History of the Reformation in the Sixteenth Century Volume V Part 61

It was necessary to depart; he put round his neck a chain of gold, from which hung a pretended relic of the true cross; this was all he took. "Would to G.o.d," he exclaimed, as he placed it on, "that I had never had any other." This he said alluding to the legate's cross which used to be carried before him with so much pomp. He descended the back stairs, followed by his servants, some silent and dejected, others weeping bitterly, and proceeded to the river's brink, where a barge awaited him. But, alas! it was not alone. The Thames was covered with innumerable boats full of men and women. The inhabitants of London, expecting to see the cardinal led to the Tower, desired to be present at his humiliation, and prepared to accompany him. Cries of joy hailing his fall were heard from every side; nor were the cruellest sarcasms wanting. "The butcher's dog will bite no more,"

said some; "look, how he hangs his head." In truth, the unhappy man, distressed by a sight so new to him, lowered those eyes which were once so proud, but now were filled with bitter tears. This man, who had made all England tremble, was then like a withered leaf carried along the stream. All his servants were moved; even his fool, William Patch, sobbed like the rest. "O, wavering and newfangled mult.i.tude,"

exclaimed Cavendish, his gentleman usher.[1072] The hopes of the citizens were disappointed; the barge, instead of descending the river, proceeded upwards in the direction of Hampton Court; gradually the shouts died away, and the flotilla dispersed.

[1072] Cavendish, Wolsey, p. 251.

[Sidenote: WOLSEY'S JESTER.]

The silence of the river permitted Wolsey to indulge in less bitter thoughts; but it seemed as if invisible furies were pursuing him, now that the people had left him. He left his barge at Putney, and mounting his mule, though with difficulty, proceeded slowly with downcast looks. Shortly after, upon lifting his eyes, he saw a horseman riding rapidly down the hill towards them. "Whom do you think it can be?" he asked of his attendants. "My lord," replied one of them, "I think it is Sir Henry Morris." A flash of joy pa.s.sed through Wolsey's heart. Was it not Norris, who, of all the king's officers, had shown him the most respect during his visit to Grafton? Norris came up with them, saluted him respectfully, and said: "The king bids me declare that he still entertains the same kindly feelings towards you, and sends you this ring as a token of his confidence." Wolsey received it with a trembling hand: it was that which the king was in the habit of sending on important occasions. The cardinal immediately alighted from his mule, and kneeling down in the road, raised his hands to heaven with an indescribable expression of happiness. The fallen man would have pulled off his velvet under-cap, but unable to undo the strings, he broke them, and threw it on the ground. He remained on his knees bareheaded praying fervently amidst profound silence. G.o.d's forgiveness had never caused Wolsey so much pleasure as Henry's.

Having finished his prayer, the cardinal put on his cap, and remounted his mule. "Gentle Norris," said he to the king's messenger, "if I were lord of a kingdom, the half of it would scarcely be enough to reward you for your happy tidings; but I have nothing left except the clothes on my back." Then taking off his gold chain: "Take this," he said, "it contains a piece of the true cross. In my happier days I would not have parted with it for a thousand pounds." The cardinal and Norris separated: but Wolsey soon stopped, and the whole troop halted on the heath. The thought troubled him greatly that he had nothing to send to the king; he called Norris back, and looking round him saw mounted on a sorry horse poor William Patch, who had lost all his gaiety since his master's misfortune. "Present this poor jester to the king from me," said Wolsey to Norris; "his buffooneries are a pleasure fit for a prince; he is worth a thousand pounds." Patch, offended at being treated thus, burst into a violent pa.s.sion, his eyes flashed fire, he foamed at the mouth, he kicked and fought, and bit all who approached him;[1073] but the inexorable Wolsey, who looked upon him merely as a toy, ordered six of his tallest yeomen to lay hold of him. They carried off the unfortunate creature, who long continued to utter his piercing cries. At the very moment when his master had had pity on him, Wolsey, like the servant in the parable, had no pity on his poor companion in misfortune.

[1073] The poor fool took on, and fired so in such a rage. Cavendish, p. 237.

At last they reached Esher. What a residence compared with Whitehall!... It was little more than four bare walls. The most urgent necessaries were procured from the neighbouring houses, but Wolsey could not adapt himself to this cruel contrast. Besides, he knew Henry VIII; he knew that he might send Norris one day with a gold ring, and the executioner the next with a rope. Gloomy and dejected, he remained seated in his lonely apartments. On a sudden he would rise from his seat, walk hurriedly up and down, speak aloud to himself, and then falling back in his chair, he would weep like a child. This man who formerly had shaken kingdoms, had been overthrown in the twinkling of an eye, and was now atoning for his perfidies in humiliation and terror,--a striking example of G.o.d's judgment.

CHAPTER XIV.

Thomas More elected Chancellor--A lay Government one of the great Facts of the Reformation--Wolsey accused of subordinating England to the Pope--He implores the King's Clemency--His Condemnation--Cromwell at Esher--His Character--He sets out for London--Sir Christopher Hales recommends him to the King--Cromwell's Interview with Henry in the Park--A new Theory--Cromwell elected Member of Parliament--Opened by Sir Thomas More--Attack on ecclesiastical Abuses--Reforms p.r.o.nounced by the Convocation--Three Bills--Rochester attacks them--Resistance of the House of Commons--Struggles--Henry sanctions the three Bills--Alarm of the Clergy and Disturbances.

[Sidenote: LORD CHANCELLOR MORE.]

During all this time everybody was in commotion at court. Norfolk and Suffolk, at the head of the council, had informed the Star Chamber of the cardinal's disgrace. Henry knew not how to supply his place. Some suggested the archbishop of Canterbury; the king would not hear of him. "Wolsey," says a French writer, "had disgusted the king and all England with those subjects of two masters who, almost always, sold one to the other. They preferred a lay minister." "I verily believe the priests will never more obtain it," wrote Du Bellay. The name of Sir Thomas More was p.r.o.nounced. He was a layman, and that quality, which a few years before would, perhaps, have excluded him, was now a recommendation. A breath of Protestantism wafted to the summit of honours one of its greatest enemies. Henry thought that More, placed between the pope and his sovereign, would decide in favour of the interests of the throne, and of the independence of England. His choice was made.

[Sidenote: WOLSEY THREATENED WITH PRaeMUNIRE.]

More knew that the cardinal had been thrown aside because he was not a sufficiently docile instrument in the matter of the divorce. The work required of him was contrary to his convictions; but the honour conferred on him was almost unprecedented--very seldom indeed had the seals been intrusted to a mere knight.[1074] He followed the path of ambition and not of duty; he showed, however, in after-days that his ambition was of no common sort. It is even probable that, foreseeing the dangers which threatened to destroy the papal power in England, More wished to make an effort to save it. Norfolk installed the new chancellor in the Star Chamber. "His majesty," said the duke, "has not cast his eyes upon the n.o.bility of the blood, but on the worth of the person. He desires to show by this choice that there are among the laity and gentlemen of England, men worthy to fill the highest offices in the kingdom, to which, until this hour, bishops and n.o.blemen alone think they have a right."[1075] The Reformation which restored religion to the general body of the church, took away at the same time political power from the clergy. The priests had deprived the people of Christian activity, and the governments of power; the Gospel restored to both what the priests had usurped. This result could not but be favourable to the interests of religion; the less cause kings and their subjects have to fear the intrusion of clerical power into the affairs of the world, the more will they yield themselves to the vivifying influence of faith.

[1074] It has been often a.s.serted that Sir Thomas More was the first layman to whom the office of chancellor was intrusted; but there were no less than _six_ between A.D. 1342 and 1410; viz. Sir Robert Boucher, knight; Sir Robert de Thorp, knight; Sir R. de la Serope, knight; Sir M. de la Pole; R. Neville, earl of Salisbury; and Sir T.

Beaufort, knight.

[1075] More's Life, p. 172.

More lost no time; never had lord-chancellor displayed such activity.

He rapidly cleared off the cases which were in arrear, and having been installed on the 26th of October he called on Wolsey's cause on the 28th or 29th. "The crown of England," said the attorney-general, "has never acknowledged any superior but G.o.d.[1076] Now, the said Thomas Wolsey, legate _a latere_, has obtained from the pope certain bulls, by virtue of which he has exercised since the 28th of August 1523 an authority derogatory to his majesty's power, and to the rights of his courts of justice. The crown of England cannot be put under the pope; and we therefore accuse the said legate of having incurred the penalties of _praemunire_."

[1076] The crown of England, free at all times, has been in no earthly subjection, but immediately subject to G.o.d in all things. Herbert, p.

231. See also Articles of Impeachment, section 1.

[Sidenote: WOLSEY'S REAL CRIME.]

There can be no doubt that Henry had other reasons for Wolsey's disgrace than those pointed out by the attorney-general; but England had convictions of a higher nature than her sovereign's. Wolsey was regarded as the pope's accomplice, and this was the cause of the great severity of the public officer and of the people. The cardinal is generally excused by alleging that both king and parliament had ratified the unconst.i.tutional authority with which Rome had invested him; but had not the powers conferred on him by the pope produced unjustifiable results in a const.i.tutional monarchy? Wolsey, as papal legate, had governed England without a parliament; and, as if the nation had gone back to the reign of John, he had subst.i.tuted _de facto_, if not in theory, the monstrous system of the famous bull _Unam Sanctum_[1077] for the inst.i.tution of _Magna Charta_. The king, and even the lords and commons, had connived in vain at these illegalities; the rights of the const.i.tution of England remained not the less inviolable, and the best of the people had protested against their infringement. And hence it was that Wolsey, conscious of his crime, "put himself wholly to the mercy and grace of the king,"[1078]

and his counsel declared his ignorance of the statutes he was said to have infringed. We cannot here allege, as some have done, the prostration of Wolsey's moral powers; he could, even after his fall, reply with energy to Henry VIII. When, for instance, the king sent to demand for the crown his palace of Whitehall, which belonged to the see of York, the cardinal answered: "Show his majesty from me that I must desire him to call to his most gracious remembrance that there is both a heaven and a h.e.l.l;" and when other charges besides those of complicity with the papal aggression were brought against him, he defended himself courageously, as will be afterwards seen. If therefore the cardinal did not attempt to justify himself for infringing the rights of the crown, it was because his conscience bade him be silent. He had committed one of the gravest faults of which a statesman can be guilty. Those who have sought to excuse him have not sufficiently borne in mind that, since the Great Charter, opposition to Romish aggression has always characterized the const.i.tution and government of England. Wolsey perfectly recollected this; and this explanation is more honourable to him than that which ascribes his silence to weakness or to cunning.

[1077] Since the 13th of Nov. 1302, Raynold ad ann. Uterque ergo gladius est in potestate ecclesiae, spiritualis scilicet et materialis.

Both the one sword, and the other therefore, is, in the power of the church, the spiritual undoubtedly and the material also.

[1078] Cavendish, p. 276.

The cardinal was p.r.o.nounced guilty, and the court pa.s.sed judgment, that by the statute of _praemunire_ his property was forfeited, and that he might be taken before the king in council. England, by sacrificing a churchman who had placed himself above kings, gave a memorable example of her inflexible opposition to the encroachments of the papacy. Wolsey was confounded, and his troubled imagination conjured up nothing but perils on every side.

While More was lending himself to the condemnation of his predecessor, whose friend he had been, another layman of still humbler origin was preparing to defend the cardinal, and by that very act to become the appointed instrument to throw down the convents in England, and to shatter the secular bonds which united this country to the Roman pontiff.

[Sidenote: CROMWELL'S RESOLUTION.]

On the 1st of November, two days after Wolsey's condemnation, one of his officers, with a prayer-book in his hand, was leaning against the window in the great hall, apparently absorbed in his devotions.

"Good-morrow," said Cavendish as he pa.s.sed him, on his way to the cardinal for his usual morning duties. The person thus addressed raided his head, and the gentleman-usher, seeing that his eyes were filled with tears, asked him: "Master Cromwell, is my lord in any danger?"--"I think not," replied Cromwell, "but it is hard to lose in a moment the labour of a life." In his master's fall Cromwell foreboded his own. Cavendish endeavoured to console him. "G.o.d willing, this is my resolution," replied Wolsey's ambitious solicitor; "I intend this afternoon, as soon as my lord has dined, to ride to London, and so go to court, where I will either make or mar before I come back again."[1079] At this moment Cavendish was summoned, and he entered the cardinal's chamber.

[1079] Cavendish, p. 280.

Cromwell, devoured by ambition, had clung to Wolsey's robe in order to attain power; but Wolsey had fallen, and the solicitor, dragged along with him, strove to reach by other means the object of his desires.

Cromwell was one of those earnest and vigorous men whom G.o.d prepares for critical times. Blessed with a solid judgment and intrepid firmness, he possessed a quality rare in every age, and particularly under Henry VIII,--fidelity in misfortune. The ability by which he was distinguished was not at all times without reproach: success seems to have been his first thought.

[Sidenote: CROMWELL'S INTERVIEW WITH HENRY.]

After dinner Cromwell followed Wolsey into his private room: "My lord, permit me to go to London, I will endeavour to save you." A gleam pa.s.sed over the cardinal's saddened features.--"Leave the room," he said to his attendants. He then had a long private conversation with Cromwell,[1080] at the end of which the latter mounted his horse and set out for the capital, riding to the a.s.sault of power with the same activity as he had marched to the attack of Rome. He did not hide from himself that it would be difficult to procure access to the king; for certain ecclesiastics, jealous of Wolsey, had spoken against his solicitor at the time of the secularization of the convents, and Henry could not endure him. But Cromwell knew that fortune favours the bold, and, carried away by his ambitious dreams, he galloped on, saying to himself: "One foot in the stirrup, and my fortune is made!"

[1080] Long communication with my lord in secret. Ibid. p. 270.

Sir Christopher Hales, a zealous Roman-catholic, entertained a sincere friends.h.i.+p for him; and to this friend Cromwell applied. Hales proceeded immediately to the palace (2nd November), where he found a numerous company talking about the cardinal's ruin. "There was one of his officers," said Hales, "who would serve your majesty well."--"Who is he?" asked Henry.--"Cromwell."--"Do not speak to me of that man, I hate him," replied the king angrily;[1081] and upon that all the courtiers chimed in with his majesty's opinion. This opening was not very encouraging; but Lord Russell, earl of Bedford, advancing to the midst of the group around the king, said boldly:[1082] "Permit me, Sir, to defend a man to whom I am indebted for my life. When you sent me privately into Italy, your majesty's enemies, having discovered me at Bologna, would have put me to death, had not Thomas Cromwell saved me. Sir, since you have now to do with the pope, there is no man (I think) in all England who will be fitter for your purpose."--"Indeed!"

said the king; and after a little reflection, he said to Hales: "Very well then, let your client meet me in Whitehall gardens." The courtiers and the priests withdrew in great discomfiture.

[1081] The king began to detest the mention of him. Foxe, v. p. 368.

[1082] In a vehement boldness. Ibid. p. 367.

[Sidenote: LIBERTY SHOULD BE RESTORED TO THE CHURCH.]

The interview took place the same day at the appointed spot. "Sir,"

said Cromwell to his majesty, "the pope refuses your divorce.... But why do you ask his consent? Every Englishman is master in his own house, and why should not you be so in England? Ought a foreign prelate to share your power with you? It is true, the bishops make oath to your majesty, but they make another to the pope immediately after, which absolves them from the former. Sir, you are but half a king, and we are but half your subjects.[1083] This kingdom is a two-headed monster. Will you bear with such an anomaly any longer?

What! are you not living in an age when Frederick the Wise and other German princes have thrown off the yoke of Rome? Do likewise; become once more a king; govern your kingdom in concert with your lords and commons. Henceforward let Englishmen alone have any thing to say in England; let not your subjects' money be cast any more into the yawning gulf of the Tiber; instead of imposing new taxes on the nation, convert to the general good those treasures which have hitherto only served to fatten proud priests and lazy friars. Now is the moment for action. Rely upon your parliament; proclaim yourself the head of the church in England. Then shall you see an increase of glory to your name, and of prosperity to your people."

[1083] Foxe, v. p. 367. See also Apol. Regin. Poli ad Car. i. p. 120, 121.

Never before had such language been addressed to a king of England. It was not only on account of the divorce that it was necessary to break with Rome; it was, in Cromwell's view, on account of the independence, glory, and prosperity of the monarchy. These considerations appeared more important to Henry than those which had hitherto been laid before him; none of the kings of England had been so well placed as he was to understand them. When a Tudor had succeeded to the Saxon, Norman, and Plantagenet kings, a man of the free race of the Celts had taken on the throne of England the place of princes submissive to the Roman pontiffs. The ancient British church, independent of the papacy, was about to rise again with this new dynasty, and the Celtic race, after eleven centuries of humiliation, to recover its ancient heritage.

Undoubtedly, Henry had no recollections of this kind; but he worked in conformity with the peculiar character of his race, without being aware of the instinct which compelled him to act. He felt that a sovereign, who submits to the pope, becomes, like King John, his va.s.sal; and now, after having been the second in his realm, he desired to be the first.

The king reflected on what Cromwell had said; astonished and surprised, he sought to understand the new position which his bold adviser had made for him. "Your proposal pleases me much," he said; "but can you prove what you a.s.sert?" "Certainly," replied this able politician; "I have with me a copy of the oath the bishops make to the Roman pontiff." With these words he drew a paper from his pocket, and placed the oath before the king's eyes. Henry, jealous of his authority even to despotism, was filled with indignation, and felt the necessity of bringing down that foreign authority which dared dispute the power with him, even in his own kingdom. He drew off his ring and gave it to Cromwell, declaring that he took him into his service, and soon after made him a member of his privy-council. England, we may say, was now virtually emanc.i.p.ated from the papacy.

Cromwell had laid the first foundations of his greatness. He had remarked the path his master had followed, and which had led to his ruin,--complicity with the pope; and he hoped to succeed by following the contrary course, namely, by opposing the papacy. He had the king's support, but he wanted more. Possessing a clear and easy style of eloquence, he saw what influence a seat in the great council of the nation would give him. It was somewhat late, for the session began on the next day (3rd November), but to Cromwell nothing was impossible.

The son of his friend, Sir Thomas Rush, had been returned to parliament; but the young member resigned his seat, and Cromwell was elected in his place.

[Sidenote: MEETING OF PARLIAMENT.]

Parliament had not met for seven years, the kingdom having been governed by a prince of the Roman church. The reformation of the church, whose regenerating influence began to be felt already, was about to restore to the nation those ancient liberties of which a cardinal had robbed it; and Henry being on the point of taking very important resolutions, felt the necessity of drawing nearer to his people. Everything betokened that a good feeling would prevail between the parliament and the crown, and that "the priests would have a terrible fright."[1084]