A History of England Principally in the Seventeenth Century Part 12

Towards the end of his life Henry once more drew the sword against France in alliance with the Emperor. What urged him to this however was not the Emperor's interest in itself, but the support which the party hostile to him in Scotland received from the French. Moreover he did not trouble himself to bring about a decisive result between the two great powers: he was content with the conquest of Boulogne. He had reverted to his father's policy and resolved not to let himself be drawn over by any of his neighbours to their own interests, but to use their rivalry for his own profit and security.[137]

And he was able to do yet more than his father to increase England's power of defence against the one or the other. We hear of fifty places on the coast which he fortified, not without the help of foreign master-workmen: the two great harbours of Dover and Calais he put into good condition and filled them with serviceable s.h.i.+ps. For a long time past he had been building the first vessels of a large size (such as the Harry and Mary Rose) which then did service in the wars.[138] It may be that the property of the monasteries was partly squandered and ought to have been better husbanded: a great part of their revenues however was applied to this purpose, and conferred much benefit on the country so far as its own peculiar interests were concerned.

The characteristic of his government consists in the mixture of spiritual and temporal interests, the union of violence with fostering care. The family enmities, which Henry VII had to contend with, are combined with the religious under Henry VIII, for instance in the Suffolk family: as William Stanley under the father, so Fisher and More under the son, perished because they threw doubt on the grounds for the established right, and still more because they challenged that right itself. It raised a cry of horror when it was seen how under Henry VIII Papists and Protestants were bound together and drawn to the place of execution together, since they had both broken the laws.

Who would not have been sensible of this? Who would not have felt himself distressed and threatened? Yet at the opening of the Session of 1542, after the Chancellor had stated in detail the King's services (who had taken his place on the throne), Lords and Commons rose and bowed to the sovereign in token of their acknowledgment and grat.i.tude.

In the Session of 1545 he himself once more took up the word. In fatherly language he exhorted both the religious parties to peace; a feeling pervaded the a.s.sembly that this address was the last they would listen to from him; many were seen to burst into tears.

For his was the strong power that kept in check the fermenting elements and set them a law that might not be broken. On their antagonism, by favouring or restraining them, he established his strong system of public order. In Henry VIII we remark no free self-abandonment and no inward enthusiasm, no real sympathy with any living man: men are to him only instruments which he uses and then breaks to pieces; but he has an incomparable practical intelligence, a vigorous energy devoted to the general interest; he combines versatility of view with a will of unvarying firmness. We follow the course of his government with a mingled sense of aversion and admiration.

NOTES:

[123] Papiers d'etat du Cl. de Granvelle ii. 147, 210.

[124] Doc.u.ments in the Corpus Reformatorum ii. 1032, iii. 42.

[125] Henry VIII to the judges--in Halliwell i. 342 (25 June 1535).

[126] Burnet, History of the Reformation i. 213. Soames, History of the Reformation ii. 157.

[127] Seckendorf, Historia Lutheranismi iii. 13, x.x.xix. p. 112: my German History iv. 46.

[128] Injunctions given by the authority of the King. Burnet's Collection p. 160.

[129] Prior of Charterhouse (Houghton), Speech, in Strype i. 313.

[130] Froude, History of England iii. 104.

[131] 'The people were unsatisfyed that the parliament was not held at York; but our King alledged that since they had not restaured all the religious houses [as they had promised] he was not bound strictly to hold promise with them.' Herbert, Henry VIII, p. 428.

[132] Los impedimentos en que esta S. M. por la malignidad del dicho rey de Francia que haze gran fundamento en la adherencia del dicho rey de Inglaterra, y la obstinacion ceguedad y pertinacia en que esta.

(Report in the State Archives at Paris.)

[133] As it is said in the Emperor's letter of refusal to his amba.s.sador at Rome. 'Los desviados de Germania se juntarian mas estrechamente con el rey de Inglaterra.' (Doc.u.ment in the Archives at Paris.)

[134] In a letter of the Emperor, 2 November, is mentioned 'le descontentement, que le roi d'Ingleterre prenoit de Anna de Bolans.'

Papiers d'etat ii. 224.

[135] Marillac au roi, 8 Juillet 1540. 'Le peuple l'aymoit et estimoit bien fort, comme la plus douce gracieuse humaine Reyne, qu'ils eurent onque.'

[136] A description of the scene, which deserves to be known, is contained in the letter of the French amba.s.sador, Marillac, to the Constable Montmorency, 23 June 1540.

[137] Froude iv. 104.

[138] Marillac a.s.sures us that there were not more than eight vessels in England over 500 tons, that then the King built in 1540 fourteen larger ones, among them 'le grand Henri,' over 1800 tons; he had however 'peu de maistres que entendent a l'ouvrage. Les naufs (navires) du roi sont fournies d'artillerie et de munition beaucoup mieux que de bons pilots et de mariniers dont la plus part sont estrangers.' (Letter of 1 Oct. 1540.)

CHAPTER VI.

RELIGIOUS REFORM IN THE ENGLISH CHURCH.

The question arises, whether it was possible permanently to hold to Henry's stand-point, to his rejection of Papal influence and to his maintenance of the Catholic doctrines as they then were. I venture to say, it was impossible: the idea involves an historical contradiction.

For the doctrine too had been moulded into shape under the influence of the supreme head of the hierarchy while ascending to his height of power: they were both the product of the same times, events, tendencies: they could not be severed from each other. Perhaps they might have been both modified together, doctrine and const.i.tution, if a form had been found under which to do it, but to reject the latter and maintain the former in its completed shape--this was impracticable.

When it was seen that Henry could not live much longer, two parties became visible in the country as well as at court, one of which, however much it disguised it, was without doubt aiming at the restoration of the Pope's supremacy, while the other was aiming at a fuller development of the Protestant principle. Henry had settled the succession so that first his son Edward, then his elder daughter (by his Spanish wife), then the younger (by Anne Boleyn), were to succeed.

As the first, the sovereign who should succeed next, was a boy of nine, it was of infinite importance to settle who during the time of his minority should stand at the helm. The nearest claim was possessed by the boy's uncle on the mother's side, Edward Seymour, Earl of Hertford, who had begun to play a leading part in Henry's court and army, was in close alliance with Queen Catharine Parr, and like her cherished Protestant sympathies. But the Norfolks with their Catholic sympathies who had previously so long exercised a leading influence on the government, would not give way to him. Norfolk's son, the Earl of Surrey, adopted the immoral plan of ensnaring the King, who though dying was yet supposed to be still susceptible to woman's charms, by means of his sister, in order to draw him back to the side of his family and the strict Catholics: a plot which failed at once when his sister refused to play such a part. The ambitious announcements into which he allowed himself to be hurried away could only bring about the opposite result: he himself was executed, his father thrown into prison, and the man who could have done most in the Catholic direction, Bishop Gardiner, was struck out of the list of those who, after the King's death, were to form the Privy Council.[139]

Immediately afterwards, January 1547, Henry died. He had composed the Privy Council of men of both tendencies in the hope, as it appears, that in this way his system would be most surely upheld. But men were too much accustomed to see the highest power represented in one leading personage, for it to continue long in the hands of a Board of Councillors. From the first sittings of the Privy Council Edward VI's uncle, the Earl of Hertford, came forth as Duke of Somerset and Protector of the realm. In him the reforming tendency won the upper hand.

It appeared at once with full force at the Coronation, which was not celebrated at all after the form traced out by Henry VIII, since even this would have tied them far too much to the existing system; Cranmer, in the discourse which he there addressed to the young King, departed in the most decided manner from all the ideas. .h.i.therto attached to a coronation. Whither had the times of the first Lancaster departed, in which a special hierarchic sacredness was given to the Anointing through its connexion with Thomas Becket? Becket's shrine had been destroyed. The present Archbishop of Canterbury went back to the earliest times of human history: he brought forward the example of Josias, who likewise came to the government in tender years and extirpated the wors.h.i.+p of idols: so might Edward VI also completely destroy image-wors.h.i.+p, plant G.o.d's true service, and free the land from the tyranny of the Bishop of Rome; it was not the oil that made him G.o.d's anointed, but the power given him from on high, in virtue of which he was G.o.d's representative in his realm. His duty to the Church was changed into his duty to religion: instead of upholding the existing state of things, it at once pledges and empowers him to reform the Church.[140]

The great question now was, how an alteration could be prepared in a legal manner, and how far it would be possible to maintain in this the const.i.tution of the realm in its relation to the states of Europe. On the ground of the supremacy and of a precedent of Henry VIII, they began with a resolution to despatch commissions throughout the realm, to revive the suppressed Protestant sympathies; the precedent was found in the ordinances that had once proceeded from Thomas Cromwell, just as if they had not in the least been annulled by what had happened since, but simply set aside by party feeling and neglect.

They were to enquire whether, as therein ordered, the bishops had preached against the Pope's usurpation, the parish priests had taught men to regard not outward observances but fulfilment of duty as the real 'good works,' and had laboured to diminish feast-days and pilgrimages. Above all, images to which superst.i.tious reverence was paid were at last to be actually removed: the young were to be really taught the chief points of the faith in English, a chapter of the Bible should be read every Sunday, and Erasmus' Paraphrase employed to explain it. In place of the sermon was to come one of the Homilies which had been published under the authority of the Archbishop and King. For this last ordinance also authority was found in an injunction of Henry VIII. Archbishop Cranmer, whose work they are, establishes in them the two principles, on which he had already proceeded in 1536, one that Holy Scripture contains all that it is necessary for men to know, the other that forgiveness of sins depends only on the merits of the Redeemer and on faith in Him. On this depends absolutely the possibility of rooting out of men's minds the belief in the binding force of Tradition, and the hierarchic views as to the merit of good works. The Archbishop's views were promoted by eloquent and zealous preachers such as Matthew Parker, John Knox, Hugh Latimer; more than all by the last, who had been released from the Tower, weak in body but with unimpaired vigour of spirit. The fact of his having maintained these doctrines in the time of persecution, his earnest way and manner, and his venerable old age doubled the effect of his discourses.

No direct alteration could be thought of so long as the Six Articles still existed with their severe threats of punishment. In the Parliament elected under the influence of the new government it needed little persuasion to procure their repeal. The Protector a.s.sured the members that he had been urgently entreated to effect this, since every man felt himself endangered.[141]

One of those popular beliefs gained ground, which are often more effective in great a.s.semblies than elaborate proofs: the conviction that doctrine and authority were too closely akin for the separation from Rome to be maintained without deviation in doctrine; the breach must be made wider if it was to continue, and the hierarchic doctrines give way.

So it came about that by a unanimous resolution of Convocation, which Parliament confirmed, the alteration was approved, which almost more than any other characterises those Church formularies that deviate from the Romish, the administration of the communion in both kinds.

Now it was exactly from this that the transformation of the whole divine wors.h.i.+p in England proceeded. The very next Easter (1548) a new form for the communion office was published in English. This was followed, according to a wish expressed by the young King, by a Liturgy for home and church use, in which the revised Litany of Henry VIII was also included. In this 'Common Prayerbook' they everywhere kept to what was before in use, but everywhere also made changes. The Reforming tendencies obtained the upper hand in reference to its doctrinal contents; thus even one of the rubrics previously in favour by which auricular confession was declared to be indispensable was now omitted; it was left to every man's judgment to avail himself of it or not. At times they again sought out what had been disused in later ages: they recurred to Anglo-Saxon usages. The Common Prayer-book is a genuine monument of the religious feeling of this age, of its learning and subtlety, its forbearance and decision. In the Parliament of 1549 it was received with admiration: men even said it was drawn up under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. The order went forth for its adoption in all churches of the land, no other liturgy was to be used; it has nourished and edified the national piety of the English people.[142]

And just as it was now a.s.serted that in all this they were only carrying out the views of the deceased King, as he had set them forth many years before and had at the last again proclaimed them, so now Somerset undertook to carry through another of his intentions as well, which was closely connected with his religious plans.

In 1542 Henry VIII had agreed with some of the most powerful n.o.bles of Scotland that in that country too the Church should be reformed, all relations with France broken off, and the young Queen brought to England in order if possible to marry his son Edward at some future day. The scheme broke down owing to all kinds of opposition, but the idea of uniting England and Scotland in one great Protestant kingdom had thus made its appearance in the world and could never again be set aside. The ambition to realise it filled the soul of Somerset. When, before the end of the summer of 1547, he took up arms, he hoped to bring about an acknowledgment of England's old supremacy over Scotland, to prepare the way for the future union of both countries by the marriage, and to annihilate the party there which opposed the progress of Protestantism. A vision floated before him of fusing both nations into one by a union of dynasty and of creed. It was mainly from the religious point of view that his ward regarded the matter.

'They fight for the Pope,' wrote Edward to the Protector when he was already in the field, 'we strike for the cause of G.o.d, without doubt we shall win.[143]'

Somerset had already penetrated far into the land when he offered the Scots to retreat and make peace on the one condition that Mary should marry Edward VI. But the ruling party did not so much as allow his offer to be known. A battle took place at Pinkie, in which Somerset won a brilliant victory. Not a little did this victory contribute to establish his consequence in the world: even in Scotland some districts on the borders took the oath of fidelity to King Edward. But in general the antipathies of the Scotch to the English were all the more roused by it; they would hear nothing of a wooing, carried on with arms in the hand: the young Queen was after some time (August 1548) carried off to France, to be there married to the Dauphin. The Catholic interests once more maintained their ascendancy in Scotland over those of the English and the Protestants.

And how could Somerset's plans and enterprises fail to meet with resistance in England itself? All the elements were still in existence that had once set themselves in opposition to King Henry with such energy. When an attempt was made in earnest to carry out the innovations at home, in the summer of 1549, the revolt burst into flame once more.

In Cornwall a tumult arose at the removal of an image, and the King's commissary was stabbed by a priest. The troubles extended to Devons.h.i.+re, where men forced the priests to celebrate the ma.s.s after the old ritual, and then took the field with crosses and tapers, and carrying the Host before them. When their numbers became so large as to embolden them to put forth a manifesto, they demanded before all--incredible as it may seem--the restoration of the Six Articles and the Latin Ma.s.s, the customary reverence to the Sacrament and to images. They did not go so far as to demand the restoration of the authority of the Roman See, like the rebels under Henry VIII; but they pressed for a fresh recognition of the General Councils, and of the old church laws as a whole. At least half of the confiscated church property was to be given back, two abbeys at least were to remain in each county. But this movement owed its peculiar character to yet another motive. The enclosures of the arable land for purposes of pasture, of which the peasantry had been long complaining, did not merely continue; the n.o.bility, which took part in the secularisation of the church-lands in an increasing degree, extended its grasp also to the newly-gained estates. So it came to pa.s.s that a rising of the peasants against the n.o.bles was now united with tendencies towards church restoration, as in previous times with ideas of quite a different kind. East and West were in revolt at one and the same time and for different reasons. On a hill near Norwich, the chief leader, a tanner by trade, called Ket, took his seat under a great oak which he called the Oak of Reformation; he had the ma.s.s read daily after the old use: but he also planned a remodeling of the realm to suit the views of the people. The wildest expectations were aroused. A prophecy found belief according to which monarchy and n.o.bility were to be destroyed simultaneously, and a new government set up under four Governors elected by the common people. And woe to him who wished to reason with the peasants against their design. They were already bending their bows against a preacher who attempted to do so, he was only saved with difficulty. But they were still less capable this time of withstanding the organised power of the State than they had been under Henry VIII. In Devons.h.i.+re they were beaten by Lord Russel, the ancestor of the Dukes of Bedford; in Norfolk, where they had risen in the greatest force, by John Dudley Earl of Warwick. Under his banners we find German troops as well, who were untouched by the national sympathies, and in the rebels combated only the enemies of Protestantism. The government obtained a complete victory.

The insurrectionary movement was suppressed, but it once more produced a violent reaction in home affairs, by which this time the head of the government was himself struck down.[144] Among English statesmen there is none who had a more vivid idea of the monarchical power than the Protector Somerset. He started from the view that religious and political authority were united in the hand of the anointed King in virtue of his divine right. The prayer which he daily addressed to G.o.d is still extant; it is full of the feeling that to himself, as the representative and guardian of the King, not only his guidance but also the direction of all affairs is entrusted. Such was also the view of the young sovereign himself. In one of his letters he thanks the Protector for taking this employment on him, and for trying to bring his State to its lawful obedience, the country to acknowledge the true religion, and the Scots to submission. Somerset did not think himself bound by the opinion of the Privy Council, since with him, and with no other, lay the responsibility for the administration of the State. He held it to be within his competence to remove at pleasure those of its members who showed themselves adverse to him. He too had that jealousy of power, which always directs itself against those who stand nearest to it. There is no doubt that his brother, Thomas Lord Seymour, impelled by a restless ambition, hoped to overthrow the existing government and put himself in possession of the highest place, and committed manifold illegal acts; he--the Lord Admiral of the realm--even entered into alliance with the pirates in the Channel.[145] But despite this it was thought at the time very severe when the Protector gave his word that the vengeance of the law should be executed on his brother. His reason was that Lord Seymour would not submit to sue in person for mercy to him the injured party and possessor of power. Such were these men, these brothers. The one died rather than pray for mercy: the other made the bestowal of it depend on this prayer, this confession of his supreme authority.[146] The Protector took all affairs, home and foreign, exclusively into his own hand. Without asking any one, he filled up the ministerial and civil posts: to the foreign amba.s.sadors he gave audience alone. He erected in his house a Court of Requests,[147] which encroached not a little on the business of Chancery. The palace in the Strand, which still bears his name, was to be a memorial of his power; not merely houses and gardens, but also churches which occupied the ground, or from which he wished to collect his building materials, were destroyed with reckless arbitrary power. Great historical a.s.sociations are indissolubly linked with this house. For it was Somerset after all, who through personal zeal opened a free path for the Protestant tendency which had originated under Henry VIII but had been repressed, and gave the English government a Protestant character. He connected with this not merely the Union of Scotland and England, but a yet further idea of great importance for England itself. He wished to free the change of religion from the antipathy of the peasantry which was at that time so prominent. In the above-mentioned dissensions he took open part for the demands of the commons: he condemned the progress of the enclosures and gave his opinion that the people could not be blamed so heavily for their rebellion, as their choice lay only between death by hunger and insurrection. It seemed as though he wished in the next Parliament by means of his influence to carry through a legal measure in favour of the commons.

But by this he necessarily awakened the ill will of the aristocracy.

He was charged with having instigated the troubles themselves by proclamations which he issued in opposition to the Privy Council; and with not merely having done nothing to suppress them but with having on the contrary supported the ringleaders and taken them under his protection.[148] No doubt this was the reason why the campaign against the rebels in Norfolk was not entrusted to him, as he wished, but (after some vacillation) to his rival, John Dudley, Earl of Warwick.

The victory gained by him, with the active sympathy of the n.o.bility, which was defending its own interests, was a defeat for Somerset. Even those who did not believe that he had any personal share in the movement, nevertheless reproached him with having allowed conditions to be prescribed to himself and his government by the people; the common man would be King. Financial difficulties arising from an alteration in the coinage, and ill success in the war against France, contributed to give his opponents the ascendancy in the Privy Council.

Somerset once entertained the idea of setting the ma.s.ses in movement on his own behalf: one day he collected numerous bands of people at Hampton Court, under cover of summoning them to defend the King, by whose side his enemies wished to set up a regency. But this pretext had little foundation, it was only himself whom his rivals would no longer see at the head of affairs: after a short fluctuation in the relations between the main personages he was forced to submit. He saved his life for that time: after an interval he was released from prison and again entered the Privy Council: then he once more made an attempt to recover the supreme power by help of the people, but thus drew his fate on himself. The ma.s.ses who regarded him as their champion showed him loud and heartfelt sympathy at his execution.

On Somerset's first fall it was said that the Emperor Charles V had a share in bringing it about, and this is very conceivable; for what result could be more displeasing to this sovereign than that Protestantism, which he was putting down in Germany, should have gained at the same moment a strong position in England: it is certain that the change of administration was greeted with joy by the court at Brussels.[149]

But it brought the Emperor no advantage. At the moment the new government a.s.sumed a hostile att.i.tude towards France: but soon afterwards the Earl of Warwick, who now took the lead of affairs as Duke of Northumberland, found himself driven to the necessity of making a peace with that power, by which Boulogne was given up and Scotland abandoned to French influence. One article of the treaty contains indirectly a renunciation of the proposed marriage between the King of England and the Queen of Scotland. And this treaty was greatly to the Emperor's disadvantage, since it now set the French free to renew the hostility against him which had been broken off some years before by an agreement all in his favour. They allied themselves for this purpose with the German princes who found the Emperor's yoke intolerable. These princes had even applied to the English government: and Edward would personally have been much inclined to lend an ear to their proposals. If the fear of being involved in war with the Emperor on this account withheld him from open sympathy, yet it is certain that his general political att.i.tude essentially contributed to enable them to take up arms and break the Emperor's ascendancy.

Among the determining causes of a movement which is part of the history of the world must be specially reckoned the personal disposition of this prince, young as he was even at the close of his reign. Somerset had kept him rather close: the Duke of Northumberland gave him greater freedom, allowed him to manage his own money, and was pleased when he made presents and showed himself as King; he was careful to see that immediate obedience was paid him.[150] Whilst Edward had been hitherto almost exclusively busied with his studies, he now turned to knightly exercises for which he also showed apt.i.tude: he sat well on horseback, drew his bow and broke his lance as well as any other young man of his age. But with all this his learning was not neglected.[151] Edward VI not merely possessed for his years extraordinary and manifold attainments; the written remains which are extant from his hand display a rare mental growth. What he has written for instance on his connexion with the two Seymours, his uncles, indicates a clear and almost a judicial conception of existing relations, which is very uncommon. On his tutor's advice, to prevent his pa.s.sing thoughts from getting confused, he regularly noted them down, and composed a diary which has the same characteristics and may be regarded as a valuable historical monument. But studies and religion coincide in him: he is Protestant to the core; his chief ambition is by means of his rank and power to place himself at the head of the Protestant world. The duke could not have ventured to oppose the progress of the Reformation.

In the days of distress, after the defeat in the Schmalkaldic war, England was regarded as the refuge of the gospel: men welcomed the scholars who fled thither, whose co-operation in the conflict with Catholicism, still so powerful, was very desirable. In Cranmer's palace at Lambeth were a.s.sembled Italians, French, Poles, Swiss, South Germans and North Germans; the Secretary of State, William Cecil, who had been trained in the service of the Protector, but had kept his place after his fall, obtained them the King's support. Martin Bucer and Paulus f.a.gius received promotion at Cambridge, Peter Martyr at Oxford: he there maintained the Calvinistic views on the communion in a great disputation. There were Walloon and French churches in the old centres of Catholic wors.h.i.+p, Canterbury and Glas...o...b..ry; John a Lasco preached in the church of the Augustines in London. With no less vigour than these foreigners did natives, sometimes returned exiles, maintain the views then prevailing on the Continent. Under these influences it was impossible, in conformity with the view taken up in 1536, to abide by the dogmas, which had been put forth by the school of Wittenberg, now completely overthrown. The difference comes out very remarkably when we compare the Common Prayer-book of 1549 with the revised edition of 1552. Originally men had held fast to the real presence in England also: Cranmer in his catechism expressly declared for it: in the formula of the first book, which was compiled out of Ambrose and Gregory, this view was retained:[152] but men in England had since convinced themselves that this doctrine had not prevailed so exclusively in Christian antiquity as had been hitherto thought: following the example of Ridley, the most learned of the Protestant bishops, the majority had given up the real presence: in the new Common Prayer-book a controversial pa.s.sage was even inserted against it. First on their own impulse, and then with the help of the Privy Council, the zealous Protestant-minded bishops removed the high altars from the churches and had wooden tables for the communion put in their place: since with the word Altar was a.s.sociated the idea of Sacrifice.