History of England from the fall of Wolsey to the death of Elizabeth Volume III Part 26

Such shameful practices he was determined should be brought to an end.

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

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

[Sidenote: The king is empowered to complete the dissolution of the monasteries.]

[Sidenote: Causes and effects of the final catastrophe.]

[Sidenote: The creation of a new proprietary.]

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

[Sidenote: Intended extension of the episcopate,]

[Sidenote: And erection of chapters.]

[Sidenote: Compulsory curtailment of the scheme.]

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

[Sidenote: May 30.]

[Sidenote: The Six Articles are determined,]

[Sidenote: And the resolutions are to be enforced by a penal statute.]

[Sidenote: The severity of the penalties an act not of the king, but of the bishops.]

On the 23d of May parliament was prorogued for a week; on the 30th the lord chancellor informed the peers that his Majesty, with the a.s.sistance of the bench of bishops, had come to a conclusion on the Six Articles; which, it was a.s.sumed,--from the course possibly which the many debates had taken,--would be acceptable to the two houses. A penal statute would be required to enforce the resolutions; and it was for their lords.h.i.+ps to determine the character and the a extent of the punishment which would be necessary. To give room for differences of opinion, two committees were this time appointed,--the first consisting of Cranmer, the Bishops of Ely and St. David's, and Sir William Petre; the other of the Archbishop of York, the Bishops of Durham and Winchester, and Dr.

Tregonwell.[465] The separate reports were drawn and presented; the peers accepted the second. The cruel character of the resolutions was attributed, by sound authority, to the especial influence of Gardiner.[466] It was not, in its extreme form, the work of the king, nor did it express his own desires. His opinions on the disputed articles were wholly those contained in the body of the act. He had argued laboriously in their maintenance, and he had himself drawn a sketch for a statute not unlike that which pa.s.sed into law; but he had added two clauses, from which the bishops contrived to deliver themselves, which, if insisted upon, would have crippled the prosecutions and tied the hands of the Church officials. According to Henry's scheme, the judges would have been bound to deliver in writing to the party accused a copy of the accusation, with the names and depositions of the witnesses; and, if there was but one witness, let his reputation have stood as high as that of any man in the state, it would have been held insufficient for a conviction.[467]

[Sidenote: The whip with the six strings.]

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

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

[Sidenote: The real presence.]

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

[Sidenote: Communion in both kinds.]

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

[Sidenote: Priests' marriages.]

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

[Sidenote: Vows of chast.i.ty.]

4. That vows of chast.i.ty made to G.o.d advisedly, by man or woman, ought to be observed, and were of perpetual obligation.

[Sidenote: Private ma.s.ses.]

5. That private ma.s.ses ought to be continued, as meet and necessary for G.o.dly consolation and benefit.

[Sidenote: Auricular confession.]

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

[Sidenote: Thanks of parliament to the king.]

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

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

[Sidenote: Pains and penalties.]

That whoever, by word or writing, denied the first article, should be declared a heretic, and suffer death by burning, without opportunity of abjuration, without protection from sanctuary or benefit of clergy.

Whoever spoke or otherwise broke the other five articles, or any one of them, should, for the first offence, forfeit his property; if he offended a second time, or refused to abjure when called to answer, he should suffer death as a felon. All marriages. .h.i.therto contracted by priests were declared void. A day was fixed before which their wives were to be sent to their friends, and to retain them after that day was felony. To refuse to go to confession was felony. To refuse to receive the sacrament was felony. On every road on which the free mind of man was moving, the dark sentinel of orthodoxy was stationed with its flaming sword; and in a little time all cowards, all who had adopted the new opinions with motives less pure than that deep zeal and love which alone ent.i.tle human beings to const.i.tute themselves champions of G.o.d, flinched into their proper nothingness, and left the battle to the brave and the good.

[Sidenote: General satisfaction with the measure felt by the higher cla.s.ses.]

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

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

[Sidenote: Unanimity of the temporal peers.]

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

[Sidenote: Spirit of English conservatism.]

[Sidenote: Protest of Melancthon.]

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

We turn to Melancthon, and we hear the protest of humanity, the pleading of intellect against inst.i.tutions, the voice of freedom as opposed to the voice of order--the two spirits "between whose endless jar justice resides."

[Sidenote: The shame of the king and the glory of the martyrs.]

[Sidenote: The malice of the bishops against the truth.]

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

[Sidenote: The king reads to the Anglicans a lesson of moderation.]

[Sidenote: The dinner at Lambeth.]