enforcing the decree over the Empire. At the
Diet of Augsburg next year (1530) the decree was confirmed: the Protestants
replying by drawing up the Confession of Augsburg, formulating their
doctrines, a document which became the definite expression of Protestantism
in the least general sense of the term--while they bound themselves for
mutual support in the League of Schmalkald. The two parties seemed to be on
the verge of war; but the sentiment of nationality in face of the
threatening of a Turkish advance and of the non-German leanings of Charles
--a sentiment most zealously preached by Luther who was a typical German
patriot as well as a religious reformer--deferred the rupture till after
Luther's death.
[Sidenote: The Swiss Reformers, 1520-1530]
The active aggressive Reformation began in Germany with Luther's attack on
Indulgences. In France it made no headway for many years; in Spain and
Italy none at all; in England none, till the meeting of Parliament in 1529.
But the movement in Switzerland was as marked as that in Germany, and
hardly less important in the influence ultimately exercised by the Swiss
teachers, though of less direct political weight. Nor is it possible to
follow the course of the Reformation in England, unless the separate
existence of the Swiss School is duly appreciated. Switzerland was not a
Political entity which could rank effectively as a make-weight in
international rivalries; but its geographical conditions preserved it from
interference, and permitted it, so to speak, to work out its own salvation.
The country was a federation of small democratic States or Cantons, with no
Princes and no nobility. It followed that when once the question of
ecclesiastical reform was raised, the theories of Church Government which
would find acceptance would be democratic in principle: and accordingly it
was from Switzerland that the vital opposition to Episcopal systems sprang.
But the main fact to be observed at this stage is, that the Swiss Reformers
were not the outcome of the Lutheran movement; their movement was
spontaneous, independent, and parallel. Their leader Zwingli anticipated
rather than followed Luther. But an agitator who appealed to Germany and an
agitator who appealed to Switzerland seemed to be of very different degrees
of public importance. Hence comparatively speaking Zwingli was ignored by
the authorities. Half Switzerland might--and did--revolt from the Pope,
without greatly exercising the Papal mind. But in the process Zurich became
hardly less important as a teaching centre and an asylum for heretical
refugees than Wittenberg; and in many respects, the teaching of Zurich
departed from the teaching of Rome more seriously than did the teaching of
Luther. The element of Mysticism, to which the German genius is generally
prone, had no attraction for the Swiss mind, while it was essential in the
eyes of the Wittenberg school; so that Luther and the Zurich Reformers
assailed each other with hardly less virulence than they both lavished on
the Papal party. It was a long time before the term "Protestant" was
extended so as to include the disciples of Zurich and Geneva.
[Sidenote: English heretics abroad]
Alike to Switzerland and to the German States which may by anticipation be
called Protestant, there gathered during these first years an appreciable
number of Englishmen, who were either already touched with Lollardry, or
found themselves in revolt against prevailing doctrines or practices, or
were discovering by the light of the New Learning discrepancies between the
teaching of the Gospels and the current interpretation. In these
territories they were for the time assured of such liberty as enabled them
to issue pamphlets, dissertations, and commentaries, which found their way
into England and not infrequently received effective advertisement by being
publicly condemned and burnt, with the result that the few copies which
escaped acquired an adventitious interest and influence. Considering the
violence of the invective often conspicuous in them, and the extravagance
of the controversial methods usually adopted, the treatment they met with
can hardly be condemned as oppressive; whether it was politic is another
question. The modern English view generally is that such repressive acts
tend to defeat their own ends. On the whole however it would seem that it
was the manner rather than the matter of these productions which caused the
authorities to treat them and their authors with such severity, though it
was done largely at the instigation of theological partisans. Thus Tindal's
translation of the Bible was attacked as being _per se_ dangerous; but
it was the accompanying commentary which ensured its suppression.
[Sidenote: Contrasted aims]
The fundamental fact, however, which must be borne in mind in the early
stages of the Reformation in England is this: that whereas the cause to
which both Luther and Zwingli devoted themselves was primarily a revision
of dogmas and of the practices associated with them, the work which Henry
VIII. and Thomas Cromwell were to take in hand was the revision of the
relations between Church and State--of the position of the Clerical
organisation as a part of the body politic; not the introduction of
Lutheran or Zwinglian doctrines. Such countenance as was given to
Lutheranism was given for purely political reasons. Luther's was a
Religious Reformation with political consequences: Henry's was a Political
Reconstruction entailing ultimately a reformed religion.
CHAPTER VII
HENRY VIII (iii), 1527-29--THE FALL OF WOLSEY
[Sidenote: "The King's affair"]
The whole prolonged episode concerned with the "Divorce" of Queen Katharine
is singularly unattractive; the character of almost every leading person
associated with it is damaged in the course of it--save that of the unhappy
Queen. Unfortunately it is an episode which demands close attention and
examination, because its vicissitudes exercised a supreme influence on the
course of the Reformation initiated by the King, besides bringing into
powerful relief the nature of that strange historical phenomenon, the
Conscience of Henry VIII. Moreover it has received from the pen of a
particularly brilliant writer a colouring which is so misleading and so
plausible that the evidence as to facts requires to be presented with
exceptional care.
[Sidenote 1: Story of the marriage]
[Sidenote 2: Anne Boleyn]
It is not till 1527 that the project of a Divorce emerges definitely, so to
speak, into the open; but the evolution of the project had its origin at a
considerably earlier date. We have to begin with a review of the conjugal
relations between the King and the Queen. Arthur, Prince of Wales had
celebrated his marriage with Katharine, daughter of Ferdinand of Spain and
aunt of the infant who was to become Charles V. A few months later he died.
The young widow was thereafter betrothed to Henry; a dispensation being
obtained in 1504 from the Pope, Julius II, since marriage with a brother's
widow is forbidden by the laws of the Church. Henry VII. however, who never
liked to make any pledges without providing himself with some pretext by
which they might be evaded, instructed his son to make a sort of protest at
the time. The second marriage was not carried out till Henry VIII. was on
the throne: the bride being robed in the manner customary for maidens, not
for widows, on such occasions. She was older than her husband, and not
particularly attractive; but they lived together with apparent affection.
It is uncertain how many children were actually born; but none lived long
after birth until Mary (1516), when the King showed himself conspicuously
fond of his infant daughter. Henry does not in fact seem to have displayed
that extreme licentiousness which characterised most of the monarchs of the
time, though one illegitimate son was born to him, three years after Mary,
by Mistress Elizabeth Blount--"mistress" being the courtesy title of
unmarried ladies. The Court however was undoubtedly licentious, and many of
his favourite companions were notoriously profligate. In 1522 Anne Boleyn,
then an attractive girl of sixteen, the daughter of Sir Thomas Boleyn, came
to Court. At what time Henry became seriously enamoured of her is
uncertain; but from 1522 her father became the recipient of numerous
favours; and in 1525 was made a peer. It was a symptom of alienation
between Henry and his wife that the six-year-old son of Elizabeth Blount
was at the same time created Duke of Richmond and Lord High Admiral, with
much pomp. [Footnote: Brewer, ii., 102. _L.& P._ iv., 639.]
[Sidenote: 1527 The King prepares]
Apart from expressions in letters of 1526 which can only be reasonably
interpreted as having reference to a contemplated divorce, letters of
Wolsey's and the King's in the early months of 1527 prove incontestably
that Henry had at that time determined that he would marry Anne, and that
Wolsey [Footnote: Brewer, ii., 182, 184; _S. P. Henry VIII._, i, 194.
_L. & P._, iv., 1467.] was elaborating a case, for presentation to the
Pope, against the validity of the dispensation under which the marriage
with Katharine had been contracted.
What, then, was the King's attitude? In April 1527, he had made up his mind
to break with Charles, Katharine's nephew, and concluded a treaty with
France; but under this the French King's second son, the Duke of Orleans,
was to marry the Princess Mary. It is difficult to believe that when this
was done, the King was actually intending at a later stage to have Mary
declared illegitimate. He would hardly have proposed to alienate Charles
and Francis simultaneously. Possibly he anticipated no difficulty in
legitimating Mary while annulling her mother's marriage--as was ultimately
done. It may be noted that it is absolutely impossible to maintain that
_both_ Mary and Elizabeth were born in lawful wedlock; yet the country
accepted both as legitimate without demur. But this French treaty darkens
rather than illuminates the problem.
The only fact definitely apparent in the papers of 1527 is that Henry had
determined to make Anne his wife. There is no hint of the conscientious
scruples or the patriotic motives afterwards alleged, though that of course
does not preclude their having been present. Those two alleged motives
require to be examined merely as _a priori_ hypotheses.
[Sidenote: Theoretical excuses]
There was one possible plea, then, for urging that a divorce was necessary:
namely that political considerations made it imperative for the good of the
nation that the King should take to himself a wife who might bear him a
male heir to the throne. And there was one possible plea for demanding a
formal enquiry into the validity of the dispensation: namely a
conscientious doubt on the part of the King or Queen whether the union with
a brother's widow was contrary to the Moral Law. No doubt existed as to the
Pope's power of abrogating a law, made by the Church for the public good,
in a specific case; but it was not claimed that he could abrogate the Law
of God in like manner. If this was a case in which the Pope possessed the
dispensing power, the dispensation held; if it was not, the marriage was no
marriage however innocently the parties entered upon it. One or other of
these pleas must be made the pretext of any public action.
[Sidenote: The need of an heir]
The plea that Henry must have a male heir is so absolutely conclusive in
the judgment of Henry's great apologist that he feels it necessary to offer
excuses for the womanly weakness which blinded Katharine to her obvious
duty. It may also have appealed with considerable force to a statesman who
regarded all pledges and bonds as being in the last resort dissoluble on
grounds of national expediency. England had suffered enough from disputed
successions; and while it is not probable that a title so incontrovertible
as Mary's would have been directly challenged, it is evident that
disastrous complications might have been involved by her union with any
possible husband, or by her death. It may have been that it was Henry's own
wish to act directly on this view, and to declare his marriage null,
arbitrarily, on the ground of public expediency. But whatever were Wolsey's
views on expediency, and on the desirability of nullifying the marriage,
such a course would have been too flagrant a violation of the universally
accepted belief in the sanctity of the marriage tie to meet with his
support. Moreover the offspring of a new marriage contracted under such
conditions could hardly escape having his legitimacy challenged when
opportunity offered. The security of the succession could not therefore be
obtained by this method. Yet the burden of discovering some way to enable
Henry to marry again was laid upon the Cardinal's shoulders.
[Sidenote: The plea of invalidity]
A pretext was forthcoming, whether devised by the Cardinal or another. The
marriage with Katharine might be held invalid on the ground that the
dispensation under which it was contracted was invalid, as being _ultra
vires_. [Footnote: _Cf._ however Wolsey's letter, Brewer, ii., 180.
Katharine argued that since she had remained a maiden, no actual affinity
had been contracted, therefore the re-marriage was not contrary to God's
Law. Wolsey was prepared to reply that in that case, the dispensation was
invalid; since it specified only the impediment of "affinity" but not that
of "public honesty" created by a contract not consummated, and so failed to
cover the admitted circumstances. It appears from the complete context that
this plea was hit upon only as a rejoinder to this particular plea of
Katharine's. But see Taunton, _Thomas Wolsey_, chap, x., where a
different view is taken; the whole context, however, is not there cited.]
This was the line that Wolsey advised, and to which the King committed
himself. It should be clear that it finally precluded the other line of
arbitrary dissolution, since it rested on the inviolability of a marriage
once validly contracted. If the Pope could not set aside the bar to
re-marriage with a dead husband's brother, the King could hardly set aside
his own marriage, if it had been itself lawful. Stated conversely; if the
King could, so to speak cancel a living wife on the ground of public
expediency, the Pope had surely been entitled to cancel a dead husband on
the same ground.
[Sidenote: Conjunction of incentives]
When Wolsey had propounded the theory that the validity of the dispensation
was doubtful, it is easy enough to see how Henry might have persuaded
himself that his conscience must be set at ease. What if the death of all
his male children had been a Divine Judgment on an unlawful union? The wish
is father to the thought. From this point, it was a short step to a
conviction that, whatever any one might say, the union was unlawful. Thus
Henry could with comparative equanimity adopt the role of one who merely
felt that his doubts must be set at rest, while he would be only overjoyed
to be finally certified that they were groundless. It is not till this
professed hope is in danger of being realised that the mask is dropped and
the King's determination to have a divorce by hook or by crook is avowed.
On this view of the policy pursued, passion and patriotism may have
combined--in uncertain proportions--to make the King desire a new marriage;
obedience and patriotism may have likewise combined to produce the same
desire in the Cardinal. But it is extremely difficult to doubt that the
King's conscientious scruples were an after-thought, since they had not
overtly troubled him for eighteen years of married life; while the
Cardinal's position was painfully complicated by an intense aversion to the
particular marriage in contemplation. The Boleyns were closely associated
with the group of courtiers who were most antagonistic to Wolsey; while on
the other hand, Katharine had for long regarded him as her husband's evil
genius.
[Sidenote: The Orleans betrothal]
There is a single feature of the situation in the spring of 1527 which
might be taken as pointing to a belief on the King's part that the validity
of the marriage would be confirmed: namely the betrothal of his daughter to
Orleans. This however would completely negative the activity of that
patriotic motive by which Mr. Froude set so much store. Moreover, it is
flatly contradicted by the letter to Anne [Footnote: _L. & P._, iv.,
1467.] in which Henry unmistakably declares his determination to marry her:
and by Wolsey's [Footnote: _S. P._, i., 194. Brewer, ii., 193 ff.]
letter to him, stating the case for the divorce.
[Sidenote: Conclusion]
The only possible conclusion is that the one motive which really actuated
the King was the desire to gratify an illicit passion. Other subsidiary
motives he may have called in to justify himself to himself, on which he
dwelt till he really persuaded himself that they were genuine. For it was
his unfailing practice to do or get done whatsoever served his personal
interest, and to parade some high moral cause as his unimpeachable
motive--or if this proved quite impossible, to condemn a minister as the
responsible person. Yet however difficult it is to reconcile such avowed
motives with the known facts, the avowal always has about it a tone of
conviction which can only have been the outcome of successful
self-deception.
[Sidenote: The first plan (May)]
It was the Cardinal's task then to procure by some means a formal and
authoritative pronouncement that the Papal Dispensation was invalid. The
first scheme was that he should hold a Legatine Court before which the King
should be cited for living in an unlawful union with his brother's widow.
Since the Legate was also the King's subject, the royal assent had to be
formally given. This was duly arranged in May, the affair being conducted
with the utmost secrecy; but after the first beginnings [Footnote: _L. &
P._, iv., 1426.] these proceedings were dropped: presumably because, if
they had been carried through, Katharine might have appealed to the Pope
and Wolsey would have had no voice in the ultimate decision. [Footnote: The
Pope in that case must either have decided the case himself, or have given
full powers to a Legatine Court to act without appeal. In the latter event,
Wolsey could not have been appointed, since Katharine's appeal would have
been an appeal against his previous decision.]
In the same month the world learnt with amazement that the troops of
Bourbon and the Lutheran Frundsberg had stormed and sacked Rome; and that
the Imperial troops held Clement himself a prisoner in the castle of
St. Angelo. The Pope was thus completely in the Emperor's power: the
Emperor was Katharine's nephew and would most certainly veto the divorce.
Moreover, Katharine had now an inkling that steps to obtain a divorce were
being projected; and, unknown to Henry, Mendoza the Spanish ambassador had
already warned the Emperor.
[Sidenote: The second plan (June)]
Thus the difficulties of Wolsey's task were increased; since the next move
must be to get a Papal Commission appointed which should be under Wolsey's
control. To that end, the ecclesiastical support of the English Bishops and
the political support of Francis were requisite. Wolsey played upon the
guilelessness of Fisher of Rochester, till he persuaded the saintly bishop
that the confirmation of the marriage was the one thing desired--that the
Queen's opposition was due to an unfortunate misconception, and entirely
opposed to her own interests. The same course was pursued with Warham of
Canterbury. [Footnote: Brewer, ii., pp. 193 ff.] The necessity for the
enquiry was fathered upon the Bishop of Tarbes, a member of the French
embassy which had settled the betrothal of Orleans and Mary, who was said
[Footnote: There is some reason to suppose that this story of the Bishop of
Tarbes was merely concocted by Wolsey and Henry. It appears to have been
referred to only in Wolsey's communications with Warham and Fisher.--
Brewer, _Henry VIII._, ii., 216. But _cf._ Pollard, _Henry
VIII., sub loc._] to have questioned the validity of the dispensation,
and by consequence the certainty of the princess's legitimacy.
In July Wolsey proceeded to France, ostensibly for the settlement of
details in connexion with the recent treaty: actually, that Francis might
be induced to bring pressure to bear on Charles for the release of the
Pope--in the somewhat desperate hope that Clement in his gratitude would
thereupon grant Henry's wishes. Should the Pope's release be refused,
Wolsey had the idea (soon to be abandoned) that the Cardinals might be
summoned to meet in France, on the ground that the Pope was being forcibly
deprived of the power of action. [Footnote: _S. P_., i., 230, 270.
Brewer, ii., 209, 219.]
[Sidenote: Knight's mission (Autumn)]
The treaty of Amiens, cementing the union between Francis and Henry, was
signed late in August without reference to divorce. Now however Henry began
to conduct operations independently of Wolsey, sending his own secretary
Knight to Rome with private instructions, the object of which was to evade
the ultimate submission of the question to Wolsey's jurisdiction. Under the
influence of the Boleyn clique, and knowing Wolsey's aversion to the Boleyn
marriage, the King may have suspected that his minister would play him
false if he lost all hope of averting that conclusion to the divorce. Or he
may merely have resolved that it was time to check any development of his
minister's authority. On Wolsey's return to England, instead of being
received in privacy according to precedent, he was summoned on his arrival
at Richmond Palace to meet his master in the presence of Anne Boleyn.
[Sidenote: Its failure (Dec)]
Knight's mission was a failure. In December, Clement escaped in disguise
from his Imperial guards: Knight found him at Orvieto. It was evident that
the secret plan of getting the Pope's permission to marry again without
upsetting the existing marriage [Footnote: Brewer, ii., 224, 234-239. Both
the Conscience of the King and the need of an heir, are dwelt on in the
instructions.] was out of the question. So the Secretary presented a form
for a dispensation, and for a Commission which was to give Wolsey power to
decide summarily against the validity of the dispensation granted by Pope
Julius, without appeal; and power to declare Mary legitimate at the same
time. The dispensation was to enable Henry to marry thereafter in despite
of difficulties which might be raised on certain specified
grounds--intelligible only if those difficulties applied in Anne Boleyn's
case: and implying the truth of allegations subsequently made as to
relations between Henry and Anne's mother and sister. Knight was outwitted
by a Cardinal, Lorenzo Pucci, who redrafted the documents so as to make
them useless for Henry's purpose. The deluded envoy returned to England
under the impression that he had achieved a diplomatic triumph. But the
King saw that he must leave the management of such delicate matters to
Wolsey.
[Sidenote: The Pope and the Cardinal]
It is evident that the Pope's one desire was to evade all responsibility in
the matter; as it was Wolsey's, on the contrary part, to fix the ultimate
responsibility on him. Clement wanted the support of England and France;
but, though now no longer actually the Emperor's prisoner, he was
distinctly in greater danger from him than from the other Powers. Moreover
for one Pope to be invited to nullify the proceedings of another was a
somewhat dangerous precedent: as implying that a papal decision was not
necessarily unimpeachable. The Cardinal however required the Pope's
authority. The divorce was not popular in England, where the general
inclination was towards the Imperial alliance. Besides, Katharine was
firmly convinced that Wolsey was the moving spirit; so was the general
public. If the divorce were carried through by any method which seemed to
bear out that theory--if it could be looked upon as a political job of the
Cardinal's--Henry too would come in for a share of the odium, and might be
trusted to visit that misfortune on his minister. So Wolsey would have
nothing to say to the suggestion that the King should act on his own
account without the Pope, and take his chance of an appeal.
[Sidenote: 1528 Gardiner's mission]
Early in 1528, the negotiations were again on foot. This time they were in
the hands of Wolsey's own men--Steven Gardiner and Foxe, the King's
almoner. Their instructions were to obtain a commission with absolute
authority, in which a legate--Campeggio for choice--should be associated
with Wolsey; failing that, a legate without Wolsey but one on whom Wolsey
could depend; finally, as least desirable, the commission was to consist of
Wolsey and Warham. If the Pope continued recalcitrant, he was to be given
to understand that the results for him might be very awkward. Gardiner in
fact did not hesitate to indulge in threats which were more than
hints. England's goodwill was at stake. If Clement had so little faith in
his own authority that he dared not exercise it in a manifestly righteous
cause, Henry might repudiate papal authority altogether. Nevertheless, in
spite of all Gardiner's skill and vigour--and he showed himself deficient
in neither--the result was unsatisfactory. A commission was obtained for
Wolsey with Campeggio; but it was not absolute. The decision they might
arrive at could not take effect till referred to Rome for confirmation.
[Sidenote: Wolsey's critical position]
Although the purpose of Gardiner and Foxe was not completely achieved, it
certainly appeared at this time that Wolsey had practically won over the
Pope; in other words, had made sure that the King should get his desire
under cover of law, and of the highest moral sanctions, without any breach
with the Church, defiance of Authority, or association with heresy. So far,
the credit was the Cardinal's, who had dissuaded his master from following
a much more arbitrary course. Nevertheless indications were not wanting
that the Boleyn influence was at work in a manner very detrimental to
Wolsey; that Henry was fully alive to his minister's unpopularity; and that
if occasion served he might take the popular side. Thus when Wolsey
appointed a suitable person to be Abbess of Wilton, instead of a very
unsuitable person who was connected with the Boleyns, the King reprimanded
him in his most elevated style--taking occasion at the same time to be
scandalised at the subscriptions to Wolsey's educational schemes provided
by monasteries which had pleaded poverty at the time of the "Amicable
Loan". It was at least tolerably evident that "the King's matter" as the
divorce was generally called would have to be brought to a speedy and
successful issue if Wolsey was to retain the royal favour.
Clement VII. however was a dexterous procrastinator. Campeggio got his
Commission in April. But he did not start from Rome till June: he did not
reach French soil till the end of July: in September he got as far as
Paris. Meantime, the French troops in Italy were not doing so well, but the
Pope was strongly suspected of Imperial leanings. The French King formed
the opinion--which he transmitted to his brother of England--that
Campeggio's object was to induce Henry to change his determination.
[Sidenote: Campeggio and Wolsey (Autumn)]
When at last Campeggio reached London, still suffering seriously from the
gout which was the ostensible cause of his dilatory journeying, Wolsey was
explicit. He warned the Legate that the business must be put through
promptly. The need of a male heir was imperative; the King was convinced
that his wedlock with Katharine was contrary to the Divine law: if he were
not quickly released, the respect hitherto shown for the Church by the
Defender of the Faith would certainly vanish; while Wolsey himself, whose
influence had hitherto kept his master loyal in the face of strong
temptation, would no longer be able to restrain him. From Campeggio's
letters, [Footnote: Brewer, ii., 296.] it is evident that the King had
mastered his own case thoroughly, and knew the legal aspects better than
any one else: also, that the intention was to declare Mary his heir unless
there should be male issue of the new marriage. The Legate let slip that in
view of the determined attitude of Henry and Wolsey, he would have to await
further instructions from Rome; whereupon he was again threatened with the
secession of England from the Roman Obedience. Next, the two Cardinals
tried to induce Katharine to accede to a divorce without a formal trial; on
the ground that thereby she would ensure that save on the single point of
the re-marriage any demand she might put forward would be granted, and much
scandal would be averted. The Queen took some days to consider her reply:
but was absolutely obdurate. She was Henry's wife; she could not and would
not profess that she was not. On every ground, she would fight to the last.
Campeggio did his best to impress the Pope with the urgency of the case:
but Clement was more than ever afraid of Charles, and persisted in the
first place that proceedings were to be postponed and prolonged by every
effort of ingenuity, and in the second that no verdict adverse to the
marriage was to be pronounced without his ratification.
[Sidenote: Henry's attitude]
Henry for his part, learning or knowing before that Ferdinand had received
from Pope Julius a confirmation of the dispensation in ampler terms, urged
upon Katharine the necessity of obtaining this document in her own
interests--hoping that there would be a chance of repudiating it as a
forgery. Also he instructed his agents at Rome to persuade the Pope to give
him a dispensation for re-marriage, without a divorce, if Katharine retired
into a nunnery; [Footnote: _L. & P._, iv., 2157, 2161. Brewer, ii.,
312, 313, and note. Such a marriage was admissible according to some of the
Lutherans.] or even for an openly bigamous union. Moreover about the same
time, Henry openly separated himself from his wife, and began to treat Anne
Boleyn publicly as his partner-elect on the throne.
[Sidenote 1: 1529]
[Sidenote 2: The trial]
The Pope's one object was to evade the responsibility of any pronouncement.
The Imperialist cause in Italy was progressing: Charles was growing
steadily stronger. Clement dared not pronounce in Henry's favour; he was
only less afraid of pronouncing against him. He told the agents that the
King should act on his own responsibility on the ground of dissatisfaction
with Campeggio's conduct; whereas the King was quite resolved to act, but
also quite resolved to force the responsibility for his action on Clement.
There was a limit to the possibilities of procrastination, but it was not
till June 1529 that the Court opened proceedings, citing the King and Queen
to appear. Fisher of Rochester, appearing on behalf of the Queen, boldly
declared that the marriage was valid and could not be dissolved. Standish
supported him, less vigorously. The Queen challenged the jurisdiction of
the Court, and appealed from it to the Pope. She regarded Wolsey as the
source of her woes; Anne believed that the procrastination was due to his
machinations; the King was quite capable of crushing the Cardinal to
relieve his own feelings. Popular sentiment was entirely on the Queen's
side, but held the Cardinal to blame rather than the King: though even in
Court Henry declared, in answer to Wolsey's appeal, that the minister had
not suggested but had deterred him from the course adopted. Campeggio
prorogued the Court in July. At about the same time, Clement, acting under
Imperial pressure, formally revoked the case to Rome. Before the revocation
reached England, a desperate attempt was made to persuade Katharine to
place herself in the King's hands: it failed. A sharp public altercation
between Wolsey and Suffolk showed how the current was setting.
[Sidenote: The storm gathers]
During the following months, Wolsey's loss of the royal favour became
increasingly evident, and the opposition to him on the part of the nobility
more and more open. Steven Gardiner, who had proved his conspicuous
ability, was made the King's private secretary, and became the normal
medium of communication--the close personal intercourse hitherto prevalent
was at an end. Wolsey's European policy was thrown over by Henry, who
allowed Francis and Charles to come to terms without his claiming any voice
in the negotiation. A treaty of amity was signed at Cambrai, which
terminated all prospect of Francis being induced to assist Henry in
bringing pressure to bear either on the Emperor or the Pope, and released
Clement from serious alarms as to the results of his accepting the Imperial
policy. England had deliberately vacated the position of arbiter, because
Henry was too thoroughly engrossed with the divorce to care about anything
else. Since both Francis and Charles were for the time satisfied to
restrict their ambitions so as not to collide with each other, there was no
further demand for the Cardinal's diplomatic genius. The best to which
Wolsey could now look forward was that he might be permitted to turn his
vast talents to the reform of administration, ecclesiastical, legal, and
educational, which he had always postponed to what he regarded as the more
vital demands of international politics.
[Sidenote: The storm breaks (Oct.)]
It was not long before even these hopes were destroyed. At the beginning of
October, Campeggio departed from England. At Dover, his baggage was
ransacked by the King's authority, in the hope of discovering documents
which would enable Wolsey to deal with the divorce in his absence. The
documents were not forthcoming. Wolsey was of no more use to his master.
The day after Campeggio reached Dover a writ was demanded by the King's
attorney against the Cardinal for breach of the statute of Praemunire in
acting as Legate.
[Sidenote 1: Wolsey's fall]
[Sidenote 2: 1530]
[Sidenote 3: Wolsey's death (Nov.)]
The fatal blow had been struck. From that hour, the Cardinal's doom was
sealed. He ceased absolutely to be a political force and became merely an
object for the King, and for every enemy he had raised up against himself,
to buffet. A week later, on October 16th, the Dukes of Norfolk and Suffolk
demanded the seals from Wolsey as Chancellor; he was deprived of all his
benefices and retired to his house at Esher, where he abode in poverty.
This contented Henry for the time, and he sent gracious messages--but
restricted them to words. Even Thomas More, who succeeded him as
Chancellor, is said to have acted so far out of character as to speak of
him publicly in insulting terms. Parliament had been summoned for November;
a bill depriving him for ever of office was introduced in the Lords: in the
Commons, it was boldly resisted by Thomas Cromwell who won thereby great
credit for his loyalty; and it was dropped--not against the wishes of the
King, who was as yet disinclined to deprive himself of the chance of
resuscitating the great minister. In February Wolsey was restored to the
see of York, whither he departed to act in the novel capacity of a diocesan
devoted solely to his duties--duties which he so discharged as to change
bitter unpopularity into warm affection. The King kept a firm hold on his
forfeited properties, Gardiner was advanced to his see of Winchester: the
college at Ipswich was dissolved. Wolsey was rash enough to attempt to open
secret communications with Francis I., in the hope that his influence might
be exercised to restore to favour the man who had done so much for him. But
Norfolk, in power, had to cultivate Francis; and Francis, finding him a
much simpler diplomatic antagonist, had no wish to reinstate the
Cardinal. The attempted correspondence became known, and in November,
without warning, Wolsey was arrested for high treason. Sick and worn, he
started on his last journey towards London; but was stricken with mortal
illness, and could travel no further than Leicester Abbey where the end
came.
[Sidenote: Wolsey's achievement]
So died the great Cardinal who for nearly twenty years had mainly swayed
the destinies of England. Henry VII. had slowly recovered a place among the
nations for a country brought low by long years of reckless civil strife.
His son's minister again raised her to be the arbiter of Europe, holding
the scales between the two mighty princes who virtually ruled Christendom:
not by deeds of arms like Edward III. or Henry V., for no English soldier
of real distinction arose in his time; but by a diplomatic genius almost
without parallel among English statesmen. In this field, the superiority of
his abilities to those of his contemporaries made his position with his
master absolutely secure, so long as foreign relations were the primary
consideration; for though the ends the minister himself had in view were
always the same, he was ready to exert his powers to the full, even at the
expense of those objects, in carrying out any policy on which Henry himself
might determine; and as a general rule the King's wishes did not run
counter to his own.
[Sidenote: Appraisement of Wolsey]
His absorbing aim was to magnify England and the King of England in the
eyes of Europe: nor was personal ambition lacking, but it was subordinate.
That he desired the popedom is clear, and that Henry desired it for him;
but he was above the temptation of allowing that desire to dominate his
national aims, and had he achieved it, he would have regarded the alliance
of the Ecclesiastical Power with England as the real prize secured. His
personal weight in the Counsels of Europe would hardly have been increased;
and he cared more for Power than for the appearance of it, though he had a
possibly exaggerated perception of the practical value of magnificence in
securing both national and personal prestige. In part at least this was the
cause of that habitual display which, while impressing, also roused the
anger of the nobles, who regarded him as an upstart, and of the satirists
of ecclesiastical ostentation and luxury. Secure in the confidence of the
King, he never attempted to conciliate either popular sentiment or the
rivals whom he deposed.
But at all times, if he magnified his own office, it was as the King's
right hand. If the King's will, even in opposition to his own, necessitated
unpopular measures, he carried those measures out, and took the odium for
them on his own head, preserving his master's popularity at the price of
his own. He ruled the country on autocratic principles, and the increase of
his power was the increase also of the King's. And the King rewarded him
after his kind.
But for the all-absorbing interest of diplomacy, his vast abilities as an
administrator and organiser might have achieved great things. He would at
least have pruned ecclesiastical abuses; and would have forced upon the
clergy as an ecclesiastic those reforms which they were always on the verge
of introducing when they found themselves anticipated by the drastic action
of the temporal Power. Reform was the inevitable corollary of Education,
and the development of Education was of all schemes the nearest to Wolsey's
heart. Yet whether, if the Divorce question had never arisen, he would have
played an effective part in the Reformation is open to doubt, for at bottom
the Puritan movement in these islands, the Lutheran movement, and the
Counter-reformation, were all the outcome or expression of Moral ideals,
not of state-craft; and for Wolsey morals were subordinate to state-craft.
It is probable that in any case the assertion in England by the State of
its supremacy over the Church would only have been deferred; but Wolsey
might have deferred it. As it was, Henry willed otherwise. The great
statesman, failing to carry out his master's demands, was hurled from
power. The battle of the Reformation was to be fought under other captains.
NOTE.
The term "Divorce" has been employed above, because, although a misnomer,
it is universally applied. Properly a divorce is the cancellation of a
legally contracted marriage. What Henry sought was a _declaration of
nullity_--that no valid marriage had ever taken place.
CHAPTER VIII
HENRY VIII (iv) 1529-33--THE BREACH WITH ROME
[Sidenote: 1529 No revolt as yet]
It will have been observed that when Wolsey found that the divorce was
inevitable, his energies were concentrated on the single purpose of
securing it under papal authority. For this he had two reasons--one, that
without that authority the King's act would appear in all its
arbitrariness, causing grave scandal: the other that if that authority were
refused, he foresaw the cleavage between England and Rome which did
eventually take place. Apart however from the divorce, there had not been
up to the time of Wolsey's fall any hint of an opinion in high places that
such a cleavage was _per se_ desirable or desired--although both
Wolsey himself and Gardiner had given Clement fair warning that Henry was
likely to reconsider the papal claims altogether unless the Pope complied
with his wishes. The revocation of the cause to Rome immediately brought
the execution of this threat into the sphere of practical politics.
In the second place there had been no tendency to encourage or allow
deviations from recognised orthodox doctrine. The new criticism had been so
far admitted as to produce a rigid section and a liberal section among the
orthodox, such leading prelates as Wolsey himself, Warham, Fox, Fisher, and
Tunstal, all favouring the new learning in various degrees, and being
supported therein by such learned laymen as Sir Thomas More. Their
toleration however had not extended to anything censurable as heresy, and
their attitude had been somewhat stiffened by the course of the Lutheran
revolt on the Continent. The increased licence within the Empire, following
the edict of Spires in 1528, led to an increased activity in the
suppression of heretics and heretical publications in England, first under
Wolsey and then under his successor in the Chancellorship.
[Sidenote: Growth of anti-clericalism]
In a third direction however, though not much had been done in the way of
measures, an _anti-clerical_ party had been growing up: a party which
sought to diminish clerical jurisdiction, clerical privileges, and clerical
emoluments. Among the ecclesiastics themselves there were not a few who
desired to improve clerical administration from within, but without
diminution of ecclesiastical authority; the anti-clericals were laymen who
wished the reforms to be forced on the Church from outside, reducing
ecclesiastical authority in the process. These two policies were in direct
opposition, seeing that antagonism to Wolsey--emphatically a reformer of
the prior class--was the leading motive with the nobility who headed the
second class; while the Commons in general desired primarily to be freed
from the exactions by which the clergy benefited, and from which they did
not believe the clergy would of their own initiative cut themselves
off. Wolsey had begun the internal amendment, by his visitation and
suppression of the smallest monasteries and the appropriation of
ecclesiastical property to educational purposes, and by some substitution
of the superior organisation of the legatine court for that of the
Ordinaries; but the latter step had been cancelled by his fall and by the
ominous appeal to the statute of Praemunire against legatine
jurisdiction. On the other hand, the anti-clerical action had been
practically confined so far to the modifications as to Benefit of Clergy;
unless we include the publication of pamphlets and rhymes attacking the
ecclesiastical body in general, or Wolsey in particular as the incarnation
of their shortcomings.
Some years were still to elapse before any material changes from orthodox
theological doctrine were to be entertained. But in 1529, the suspension of
the Trial was forthwith followed by the adoption of a policy--as yet only
provisional--setting aside the Pope's authority; and the assembly of
Parliament in November was marked by an immediate attack on ecclesiastical
abuses.
[Sidenote: Thomas Cranmer]
In the last six months of this year the King discovered two instruments
consummately adapted for executing his will. It appears that the idea of
obtaining the opinions of the Doctors at the English Universities had
already been mooted, and that one of those selected [Footnote: Strype,
_Memorials of Cranmer_. Hook, _Life of Cranmer_.] at Cambridge
was Thomas Cranmer, a learned and amiable divine with marked leanings
towards the New Learning; who in his early graduate days had fallen under
the influence of the teaching at Cambridge of Erasmus; in scholarship
subtle and erudite, in affairs guileless and easily swayed; timorous by
nature, but capable of outbreaks of audacity as timid persons often are: a
gentle and lovable man, but lacking in that robust self-confidence needed
by one who would take a resolutely independent line; a man intended to be a
student and forced by an unkind fate to assume the role of a man of action.
Such a character, brought under the direct influence of a powerful will and
a magnetic personality, is readily led to see everything as it is desired
that he should see it, and at the worst to differ from the master-mind only
with submission.
[Sidenote: Appeal to the universities]
When Campeggio suspended the sittings of the Commission the, King withdrew
to Waltham Cross. Steven Gardiner and Foxe the King's almoner, who were in
his suite, met Cranmer who had left Cambridge on account of an outbreak of
the sweating sickness. They had, as was natural, a conversation on "the
King's affair"; when Cranmer propounded the theory that if the Universities
of Europe--that is, the qualified divines--gave it as their opinion that
the union with Katharine had been contrary to the Divine Law, the King
might follow the dictates of his conscience and pronounce the marriage null
without recognising Papal jurisdiction. This was clearly quite a different
thing from producing the judgment of the Doctors merely as an expert
opinion which must carry weight with the Judge at Rome. It was practically
an assertion that the Pope's judgment was not of higher authority than the
King's; an answer to a question as to jurisdiction; a suggestion of
replying to the Pope's revocation of the case by a counter-revocation. Foxe
reported the conversation to Henry, who caught at the new method of giving
a constitutional colour to an arbitrary proceeding. Cranmer was summoned to
court, attached to the Boleyn household, set down to write a thesis on the
point of conscience, and sent off early in 1530 in the train of the Earl of
Wiltshire (to which dignity Sir Thomas Boleyn--had been raised) on an
embassy to the Emperor at Bologna. Moreover his plan for consulting the
Universities was actively taken in hand.
[Sidenote: The new Parliament]
In the meantime, in November, Henry's most famous Parliament had opened
session. The last, called six years before under Wolsey's regime to obtain
supplies, had shown a qualified submissiveness. The new one, whether packed
or not, displayed prompt signs of activity. Known to fame as the "Seven
Years'" or "Reformation" Parliament, it consistently displayed three
characteristics: it was anti-papal and anti-clerical; it endorsed the Royal
will; but it refused dictation where its pocket was concerned. Its first
session lasted only a few weeks, but was marked by an attack on clerical
abuses, and by the sudden prominence achieved by Thomas Cromwell.
[Sidenote: Thomas Cromwell]
Concerning Cromwell's early years, much is reported and little is known.
The common rumour declared that he was the son of a blacksmith--as it
declared Wolsey to be the son of a butcher. He is said to have tried
various trades, among others those of man-at-arms in the mercenary troop of
an Italian nobleman, wool-merchant and usurer at Antwerp, usurer and petty
attorney in England. On all these points the evidence is scanty and
inconclusive. About 1520, he found his way into Wolsey's entourage, and was
a member of the 1523 parliament. Wolsey found him an apt man of business,
and entrusted him with a good deal of the financial management of his
educational schemes; in the course of which it is at least probable that he
applied the twin practices of bribery and blackmail, which not without
reason were attributed at a later date to his servants. Yet, however
unscrupulous he may have been in his dealings with others, to the master
whose service he had followed he was always loyal. Wolsey made him his
secretary; and when the Cardinal fell, the secretary's position seemed
exceedingly precarious. Whether from an admirable fidelity or through
amazingly astute hypocrisy, he boldly and openly took up the cudgels in
parliament on behalf of the stricken minister, apparently challenging
imminent ruin for himself. Action so courageous won him applause and
good-will instead of present hostility. More than that, it immediately
marked him in the eyes of the King--an exceedingly shrewd judge of men--as
an invaluable prospective servant for himself. A combination of audacity
and fidelity with shrewdness, resourcefulness, and unscrupulosity, was
precisely what he wanted and precisely what he had found. The Cardinal's
secretary became the King's secretary, and forthwith identified himself
with the policy of establishing the Royal autocracy in a stronger form than
it had ever before assumed in England. Whether or no Thomas Cromwell learnt
his political principles as an adventurer in Italy, he became himself the
living embodiment of those doctrines of state-craft which were systematised
by Macchiavelli in his treatise "The Prince".
[Sidenote: Pope, Clergy and King]
In the reconstruction of the relations between Church and State which
covers more than nine-tenths of the Reformation under Henry VIII. there
were three parties concerned; the Pope, the Sovereign, and the Clerical
Organisation in England. From time immemorial, Popes and Kings had striven
periodically with each other in asserting antagonistic control over the
ecclesiastical body; and the ecclesiastical body had made common cause, now
with the Pope and now with the King, in resisting encroachments by the
rival authority. If the clergy submitted to one or the other, it was always
with a reservation that submission to physical force could not impair the
inherent rights of the successors of the Apostles. Similarly, if the Pope
gave way to the King or the King to the Pope, their respective successors
regarded the claims surrendered as rights not cancelled but in abeyance.
The prevailing conditions at any given time were always looked upon as a
_modus vivendi_ liable to readjustment when any of the three parties
felt impelled to claim a larger freedom of action or a larger power of
control. In the past however the Spiritual Powers had drawn effectively
upon their armoury of excommunications and interdicts in the conflict; it
was now to be seen whether these ancient weapons had become obsolete. If
they could be defied with comparative impunity, there could be but one end
to a struggle between the Spiritual and the Temporal forces.
[Sidenote: Double campaign opens]
By the appeal to the Universities, Henry gave warning of a possible
anti-papal campaign: in which he could look for a considerable degree of
clerical support up to a certain point, more particularly because the
clergy generally were ready to be released from the financial exactions of
the Holy See, as well as from its practical exercise of patronage.
Parliament opened an anti-clerical campaign, but its measures at first were
confined to dealing with almost indefensible and obvious abuses. Bishop
Fisher recognised the familiar thin end of the wedge, and charged the
Commons with desiring "the goods, not the good" of the Church; but the
opposition was slender. In the six weeks of the first session, there were
passed, the Probate and Mortuaries Acts, abolishing, reducing, or
regulating fees, and the Pluralities Act, forbidding the clergy in general
to hold more than one benefice, and requiring Residence--a very
inconvenient arrangement for papal nominees. The general value of the Act
however was impaired by a schedule of exemptions. Fisher's protest had its
counterpart in the protest of Convocation, not against the avowed objects
of this legislation but against Parliament as its source: the position
being that Convocation was itself preparing legislation with the same ends
in view, and was the proper body to do so.
[Sidenote: 1530 Answers of the Universities]
During 1530, Parliament remained inactive. The Earl of Wiltshire's embassy
to Bologna, of which the object was to induce Charles to withdraw his
opposition to the divorce, naturally proved abortive. The consultation of
the Universities however went on apace. The theory propounded for their
acceptance was that Katharine had been in actual fact the wife of Henry's
brother; that this being so her marriage with Henry was contrary to the Law
of God; and that by consequence the second contract was actually not only
voidable but void, the dispensation being under those circumstances a dead
letter. On the other side it was maintained that whatever validity there
might be in this argument, it fell to the ground if--as was asserted on the
Queen's behalf--her first marriage had been ceremonial only. The answers of
the Universities were inconclusive, some declaring the marriage valid,
others declaring it void, and others, including Oxford and Cambridge,
declaring that it was against the Law of God without pronouncing the
dispensation of Julius _ipso facto_ invalid. Moreover, had the
opinions given been decisive in themselves, the method by which they were
obtained would have destroyed their moral value. Francis, finding that
England's friendship was in the balance, dictated a favourable reply to the
French Universities. Those in England knew they were not free agents.
Clement professed to give those in Italy a free hand, but in that country
Charles was the dominant power. In Germany the Lutherans were hostile to
Henry personally on account of his own anti-Lutheran pronouncements.
Nowhere was a judgment on the simple merits of the case procurable.
[Sidenote: Preoccupation of the Clergy]
In the meantime, the clergy in England had been mainly occupied with a
campaign against heresy, and with the suppression of dangerous literature;
[Footnote: According to Mr. Froude, Henry only assented with reluctance to
the suppression of Tindal's Testament on condition of the preparation of an
authorised version being agreed to. But even Hall, whom he cites, only says
that both proposals were adopted after long debate.--Froude, i., p. 298
(Ed. 1862).] but willingly or not found themselves committed to approving
the preparation of an authorised translation of the Scriptures--the one
movement under Henry which tended definitely, in effect though not of set
purpose, to a revision of Doctrine.
[Sidenote 1: Menace of Praemunire]
[Sidenote 2: 1531 "Only Supreme Head"]
[Sidenote 3: Proceedings in Parliament]
In December of 1530, however, the Church was to receive a rough reminder
that the Defender of the Faith was a stickler for the rigidity of the
statutes. He had already struck at Wolsey because, urged thereto by
himself, the Cardinal had obtained and exercised legatine powers contrary
to the Statutes of Praemunire. Such was the King's reverence for the Law
that after it had been transgressed with his sanction for ten years he felt
it his duty to penalise the transgressor. After another twelve-month, he
felt it his further duty to penalise all who had submitted to the illegal
authority. The clergy were informed that they lay one and all under the
royal displeasure for breach of praemunire (of which they had in fact been
technically guilty), and could only hope for pardon by purchasing it for
something over L100,000--practically equivalent to about a couple of
millions now. Convocation, alive to the futility of resistance, apologised
for its iniquity and admitted the justice of the punishment. Thereupon, in
the preamble to the bill by which they were to mulct themselves, the King
required the insertion of a clause which designated him "Protector and Only
Supreme Head of the Church and Clergy in England". This roused general
resistance. Convocation proposed conferences, and sought some compromise
which they could reconcile with their consciences. The King would have no
compromise, demanding instant submission. At last Warham hit upon the
expedient of one of those saving phrases which might mean everything or
nothing, and yet could not be objected to on the face of it; inserting the
words "so far as the laws of Christ permit": the precise degree to which
the said laws did permit being susceptible of unlimited argument, as the
royal claims or the clerical conscience might respectively demand. Even so
had Becket in the past shielded himself with the words "Saving the rights
of my Order". For the time being, this diplomatic evasion or pitiful
subterfuge, as the advocates and contemners of the clergy respectively call
it, saved the situation. At the time, it must be remarked, Henry did not
intend the title to be read as repudiating the Papal Supremacy, which had
not hitherto been formally called question. On the face of it, it looks
like a touch of Cromwell's; in a thing designed to force the hand of the
Clergy in the future if the Papal Supremacy should be directly challenged.
The clause was accepted (for the Province of Canterbury) on March 22nd; six
weeks later it was also accepted by the Convocation of York, with a protest
from Tunstal, now bishop of Durham, who had been distinguished by his
diplomatic services under Wolsey's regime. During the corresponding session
(January-March 1531) no anti-clerical measures were introduced in
Parliament; which registered the Royal pardon and received the formal
announcement of the decision of the Universities. The "stern and lofty
moral principles" [Footnote: Froude, i., 307, 310 (Ed. 1862). The
historian's enthusiasm may seem to require some qualification. The
retrospective creation of crimes is a dangerous practice: and the penalty
applied might even be considered savage.] of the nation were however
vindicated, in consequence of the wholesale poisoning of the bishop of
Rochester's household, attributed to an attempt to make away with Fisher
himself. By a special enactment, the essentially un-English practice of
poisoning was retrospectively classified as high treason, and the criminal
sentenced to death by boiling.
[Sidenote: 1532 Parliament]
In the beginning of 1532 the campaign was renewed with vigour; whether from
the laudable desire of reforming abuses, or with the object of terrorising
the Church into complete subservience. Incidentally it is to be observed
that so far as the activity of the Commons was directed against the payment
of extortionate fees, the Church had a part only, not the whole, of their
opposition. They logically and manfully resisted a "Bill of Wards"
legalising claims of the Lords in sundry cases of the marriage of wards.
This has been jibed at [Footnote: Moore (Aubrey), _Hist. of the
Reformation_, 103.] as showing that they cared for cash and not for
principle. As a matter of fact it appears to prove the first, but to have
no bearing on the second. It also proves that when they did care, they
could be obstinate, for the Bill was dropped: which illustrates the tact
with which the King could yield on a point unimportant to him personally.
In especial however this session was signalised by three Acts, dealing with
Mortmain, Benefit of Clergy, and Annates: and by the "Supplication against
the Ordinaries" which took partial effect in the "Submission of the
Clergy".
[Sidenote: Supplication against the Ordinaries]
The Supplication [Footnote: Mr. Froude, i., 211 (Ed. 1862), dates this
1529, but without apparent reason. _Cf._ Dixon, i., 77, note.] was in
effect a statement of grievances, directed against the powers of
Convocation in the way of ecclesiastical legislation, and the conduct of
the ecclesiastical Courts and their fees. Under this second head it was
simply the expression of a popular outcry, which had already begun to take
effect in the legislation of 1529; an outcry so far justified that the
clergy themselves met it, in part, by declaring that they were giving
independent attention to the abuses complained of. As an indictment its
weakness lay in the inadequate support by specific instances of the general
charges of miscarriage of justice. Under the first head it has the
appearance of being inspired by Cromwell, of whose policy a main feature
was the concentration of all effective legislative power in the King.
[Sidenote: Resistance of Clergy]
The Supplication was presented, and laid before Convocation for an answer.
The answer was given on the lines that, as concerned the grievances in
general, so far as they were real they were in process of removal, and that
as concerned miscarriage of justice it was impossible to answer effectively
unless the charges were made specific. As to ecclesiastical legislation it
was replied that this was a function of the Clergy, and that their canons
were in accord with Scripture and therefore not antagonistic to the Civil
Law; to which was added an appeal to the King as the Protector of the
Faith. They were informed that this answer was "too slender"; so sent a
second in which appeal was made to Henry's own book against Luther, and an
offer was added that they would publish no ordinances without the royal
assent excepting on matters of faith. In both answers Gardiner, now bishop
of Winchester, is reputed to have been the guiding spirit--thereby showing
that Henry could not count upon his assistance in reducing his Order to
subservience.
[Sidenote: "Submission of the Clergy"]
This attitude however was by no means sufficient for Henry and Cromwell.
It is in fact clear that they had made up their minds to put an end to an
anomalous condition of affairs. Hypothetically, the Church and the State
had been making laws independently of each other side by side. The two
sets of laws might involve incompatibles; the King's lieges might be
harassed by the canons of the Church, and loyal churchmen might be
embarrassed by the laws of the realm. The time had come when one ultimate
authority must be recognised. There was no manner of doubt which of the two
that ultimate authority was to be. Yet for the attainment of this end, the
Clergy must be required to surrender what they had always accounted a right
inviolable, sacred, vested in them by divine commission. The Clergy had to
surrender or take the risk of martyrdom: and they elected to surrender--in
effect to recognise that they were beaten _de facto_ if not _de
jure_. They struggled hard for a compromise which would salve their
collective conscience. Finally (May) they agreed to enact no new canons
without the Kind's authority, and to submit to a commission such of the
existing canons as were contravened. The wording of this "Submission of the
Clergy," as it is called, does not leave it absolutely clear whether the
entire canon law or only a portion was to be subjected to the revision of
the commission--which was to consist of thirty-two members, half laymen and
half clergy--but the balance of opinion is in favour of the partial
theory. The defeat was a crushing blow to the aged Warham who never
recovered from it and died three months later; and it caused the immediate
resignation of the Chancellorship by Sir Thomas More--a _rara avis_
among statesmen of the day, with whom conscience actually had the last
word, not the King's will.
[Sidenote 1: Mortmain and Benefit of Clergy]
[Sidenote 2: Annates Act]
The other Acts referred to above were passed before the Submission of the
Clergy was completed. The Mortmain and Benefit of Clergy Acts were
respectively in limitation of bequests to the Church and of privileges of
clerical criminals. They were merely normal steps in the reform of
abuses. The Annates Act however demands closer attention. Every bishop on
appointment to his see paid the first year's income to Rome--whether on an
original appointment, or on translation from one see to another. Obviously
this was a tremendous tax on the bishops and a source of large income to
Rome. There had been frequent complaints, and suggestions that the Pope
should reduce his claim. Very recently, Gardiner had been obliged to borrow
heavily to meet the exaction on becoming bishop of Winchester. The Bill
provided that five per cent. only should be paid, by way of compensation
for expenses of papal Bulls, the ground taken up being that the papal claim
was contrary to the ruling of the General Council of Basle, and that the
payment, being an alienation of the property of the See, was contrary to
the bishops consecration oath. The Bill was passed, the bishops--according
to letters of the foreign ambassadors in London--dissenting; a course
perfectly natural on their part as a protest, not in favour of the payment,
but against the authority of the temporal power to intervene. Yet it is
frequently stated as a matter of common knowledge that the clergy
themselves were the prime movers, and that the Bill was brought in on their
petition. This belief would seem to rest exclusively on the
misinterpretation of a document attributed by a later historian [Footnote:
Strype, _Eccl. Memorials_ I., ii., 158. Froude, i., 361 ff.
(Ed. 1862). But _cf._. Gairdner, _English Church_, p. 116. The
present writer fell into the usual error in a previous volume on
_Cranmer_; and has to thank Mr. Tomlinson for correcting him.] to
Convocation, but almost certainly of parliamentary origin.
The Act however was not put in immediate execution: but the English agents
in Italy were instructed to hold it _in terrorem_ over Clement's head.
[Sidenote: The European Powers and the Divorce]
The subsequent methods of procedure were largely the outcome of the
diplomatic situation on the Continent. In the first place, the idea of
calling an Oecumenical Council had been much in the air. Each of the three
great monarchs was desirous of calling one, on his own terms; so were the
Lutherans. But for each the terms must be such as should ensure practical
subservience to his own dictation: while to the Pope the proposal, so long
as it was hypothetical, was a thing he could produce as either a sop or a
threat, as circumstances might commend. In the next place, for the time
Charles dominated the Pope; but while he was making terms with the
Lutherans, under pressure of the advance of the Turks on the east, whereby
his loyalty to the papacy was made doubtful, he was also on the other hand,
Katharine's unyielding champion. Thus any positive declaration on the
divorce from Clement was tolerably certain to finally alienate either
Charles or Henry. Now the rivalry of Charles was the great obstacle to
Francis: whose object had come to be to utilise England so as to obtain for
himself the concessions he wanted from the Emperor; extorting them as the
result of joint pressure on the part of France and England or as the price
of a separation between France and England. The thing he most feared was a
compromise between Henry and Charles. Thus his policy was, by associating
himself with Henry, to detach the Pope also from Charles, by the menace of
a joint Anglo-French schism from the Roman obedience. Therefore in the
summer and autumn of 1532 Francis was ostentatiously friendly to Henry and
the cause of the Divorce. Conferences to which Henry was invited to bring
Anne Boleyn as his Queen-elect were arranged, and took place at Calais and
Boulogne. Henry thereafter made up his mind to a decisive step and on their
return to England in November or perhaps in the following January he
married Anne privately. Francis however had successfully avoided committing
himself unequivocally to an uncompromising English alliance.
[Sidenote: 1533 The crisis arrives]
In December, the Pope and the Emperor both being at Bologna, Clement
professed to the English agents a more amenable spirit, suggesting that the
divorce should be held over for a General Council, or that Henry should
agree to have the trial held outside his own realms; propositions, however,
to neither of which the King could be lured to assent. But the year 1533
had hardly opened when Charles was enabled to publish a Papal warning of
excommunication against Henry unless he restored Katharine to her full
rights as his wife (Feb.); while he detached France from England by the
promise of concessions restoring her position in Italy.
Clement might now defer a pronouncement in favour of Katharine; there was
no practical room for hoping that he might still pronounce against her.
Henry stood alone; if the Pope were finally driven to choose between
defying the King or the Emperor there could be no doubt which of the two he
would rather have for an enemy. It only remained for Henry to put it beyond
question that the declaration must be made, and that his own enmity would
take an energetic form. His reply to the Pope was decisive. Early in April,
parliament passed the great Act in Restraint of Appeals, which was
virtually the announcement of the repudiation of the Roman allegiance;
before the end of May, the new Archbishop of Canterbury in his court
pronounced the marriage with Katharine void _ab initio_, and the
recent marriage with her rival valid.
[Sidenote: Restraint of Appeals]
In form, the Act in Restraint of Appeals was not a fresh piece of
legislation but a declaration of the existing law; a flat assertion that
any appeal to the jurisdiction of Rome from the English courts brought the
appellant under the penalties of praemunire, the "spiritualty" of the
country being competent to deal with spiritual cases, and the sovereign
recognising no jurisdiction superior to his own. It did not raise the
question of authority in matters of doctrine; nor was it a formal
declaration of schism from Rome. Its meaning however was clear. The
constitutional theory of independence, put forward on many occasions as the
warrant for legislation, was henceforth to be acted upon in its most ample
interpretation: though, as with the Annates Bill, the final confirmation
was suspended to leave Clement a last chance of surrender. Taken on its
merits the Act laid down principles entirely acceptable to all parties who
claim or claimed independence of Rome: yet it was quite obviously issued
with the direct purpose of setting aside the Pope's authority in a
particular case already referred to him.
[Sidenote 1: Cranmer Archbishop]
[Sidenote 2: The decisive breach]
It is in fact doubtful whether Henry could have procured a judgment from
Warham; but Warham was dead, and the successor appointed was Thomas
Cranmer, who already before he had been dragged into public life had
committed himself to the sufficiency of the judgment of the English
courts. Since taking part in Wiltshire's embassy in 1531 he had been for
the most part in Germany on diplomatic affairs, associating with
Protestants and imbibing their views. The most pronounced and definite of
his doctrines was that of the supremacy of the crown; and on his
installation as Archbishop in March, he had qualified [Footnote: Moore
(Aubrey), _Hist. of Reformation_, 109, finds a proof in this of
"servility and dishonesty," which terms appear to be in his view
equivalents of Erastianism.] his oath of allegiance to Rome accordingly.
Other ecclesiastics, from Becket to Gardiner, had been appointed to
bishoprics under the impression that they were going to support the secular
arm against the claims of their Order, and had falsified
expectation. Cranmer maintained as Archbishop the theories of clerical
subordination which he had adopted as a University Doctor. Convocation was
called on to express an opinion on the marriage; and whether from
conviction or despair, it supported the King by a majority. The Archbishop
obtained the royal licence to convene a court. Katharine, refusing to
appear, was declared contumacious; and the Court pronounced her marriage
void while confirming Anne's. The Pope rejoined by pronouncing the judgment
void. Henry retorted by confirming the Acts in Restraint of Annates and
Appeals; and himself appealed against the Pope to a General Council. Until,
in March of the next year, Clement himself definitely pronounced judgment
in favour of Katharine, there remained a shadow of a chance of a
reconciliation tantamount to the submission of the Holy See; but the chance
was not accepted. Practically the judgment of Cranmer's court marked the
definite schism from Rome.
CHAPTER IX
HENRY VIII (v), 1533-40--MALLEUS MONACHORUM
[Sidenote: 1533 Ecclesiastical Parties]
WE have noted that a proportion of the higher clergy were at least not
unwilling to be freed from the domination and the financial exactions of
Rome; this attitude being either the cause or the effect of the line they
took as to the divorce. When, however, it was borne in upon them that the
price of escaping the yoke of the Popedom was to be the subjection of the
Church, in form to the lay monarch, and in fact to the State, the bulk of
them endeavoured to protest against the newly imposed subordination. With
the "Submission of the Clergy" and the appointment of Cranmer as Warham's
successor, it became entirely clear that to protest or resist would be
worse than useless. Accordingly we shall now find this section of the
clerical body, including such prelates as Gardiner of Winchester, Stokesley
of London, and Tunstal of Durham, devoting themselves to evading or
rendering nugatory the directions of the Temporal power and its instrument
Cranmer, under colour of obedience, while dissociating themselves from the
more rigid of the Old Catholics such as Fisher of Rochester, More, the
London Carthusians and others. On the other hand, the newer school, who
were much more antagonistic to the papacy, such as Cranmer, Latimer and
Barlow, found more personal favour with the King and with Cromwell, though
their leanings towards the doctrinal tenets of Continental reformers were
checked from time to time with sufficient rudeness.
[Sidenote: Pope or King?]
A very peculiar situation however soon resulted from the Royal rejection of
the Papal supremacy. To hold the opinion that the Pope was head of the
Church implied the recognition of a divided allegiance, casting a doubt on
the holder's loyalty to the Secular Sovereign, and easily translated into
treason; since the papal party were bound to maintain in theory the
validity of the marriage with Katharine, and the rights of her daughter
Mary. Henry never lacked a plausible theory to justify his most tyrannous
actions. Modern historians however who carry their support of Henry to the
extreme point ignore the two facts, that to hold an opinion which if acted
on would lead to treason is not in itself treason; and that it was quite
logical to maintain the supreme authority of the Pope in matters spiritual,
without admitting his power to depose a recalcitrant monarch or to
determine the line of succession--which was in fact the position adopted by
Sir Thomas More.
[Sidenote: 1534 Confirmatory Acts]
The Spring session of Parliament in 1534 was devoted mainly to the passing
of Acts in confirmation and extension of what already been done. The
Submission of the Clergy and the Restraint of Appeals were re-affirmed in
one Act; but with the important difference that the whole of the Canon law
was to be subjected to the Commission when appointed, [Footnote: See
p. 128, _ante_]. till which time the clergy would be acting at their
peril in enforcing any rules which might subsequently be condemned as
against the Royal Prerogative. This was accompanied by an Act in
confirmation of the Annates Act, coupled with the _conge d'elire_,
assuring to the King the right of nomination to ecclesiastical appointments
under the form of permitting the Chapters to elect his nominee. A third,
the "Peter Pence" Act, abolished the remaining contributions to the Papal
Treasury. At the same time the "exempt" monasteries--those, that is, which
had not been subject to the supervision of the bishops--were conveyed to
the King's control, still without episcopal intervention. A fourth Act, not
_prima facie_ ecclesiastical in character, was the Act of Succession,
declaring the offspring of Anne Boleyn (the princess Elizabeth had been
born in the previous September) heirs to the throne.
[Sidenote: The Pope's last word]
While these proceedings were in progress, the last attempt to subdue the
Pope by diplomacy was failing. At the end of March, Clement gave the long
deferred judgment on the divorce, pronouncing the marriage with Katharine
valid, and that with Anne Boleyn void. Clement survived but a short time.
His successor Paul III. had at one time been in Henry's favour; but
reconciliation was now outside the range of practical politics, and the new
Pope soon found himself more definitely antagonistic to the English monarch
than his predecessor had been.
[Sidenote: The Nun of Kent]
The prevailing superstitions of the day and their reality as factors even
in public life are curiously illustrated by the story of the "Nun of Kent"
--a story concluded by her execution about this time. The "Nun" was a young
woman named Elizabeth Barton of humble birth, who was subject to fits or
trances, presumably epileptic in character, in which trances she gave vent
to utterances which were supposed to be inspired, being generally religious
in their bearing. Having acquired some notoriety and a reputation for
sanctity, her prophesyings before long took the form of denunciation of the
divorce, at that time in its earlier stages. She was exploited by sundry
fanatical persons honest or otherwise--in such cases it is seldom possible
to fathom the extent to which mania, intentional deception, conscious or
unconscious suggestion, and mere credulity, are mingled. In those days,
there were few people who would venture to attribute such phenomena to
purely natural causes. Such a man as Thomas More, who was eminently
rational as well as deeply religious, was not easily beguiled; but the more
credulous and equally honest bishop of Rochester was unable to regard the
prophesyings as mere imposture, as was also the case with Warham; and being
thus countenanced, when the Nun's utterances reached the point of
denouncing the wrath of Heaven upon those who consented to the Divorce, she
became really dangerous. She and her associates were charged with treason
and executed, while Fisher was necessarily to some degree
implicated. Before her death the Nun made a confession of elaborate
imposture, but too much weight should not be attached to confessions made
under such conditions. Given a certain degree of mental aberration, the
case is not without parallels pointing to an absence of conscious fraud.
But whether in her case it was fraud or mania, the important fact remains
that there were numbers of people who attributed her utterances neither to
the one nor the other but to inspiration; numbers more who were in doubt on
the point; and that those utterances were to some extent utilised in a
seditious propaganda; for to declare as a message from on high that the
King and his advisers had brought upon themselves the curse of the Almighty
must be recognised as effectively, even if not intentionally, preaching
sedition.
[Sidenote 1: The Act of Succession]
[Sidenote 2: The oath refused]
The proceedings against Elizabeth Barton had been accompanied by
revelations of more or less suspicious conduct on the part of the Countess
of Salisbury and of Poles, [Footnote: The Countess of Salisbury's
children. The de la Poles were now extinct. The Nevilles were the
Countess's kinsfolk, her mother having been a daughter of the Kingmaker.
See _Front_.] Courtenays and Nevilles, while the Princess Mary
declined to regard herself as illegitimate. This was made the pretext for
adopting a very irregular course in connexion with the Act of
Succession. The Act not only established the order of Succession to the
throne, but in the preamble asserted the invalidity of Katharine's
marriage, it was accompanied by an authority to exact an oath of obedience
to the Statute, the form of the oath not being laid down. Commissioners
were appointed to exact the oath, which was drawn up in a form accepting
the entire terms of the Act, not merely promising adhesion to its
provisions. Presented to them in this form, both More and Fisher refused to
take the oath. Both were prepared to swear to maintain the succession as
laid down; neither would avow a belief that the marriage with Katharine was
void _ab initio_. More laid down definitely the doctrine that it was
in the power of the State to determine the succession, and the duty of the
citizen to accept its decision; but that obviously does not involve an
opinion that the reasons for its decision are sound. Cranmer would fain
have persuaded the King to accept the oath thus modified as sufficient--not
realising that the primary object of Henry and Cromwell was to drive the
opponents of the divorce into a public recantation of their opinion. More
and Fisher were resolute, and were sent to the Tower, though in form an
indictment ought first to have been brought against them in the courts.
Cromwell expressed and no doubt felt a very genuine regret at the failure
of the plan; but it was ever Cromwell's method to strike at the most
influential opponents of his policy. If they would bend, well: if not, they
must break. The device of the oath would force the surrender or else the
destruction of the best members of the high Catholic party. Three of the
most zealous and most irreproachable monastic establishments--the London
Carthusians, the Richmond Observants, and the Brentford Brigittines--were
inveigled or cowed into temporary submission, but later reverted to the
position of More and Fisher, and suffered accordingly. The Greenwich
Observants refused submission altogether, and were dissolved.
[Sidenote: "The Bishop of Rome"]
Before the administration of the oath, the news of Clement's decision had
come from Rome, with a Bull of Excommunication to follow. It was well for
Henry that Francis could be relied on to keep Charles in check; for the
foreign ambassadors, whether well-informed or mainly because the wish was
father to the thought, were reporting serious disaffection in the country,
which otherwise might have led to armed intervention by the Emperor. The
answer to Rome however took the emphatic form of a declaration by
Convocation and the Universities that "the Bishop of Rome has no more
authority in England than any other foreign Bishop"; in addition to the
Acts of Parliament already recorded.
[Sidenote 1: Parliament (Nov.)]
[Sidenote 2: Treasons Act]
Before the end of the year (1534) Parliament was again in session. The
argument submitted to the Pope before the passing of the Annates Act--that
it pressed with undue severity on the bishops--was shown in its true
character by a new Annates Act which appropriated to the King the funds of
which the Pope had been deprived. The relief of the bishops was ignored. By
the "Act of the Supreme Head," Parliament also professedly confirmed the
declaration of Convocation in 1531; but omitted the saving [Footnote: See
p. 125] clause; and by a fresh Act of Succession, regularised the treatment
of More and Fisher, enforcing the oath in the form in which it had been
submitted to them, retrospectively. Then came the Treasons Act, the coping
stone of Resolute Government; bringing into the category of Treason not
only the specific overt actions to which it had been limited by the Act of
Edward III., but also "verbal treason" and even the refusal to answer
incriminating questions. It is easy to see what vast opportunities were
thus given for fastening a practically irrefutable charge of treason on any
victim selected, when the recognised principle was that the _onus
probandi_ lay with the accused. An irresistible instrument of tyranny
was created, justified of course by the usual argument that without such
powers it was not possible to deal adequately with the abnormal dangers of
the situation. It need only be remarked that where there is practically no
check on the abuse of such powers save the scrupulosity of the persons in
whom they are vested, the risk of flagrant injustice becomes almost
incalculable. Since the days of Edward III., no monarch had occupied the
throne with less risk of serious treason than Henry VIII. Under all save
Henry V. there had been active rebellion, and under him there was at least
one serious plot. Yet the treason statute of Edward III. had under them
been held sufficient. The new Act was in truth but one step in the
systematic development of autocracy under constitutional forms to which the
policy of Thomas Cromwell was devoted.
[Sidenote 1: 1529-34 The New Policy]
[Sidenote 2: Cromwell]
When Wolsey fell in 1529 the Duke of Norfolk became ostensibly the King's
most powerful subject. But it is impossible to trace to him or to his
following among the nobility the formulation of any sort of definite
policy. Nevertheless, a quite definite policy had been initiated after a
short lapse of time. Starting with the checking of palpable ecclesiastical
abuses, it had gone on to assert with steadily increasing rigour the
subjection of the entire clerical organisation to the Supreme Head, and to
embody the assertion of the theory in practical legislation, and dictation
to Convocation. It had threatened the papacy, till the threats issued
virtually in an ultimatum followed by repudiation of papal authority. It
had placed papal and ecclesiastical perquisites under gradual restrictions,
till by the last Annates Act it began transferring them openly to the
Crown. In many instances, the initiative had been ostensibly taken by
Parliament; in others, the King had exercised direct pressure on the
clergy, but had obtained from Parliament a ratification of the
ecclesiastical concessions. The whole trend of the policy, culminating in
the Treasons Act, was to concentrate effective control in the hands of the
sovereign, by consent of Parliament. And now Cromwell emerges as the man
who was to give that policy tremendous effect, and by inference at least as
its probable creator and organiser from the close of 1530. It is not till
1535 however that he becomes openly and indisputably first minister;
Wolsey's successor in Henry's confidence--and to Henry's gratitude.
[Sidenote: 1535 More and Fisher]
Before the prorogation of Parliament in February (1535) the two
recalcitrants in the Tower, More and Fisher, were attainted High Treason
for maintaining their refusal to take the prescribed oath under the Act of
Succession. It was perhaps in the hope that the King might hesitate to
proceed to extremities, in the face of a very marked expression of
sentiment, that the new Pope, Paul III., proceeded to nominate Fisher a
Cardinal. It ought to have been obvious that the very contrary effect would
have been produced: the step was naturally looked upon as a challenge. More
and Fisher were condemned to death and executed in the summer--martyrs
assuredly to conscience. The whole of their offence consisted in the single
fact that they could not and would not recant their belief in the validity
of Katharine's marriage. Had they sought to make converts to that opinion,
or to make it a text for preaching sedition, there might have been some
colour of justice in their punishment. As it was, such danger as there
might be in their holding that view lay entirely in the advertisement of it
by insistence on the oath. All Europe shuddered, and half England trembled
at the demonstration of ruthless power, when those two were struck down--
the aged bishop whose spotless character and saintly life had for many a
year given the lie to those who included all the higher clergy in a
universal condemnation; and the ex-chancellor, the friend of Erasmus, whose
wide learning, kindly wit, intellectual eminence, and unswerving rectitude
had won for him a European reputation greater than that of any other
Englishman of his time. The Carthusians, Brigittines, and Observants who
had been induced to give way on the question of the Oath reverted to the
position of More and Fisher. Their heads also were put to death, and the
houses broken up.
The wrath of the Pope was expressed in a Bull of Deposition; which however
on second thoughts he found it advisable to hold in suspense till three
years later.
[Sidenote: Cromwell made Vicar-General]
When More and Fisher opposed themselves obstinately to the King's will,
there was no doubt that the King would see to it that they paid the
penalty. But we may suspect that it was not Henry's brain but Cromwell's
which devised the policy of presenting them with the fatal dilemma. Before
they were put to death, the minister's supremacy was already established by
his appointment as Vicar-General, with full power to exercise on the King's
behalf all the rights vested in the Supreme Head of the Church: rights
which--however it might be asserted that they were and had been at all
times inherent in the sovereign--were now to be interpreted in a novel and
comprehensive spirit. But besides the development alike in extent and
intensity of the attack on the clerical organisation, we now find foreign
policy taking a new direction for which Cromwell was assuredly responsible.
[Sidenote 1: The German Lutherans]
[Sidenote 2: Overtures]
Hitherto, since the fall of Wolsey, the Emperor had been in steady
antagonism to the English King: so had the Pope, except when he had hopes
of the Imperial pressure on him being removed. France had on the whole
given support to England, usually of a lukewarm character. But it does not
appear that, until this time, Henry had learnt to look upon the German
Lutherans as an available political force: while his active hostility to
the Lutheran theology seemed to preclude anything in the nature of a
_rapprochement_ with the Protestant princes. Yet the Lutherans, like
Henry, had repudiated papal authority. Recently the French King had taken
up the idea of bringing about a compromise between the Pope on one side,
and the Lutherans and English on the other, which would place Charles in
dangerous straits. The prospect however was unpromising at the best; a
reconciliation with Rome was really impossible. Cromwell, then, conceived
the idea of a Protestant league, which would suggest to Francis the
advantage of following Henry's lead in throwing off the Roman allegiance,
and ranging himself with the Lutherans and the English. Henry's own
theological predilections stood in the way, and the Lutherans regarded him
with suspicion: but Cromwell looked to political expediency as a potent
salve for healing controversial differences. Thus in the late summer of
1535, the first advances were made in the direction of seeking a mutual
understanding with the German Protestants--not without hints that Henry had
an open mind on the subject of the Augsburg Confession. The Germans however
were in no haste to accept Henry as a brand plucked from the burning;
rather, they had a not unnatural suspicion that he merely wanted to make
use of them. They propounded conditions, which Cromwell submitted to
Gardiner, at this time ambassador at Paris. Whatever Gardiner's views were
as to papal ascendancy, he was no Lutheran; and he pointed out that to
accept the terms would deprive England of her ecclesiastical
independence. Thus the negotiations fell through--as might have been
expected. Nevertheless, the desire for the Lutheran alliance remained at
the back of Cromwell's policy; not avowed but latent; and it was in an
attempt to entangle Henry irrevocably in that policy that he committed, not
five years later, the blunder which cost him his head.
[Sidenote: Visitation of the Monasteries]
In the same Autumn--1535--Cromwell as Vicar-General opened his great
campaign against the monasteries; actuated, according to the historians on
one side, by a determination to remove a cancer which was destroying the
morality of the nation; according to the historians on the other side, by
the vast opportunities afforded for plunder.
[Sidenote: 1536 Suppression of Lesser Houses]
Heretofore the visitation of "exempt" monasteries had lain with the
Superiors of their respective orders, except when special authority had
been granted by the Pope to a Morton or a Wolsey. In other cases it had
been deputed to the bishops, each in his own diocese. At the time of the
recent Peter Pence Act (1534) the exempt houses had been formally subjected
to the King. Cromwell now took upon himself the right of visitation, not
only of the exempt monasteries, but of the others as well, suspending the
jurisdiction of the bishops while his enquiries were going forward, and
thus emphasising the doctrine that that jurisdiction was derived from the
King. Commissioners were appointed--Legh, Leyton, Bedyl, and Ap Rice--to
investigate and report upon the conduct and the finances of the various
houses. In a period of about three months (Oct.-Jan.), they made their
investigations and prepared their report, keeping up an active
correspondence with Cromwell in the meantime. On the strength of this
report, a bill was laid before Parliament and passed in February (1536),
suppressing all houses with less than L200 a year, 376 in number--of which
however 31 were reinstated later in the year as having been well
conducted. In part, their inmates were to be redistributed among the
greater houses; in part they were to be released from their vows; and in
part they were to receive some compensation.
[Sidenote: The evidence discussed]
Now it is clear that in the time at their disposal, the commissioners could
not possibly have sifted thoroughly the evidence brought before them. In
many cases there was enough that was gross, palpable, obvious, to warrant
condemnation at sight. But the scandalous levity and domineering insolence
with which they carried out their task must have suggested to the
ill-conditioned members of every community that slander and false-witness
might lead to favour and profit, and were not likely to be too carefully
tested: while it is easy to see how the insulting interrogatories would be
angrily resented, and answers be refused, or given in the most injudicious
manner, by perfectly innocent persons; while demands for inventories of
valuables were met by prevarication and concealment, when the object of the
commissioners was suspected of being spoliation. The letters of Leyton and
Legh convey the impression that the fouler the scandals unearthed or
retailed, the more enjoyment and humour they discovered in their
occupation. There can be no doubt that the state of things they found was
in general bad; but by their own statement it was by no means universally
so; and it is also clear that they accepted adverse witness almost without
examination and wilfully minimised all that was favourable.
[Sidenote: The Black Book]
Also, it is very doubtful whether the "black book" of monastic offences was
ever laid before parliament. The preamble to the bill set forth, luridly
enough, the conclusions arrived at by the King and the vicar-general, and
summed up the grounds for them. But it seems by no means improbable that
parliament simply accepted the statement thus laid before it. The black
book itself disappeared. The Protestant historians of Elizabeth's reign
said that Bonner destroyed it; the Roman Catholics affirm that it was the
other party who took care that the evidence on which they acted should
never be made known. The actual surviving evidence is to be found in the
partial summaries known as the Comperta and in the letters of the
commissioners to Cromwell. The examination of these can hardly fail to
leave the reader with a conviction that the methods of the Commissioners
were atrociously iniquitous, but that a strictly judicial investigation
would still have revealed a state of things often appalling, not seldom
vicious, and commonly reprehensible, without the elements which might have
made effective reform possible: while it is beyond a doubt that especially
among the younger monks and nuns, the desire to escape from the bonds of
monastic rule was common.
[Sidenote: The Consequent Commission]
In favour of the monasteries however, it is to be noted that these 376
minor houses were suppressed not as having been individually condemned, but
on the theory that the report pointed to the system of maintaining minor
houses as bad. Mixed commissions were now appointed to continue the
visitation, carry out the suppression, and recommend exemptions when it was
desirable; and the reports of these commissions were of a far less
unfavourable character, though (as we have seen) only 31 houses were
actually reinstated. It is to be observed also, in a somewhat different
connexion, that the further visitation was accompanied by the issuing of
Injunctions for the conduct of monastic establishments which may have been
designed solely with a view to enforcing a pure and pious manner of living,
but are undoubtedly open to the suspicion of having been deliberately
calculated to make the monastic life insupportable and so to encourage the
religious houses to efface themselves by voluntary surrender--a course
which was not infrequently adopted.
[Sidenote: The policy discussed]
There was sufficient precedent for laying the Church under heavy
contributions to the exchequer. The idea of deliberately confiscating
Church property had before now been seriously put forward. There had been
previous suppressions of monastic establishments; but in these cases the
funds, ostensibly at least, had been diverted to other purposes recognised
as ecclesiastical, such as Wolsey's schools and colleges. The
differentiating feature of Cromwell's confiscation was that the funds were
for the most part withdrawn from any ecclesiastical purpose whatever.
[Footnote: There was precedent for the proposal however in Parliamentary
petitions of Richard II.'s reign; but these had not taken effect in
legislation.] The monastic lands passed to lay owners by grant or purchase;
they enriched the King or his friends or those whom Cromwell thought fit to
enrich or to gratify. The evidence that in the public interest it was time
for the religious houses to go is convincing; the method of proceeding
against the smaller houses first was tactically shrewd, as evoking less
opposition at the outset; but even if it be conceded that the Church had
forfeited her property, it is impossible to find any excuse for the
application of the spoils to other than public objects. The Church might
simply be looked upon as a vast corporation, holding its wealth in trust
for the nation, and rightly deprived of that wealth when it failed to
fulfil the trust. But on that view, the wealth was bound to be handed over
to another body, to administer as a trust for the nation. The fact that
this was not done makes possible only one conclusion as to the motive of
the suppression. The Church was both the wealthiest and the least dangerous
victim available for bleeding, besides being open to the charge of
deserving to be penalised.
[Sidenote 1: Anne Boleyn threatened]
[Sidenote 2: Her condemnation and death]
In January 1536 the deeply-injured Katharine died; to be followed ere many
months had passed by her supplanter. Ostensibly, Henry had married Anne
Boleyn, because a male heir was needed to secure the succession; but she
had borne him only a daughter and a still-born son. Henry was disappointed
in her. Moreover, his passion had for some time been cooling: nor was her
character--even on the most favourable reading--calculated to retain
affections that had begun to wane. She was frivolous and undignified; her
arrogance and her assumption had left her few friends. She was jealous of
the attentions paid by her husband to Jane Seymour, who had been one of
Katharine's ladies-in-waiting--attentions which she received with a
becoming reserve. Suddenly it appeared that Anne had been guilty of gross
misconduct. Sundry gentlemen of the court, including her brother Lord
Rochford were charged with sharing her guilt. One of them ultimately made
confession--true or false. There were stories, flatly denied, that she had
been contracted to Northumberland: that she had actually been his wife when
she married Henry. There were stories that the marriage was void, because
of earlier relations between Henry and her mother and sister. Whether the
queen was guilty or not, the judges of course did what they were expected
to do; she was tried for treason and condemned. Cranmer was torn between an
affectionate conviction that she was really a good woman and an inability
to believe that the King could be misled, much less do her a deliberate and
conscious wrong. But some sort of admission which she made before him was
interpreted by the Archbishop as involving the nullity of the
marriage. Anne was executed: next day, the King married Jane Seymour; the
marriage with Anne was officially declared to have been invalid; Elizabeth
being of course de-legitimatised, and so occupying precisely the same
position as Mary. Thus Henry was left with three illegitimate children (the
third being the Duke of Richmond who died not long after), and no
legitimate heir--truly an ironical outcome of that divorce which his
apologists defend as having been demanded by the need of a successor with
an indisputable title to the throne!
[Sidenote: The Succession]
Within three weeks of Anne Boleyn's execution (May 19th, 1536), a new
parliament was sitting; for that which had commenced its sessions at the
end of 1529 had been dissolved in the spring of this year. The first
business was formally to ratify the late proceedings, and fix the
succession on the offspring of the new queen; the second was formally to
authorise the King himself to lay down the order of succession
thereafter. Incidentally we may note that the actual legitimate heir
presumptive [Footnote: See _Appendix B_, and _Front_.] to the
throne was now the King of Scotland, the son of Henry's elder sister
Margaret. The claims of a child of Jane Seymour could alone on legitimist
principles take precedence of his, if the judgments invalidating the two
previous marriages held good. It is only by admitting the power of
parliament to fix or delegate its power of fixing the succession, that
James's claim to be heir presumptive could be challenged. But there was no
sort of doubt that it would be in actual fact challenged, simply because
the English would not take a King from another land. There was not much
room in England for advocates of the doctrine of Divine Right. Neither
Henry IV, and his successors, nor Henry VII., nor Elizabeth, could have
maintained a plausible claim to the throne apart from their title by Act of
Parliament. Of present importance however was the fact that both Katharine
and Anne were dead before the marriage of Queen Jane; there could therefore
be absolutely no ground for challenging the legitimacy of any children of
hers, while any conceivable claims on behalf of either Mary or Elizabeth
would necessarily yield precedence to the claim of Jane's son, should she
bear one. Moreover, since there was now no Katharine to claim rights as a
queen, and her supplanter had died a traitor's death, Mary might without
risk be re-instated as a Princess on sufficient grounds. Thus a door was
opened for a renewal of amity with the Emperor.
[Sidenote: Punishment of Heresy]
The aims and objects of the Reformation in England had been entirely
political and financial. There had been no official movement towards a new
doctrinal standpoint. On the contrary, the suppression of heresy had been
not less active after Cranmer's accession to the primacy than before. The
prosecutions however do not at any time appear to have originated with the
clergy: and the Ordinaries habitually endeavoured to procure the
recantation of heresy rather than the exaction of its penalties. But the
most advanced of the clergy, even those who like Latimer were continually
verging on doctrines which their stricter brethren regarded as heretical,
showed as little mercy as any one to the upholders of Anabaptism; whose
theology was usually combined--or supposed to be so--with perverted views
on the political and social order. To this class belong most of the martyrs
of the period; with the notable exception of John Frith. Frith was a young
man of great piety and learning, who would probably never have been
arrested but for his association with the distributors of forbidden
literature. Being arrested, he maintained--in spite of earnest efforts to
persuade him to recant--the Zwinglian doctrine of the Lord's Supper: but
further he stood almost alone in declaring that to hold a correct opinion
on this point of doctrine could not be essential to salvation. Frith was
the first and almost the only martyr (July, 1533) to the theory of
toleration, to which neither Romanists nor Protestants, Anglicans nor
Zwinglians, were yet ready to give ear.
[Sidenote 1: Progressive Movement]
[Sidenote 2: The Ten Articles]
Although, however, there had been no revolt from orthodox doctrine the
course of the Reformation abroad could not be without influence in
England. There was a growing inclination to think and speak of minor
questions as being debatable; an increasing suspicion on one side that the
spread of knowledge and of discussion tended to heresy and to
irreverence--on the other, that they tended to edification. In theory the
leading ecclesiastics agreed that an authorised translation of the Bible
would be good, but half of them were afraid that it would lead to novel and
dangerous interpretations. The general attitude may be regarded as one of
uneasiness. Hence the commission appointed under Cranmer's auspices did
little; and Cranmer himself, whose heart was really in the scheme, was
overjoyed [Footnote: Dr. Gairdner (_Eng. Church_, p. 192) thinks
however that it was Matthew's Bible, issued next year, to which Cranmer's
expressions of satisfaction were applied.] when Coverdale produced a
rendering to which an authoritative _imprimatur_ could be given. The
general sense of unrest, aggravated perhaps by some alarm lest the Augsburg
Confession should attract adherents--especially since the Lutherans had
been told that there might be room for its discussion--led to the
enunciation of the first of the Anglican formulae of Faith, known as the
Ten Articles "for establishing Christian Quietness," in July 1536:
professedly prepared by the King's own hand. These Articles contained no
deviation from orthodox dogma; but their most notable feature lay in the
distinction drawn between institutions necessary and convenient, with the
implication that the latter were liable to modification.
[Sidenote: The Lincolnshire rising]
The issuing of these Articles with the sanction alike of King, Parliament,
and Convocation, was probably intended to counteract the alarm attendant on
the visitation and suppression of the monasteries. Those institutions,
though not popular in cities, and viewed with jealousy by the secular
clergy, provided in many country districts the only existing charitable or
educational organisations; and moreover, whatever their defects were in the
eyes of the Economist, they were much more lenient landlords than the
average lay landowner. It would have been strange indeed if some of the
dispersed monks had not allowed their tongues to wag, to the stirring up of
alarm and discontent. In the autumn of this year, the effect of these
things were seen in a rising in Lincolnshire. This was promptly suppressed
without any undue tenderness either of speech or action; but it was very
soon followed by the much more significant and formidable insurrection in
the North, known as the Pilgrimage of Grace.
[Sidenote: The Pilgrimage of Grace]
The insurgents were headed by a very remarkable man, a lawyer named Robert
Aske of a good North-country family. He had taken no part in inciting
rebellion; but the position of leader was thrust upon him, and as it would
seem not unwillingly accepted. His abilities were great: the rising was
organised with much skill, and with wonderful system and discipline. Yet
Aske's very virtues unfitted him for his office under the existing
conditions. He was honest himself; he wished to avoid bloodshed: what he
sought was the remedying of genuine grievances. As with the Lincolnshire
insurgents, this meant the restoration of the monasteries, the removal of
evil councillors, notably Cromwell, the removal of the advanced bishops,
such as Cranmer and Latimer, the remission of a tax granted in 1534 which a
commission was collecting, the repeal of a recent land-act ("Statute of
Uses") which had increased the difficulty of providing younger sons with
sufficient endowments, the restoration to the Church of revenues lately
attached by the Crown. All over the North, cities and strongholds fell
into the hands of Aske's followers without a blow. With thirty thousand
well equipped and fairly disciplined troops he advanced to the Don, where
he was faced by Norfolk with a far smaller force.
[Sidenote 1: Aske beguiled]
[Sidenote 2: 1537 Suppression of the rising]
It was then that Aske committed his fatal but noble error. Had he struck
then, he could in all probability have marched triumphantly to London and
have dictated his own terms. But he did not wish to strike. He sought a
conference, and laid his proposals before Norfolk. Norfolk temporised, and
referred the proposals to London. The insurgents were allowed to believe
that they would be pardoned, and their demands be essentially conceded. The
nobles and gentry among them were appealed to privately; Norfolk even
sought to get Aske betrayed into his hands. Aske still would not give up
the hope of a peaceful solution. At last in December the King gave Norfolk
powers to concede a free pardon and a Parliament at York; but there is no
doubt that Norfolk's statements to the insurgents gave the totally
different impression that they could count upon the fulfilment of their
demands. By the King's command the leaders went South to be personally
interviewed, and returned in sanguine mood. But their army was breaking up,
and it was very soon apparent that in fact the North was being rapidly
garrisoned for the King. The pardons were accompanied by a new oath of
allegiance which showed very clearly that the grievances were not going to
be remedied. Wild spirits broke out again in deeds of violence. By this
time, the royal armies were in a position to strike. It was declared that
the conditions of the pardon had been violated; the insurgents had now no
prospect of making head in the field. Hangings were freely resorted to;
Aske and other leaders were seized and executed: an impressive series of
abbots and priors was among the victims. And so, early in 1537, ended the
one formidable insurrection of Henry's reign.
[Sidenote: The rising turned to account]
Not only had half the nobility and gentry of the North been seriously
implicated in the rising; the clergy had taken active part in fomenting
it. Being followed up by a visitation from Cromwell's most energetic
commissioners, such guilt as there had been was presented in the strongest
colours and was made a new ground for Suppression, or the application of
the drastic regulations which induced voluntary surrender; and at the same
time pains were taken to impress the Ten Articles on the public mind. These
were supplemented by the publication of the "Institution of a Christian
Man" otherwise known as the "Bishops' Book"; in which some points which had
been omitted or left vague in the Articles were laid down with a more
defined orthodoxy, though the prelates of every shade of opinion had their
share in the work. On the other hand, the preparation of an authorised
version of the Scriptures was going forward. In spite of Cromwell's
Injunction that the Bible should be set up in English and Latin in the
Churches, Coverdale's work had not been adopted; and though this was
followed by "Matthew's Bible," a combination of Tindal's and Coverdale's,
in 1537, it was not till the issue of the revised version, known on account
of its size as the Great Bible, more than a year later, that the injunction
was given general effect.
[Sidenote: 1533-36 James V.]
Abroad, the reluctant but anxious desire to maintain friendly relations
with England which attended the domination of Wolsey had practically
disappeared since the Cardinal's fall. From 1529 to 1536, there had been no
prospect of a reconciliation between Henry and Charles; Francis had only at
intervals been disposed to make advances; the demeanour of the Lutheran
princes had been cold at the best. In Scotland, the young King, who only
attained his majority in 1533, displayed that lack of confidence in the
disinterested generosity of England which seems to be always a cause of
pained surprise to the English politicians and historians. In fact it was
his firm and extremely natural conviction that his uncle was responsible
for keeping the whole border country in a perpetual state of unrest,
fomenting the rivalries of the Scottish nobility, and generally promoting
disorder, in order to bring about the subordination of the Northern to the
Southern kingdom. The clerical body in Scotland, which had always been most
energetic in maintaining resistance to England, was of course rendered more
Anglophobe than ever by Henry's ecclesiastical policy; and its influence
was strong, since it had done a good deal in the way of fighting James's
battles with his nobles. Henry proposed a conference with his nephew, to be
held at York, in 1538; James had at first welcomed the proposal, but
presently evaded it in the belief that his uncle would kidnap him, as he
had before designed to kidnap Beton. Instead he went to France, to arrange
a marriage with a daughter of Francis; and on his return was reported to
have given encouragement to the North-country rebels.
[Sidenote: 1536-37 Naval measures]
Meantime, in the Channel, the estimation in which England was held had been
shown by the increasingly piratical proceedings of French, Spanish, and
Flemish ships; since of late Henry's hands had been too full for him to
give clue attention to naval affairs. Now however the opportunity was taken
to devote some of the monastic funds to coast defence. A series of forts
was raised, commanding the principal harbours on the south coast; and a few
ships, secretly prepared, were suddenly sent out under competent captains,
to teach the channel pirates a lesson in English seamanship; which was very
effectively accomplished.
[Sidenote 1: 1537 Birth of Prince Edward]
[Sidenote 2: Marriage projects]
The problem of the succession to the throne was at last settled by the
birth of a prince in October (1537). There was now an heir whose claims if
he lived would be unassailable. But within a few weeks the queen died; and
there was still only the life of one baby to shield the country from
anarchy, in case Henry himself should die. With probably genuine
reluctance, the King agreed that he would marry again if a suitable wife
could be found for him; and the whirligig of intriguing for his union with
one or another foreign princess was set in motion; princesses related to
Charles, or to Francis, or to one of the Lutheran chiefs. Two years elapsed
before the choice was made which, led to Cromwell's downfall. And in the
meantime Mary of Guise (or Lorraine) was withdrawn from the lists by her
marriage with James V., whose Queen Madeleine had died a few months after
the nuptials: while the Duchess of Milan, a youthful niece of the Emperor,
was for some time utilised by Charles as a diplomatic asset. The risk of an
Anglo-Imperial alliance was employed by him in negotiations with Francis;
and when these negotiations were brought to a successful issue the proposed
alliance was gradually allowed to drop.
[Sidenote: 1538 Diplomatic moves]
During 1538 however, this marriage was being dangled before Henry,
accompanied by the hope that it might cause a rupture between Charles and
the Pope, from whom a dispensation would be necessary--a question which
could not now be raised without the kindling of explosive
materials. Further the English quarrel with Rome was being embittered by a
campaign against spurious relics, miracle-working shrines, and the like,
involving a particularly virulent attack on St. Thomas of Canterbury, the
type of defiant ecclesiasticism. Moreover, the arrival of a deputation of
Lutheran divines in England was ominous of the closer association of the
bodies which had revolted from Rome. Reginald Pole, a member of the house
which stood high in the Yorkist line of succession [Footnote: See
_Front_.], who had been not long before raised to the Cardinalate, had
for some time been carrying on from the Continent a violent propaganda
against Henry. Pope Paul's Bull of Deposition was again being talked of,
though there is some doubt as to whether it was actually published.
[Sidenote 1: The Exeter Conspiracy]
[Sidenote 2: Cromwell strikes]
Under all these circumstances, it is scarcely surprising that a new and
formidable conspiracy, essentially Yorkist, was brought to light. In fact
the whole country was sown with spies, and there was not much difficulty in
obtaining information of treasonable speeches, when hasty expressions of
discontent counted for treason. Now outside the offspring of Henry VII.,
the Marquis of Exeter, Edward Courtenay, was a grandson of Edward IV.; the
Poles were grandsons of his brother, Clarence, whose daughter, their mother
the Countess of Salisbury, was living still. The theory that a tyrant might
be deposed and another scion of the royal house substituted, had ample
precedent; and it is in no way improbable that the Courtenays, who were
all-powerful in the West, might have been ready enough in conjunction with
the Poles to make a bid for the throne, if they could have found or created
a favourable opportunity. The Cardinal had warning from Cromwell that the
safety of his kinsmen was jeopardised by his diatribes; while Lord
Montague, the head of the family, was on very close terms of friendship
with Exeter. Exeter's own conduct on the occasion of the Pilgrimage of
Grace had been suspicious. Out of these materials there was no difficulty
in constructing a damning case against as many members of these Plantagenet
houses as might be considered advisable: since there was no need to prove
that rebellion was actually organised. It was enough to have a record of
the use of disloyal expressions, or even of the concealment of the
knowledge that such expressions had been used. Finally it was notorious
that there was no love lost between Cromwell and the suspected
nobles. Cromwell, having collected sufficient evidence for his purpose,
struck. Geoffrey Pole, a younger brother, learned that the blow was coming
in time to turn informer. How far there was anything really deserving the
name of a conspiracy the evidence produced did not show; but the existence
of treason under the Treasons Act was indisputable. The policy which had
struck down Buckingham nearly a score of years before was repeated even
more ruthlessly. The materials for formulating a Yorkist rising were
destroyed; there was no figure-head for one left when Exeter and Montague
had been executed (Dec.), even though the old Countess of Salisbury's doom
was deferred. And men realised afresh--if there was need that they should
do so--the irresistible machinery that Cromwell had prepared for the
certain annihilation of any one worth annihilating.
[Sidenote: 1539 Menace of Invasion]
The warning was perhaps necessary; for in the beginning of 1539 the
attitude of the foreign Powers was menacing. The Pope was planning a sort
of crusade, with invasion and insurrection in Ireland as its basis. The
marriage of James of Scotland to Mary of Guise would make matters the more
dangerous if France assumed a definitely hostile attitude; and the pretence
of negotiating the union between Henry and the Duchess of Milan had been
ended by the reconciliation of Charles and Francis. A combination including
the Emperor was threatening. Wriothesly the English ambassador in the Low
Countries, did not believe on the whole that there would be a breach of the
peace, unless the Imperialists felt that their victory would be assured.
Nevertheless, a great armament was assembled in the Dutch harbours.
England, however, had awakened to the need of defence in the Channel;
fleets were assembled and forts manned. The solidarity of the country had
been demonstrated by the easy suppression of the Courtenays and Poles. If
an invasion was contemplated--which can hardly be doubted--the invaders
thought better of the situation, and the armada dispersed without any overt
hostilities taking place.
[Sidenote 1: The King and Lutheranism]
[Sidenote 2: The Six Articles]
The Lutheran conference of the previous year had been without direct
results: but it had the effect of forcing to the front the settlement of
the official position as to several points of doctrine. The advanced
bishops were distinctly inclined to admit the Lutheran views: the other
powerful body within the English Church was in strong opposition.
Theologically, the King was in agreement with the latter section, although
he retained a particularly strong and persistent personal affection for
Cranmer--apparently the only persistent affection of his life. The result
was the production of the Six Articles Act, pronouncing in favour of
Transubstantiation, clerical celibacy, auricular confession, communion in
one kind only for the laity, prayers for the dead, and the permanence of
vows once taken. On the first head there was not as yet any real difference
of opinion. As to the second, Cranmer was actually a married man when he
became archbishop, and many of the clergy, especially in country districts,
had wives, in spite of the fact that the law did not recognise the
relationship: so that an awkward situation was created. Considering the
abolition of the monasteries, the Article concerning vows was
remarkable. But on all these doctrines the views of the reformers were not
yet sufficiently crystallised to prevent their submission when the Jaw
demanded it, though it justified a determined opposition to the passing of
the law; in this Cranmer was particularly conspicuous, and two of the
bishops, Latimer and Shaxton, lost their sees. That the Act should have
been passed is not surprising; but the ferocity of the attendant penalties
is best explained by the fact that, on an attempt being made to apply the
statute in a wholesale fashion, the accused were promptly pardoned and set
at liberty. The object was not so much to punish as to silence the advanced
section.
[Sidenote: Final Suppression of Monasteries]
At the same time two other Acts of grave import were passed. One was the
Act for the suppression and forfeiture of those religious houses which had
not been accounted for in the Act of 1536. The new Act was merely the
logical corollary of the old one. The distinction in morals between the
lesser and greater monasteries was not marked: and to the old charges of
the commissioners were added the new charges of complicity in the rebellion
of the North and in Exeter's conspiracy, and of fomenting disloyalty
generally. The measure was carried out with great harshness, and especial
severity was shown in the cases where abbots and monks attempted to conceal
the monastic treasures. The aged and beloved abbot of Glastonbury was found
guilty of treason and put to death. The great estates became for the most
part the prizes of the nobility. Some few of the houses were converted into
Chapters. There was a scheme for constructing twenty-one new bishoprics out
of the proceeds of the suppression, but the twenty-one dwindled to six.
[Footnote: Chester, Peterborough, Oxford, Gloucester, Bristol and
Westminster.] A fraction of the money was expended on the Channel
defences. But broadly speaking the vast bulk of the spoils went to no
national or ecclesiastical purpose but to the enrichment of private
individuals. Still the amount realised by the National Exchequer did no
doubt relieve the present necessity for taxation in other forms, which
would have been a more fruitful source of murmuring and discontent than
sympathy with the dispossessed monks.
[Sidenote: Royal Proclamations Act]
The second measure was the Royal Proclamations Act, giving to Royal
Proclamations made with the assent of the Privy Council the force of
law. This was the coping stone of that edifice of absolutism built up by
parliamentary enactments of which Cromwell was the Architect: an adaptation
of the system initiated by Henry VII. and developed by Wolsey; springing
now from the assertion of the doctrine of the Supreme Head, continuing with
the novel practical interpretations of that doctrine in matters
ecclesiastical, and buttressed by the Treasons Act, which effectually
translated discontent into Treason. Now the King was left in such a
position that his will became formally law unless his Privy Council opposed
him.
[Sidenote: Anne of Cleves]
Cromwell had shattered the ecclesiastical power of resistance: he had
shattered also the dangerous elements among the nobility: he had
systematically secured parliamentary confirmation for every step. But he
wished to carry still further the anti-clericalism which was part of his
policy. He desired the domination in England of the Lutheranising section
of Churchmen, and the central idea of his foreign policy was the
construction of a Protestant League. In these respects he went beyond his
master, and in the attempt to carry his master with him, he made ship-wreck
of himself. The question of another marriage for Henry was still unsettled;
if more children were to be hoped for, it must be settled soon. Cromwell
fixed upon Anne of Cleves as politically the wife to be desired. By wedding
with her, Henry would be drawn into closer relations with the Protestant
League of Schmalkald. He painted for the King a misleading picture of the
lady's charms: the King consented to his plans; the negotiation flowed
smoothly.
[Sidenote 1: 1540 The Marriage]
[Sidenote 2: Fall of Cromwell]
Early in the year (1540) the bride came to England; bringing
disillusionment. Matters had gone too far for the King to draw back, and
the marriage was carried out; but his wrath was kindled against its
projector. The blow fell not less suddenly than with Wolsey. The Earl of
Essex--such was the title recently bestowed on Cromwell--was without
warning arrested and attainted of high treason. The instrument he himself
had forged and ruthlessly wielded with such terrible effect was turned as
ruthlessly against him. He had over-ridden the law. He had countenanced and
protected anti-clerical law-breakers. He had spoken in arrogant terms of
his own power. As it had availed Wolsey nothing that his breach of
praemunire had been countenanced by the King, so it availed Cromwell
nothing that the King had seemed to support him. If the King had done so,
in each case, it was merely because he in his innocence had been misled by
his minister, so that in fact their crime was aggravated. For the merciless
minister, there was no mercy. That the process against Essex was by
attainder and not by an ordinary trial is of little moment. His fate would
have been the same in any case; nor was he so scrupulous in such matters
that he can claim sympathy on that head. No voice but Cranmer's--in
lamentation rather than protest--was raised on his behalf. The mighty
minister, the most dreaded of all men who have swayed the destinies of
England, found himself in a moment as utterly helpless as the feeblest of
his victims had been. He was flung into the Tower; his stormy protests were
unheeded by the King; on July 28th, his head fell beneath the executioner's
axe.
[Sidenote: Nemesis]
Cromwell had learned his ethics and his state-craft in that school whose
doctrines are formulated in "The Prince" of Macchiavelli. He had applied
those principles with remorseless logic, untinged by the fear of God or
man, to the single end of making his master actually the most complete
autocrat that ever sat on the throne of England. His loyalty was as
unfailing as it was unscrupulous; his work had been thorough and
complete--the King was placed beyond further need of him. His reward was
the doom of a traitor. Unpitying he lived, unpitied he died. Regardless of
justice, he had swept down each obstacle in the way of his policy:
regardless of justice he was in turn struck down. By his own standards he
was judged; his end was the end he had compassed for More and
Fisher. History has no more perfect example of Nemesis.
CHAPTER X
HENRY VIII (vi), 1540-47--HENRY'S LAST YEARS
[Sidenote: 1540 Katherine Howard]
The complaisant and very plain lady who had been the cause of Cromwell's
downfall had no objection (subject to compensation), to being discarded on
technical grounds by her spouse. Before the minister was dead, the marriage
had been pronounced null: not without compensatory gifts. But her brother
the Duke of Cleves was less easily pacified, and all prospect of an
alliance with the Protestant League was at an end. A new bride was promptly
found for the King in the person of Katharine Howard, a kinswoman of the
Duke of Norfolk--a marriage which marked the renewal of the ascendancy of
the old nobility in alliance with the reactionary Church party.
[Sidenote: The King his own Minister]
Thirty-one years had passed since Henry, in the first flush of a manhood
exceptionally rich in promise, but untried and inexperienced, had taken his
place on the throne of England as the successor of the most astute
sovereign in Europe. For nearly twenty years thereafter Wolsey had served
him with such latitude of action that nearly every one except the Cardinal
believed that he dominated the King. After a brief interval, for nearly ten
years more the same statement would have applied to Cromwell. While those
two great ministers held office, each of them towered immeasurably above
all his fellow-subjects: though each knew that the brilliant boy had
hardened into a masterful King who could hurl him headlong with a nod. But
when Cromwell had fallen, none took his place; there is no statesman who
stands out conspicuous. Edward Seymour, Earl of Hertford, brother of Jane
Seymour, showed some military capacity; Paget proved himself an astute
diplomatist; Cranmer and Gardiner led the rival Church parties, but neither
the parties nor their leaders exercised any semblance of control over the
Supreme Head. Abroad, Henry's battle with the Pope was won: at home his
autocracy was established alike as temporal and spiritual head of the
nation. There was no one left who needed crushing. Cromwell had seen to
that before he was dispensed with. After that revolutionary decade, there
were no more marked changes. There were incidents in the now slowly moving
course of the reformation; there was even an unimportant insurrection; but
the chief interest of Henry's closing years is once more to be found mainly
in foreign relations, and more especially in those with Scotland.
[Sidenote: England and the European Powers]
On the continent, the two leading Powers, France and the Empire, were in a
chronic state of antagonism only occasionally veiled: while the Pope was in
permanent opposition to England. This situation was complicated by the
Schmalkaldic League of Protestant German Princes. When Charles was disposed
to religious toleration, the League were his very good subjects, the Pope
became antagonistic, and a Franco-papal alliance threatened. When Charles
leaned to intolerance, the Pope grew favourable to him, and Francis turned
a friendly eye on the perturbed Protestant League. Charles, Francis, and
the League, would each of them have been pleased to make use of England,
but none of them wished to be of service to her: and now Thomas Cromwell's
great desire of bringing about a cordial relation between England and the
League had been frustrated instead of furthered by the affair of Anne of
Cleves. The risk of this alliance had forced Charles into a conciliatory
attitude towards Francis; relieved from it, he could now revert to his
normal attitude. At the end of 1540, the Emperor and the French King were
almost within measurable distance of hostilities, while the relations
between the latter and Henry were becoming seriously strained by his
neglect to pay the instalments of cash due under past treaties. For the
time being, however, there was no immediate likelihood of a breach of the
peace.
[Sidenote: Cardinal Beton]
In Scotland, James Beton Archbishop of St. Andrews, the most consistent
enemy of England, had died in 1539, and had been succeeded, both in his
office and his influence, by his nephew, the still more famous Cardinal,
David Beton. The Cardinal was the last of the old school of militant
ecclesiastical statesmen; a foe to the English the more deadly because of
Henry's anti-clerical policy, as well as on account of traditional views,
and of the specific grounds of distrust for which Henry himself had been
responsible during twenty years past--including the proposal to let Angus
kidnap James Beton [Footnote: _Cf._ p. 81.] under a safe-conduct. He
was moreover a zealous persecutor of heretics; which greatly intensified
the bitterness with which all the historians of the reforming party treated
not only the man himself but the whole policy which he was supposed to have
instigated. In Scotland, religious reformers were almost of necessity
Anglophiles, since Henry did all he could to encourage their doctrines.
North of the Tweed, English writers have relied so much on the statements
of John Knox and Buchanan that the persistent hostility not only of the
King and the clergy but also of the Scottish Commons to Henry's overtures
is generally represented as mere frowardness. It was in fact due to a
distrust sufficiently accounted for by the English King's undeniable
complicity in the deliberate fostering of disorder, and more than justified
by his re-assertion in public documents of the English claim to suzerainty
which had been finally and decisively repudiated at Bannockburn--a
repudiation confirmed by treaty [Footnote: It is true that this had not
prevented Edward III. from re-asserting the claim.] in 1328.
[Sidenote: Scotland and England, 1541]
In 1541 the attempt was renewed to bring about a conference with the Scots
King at York; again it failed, after James had seemed to commit
himself. Henry was indignant, and recriminations passed on the subject and
on that of border raids, which culminated in the following summer in the
affair of Haddon Rigg when an English party was very badly handled. It is a
curious illustration of Henry's notions of honour that--although the two
countries were nominally at peace--Wharton, one of the English Wardens of
the Marches, proposed to take advantage of James's 1542 roving propensities
and arrange to have him captured and brought prisoner to England; a scheme
which Henry apparently approved, but fortunately for his own credit
referred to his Council, whose consciences were less adaptable. In October,
the English indulged in a week's invasion of Scotland, and the Scottish
King would have responded in kind but that his nobles thought better of it.
[Sidenote: Solway Moss (Nov.)]
The counter-invasion however was not long delayed. The popular accounts of
it are mainly derived from the narrative of John Knox; according to whom
the Scottish army, ill-led and disorderly, was utterly routed with immense
slaughter by three or four hundred English yeomen who succeeded in
gathering together and smiting them after the analogy of Gideon. But the
dispatches of Wharton [Footnote: _Hamilton Papers._ Lang, Hist.
Scot., i., 455. Froude, iv., 190 (Ed. 1864), follows Knox picturesquely.],
the Warden of the Marches, show that, acting on some days' information, he
had ready a force of from 2,000 to 3,000 men, with whom, having watched his
opportunity, he fell upon the very badly organised Scottish levies and
entangled them in the morass called Solway Moss. The completeness of the
disaster has not been over-rated; but it was an intelligible operation of
war, not a miracle. James was prostrated by the blow. In three weeks time
(December 14th, 1542) he was dead, and his week-old daughter Mary inherited
the woful burden of the Scottish crown.
[Sidenote: Intervening events]
In the meantime, there had been a futile insurrection in the North, headed
by Sir John Neville, in the Spring of 1541; which led to the execution not
only of Neville himself, but of the old Countess of Salisbury--niece of
Edward IV., mother of the Poles, and grandchild of the "King-maker". Not
long after this, the Norfolk interest suffered a severe shock at Henry's
court from the discovery of flagrant and confessed misconduct on the part
of the monarch's fifth spouse, Katharine Howard; she was attainted and
beheaded, in February, 1542, and succeeded by Katharine Parr; who was
fortunate enough to outlive her husband.
[Sidenote: 1543 Henry's Scottish policy]
Solway Moss inspired Henry with a fresh determination to invade and
chastise Scotland; but James's death suggested a simpler method. For the
moment, Beton was in the hands of his enemies. Henry proposed that the baby
Mary should be betrothed to his own son Edward, that the government of
Scotland should be vested in a Council which he could control, and that
sundry English garrisons should be planted in the country. The Scots lords
captured at Solway Moss were quite ready to promise support to his plans as
the price of returning home: they were also ready to break faith with the
English King when they got there; and did so. As soon as the lords were out
of Henry's reach, the Scots Estates demanded modifications in the proposed
treaty which would have made it nugatory from the English point of view. A
Scottish Prince might have been allowed to wed an English Princess; but
Scotland would not take her King from England. It was not long before the
Cardinal recovered his ascendancy, and, acting in conjunction with the
queen-mother, Mary of Guise, sought the aid and alliance of France.
[Sidenote: Alliance with Charles]
The French King was already at war with Charles, and his relations with
England were exceedingly strained; whilst he was openly declaring his
determination to support Scotland, and French ships were playing the pirate
in the Channel. The Emperor on the other hand had quieted the Protestant
league by his tolerant attitude at the Diet of Ratisbon (1541); but the
Duke of Cleves, Henry's enemy, was defying him. Hence the whole conditions
pointed to an anti-French _rapprochement_ between Charles and Henry;
which took the form of a treaty of alliance early in 1543. If the
territories of either Power were invaded, the other was to render
assistance: and thereafter neither was to make peace unless his ally was
satisfied also. The French King attempted to detach England by offering to
meet the bulk of her separate requirements; and considering the prevailing
standard of bad faith, it is to Henry's credit that he refused these
overtures.
[Sidenote: War with France]
In the early summer Francis invaded Flanders, and an English force, not
numerous but in good trim, entered Picardy. The Imperial troops however
awaited the arrival of Charles himself from the South, and it was not till
August that he took the field, having gathered his army, largely composed
of Spanish soldiery, at Spires. But his first objective proved to be not
France but Cleves which he brought to rapid submission and treated with
great severity. In October he began to concert operations with the English,
and a scheme was prepared, to be given effect in the following summer: when
the English were to invade France by way of Calais, and the Emperor by way
of the Upper Rhine, the two armies converging on Paris.
[Sidenote: 1544 Domestic Affairs]
Though the French campaign was thus deferred, the early months of 1544 were
not uneventful. In the realm of domestic affairs, we observe that the King
was now resorting with vigour to the worst expedient of bad financiers, a
monstrous debasement [Footnote: See _infra_ p. 180] of the
currency. Also he had recently raised a considerable forced loan, pending
the collection of subsidies already voted by Parliament but not yet due. An
act was now passed in effect converting the loan into a gift, by reason of
the necessities of the war--a measure not practically different from the
voting of an additional subsidy. Parliament also had the satisfaction of
being invited to lay down the succession to the throne in accordance with
Henry's wishes, although he had already been empowered to fix it without
appeal--an apt illustration of his preference for following Constitutional
forms whenever there was no risk of his objects being interfered with.
After Prince Edward and his heirs, Mary was to succeed, and after her
Elizabeth. Beyond Henry's own offspring, the claims of the Stewarts through
Margaret Tudor were postponed to those of the descendants of the younger
sister Mary.
[Sidenote: Intrigues in Scotland]
In Scotland, Beton was in power, carrying out a drastic policy of religious
persecution; the nobility were in their normal condition of kaleidoscopic
flux, taking sides for or against Henry, the Cardinal, and each other, as
the moment's interests might suggest. The Anglicising party made a pact
with England to repudiate the French alliance, hand over the baby Queen if
they could, and accept Henry's control. Scotland was to be invaded. Certain
zealous spirits proposed to assassinate the Cardinal if they could do so
under Henry's aegis, but the opportunity passed before he replied to their
overtures--to the effect that the scheme was eminently laudable, but that
he could not openly move in the matter. The assassination of a tyrant was
not looked on as an act deserving of severe moral condemnation; many
zealots would have accounted it a virtuous deed, to risk their lives for
such an end. But a King [Footnote: Froude, iv., 319 (Ed. 1864), apparently
defends Henry on the ground that he regarded Beton as a traitor; and saw
"no reason to discourage the despatch of a public enemy".] who encouraged
even while declining to hire assassins stands in a different category from
such persons.
[Sidenote: Edinburgh Sacked]
In the beginning of May, Edinburgh was startled by the appearance in the
Forth of a great English fleet. The idea of an invasion in this form had
never presented itself. There was no army to give battle. The Cardinal and
his friends fled. The English landed and sacked Leith. Edinburgh was in no
condition for defence; the resistance of the citizens, though stubborn, was
easily overwhelmed. The city was pillaged; the county for miles round was
laid waste; and then, satisfied with his work of simple destruction,
Hertford, the English commander, withdrew. Scotland was leaderless and
powerless to strike: for months to come, the English Wardens of the Marches
were free to carry out a series of devastating raids with practical
immunity. Under these circumstances, Henry dismissed the idea of organising
a subordinate government: anarchy in Scotland suited him equally well,
without involving responsibilities or taxing his resources. His serious
attention was given to the Continent.
[Sidenote: The French War]
During May, separate overtures were made on behalf of France both to
Charles and Henry with a view to severing their alliance; each however
declined entirely to treat apart from the other. More-over, at the Diet of
Spires, Charles took a strong line in favour of the maintenance of the
ordinances of Ratisbon and generally of deferring all religious differences
till the war with France should be over. With the Pope supporting France
and advocating alliance with the Turk as a less dangerous enemy to
Christianity than the ecclesiastical rebel of England, Charles was not
disposed to show favour to the Catholic princes of the Empire.
[Sidenote: Charles makes peace at Crepy (Sept.)]
The time was now at hand for the campaign to commence: and Henry proposed a
modification of the original scheme. According to his view, it would be
better for the two armies to concentrate in force on the frontiers while a
single detachment penetrated as far into France as might seem wise. Charles
however insisted on his plan of two separate invasions. Henry could not
refuse, but pointed out that his own march on Paris was conditioned by the
thorough reduction of the country as he advanced; notably of Boulogne and
Montreuil which would otherwise perpetually threaten his
communications. The English proceeded to lay siege to these two places, and
the Emperor attacked St. Dizier. Until these strongholds were captured, the
two armies were respectively unable to advance. With August, Francis
renewed his scheme of making separate overtures accompanied by suggestions
to each monarch that his ally was trying to make terms for himself. Each
again refused to treat apart from the other. At last St. Dizier fell, and
Charles advanced into France, passing by Chalons and a considerable French
army which was enabled to act on his line of communications. Hence he very
soon found himself in grave difficulties. Thereupon he informed Henry that
unless the English marched straight upon Paris, regardless of Boulogne and
Montreuil, (which he knew to be strategically impossible) he would have to
accept for himself the terms offered by Francis. Boulogne was taken
(September 14th) three days after the message was received, but Montreuil
held out. Henry had honourably refused to make terms for himself; but on
September 19th Charles signed the peace of Crepy--amounting to a simple
desertion of his ally.
Boulogne was lost to the French, and though they were now free to
concentrate their forces against the English, all attempts to re-capture it
were repulsed. Henry felt no disposition to abate his own terms or to
resign Boulogne: Francis required him to do both. Charles politely
repudiated any obligation to armed intervention, despite the efforts of
Gardiner to persuade him--much to the bishop's disappointment, since the
Lutheran Princes, alarmed by the Emperor's conduct, were again making
overtures to England.
[Sidenote: 1545 Ancram Moor]
In Scotland, the policy of destruction adopted by the English throughout
1544 had driven the country to a temporary rally, and a severe reverse was
inflicted on the Southron, beguiled into an ambuscade, at Ancram Moor in
February 1545; whereby Francis was encouraged to maintain, and Charles to
assume, hostility to Henry: who in turn unsuccessfully sought the Lutheran
alliance--a failure due to the persistent distrust of the German Princes,
who could never make up their minds whether the promises of the King or the
Emperor were the less to be relied on. To the quarrel over the desertion of
England by Charles at the peace of Crepy, was added a quarrel over the
seizure by the English of Flemish ships carrying what would now be called
contraband of war, and the arrest in retaliation of English subjects in
Flanders.
[Sidenote: A French Invasion]
The isolation of England was complete: and Francis now looked to effect a
successful invasion; to which end a great fleet was collected. But there
was now a respectable English navy, supplemented by ships from every port
on the southern coast. The threat of invasion raised the whole country in
arms. In the latter part of July, the French armada was off the Solent, and
a landing was accomplished in the Isle of Wight; but though there were
various demonstrations and a few skirmishes, there was no general
engagement. The French could not get into the Solent: the English would not
come out in force, so long as the lack of a sufficient breeze gave the
fighting advantage to the enemy's oar-driven galleys. Finally, plague broke
out in the French fleet which retired about the middle of August. Its
dispersion allowed of the relief of Boulogne; which was becoming somewhat
straitened, being blockaded on the land side by a large army.
[Sidenote: 1546 Terms of Peace]
Thus when the autumn set in, the offensive operations of the French had
resulted in complete failure though there had been no important engagement:
and in the meantime, the temporary nature of the reverse at Ancram Moor had
been demonstrated by renewed ravages in Scotland directed by Hertford. The
altered aspect of affairs made Francis ready to treat, and changed the tone
of Charles from hostility to conciliation. Negotiations were set on foot;
but in the course of them it became clear not only that Henry was
determined to keep Boulogne but that Charles had no intention of letting
Milan go. England's readiness to continue the struggle was demonstrated by
the strength of the forces she threw onto French soil in the following
March, and in May Francis proposed terms. Most of the cash claims were to
be paid up; part were to be referred to arbitration; and Boulogne was to
remain for eight years in the hands of the English as security. The
financial pressure of the war had been terribly heavy, so that the
expedient of debasing the coinage had been repeated in order to supplement
taxation. Henry accepted the French terms; and almost simultaneously his
hands were strengthened by the assassination of his most resolute opponent
in Scotland, Cardinal Beton (May 29th, 1546). The Peace with France was
concluded in June.
[Sidenote: 1532-46 Events in Europe]
Before proceeding with the account of the ecclesiastical movement in
England during these six years, and with the narrative of the concluding
six months of Henry's reign, we must turn aside to observe certain events
on the Continent which have not hitherto fallen under our notice, since
they did not at the time exercise a direct effect on English policy, and
were not immediately influenced thereby. Yet since the treaty of Nuremberg
in 1532--the point down to which, in a previous chapter, we followed the
course of the Reformation in Europe--a compromise which served as a
_modus vivendi_ between the Protestant League and the Catholic
subjects of the Empire, important developments had been taking place, which
very materially, if indirectly, affected the subsequent course of events in
England as well as on the Continent. The period corresponds roughly with
the pontificate of Paul III. which lasted from 1534 to 1549.
[Sidenote: The Lutherans and the Papacy]
The idea that the ecclesiastical reconciliation of Christendom was still
possible--apart from the banned and recalcitrant sovereign of England--was
one of which a considerable body of Churchmen by no means despaired. There
were men like Contarini and Pole on the one side and Melanchthon on the
other whose doctrinal attitude did not seem to be hopelessly
irreconcilable. But while the Lutherans demanded for themselves a latitude
of opinion beyond what the Pope would ever have been prepared to concede,
the two sides laid down two contradictory propositions as the condition of
reconciliation, in respect of the validity of Papal authority. Each was
willing, even anxious, for a General Council; but neither would admit one
unless so constituted as to imply that its own view was postulated and
_ipso facto_ the opposing view ruled out of court. The Emperor, though
anti-Lutheran, was unwilling either to enforce his view at the sword's
point, or to subordinate himself to the Pope. The French King was equally
ready to win papal favour by persecuting his own protestant subjects, and
to encourage the protestant subjects of the Emperor, according as one
course or the other seemed more likely to embarrass Charles. Finally the
Pope, while set upon the suppression of the Lutheran heretics, was
desperately afraid of the accession of strength to Charles which would
result from their complete disappearance as a political factor: and he was
almost equally afraid that if a Council could not be carried through,
Charles would call a national Synod of the Empire to settle the religious
question independently.
[Sidenote 1: 1541 Conference of Ratisbon]
[Sidenote 2: 1542 Council of Trent]
Thus attempts to bring about a General Council failed repeatedly. The
nearest approach to reconciliation was achieved when a conference was
arranged at Ratisbon (1541) at which there were papal as well as Lutheran
representatives and it seemed as if common ground of agreement was in
course of emerging. But Luther himself held aloof; Paul III. would not
ratify the concessions that Contarini and others were willing to make. The
Conference ended in failure; and Charles--always embarrassed in his
dealings with the Protestants by his need of their support against
threatening Turkish aggression--was obliged, a good deal against his
private inclinations, to reaffirm the Nuremberg toleration. The result was
a renewal of negotiations between Pope and Emperor for the calling of a
General Council; whereof the outcome was that in May 1542 the Pope summoned
the famous Council of Trent which did not conclude its sittings till twenty
years later. Although the Council was formally called for the end of the
year, it did not succeed in holding a working Session till 1546; after the
spring of 1547 it was transferred to Bologna; nor did it get to work again
(once more at Trent) till 1551. The fundamental point however is that, by
its constitution, the Lutheran controversy was prejudged and the Lutheran
party effectively excluded. It was not a Council representing Christendom;
it stood for the Church of Rome seeking internal reformation for itself and
arrogating Catholicity to itself. Hence arose the custom of using the terms
Catholic and Protestant as party labels for those within and without the
"orthodox" pale, in spite of the objection more particularly of the
Anglican body to its implied exclusion from the "Catholic" Church and
inclusion in the same category with the Lutheran and Calvinistic
bodies. The historian cannot admit that Rome has a right to monopolise the
title of Catholic; but during the period when Europe was practically
divided politically into two religious camps, it is difficult to avoid
using the current labels though their adoption is in some degree
misleading.
[Sidenote: 1548 Death of Luther]
With the convocation of the Council of Trent, such hope as there had been
for a reunion of Christendom was practically terminated. Its first working
sessions in 1546 were contemporaneous with the death of the man who had led
the revolt against Rome. But if Martin Luther had been a great cleaving
force, in Germany itself his influence had been consistently exerted for
national unity. To him more than to any other man it was due that Germany
had not as yet been plunged into a civil war. He was hardly gone, when the
forces of discord broke loose.
[Sidenote: 1546-49 Charles and the Protestant League]
Charles in fact found the Schmalkaldic League a thorn in his side, and had
for some time been resolved on its extinction should a favourable
opportunity occur. His war with Francis was terminated by the Peace
[Footnote: P. 162, _ante._] of Crepy in September 1544; the pressure
from Turkey was relaxed; there was no probability that either England or
France would commit themselves to helping the League. In the summer of
1546, the League was put to the ban of the Empire; in the following summer
it was crushed at the battle of Muehlberg, largely owing to the support
given to the Emperor by the young Protestant Duke of Saxony, Maurice. But
while this triumph broke up the League, and led Charles to regard himself
as all-powerful, it frightened the Pope into an attitude of hostility; the
Protestants were not annihilated; the course taken by Charles satisfied
neither party within the Empire; and we shall shortly find a new and
formidable Nationalist and anti-Spanish movement evolved in Germany with
surprising suddenness and effectiveness.
During these years two religious developments had been in progress--one
among the Protestants, the other among the Catholics--both destined to play
a very large part in future history. These were the rise of John Calvin on
one side and on the other the institution of the Society of Jesus
familiarly known as the Jesuits.
[Sidenote: The Order Of Jesuits]
This Order was the creation of a Spaniard, Ignatius Loyola. Born in the
same year as Henry VIII. he was taking active part as a knight in the wars
of 1521, when he was crippled by a cannon shot. He rose from his sick bed a
religious enthusiast; with the conception forming in his brain of an
association for the service of his Divine Master based on the principles of
military obedience carried to the extreme logical point. He devoted many
years to training himself, body and brain and soul, for the carrying out of
the idea. In course of time he found kindred spirits; at Montmartre in 1534
a little company of seven solemnly vowed themselves to the work. All of
them men of birth and high breeding, with rich intellectual endowments and
full of an intense devotional fervour, they soon attracted disciples; and
in 1543 the new Order was formally sanctioned by the Pope. Utter obedience
was their rule, thorough education of their members the primary
requirement. Every Jesuit was a consummately cultivated man of the world as
well as a religious devotee, responding absolutely to the control of a
superior officer as a finished piece of machinery answers to the touch of
the engineer; accounting death in the service a welcome martyrdom;
shrinking from no act demanded for the fulfilment of orders which might not
be questioned. Within a few years of its institution, the Society had
developed into one of the most potent organisations, whether for good or
for evil, that the world has ever known.
[Sidenote: Calvin]
While Loyola was preparing himself for his work, John Calvin was growing up
in Picardy. Having adopted the tenets of the Swiss Reformers, the
persecution of the heretics--within French territory--by the Most Christian
King compelled him to take refuge in Switzerland. There, when only
twenty-seven years of age, he published the work known as the "Institutes,"
setting forth that grim theology, the extreme logical outcome of the
Zwinglian position, which is associated with his name; a system far more
antagonistic to that of Rome than was Luther's. His head-quarters, save for
a brief interval of banishment, were at Geneva, where he established about
1542 an absolute authority, no less rigorous or intolerant of opposition
than the papacy itself; constructing a theory of ecclesiastical government
that dominated the civil as the old Church had never dominated the State,
and carried the stark severity of its controlling supervision into every
detail of private conduct: banishing the comparative tolerance and charity
which had distinguished the Zurich school.
[Sidenote: The ecclesiastical revolution in England]
In the meantime the course of the Reformation in England had been almost
stationary. The whole movement in fact during Henry's reign took outwardly
the form not of a revision of Religion but of a revolution in the relations
of Church and State--a revolution already completed when Cromwell was
struck down. Until his day, Englishmen--ecclesiastics and laymen
alike--recognised the authority of the Holy See, though not always its
claim to unqualified obedience. That authority was now finally and totally
repudiated: none external to the kingdom was admitted; the Church was
affirmed to be the Church of England, coterminous with the State; while a
new interpretation was put upon the supremacy heretofore claimed from time
to time by the secular Sovereign. Not only was the right assumed by the
crown of diverting or even confiscating ecclesiastical revenues and of
controlling episcopal appointments--so that it was even held doubtful
whether the demise of the ruler did not necessitate re-appointment--but the
power was appropriated, (though not in set terms), of ultimately deciding
points of doctrine and promulgating the formulae of uniformity. This was
the essential change which had taken place: resisted to the point of
martyrdom by a few like More and Fisher; submitted to under protest by the
majority of the clergy; actively promoted by only a very few of them, such
as Cranmer. In asserting the position of the Crown, however, the Defender
of the Faith admitted no innovations in doctrine and not many in ritual and
observances. Now and again, for political purposes, Henry dallied with the
Lutheran League; but in this direction he made no concession.
[Sidenote: 1540-46 Progressives and Reactionaries]
No marked alteration then appears after the death of the Vicar-General.
Nevertheless, the contest between the progressive and reactionary parties
was not inactive. In one direction alone, however, did the former achieve a
distinct success. There was an increasing feeling in favour of the use of
the vulgar tongue in place of Latin, not only in rendering the Scriptures
but also in the services of the Church. The advanced section had already so
far won the contest in respect of the Bible that the reactionaries could
only fight for a fresh revision in which stereotyped terms with old
associations might be re-instated in place of the new phrases which were
compatible with, even if they did not suggest, meanings subversive of
traditional ideas--a project which was quashed [Footnote: A revising
Commission had been appointed; but was suddenly cancelled, with an
announcement that the work was to be entrusted to the Universities; which
however was not done. The probable explanation is that Cranmer, seeing the
bent of the Commission, influenced the King to withdraw the work from their
hands, and it was then allowed to drop.] when its intention became
manifest. Measures however were taken to restrict the miscellaneous
discussion of doctrine, which had not unnaturally degenerated into frequent
displays of gross irreverence and indecent brawling; while on the other
hand the use of a Litany in English instead of Latin was by Cranmer's
influence introduced in 1544.
[Sidenote: 1543 The King's Book]
A year earlier the third formulary of faith--the two preceding had been the
Ten Articles and the Bishops' Book--was issued under the title of the
"Erudition of a Christian Man," popularly known as the "King's Book". This
was the outcome of a group of reports drawn up by bishops and divines,
severally, in answer to a series of questions submitted to them. The
reports showed great diversities of opinion on disputed questions; but the
book which received the imprimatur of Convocation and of the King was in
the main a restatement of the doctrines of the Bishops' Book with a more
explicit declaration on Transubstantiation and on Celibacy in accordance
with the Law as laid down in the Six Articles. Throughout the preliminary
discussions, Cranmer had championed the most advanced views which had
hitherto been held compatible with orthodoxy; and, becoming shortly
afterwards the object of direct attack as the real disseminator of heresy,
he openly avowed to the King that he retained the opinions he had held
before the passing of the Six Articles Act although he obeyed the
statute. Henry, to the general surprise, refused to withdraw his favour
from the Archbishop, and caused much alarm to the opposing party by the
manner in which he rebuked the Primate's traducers. The circumstances
deserve special notice because they show that Cranmer was not the mere
cringing time-server that he is sometimes represented to have been; and
also as proving that the King himself was for once capable of feeling a
sincere and continuous affection.
[Sidenote: Henry stationary]
The hopes of the reactionary party were in fact somewhat dashed by the
"King's Book"; since, despite Cromwell's death, the Six Articles still
marked the limit of their influence. A companion volume, known as the
_Rationale_, dealing with rites and ceremonies on lines antagonistic
to Cranmer, was refused the royal sanction. Henry never lapsed from his
professed attitude of rigid orthodoxy. But he showed an increasing
disposition to check random and malignant prosecutions for heresy and to
give the accused something like fair trial; more especially after the
culminating iniquity of Anne Ascue's martyrdom (in the last year of his
reign) for denying the doctrine of the Real Presence in the Eucharist. The
system of ecclesiastical spoliation was also in 1546 rounded off, by the
formal transfer to the crown of chantries which had not been swept away in
the dissolution of the monasteries.
[Sidenote: 1546 Attainder of Surrey]
The autumn of 1546 arrived. The King's health was known to be exceedingly
precarious, and it was practically certain that there must be some form of
regency or protectorate until the boy prince of Wales should attain a
responsible age. The most prominent men were on the one side the Duke of
Norfolk and Gardiner, on the other the Earl of Hertford and Cranmer. The
King's attitude was more favourable to the second of the two parties; the
conduct of the Earl of Surrey, Norfolk's son, ensured them the domination.
Surrey was entitled to bear on his shield the Arms of England, as a
descendant of the Plantagenets; [Footnote: See _Front_. He traced
through his mother and the Staffords to Edward III, and also through the
other line to Thomas, son of Edward I.] but he assumed quarterings proper
only to the heir-apparent. He used language which showed that he counted on
a Norfolk regency and might have meant that it would be claimed by force.
And he was proved to have urged his own sister, Lady Richmond, to become
the King's mistress in order to acquire political influence over him. It
was also found that the Duke, his father, long a partisan of France, had
held secret conversations with the French Ambassador. These charges were
easily construed into treason under the comprehensive interpretation of
that term which Thomas Cromwell had introduced. Surrey was sent to the
block: his father escaped the same fate merely by the accident that death
claimed Henry himself only a few hours after the Act of attainder was
passed. The inevitable result followed, that practically the whole power of
the State was found to be vested in Hertford and his supporters.
[Sidenote: 1547 Death of Henry]
On the 28th of January 1547, the masterful monarch was dead: to be followed
to the grave two months later by one of his two great rivals, Francis. Of
the three princes who for thirty years had dominated Europe, only one was
left. A greater than any of them--he who, also thirty years ago, had
kindled the religious conflagration--Martin Luther, had passed away a
twelvemonth before.
CHAPTER XI
HENRY VIII (vii), 1509-47-ASPECTS OF HENRY'S REIGN
[Sidenote: Ireland, 1509-20]
Affairs in the sister island did not, after the final collapse of Perkin
Warbeck directly affect the course of events in England: so that they lend
themselves more conveniently to summary treatment. Ireland in fact hardly
thrust herself forcibly on English notice until Thomas Cromwell was in
power, and even then she only received incidental attention.
[Sidenote: Surrey in Ireland, 1520]
It appears to be generally recognised that when Gerald Earl of Kildare
finally made up his mind to serve Henry VII. loyally and was for the last
time re-instated as Deputy, he proved himself a capable ruler and kept his
wilder countrymen in some sort of order. In 1513 he was succeeded in the
Deputyship by his son Gerald, who bore a general resemblance to him, but
lacked his exceptional audacity and resourcefulness. It was not long before
the Earl of Ormonde--head of the Butlers, the traditional rivals of the
Fitzgeralds, and chief representative of the loyalist section--was
complaining of disorder and misgovernment; and in course of time, Kildare
was deposed and Surrey [Footnote: The Surrey who became Duke of Norfolk in
1524, and was under attainder when Henry died in 1547.]--son of the victor
of Flodden--was sent over to take matters in hand (1520). Kildare was
summoned to England, where after his father's fashion he made himself
popular with the King whom he accompanied to the Field of the Cloth of
Gold. Surrey was a capable soldier, and took the soldier's view of the
situation. There would be no settled government until the whole country was
brought into subjection; it must be dealt with as Edward I. had dealt with
Wales. The chiefs must be made to feel the strong hand by a series of
decisive campaigns, the whole country must be systematically garrisoned,
and the Englishry must be strengthened by planting settlements of English
colonists. Half-measures would be useless, and he could not carry out his
programme with a less force than six thousand men.
[Sidenote: Irish policy, 1520-34]
Henry however had no inclination to set about the conquest of Ireland. His
own theory, with which it may be assumed that Wolsey, now in the plenitude
of his power, was in accord, was more akin to his father's. Moreover,
Wolsey and the Howards were usually in opposition to each other. Surrey was
instructed to appeal to the reason of the contumacious chiefs; to point out
that obedience to the law is the primary condition of orderly government;
to authorise indigenous customs in preference to imposed statutes where it
should seem advisable. In fact there were two alternatives; one, to govern
by the sword, involving a military occupation of the island; the other to
endeavour to enlist the Irish nobles on the side of law and order and to
govern through them. The first policy, Surrey's, was rejected; the second
was attempted. But the Irish chiefs had no _a priori_ prejudice in
favour of law and order, and something besides rhetoric was needed to
convince them that their individual interests would be advanced by such a
policy. Henry VII. had prospered by reinstating the old Earl of Kildare;
Henry VIII. tried reinstating the young one. But precedents suggested the
unfortunate conclusion that a little treason more or less would hurt no
one, least of all a Geraldine. Things went on very much as before. Kildare
was summoned to London again, rated soundly by Wolsey, suffered a brief
imprisonment, and was again restored. Desmond, his kinsman, intrigued with
the Emperor, who was in a state of hostility to Henry because of the
divorce proceedings; Kildare was accused of complicity, and going to London
a third time in 1534 was thrown into the Tower from which he did not again
emerge. Henry had just burnt his boats in his quarrel with Rome and was by
no means in a placable mood.
[Sidenote: Fitzgerald's revolt, 1534]
Kildare had named his eldest son Lord Thomas Fitzgerald, a young man of
twenty-one, to act as Deputy in his absence; moreover he had so fortified
his castle of Maynooth and otherwise made military preparations, as to give
colour to the idea that he had rebellion in contemplation. Excited by a
report that his father had been put to death, Lord Thomas--known as Silken
Thomas from a badge worn by his men--burst into the Council at Dublin,
threw down the sword of office, and renounced his allegiance; then raised
an insurrection at the head of his friends and followers. Dublin Castle was
soon besieged by a large miscellaneous force; the Archbishop, a leader of
the loyalists, attempted to escape but was taken and foully murdered; bands
of marauders ravaged the Pale. The only effective counter-move was made by
Ormonde who rejected Fitzgerald's overtures, and, in spite of Desmond's
menacing attitude on the South-west, raided the Kildare country, and
brought Silken Thomas back in hot haste to defend his own territories.
[Sidenote: 1535 The revolt quelled]
Fitzgerald's rising began in June. Henry had appointed as Deputy Sir
William Skeffington, an old soldier who had held that office before during
Kildare's last suspension. But his departure from England with his troops
was delayed. Fitzgerald was back before Dublin in September, after a vain
attempt to win over Ormonde who defied him boldly. Again the Kildare lands
were raided, and Lord Thomas had to raise the siege; and now at the end of
October Skeffington succeeded in crossing the channel and securing Dublin,
while the rebels carried fire and sword through the neighbouring
districts. For the rest of the winter Skeffington did nothing but send out
a futile expedition, a detachment of which was ambuscaded: while the
loyalists fumed. In the spring however he shook off some of this
inactivity, whether due to sickness, advancing years, or general
incompetence, and besieged Maynooth which was reputed impregnable. The
fortress fell before long; owing to treachery as tradition relates, but
more probably to the improved siege artillery as the official despatches
affirm. Most of the garrison were promptly hanged; a fatal blow was dealt
to the insurrection. The "pardon of Maynooth" became a proverb.
Skeffington, retaining the deputyship, was replaced in command of the army
by Lord Leonard Grey, Kildare's brother-in-law, son of Lord Dorset; to whom
ultimately Silken Thomas surrendered under a vague half-promise of lenient
treatment. Kildare himself had died in the Tower not long before; Lord
Thomas and his principal kinsmen were executed after a little delay; the
one surviving representative of the great house which had "ruled all
Ireland" was a child, preserved in hiding by loyal friends and
retainers. The Geraldine power was at an end.
[Sidenote: 1535-40 Lord Leonard Grey]
Grey himself was now appointed to the deputyship in place of Skeffington,
Desmond in the south-west and O'Neill in Ulster carried on the resistance,
but were no match for Grey, who followed up his military successes by
attempting to carry out the principles of conciliation which Henry had laid
down--to the bitter indignation of those loyalists who favoured the methods
advocated in the past by Surrey. To this and to Grey's insolent temper were
due violent altercations between him and the Council. A Commission was sent
over to examine and set matters straight, but instead the commissioners
took sides with the Council or with the Deputy. Affairs were complicated by
the application to Ireland of the English theory of ecclesiastical
Reformation as understood by Henry and Cromwell. The suppression of the
monasteries was acquiesced in (though not till 1541); since their condition
was undeniably bad, and the distribution of their property convenient for
the recipients; but the revolt from Rome was antagonistic to Irish
feeling. Disloyalty to England, the natural and normal condition of
three-fourths of the island, received a new authority from the sanction of
loyalty to the Church. Grey persisted in his policy of domineering over the
English party--who would have preferred to do the domineering
themselves--and of laying himself open to the charge of favouring and
fostering rebels, especially of the Geraldine faction. Another rising of
O'Neill and Desmond in 1539 forced him to reassert his authority, but he
again allowed it to appear that he was influenced by his connexion with the
Geraldines; and in 1540 he was recalled, attainted, and
executed. Experience of Henry had taught the conclusion that to fight the
charge of treason was useless; but Grey gained nothing by throwing himself
on the royal clemency, though his admission of guilt is not under the
circumstances very conclusive.
[Sidenote: 1540 St. Leger]
Whatever the extent of his actual guilt, his downfall was due not so much
to his professed policy as to the personal methods adopted which in the end
had excited almost universal distrust and hostility. The proof of this lies
in the fact that St. Leger, his successor as Deputy, carried out the same
nominal policy with very remarkable success, and, it would seem, with
general approval: mainly because he applied the principles impartially
instead of as a partisan. The agent of conciliation was judicious,
clear-headed, and tactful, instead of being injudicious, hot-headed, and
tactless. The new Deputy distributed titles and monastic lands with a
shrewd perception of the value of the services to be purchased thereby;
legal commissioners were appointed who were allowed a due latitude in
applying native customs and relaxing the rigour of English law; a number of
important chiefs were converted into supporters of the Government instead
of its more or less open enemies; the Pale settled down into the condition
of a reasonably well ordered State. In the last years of Henry there is a
complete disappearance of the wonted turmoil. At length he had found a man
capable of administering the policy he had enunciated in 1520. The
Deputyship of St. Leger gave promise of initiating a new era; but it showed
also how completely the working out of the Irish problem would depend on
the character and capacity of the men to whom the task should be
successively entrusted.
[Sidenote: Henry "King of Ireland"]
One significant change remains to be noted. Hitherto the King of England
had borne the title of Lord of Ireland, the theory being that Ireland was
held as a fief from the Pope. As marking a final repudiation of every kind
of papal authority, Henry, after the suppression of the Geraldine rising,
assumed the style of King of Ireland. The fact that the change was needed
has some bearing on the opposed papal and royal claims to Irish
allegiance. Wales, it may be remarked, acquired citizenship when for the
first time she sent representatives to Parliament in 1537.
[Sidenote: Wolsey's work]
Throughout the first half of Henry's reign the figure of the great Cardinal
dominates the political field. In two respects at least his work was the
extension of what Henry VII. initiated. By his efforts, the personal power
of the crown became irresistible; and as the old King raised England from
being almost a negligible quantity on the Continent to become at the lowest
an effective make-weight in European combinations, so Wolsey raised her
still further to a position of equality with the two great Powers which
overshadowed all the rest. This he did by the same method of evading
serious military operations whenever the evasion was possible, and by the
exercise of a diplomatic genius almost unmatched among English
statesmen. After his fall, the King's domestic interests withdrew him from
a like active participation in the quarrels of Charles and Francis,
although in his last years he became involved in a French war.
[Sidenote: The Army]
It is singular however to observe that Wolsey won for England all the
prestige of a great military Power, after a period during which that
ancient reputation of hers had been all but completely lost, without any
single achievement memorable in the annals of war, and without producing
any commander even of the second rank. With the sole exception of Surrey's
victory at Flodden, due rather to the disastrous blunder of James than to
the Earl's exceptional ability, no striking strategical or tactical feats
are recorded, and few remarkable displays even of personal valour: nothing
at all comparable to the brilliant if sometimes hazardous operations of the
great Plantagenets. Nothing more is heard of that once triumphant arm, the
Archery: the English bowmen had not, it would seem, lost their cunning, but
they could no longer overwhelm hostile battalions. Nor does this seem to
have been owing as yet to the displacement of the bow by firearms, though
cannon both for defence and destruction of fortresses were improving--as
exemplified at Maynooth. In the Scots wars, the border moss-troopers fought
after their own fashion: but in the French wars the levies, no longer
fighting in bodies following their own lord's flag, and feeling neither a
personal tie to their leaders nor any particular bond among themselves,
repeatedly displayed mutinous tendencies--as befel in Ireland under Lord
Leonard Grey, and earlier with the entire army commanded by Dorset in 1512
and again with Suffolk's soldiery in 1523. The transition period from the
era of feudal companies to that of disciplined regiments was a long one,
particularly in England. During the whole of that period, English armies
accomplished no distinguished military achievement.
[Sidenote: The Navy]
It was otherwise with English navies. All through the Tudor period, the
nation was steadily realising its maritime capacities. Whether the
strategic meaning of "ruling the seas" was understood or not, the century
witnessed the rise of the English naval power from comparative
insignificance to an actual pre-eminence. The two Henries fostered their
fleets; when Elizabeth was reigning, the sea-faring impulse was past any
need of artificial encouragement. But it is noteworthy that coast defence
and ship-building were almost the only public purposes to which an
appreciable share of the King's ecclesiastical spoils was appropriated. The
King's ships were few, but they were supplemented by an ever-increasing
supply of armed merchant-craft; and in the French war at the end of Henry's
reign is the premonition of the great struggle with Spain, in which one
most characteristic feature was the comparative reliance of England on
sails and of her rivals on oars. As yet however, naval fighting was still
governed by military analogies.
[Sidenote: The New World]
Though Henry was keenly interested in ship-building and naval construction,
in the matter of ocean voyages and the acquisition of new realms Spain and
Portugal still left all competitors far behind. Albuquerque had already
founded a Portuguese Maritime empire in the Indian Ocean when Henry
VIII. ascended the throne, and Spain was established in the West Indies. In
1513, Balboa sighted the Pacific from the Isthmus of Darien. In 1519 Cortes
conquered Mexico; in 1520 Magelhaens passed through the straits [Footnote:
It was still believed that Tierra del Fuego was a vast continent stretching
to the South.] that bear his name, and his ships completed their voyage
round the globe in the course of the next two years; in 1532 Pizarro
conquered Peru; Brazil and the River Plate were already discovered and
appropriated. All that England had done was represented by some Bristol
explorers in the far North, some tentative efforts in the direction of
Africa; and some four voyages to Brazil, the first two under William
Hawkins, father of the more famous Sir John.
[Sidenote: Absolutism]
As Wolsey's policy was a development of that of Henry VII. in the direction
of raising England's international prestige, so it was also in the
concentration of power in the hands of the sovereign: and the process was
carried still further though in a somewhat different way when Wolsey had
fallen. It is curious to note that Henry VII. for the first half of his
reign ruled by a skilful reliance on parliamentary sanctions, in the second
half almost dispensing with parliaments. This order was reversed by his
son. For the first twenty years, there were hardly any parliaments: from
1529 there was no prolonged interval without one. The economies of the old
King sufficed to support the extravagant expenditure of his successor with
only an occasional appeal to the purses of the Commons. It was only the
necessities of a war-budget that involved such an appeal, so that none took
place between 1514 and 1523. Had Wolsey been permitted to maintain his
peace-policy unbroken, there would have been no rebuff from the House of
Commons in 1523, no trouble over the Amicable Loan two years later. The
country, habituated to an absence of parliaments, might have come to accept
a monarchy absolute in form as well as in fact.
[Sidenote: The Parliamentary sanction]
But when Wolsey fell, Henry was embarking on a policy in which he knew that
he must keep the nation on his side; the support of the body representing
the nation must be secured. Whether that support was granted spontaneously,
or was encouraged by manipulation, or spurred by the menace of coercion,
was comparatively unimportant. The powers which the King was resolved to
exercise must ostensibly at least have the sanction of national
approval. The thing was managed with such thoroughness that long before the
close of the reign the royal absolutism was confirmed by the Act which gave
the force of law to the King's proclamations, and by the authorisation for
him to devise the crown by will; and with such skill that Henry's and
Cromwell's critics are obliged to fall back on the alleged subserviency of
the parliaments to account for it, although these same subservient
parliaments were quite capable of offering an obstinate resistance whenever
their own pockets were threatened. Henry was one of those born rulers who
impress their own views on masses of men by force of will. He made the
country believe that it was with him. But behind the dominant force of
will, he possessed the instinctive sense of its limits, besides being
endowed with that final remorseless selfishness which made him ready to
make scape-goats of the most loyal servants, to deny responsibility himself
and to fling the odium upon them, as soon as he found that those limits had
been transgressed.
[Sidenote: Depression of the Nobles]
Alike, then, by his disuse and his use of parliaments, Henry strengthened
the royal power, the initiative of all legislation remaining in his
hands. To the same end he continued to depress the great nobles and to
create a new nobility dependent on royal favour. All who threatened to
display a dangerous ambition, from Buckingham on, were struck down; the
House of Norfolk survived till the end of the reign, when the Duke was
attainted and his son was sent to the block. No ancient House was
represented in the Council of Regency nominated under Henry's will. The men
who served the King were those whom he had himself raised, and could
himself cast down with a word. The edifice of his absolutism was complete,
though it was modified by the conditions under which his son and his two
daughters succeeded to the throne.
[Sidenote: Parliament and the purse]
The theory of absolutism from Richard II. to Wolsey had been that the King
should make it his aim to rule without parliaments; whereas we are
confronted with the apparent paradox that Henry was never more absolute
than when his parliaments were in almost continual session. The explanation
lies in this, that he did not usually call them to ask them for money out
of their own pockets; for the most part he invited them to approve of his
taxing some one else, by confiscations or the conversion of loans received
into free gifts--a much more congenial task. The King had found other
methods of raising revenues than by appealing to the generosity of his
faithful Commons--methods which in effect relieved them of demands which
they would otherwise have been obliged to face. The vast sums wrung from
Convocation or from the Monasteries went to relieve the Commons from
taxes. The parliament of 1523, summoned to grant subsidies, faced Wolsey
with an independence which fully justified the minister in avoiding the
risk of similar rebuffs: the Reformation parliament itself offered a
stubborn resistance to the Bill of Wards, which touched its own pocket.
Independence and resistance vanished when the incentive was withdrawn, and
the diversion of the stream of ecclesiastical wealth into the abysses of
the royal treasury was acquiesced in with a certain enthusiasm. The King
got the credit of the ends secured, his minister the odium for the methods
of obtaining them: and so year by year the crown became more potent.
[Sidenote: The Land]
The economic troubles brought about mainly by the new agricultural
conditions in the reign of the first Tudor were exaggerated in that of the
second, and were further intensified by the dissolution of the
Monasteries. The evils at which More pointed in his _Utopia_, when
Henry VIII. had been but seven years on the throne, showed no diminution
when another thirty years had passed. The new landowners who came into
possession of forfeited estates or of confiscated monastic lands continued
to substitute pasture for tillage, and to dispossess the agricultural
population as well by the reduced demand for labour as by rack-renting and
evictions. The country swarmed with sturdy beggars; and the riotous
behaviour encouraged when religious houses were dismantled or even
"visited" must have tended greatly to increase the spirit of disorder,
evidenced by the frequent popular brawling over the public reading of the
Bible. The usual remedies of punishing vagabondage, and of attempting to
force industry into unsuitable fields and to drive capital into less
lucrative investment in order to provide employment, failed--also as
usual. The landowners did not emulate the monastic practice of dispensing
charity, so that distress went unrelieved. Charity often encourages
un-thrift; but its absence sometimes leads not to industry but to thieving;
and in this reign, crimes of violence were notably abundant. The economic
conditions were therefore in fact unfavourable to thrift. But apart from
economic conditions, the practice of that virtue is apt to be largely
influenced by social standards. An ultra-extravagant court, and the
calculated magnificence of such a minister as Wolsey, went far to induce a
reckless habit of expenditure in the upper classes; and the inordinate
display of the Field of the Cloth of Gold was merely an extreme instance of
the prevalent passion for costly pageantries.
[Sidenote: Finance]
The resulting distress was not compensated in other directions. During the
earlier half of the reign, Commerce did no doubt continue to prosper; but
the King's financial methods were hardly more conducive to public industry
and thrift than his personal example. Wolsey indeed was an able finance
minister. In spite of the enormous expenditure on display, his mastery of
detail prevented mere waste; and until the pressing necessities of a
war-budget arose in 1523, enough money was found by tapping the sources to
which Henry VII. had applied, supplemented by the ample hoards which that
monarch had left behind. In 1523, the Cardinal's scheme of graduated
taxation was sound and scientific in principle, so far as existing methods
of assessment permitted. But for the remaining years of his life, the
process of raising money to meet the King's requirements was exceedingly
difficult and unpopular. After his death, the King discovered an additional
and productive source of revenue in the property of the Church; but even
this did not suffice for his needs.
[Sidenote: The Currency]
Henry therefore resorted to an expedient as disastrous as it was
dishonest--a wholesale debasement of the coinage, which was continued into
the following reign and was remedied only under Elizabeth. The first
experiment was made as early as 1526; but it was the financial
embarrassments of Henry's last years which brought about a debasement that
was almost catastrophic. From 1543 to 1551 matters went from bad to worse
till the currency was in a state of chaos: and the silver coin issued in
the last year contained only one-seventh of the pure metal that went to
that of twenty-five years before.
It followed that the purchasing power of the debased coinage sank--in other
words, prices went up. On the other hand, the new coin remaining legal
tender in England up to any amount, creditors who were paid in it lost
heavily, the Royal debtor--and others--discharging their obligations by
what was practically a payment of a few shillings in the pound. Also as a
matter of course, the better coins, with each fresh debasement, passed out
of the country or at any rate out of circulation, the base coins becoming
the medium of exchange. Thus the foundations of commercial stability were
sapped, while foreign trading operations were thrown into desperate and
ruinous confusion.
Nor did the evil end here. For the influx of silver and gold from the
Spanish possessions in America, though its effects were felt only very
gradually, tended to depreciate the exchange value of the metals
themselves. This depreciation, added to the debasement, further increased
the rise of prices. But while prices went up, money-wages did not rise in
anything like the same proportion; labour being cheapened by the continuous
displacement of the agricultural population, which was not attended by an
equivalent increase of employment in the towns, and by the dissolution of
the monasteries, which at the same time wiped out the sole existing system
of poor-relief. The natural Economic transition that began in the previous
reign, while producing wealth, was also attended by distress: now, for a
vast proportion of the population, Henry's artifical expedients for filling
his own coffers converted distress into grinding want, destitution, and
desperation.
[Sidenote: Learning and Letters]
The earlier half of the reign promised well for Education; but the promise
was not duly fulfilled in the latter portion. The funds which Wolsey would
have devoted to that object were wanted for other purposes. The
Universities discarded the study of the schoolmen, but their attention was
absorbed rather by loud-voiced wrangling than by the pursuit of learning.
Nevertheless, in great families at least, the education of the younger
members was carried to a high pitch. The King, a man of accomplishments
which would have made him remarkable in any station, himself set the
example, and in this respect at least his children were not lacking; the
literary impulse was at work.
[Sidenote 1: The _Utopia_]
[Sidenote 2: Prose and Verse]
[Sidenote 3: Surrey and Wyatt]
Yet the literary achievements of Henry's time can hardly be called
great. One work by an Englishman, More's _Utopia_, alone stands out as
a classic on its own merits: and that was written in Latin, and remained
untranslated till a later reign. In its characteristic undercurrent of
humour, and its audacious idealism, it betrays the student of Plato;
standing almost alone as a product of the dawning culture. Partly by direct
statement, partly by implication, we may gather from it much information as
to the state of England in Henry's early years, much as to the political
philosophy of the finer minds of the day. But that philosophy was choked by
revolution; More himself so far departed from its tenets of toleration as
to become a religious persecutor. Most of the English writing of the reign
took the form of controversial or personal pamphlets in prose or verse;
such as the extravagant _Supplicacyon for the Beggers_, a rabid tirade
against the clergy, or Skelton's rhyme _Why come ye nal to Court_, an
attack chiefly on the Cardinal. The splendid raciness of Hugh Latimer's
sermons belongs to oratory rather than to letters. The exquisite prose of
Cranmer found its perfection in the solemn music of the Prayer-book of
Edward VI. The translations of the Bible made no great advance on
Wiclif. In the realm of verse, John Skelton was a powerful satirist with a
unique manipulation of doggerel which has permanently associated a
particular type of rhyme with his name; an original and versatile writer
was Skelton, but without that new critical sense of style which was to
become so marked a feature of the great literary outburst under
Elizabeth. Herein, two minor poets alone, Surrey and Wyatt, appear as
harbingers of the coming day. A hundred anonymous writers of Gloriana's
time produced verses as good as the best of either Wyatt or Surrey; but
these two at least discovered the way which, once found, became
comparatively easy to tread. They introduced the sonnet, learnt from
Petrarch; Surrey (the same who was executed on the eve of Henry's death)
wrote the first English blank verse. The moribund tradition of the
successors of Chaucer continued to find better exponents in Scotland than
in England, in the persons first of bishop Gawain Douglas--who perhaps
should rather be connected with the previous reign--and later of Sir David
Lyndsay. But doctrinal controversy does not provide the best atmosphere for
artistic expression. The whole literature of the reign, while showing
emphatic signs of reviving intellectual activity, is remarkable not for its
own excellence, for profundity of thought, intensity of passion, or mastery
of form, but as exhibiting the first random and tentative workings of the
new spirit.
[Sidenote: Estimate of Henry VII.]
The most arresting figure of the period is that of Henry himself. No
English King has been presented by historians in more contradictory colours
than he. One has painted him as the Warrior of God who purged the land of
the Unclean Thing: to another he is merely a libidinous tyrant. One
contrasts his honesty and honour with the habitual falsehood of his
contemporaries: to another he appears supreme in treachery. In fact, there
is an element of truth in both estimates, however exaggerated.
[Sidenote: His Morals]
In the matter of personal morality, in the restricted sense, it does not
appear--in spite of his list of wives--that he compares unfavourably with
contemporary princes. He had only one child certainly born out of
wedlock--which cannot be said even of Charles V., [Footnote: It should
perhaps be remarked that whenever Charles had a wife living he appears to
have been faithful to her. His divagations took place in the intervals.]
and contrasts with the unbridled profligacy of Francis, the frequent amours
of his Stewart brother-in-law and nephew. The stories of his relations with
both Anne and Mary Boleyn before the marriage, even if untrue (which is not
probable), would never have been told of a man whose life was clean; but it
is what may be called the accident of his numerous marriages which has
given a misleading prominence to licentious tendencies not perhaps
abnormally developed. With the exception of his passion for Anne Boleyn,
there is no trace of his amours influencing his general conduct: and it is
at least probable that after the death of Jane Seymour he would have
remained a widower, but for the desire to make the succession more
secure. Yet the story of his reign hinges upon the Divorce; and in the
divorce, however much other considerations may have influenced him, the
controlling consideration was the determination to make Anne Boleyn his
wife since she would have him on no other terms. That fact, with the
disastrous termination of the marriage with her, the fiasco of Anne of
Cleves, and the catastrophe of Katharine Howard, is responsible for the
somewhat mythical monster of popular imagination. The man who divorced two
wives and beheaded two more is too suggestive of Bluebeard to be readily
regarded as after all to some extent the victim of circumstance.
[Sidenote: His general character]
While Anne Boleyn was the object of his pursuit, Henry was dominated by his
passion for her: but that passion cooled quickly enough after
possession. Jane Seymour was not his wife long enough to put him to the
test: but it would certainly seem that his affections were short-lived and
easily transferred. This was manifestly the case with men: at least it
never appeared to cause him a moment's compunction to hand over an intimate
to the executioner. While a man was rendering him efficient service the
King was lavish of praises and rewards; when the need for him was past the
services were forgotten. His sentiments were always of the loftiest; it
habitually "consorted not with his honour or his conscience" to do
otherwise than he did; but the correspondence between his honour and
conscience on one side and his personal advantage on the other presents a
unique phenomenon. His conscience permitted him to connive at schemes for
kidnapping the King of Scots or assassinating his ministers, and his honour
permitted him to encourage his own servants in a course of action for which
he had subsequently no hesitation in sending them to the block. He could
give, prodigally; but what he gave had generally been taken from some one
else. He could protest against the cruel burden of the annates, and then
absorb them himself. And with all this, it is not difficult to suppose that
he constantly persuaded himself that he was an honest man beset with
dishonest rogues, since he rarely broke the letter of an engagement except
on the pretext of bad faith made manifest in the other party.
[Sidenote 1: His peculiar abilities]
[Sidenote 2: Intention and achievement]
Henry's ethical standards were thus in no way calculated to hamper his
actions, owing to his happy capacity for colouring his actions in
conformity with them. When he set an end before himself, no influence could
make him waver a hair's-breadth in his pursuit of it, and he spared neither
friend nor foe in the attainment of it. As a statesman he did not lay down
far-seeing designs. But he had the art of maintaining popularity, and a
shrewd eye for a good servant. Thus as a rule he gave Wolsey a free hand
and very vigorous support. But when he elected to order a change of policy,
the Cardinal proved to have been right and the King wrong. His candidature
for the Empire, and his dreams of the French and Scottish thrones show him
capable of indulging in entirely impracticable visions. The vital
achievement of his reign was the severance from Rome; and that was
merely--as far as he was concerned--the accidental outcome of the Pope's
opposition to the Divorce. In the destruction of the ecclesiastical
_imperium in imperio_, the subordination of the Church to the State,
it is difficult to tell how far the policy was his own and how far it was
Cromwell's; but the King never recognised as Cromwell did that the logical
corollary of the whole ecclesiastical policy was a Protestant League. The
defiance of Rome, and the subjection and spoliation of the Church, were
accompanied by a measure in which Cranmer was the moving spirit, and to
which Henry gave full support--the open admission of the Scriptures in the
vernacular--which made it no longer possible for the individual to disclaim
responsibility on the score that the priesthood alone held the key to the
mysteries of religion. This was in truth the keystone of the Reformation,
since it entailed upon every man the _duty_ of private judgment even
though the _right_ continued to be denied; yet this was not the effect
which Henry contemplated. Hence, out of the four points in the
ecclesiastical revolution of the reign: the subordination of the Church to
the State was a constitutional change absolutely Henry's or Cromwell's own;
the spoliation was the same, but reflects no credit on either; the
severance from Rome was an accident; and the creation of the duty, to be
ultimately recognised as the right, of private judgment was
unintentional. And on the kindred subject, the persecution of innovators
labelled as heretics, Henry's policy represented nothing but the
commonplace attitude of Authority in his times.
[Sidenote: A Dominant personality]
We cannot, in short, find in Henry a statesman remarkable for far-sighted
perceptions or ennobling idealism: but he gauged the sentiment of his
subjects and the abilities of his servants acutely and was shrewd enough as
a rule to identify himself with the schemes of those whom he trusted.
Nevertheless he stands out, with all his faults, as a very tyrannical King
yet a very kingly tyrant. If his personal ambitions and desires over-ruled
other considerations, he never forgot the greatness of the country he
ruled, and his personal ambitions at least involved England's
magnification. For good or for evil, his actions were on a great scale. He
knew his own mind, and he never shrank from the risks involved in giving
his will effect. He defied successfully the Power which had brought the
mightiest monarchs to their knees. He had the kingly quality, shared by his
great daughter, of inspiring in his servants a devotion which made them
ready to sacrifice everything for his glorification. Two of the most
powerful ministers known in English history recognised the domination of
his personality whenever he chose to exercise it.
[Sidenote: Summary]
Even when he was most feared he maintained his place in the popular
affection. His parliaments carried out his will, but his will and theirs
were in conformity: while Wolsey ruled, he rarely consulted them, but after
Wolsey's fall they were called upon to ratify all the King's measures, and
were in frequent session. He promoted a revolution, but while he lived he
controlled it; through all the accompanying shocks and upheavals his
mastery remained unshaken. The proof of the man's essential force, the
greatness we may not deny him, is made manifest by the chaos which followed
his death. He was gross; he was cruel; he was a robber; he suborned
traitors and was prepared to suborn assassins; but his selfishness,
flagrant as it was, did not wholly absorb him; behind it there was a sense
of the greatness of his office, a desire to make England great; and
therewith he had the indomitable resolution and the untiring energy for
lack of which statesmen have failed who intellectually and morally stand
far above him, while no monarch has left on the history of England a stamp
more indelible than Henry VIII.
CHAPTER XII
EDWARD VI (i), 1547-49--THE PROTECTOR SOMERSET
[Sidenote: 1547 Jan.-Feb. The New Government]
In accordance with the extraordinary powers granted to him, Henry VIII.
laid down in his will both the order of succession to the throne and the
method of government to be followed during his son's minority. Under this
instrument he nominated sixteen "executors," forming virtually a Council of
Regency, giving precedence to none. Superficially, the list represented
both the progressive and the reactionary parties. Cranmer was balanced by
Tunstal of Durham; Wriothesly the Lord Chancellor was a strong
Catholic. But as a matter of fact, the influential men belonged for the
most part to the advanced section. Edward Seymour, Lord Hertford, was their
leader: but Paget, Dudley (Lord Lisle), Russell, and Herbert, were all of
the same way of thinking. None of the rest were of the same weight as
these; while Norfolk, the natural head of the conservative nobility was a
prisoner in the Tower, and Gardiner, the ablest of the ecclesiastics, was
omitted from the list.
Henry died in the early morning on January 28th; the fact was not made
public till the 31st; and in the meantime, Hertford had carried the
Council, which forthwith nominated him Lord Protector. The next step was a
distribution of honours: Hertford was made Duke of Somerset; his brother,
the Lord Admiral, (not an executor), Lord Seymour of Sudeley; Dudley became
Earl of Warwick, Wriothesly Earl of Southampton, and Parr, brother of the
late King's widow, Earl of Northampton. A couple of months later, that
lady--who had succeeded in surviving two husbands including Henry--herself
wedded Seymour of Sudeley,
Southampton was the one man whose opposition on the Council was to be
feared; and he gave himself into his enemies' hands by an act of
indiscretion. He issued a commission appointing four judges to act in the
Court of Chancery, under the Great Seal, on his own responsibility: and was
promptly declared to have forfeited his office which was bestowed upon< |
