The carelessness of the bishops in the discharge of their most immediate duties obliged the legislature to trespass also in the provinces purely spiritual, and undertake the discipline of the clergy. The Commons had complained in their petition that the clergy, instead of attending to their duties, were acting as auditors, bailiffs, stewards, or in other capacities, as laymen; they were engaged in trade also, in farming, in tanning, in brewing, in doing anything but the duties which they were paid for doing; while they purchased dispensations for non-residence on their benefices; and of these benefices, in favoured cases, single priests held as many as eight or nine. It was thought unnecessary to wait for the bishops' pleasure to apply a remedy here. If the clergy were unjustly accused of these offences, a law of general prohibition would not touch them. If the belief of the House of Commons was well founded, there was no occasion for longer delay. It was therefore enacted²⁴²—"for the more quiet and virtuous increase and maintenance of divine service, the preaching and teaching the Word of God with godly and good example, for the better discharge of cures, the maintenance of hospitality, the relief of poor people, the increase of devotion and good opinion of the lay fee towards spiritual persons"—that no such persons thenceforward should take any land to farm beyond what was necessary, bonâ fide, for the support of their own households; that they should not buy merchandise to sell again; that they should keep no tanneries or brewhouses, or otherwise directly or indirectly trade for gain. Pluralities were not to be permitted with benefices above the yearly value of eight pounds, and residence was made obligatory under penalty in cases of absence without special reason, of ten pounds for each month of such absence. The law against pluralities was limited as against existing holders, each of whom, for their natural lives, might continue to hold as many as four benefices. But dispensations, either for non-residence or for the violation of any other provision of the act, were made penal in a high degree, whether obtained from the bishops or from the court of Rome.

These bills struck hard and struck home. Yet even persons who most disapprove of the Reformation will not at the present time either wonder at their enactment or complain of their severity. They will be desirous rather to disentangle their doctrine from suspicious connection, and will not be anxious to compromise their theology by the defence of unworthy professors of it.

The bishops, however, could ill tolerate an interference with the privileges of the ecclesiastical order. The Commons, it was exclaimed, were heretics and schismatics;²⁴³ the cry was heard everywhere, of Lack of faith, Lack of faith; and the lay peers being constitutionally conservative, and perhaps instinctively apprehensive of the infectious tendencies of innovation, it seemed likely for a time that an effective opposition might be raised in the Upper House. The clergy commanded an actual majority in that House from their own body, which they might employ if they dared; and although they were not likely to venture alone on so bold a measure, yet a partial support from the other members was a sufficient encouragement. The aged Bishop of Rochester was made the spokesman of the ecclesiastics on this occasion. "My Lords," he said, "you see daily what bills come hither from the Commons House, and all is to the destruction of the church. For God's sake see what a realm the kingdom of Bohemia was; and when the church went down, then fell the glory of that kingdom. Now with the Commons is nothing but Down with the church, and all this meseemeth is for lack of faith only."²⁴⁴ "In result," says Hall, "the acts were sore debated; the Lords Spiritual would in no wise consent, and committees of the two Houses sate continually for discussion." The spiritualty defended themselves by prescription and usage, to which a Gray's Inn lawyer something insolently answered, on one occasion, "the usage hath ever been of thieves to rob on Shooter's Hill, ergo, it is lawful." "With this answer," continues Hall, "the spiritual men were sore offended because their doings were called robberies, but the temporal men stood by their sayings, insomuch that the said gentlemen declared to the Archbishop of Canterbury, that both the exaction of probates of testaments and the taking of mortuaries were open robbery and thefts."

At length, people out of doors growing impatient, and dangerous symptoms threatening to show themselves, the king summoned a meeting in the Star-chamber between eight members of both Houses. The lay peers, after some discussion, conclusively gave way; and the bishops, left without support, were obliged to yield. They signified their unwilling consent, and the bills, "somewhat qualified," were the next day agreed to—"to the great rejoicing of the lay people, and the great displeasure of the spiritual persons."²⁴⁵

Nor were the House of Commons contented with the substance of victory. The reply to their petition had perhaps by that time been made known to them, and at any rate they had been accused of sympathy with heresy, and they would not submit to the hateful charge without exacting revenge. The more clamorous of the clergy out of doors were punished probably by the stocks; from among their opponents in the Upper House, Fisher was selected for special and signal humiliation. The words of which he had made use were truer than the Commons knew; perhaps the latent truth of them was the secret cause of the pain which they inflicted; but the special anxiety of the English reformers was to disconnect themselves, with marked emphasis, from the movement in Germany, and they determined to compel the offending bishop to withdraw his words.

They sent the speaker, Sir Thomas Audeley, to the king, who "very eloquently declared what dishonour it was to his Majesty and the realm, that they which were elected for the wisest men in the shires, cities, and boroughs within the realm of England, should be declared in so noble a presence to lack faith." It was equivalent to saying "that they were infidels, and no Christians—as ill as Turks and Saracens." Wherefore he "most humbly besought the King's Highness to call the said bishop before him, and to cause him to speak more discreetly of such a number as was in the Commons House."²⁴⁶ Henry consented to their request, it is likely with no great difficulty, and availed himself of the opportunity to read a lesson much needed to the remainder of the bench. He sent for Fisher, and with him for the Archbishop of Canterbury, and for six other bishops. The speaker's message was laid before them, and they were asked what they had to say. It would have been well for the weak trembling old men if they could have repeated what they believed and had maintained their right to believe it. Bold conduct is ever the most safe; it is fatal only when there is courage but for the first step, and fails when a second is required to support it. But they were forsaken in their hour of calamity, not by courage only, but by prudence, by judgment, by conscience itself. The Bishop of Rochester stooped to an equivocation too transparent to deceive any one; he said that "he meant only the doings of the Bohemians were for lack of faith, and not the doings of the Commons House"—"which saying was confirmed by the bishops present." The king allowed the excuse, and the bishops were dismissed; but they were dismissed into ignominy, and thenceforward, in all Henry's dealings with them, they were treated with contemptuous disrespect. For Fisher himself we must feel only sorrow. After seventy-six years of a useful and honourable life, which he might have hoped to close in a quiet haven, he was launched suddenly upon stormy waters, to which he was too brave to yield, which he was too timid to contend against; and the frail vessel drifting where the waves drove it, was soon piteously to perish.

Thus triumphant on every side, the parliament, in the middle of December, closed its session, and lay England celebrated its exploits as a national victory. "The king removed to Greenwich, and there kept his Christmas with the queen with great triumph, with great plenty of viands, and disguisings, and interludes, to the great rejoicing of his people;"²⁴⁷ the members of the House of Commons, we may well believe, following the royal example in town and country, and being the little heroes of the day. Only the bishops carried home sad hearts within them, to mourn over the perils of the church and the impending end of all things; Fisher, unhappily for himself, to listen to the wailings of the Nun of Kent, and to totter slowly into treason.

Here, for the present leaving the clergy to meditate on their future, and reconsider the wisdom of their answer to the king respecting the ecclesiastical jurisdiction (a point on which they were not the less certain to be pressed, because the process upon it was temporarily suspended), we must turn to the more painful matter which, for a time longer, ran parallel with the domestic reformation, and as yet was unable to unite with it. After the departure of Campeggio, the further hearing of the divorce cause had been advoked to Rome, where it was impossible for Henry to consent to plead; while the appearance of the supposed brief had opened avenues of new difficulty which left no hope of a decision within the limits of an ordinary lifetime. Henry was still, however, extremely reluctant²⁴⁸ to proceed to extremities, and appeal to the parliament. He had threatened that he would tolerate no delay, and Wolsey had evidently expected that he would not. Queen Catherine's alarm had gone so far, that in the autumn she had procured an injunction from the pope, which had been posted in the churches of Flanders, menacing the king with spiritual censures if he took any further steps.²⁴⁹ Even this she feared that he would disregard, and in March, 1529-30, a second inhibition was issued at her request, couched in still stronger language.²⁵⁰ But these measures were needless, or at least premature. Henry expected that the display of temper in the country in the late session would produce an effect both on the pope and on the emperor; and proposing to send an embassy to remonstrate jointly with them on the occasion of the emperor's coronation, which was to take place in the spring at Bologna, he had recourse in the mean time to an expedient which, though blemished in the execution, was itself reasonable and prudent.

Among the many technical questions which had been raised upon the divorce, the most serious was on the validity of the original dispensation; a question not only on the sufficiency of the form the defects of which the brief had been invented to remedy; but on the more comprehensive uncertainty whether Pope Julius had not exceeded his powers altogether in granting a dispensation where there was so close affinity. No one supposed that the pope could permit a brother to marry a sister; a dispensation granted in such a case would be ipso facto void.—Was not the dispensation similarly void which permitted the marriage of a brother's widow? The advantage which Henry expected from raising this difficulty was the transfer of judgment from the partial tribunal of Clement to a broader court. The pope could not, of course, adjudicate on the extent of his own powers; especially as he always declared himself to be ignorant of the law; and the decision of so general a question rested either with a general council, or must be determined by the consent of Christendom, obtained in some other manner. If such general consent declared against the pope, the cause was virtually terminated. If there was some approach to a consent against him, or even if there was general uncertainty, Henry had a legal pretext for declining his jurisdiction, and appealing to a council.

Thomas Cranmer, then a doctor of divinity at Cambridge,²⁵¹ is said to have been the person who suggested this ingenious expedient, and to have advised the king, as the simplest means of carrying it out, to consult in detail the universities and learned men throughout Europe. His notorious activity in collecting the opinions may have easily connected him with the origination of the plan, which probably occurred to many other persons as well as to him; but whoever was the first adviser, it was immediately acted upon, and English agents were despatched into Germany, Italy, and France, carrying with them all means of persuasion, intellectual, moral, and material, which promised to be of most cogent potency with lawyers' convictions.

This matter was in full activity when the Earl of Wiltshire, Anne Boleyn's father, with Cranmer, the Bishop of London, and Edward Lee, afterwards Archbishop of York, was despatched to Bologna to lay Henry's remonstrances before the emperor, who was come at last in person to enjoy his miserable triumph, and receive from the pope the imperial crown. Sir Nicholas Carew, who had been sent forward a few weeks previously, described in piteous language the state to which Italy had been reduced by him. Passing through Pavia, the English emissary saw the children crying about the streets for bread, and dying of hunger; the grapes in midwinter rotting on the vines, because there was no one to gather them; and for fifty miles scarcely a single creature, man or woman, in the fields. "They say," added Carew, "and the pope also showed us the same, that the whole people of that country, with divers other places in Italia, with war, famine, and pestilence, are utterly dead and gone."²⁵² Such had been the combined work of the vanity of Francis and the cold selfishness of Charles; and now the latter had arrived amidst the ruins which he had made, to receive his crown from the hands of a pope who was true to Italy, if false to all the world besides, and whom, but two years before, he had imprisoned and disgraced. We think of Clement as the creature of the emperor, and such substantially he allowed himself to be; but his obedience was the obedience of fear to a master whom he hated, and the bishop of Tarbès, who was present at the coronation, and stood at his side through the ceremony, saw him trembling under his robes with emotion, and heard him sigh bitterly.²⁵³ Very unwillingly, we may be assured, he was compelled to act his vacillating part to England, and England, at this distance of time, may forgive him for faults to which she owes her freedom, and need not refuse him some tribute of sympathy in his sorrows.

Fallen on evil times, which greater wisdom and greater courage than had for many a century been found in the successors of St. Peter would have failed to encounter successfully, Clement VII. remained, with all his cowardice, a true Italian; his errors were the errors of his age and nation, and were softened by the presence, in more than usual measure, of Italian genius and grace. Benvenuto Cellini, who describes his character with much minuteness, has left us a picture of a hot-tempered, but genuine and kind-hearted man, whose taste was elegant, and whose wit, from the playful spirit with which it was pervaded, and from a certain tendency to innocent levity, approached to humour. He was liable to violent bursts of feeling; and his inability to control himself, his gesticulations, his exclamations, and his tears, all represent to us a person who was an indifferent master of the tricks of dissimulation to which he was reduced, and whose weakness entitles him to pity, if not to respect. The papacy had fallen to him at the crisis of its deepest degradation. It existed as a politically organised institution, which it was convenient to maintain, but from which the private hearts of all men had fallen away; and it depended for its very life upon the support which the courts of Europe would condescend to extend to it. Among these governments, therefore, distracted as they were by mutual hostility, the pope was compelled to make his choice; and the fatality of his position condemned him to quarrel with the only prince on whom, at the outset of these complications, he had a right to depend.

In 1512, France had been on the point of declaring her religious independence; and as late as 1525, Francis entertained thoughts of offering the patriarchate to Wolsey.²⁵⁴ Charles V., postponing his religious devotion for the leisure of old age, had reserved the choice of his party, to watch events and to wait upon opportunity; while, from his singular position, he wielded in one hand the power of Catholic Spain, in the other that of Protestant Germany, ready to strike with either, as occasion or necessity recommended. If his Spaniards had annexed the New World to the papacy, his German lanzknechts had stormed the Holy City, murdered cardinals, and outraged the pope's person: while both Charles and Francis, alike caring exclusively for their private interests, had allowed the Turks to overrun Hungary, to conquer Rhodes, and to collect an armament at Constantinople so formidable as to threaten Italy itself, and the very Christian faith. Henry alone had shown hitherto a true feeling for religion; Henry had made war with Louis XII. solely in the pope's quarrel; Henry had broken an old alliance with the emperor to revenge the capture of Rome, and had won Francis back to his allegiance. To Henry, if to any one, the Roman bishop had a right to look with confidence. But the power of England was far off, and could not reach to Rome. Francis had been baffled and defeated, his armies destroyed, his political influence in the Peninsula annihilated. The practical choice which remained to Clement lay only, as it seemed, between the emperor and martyrdom; and having, perhaps, a desire for the nobler alternative, yet being without the power to choose it, his wishes and his conduct, his words to private persons and his open actions before the world, were in perpetual contradiction. He submitted while his heart revolted; and while at Charles's dictation he was threatening Henry with excommunication if he proceeded further with his divorce, he was able at that very time to say, in confidence, to the Bishop of Tarbès, that he would be well contented if the King of England would marry on his own responsibility, availing himself of any means which he might possess among his own people, so only that he himself was not committed to a consent or the privileges of the papacy were not trenched upon.²⁵⁵

Two years later, when the course which the pope would really pursue under such circumstances was of smaller importance, Henry gave him an opportunity of proving the sincerity of this language; and the result was such as he expected it to be. As yet, however, he had not relinquished the hope of succeeding by a more open course.

In March, 1529-30, the English ambassadors appeared at Bologna. Their instructions were honest, manly, and straightforward. They were directed to explain, ab initio, the grounds of the king's proceedings, and to appeal to the emperor's understanding of the obligations of princes. Full restitution was to be offered of Catherine's dowry, and the Earl of Wiltshire was provided with letters of credit adequate to the amount.²⁵⁶ If these proposals were not accepted, they were to assume a more peremptory tone, and threaten the alienation of England; and if menaces were equally ineffectual, they were to declare that Henry, having done all which lay within his power to effect his purpose with the goodwill of his friends, since he could not do as he would, must now do as he could, and discharge his conscience. If the emperor should pretend that he would "abide the law, and would defer to the pope," they were to say, "that the sacking of Rome by the Spaniards and Germans had so discouraged the pope and cardinals, that they feared for body and goods," and had ceased to be free agents; and concluding finally that the king would fear God rather than man, and would rely on comfort from the Saviour against those who abused their authority, they were then to withdraw.²⁵⁷ The tone of the directions was not sanguine, and the political complications of Europe, on which the emperor's reply must more or less have depended, were too involved to allow us to trace the influences which were likely to have weighed with him. There seems no primâ facie reason, however, why the attempt might not have been successful. The revolutionary intrigues in England had decisively failed, and the natural sympathy of princes, and a desire to detach Henry from Francis, must have combined to recommend a return of the old cordiality which had so long existed between the sovereigns of England and Flanders. But whatever was the cause, the opening interview assured the Earl of Wiltshire that he had nothing to look for. He was received with distant courtesy; but Charles at once objected even to hearing his instructions, as an interested party.²⁵⁸ The earl replied that he stood there, not as the father of the queen's rival, but as the representative of his sovereign; but the objection declared the attitude which Charles was resolved to maintain, and which, in fact, he maintained throughout. "The emperor," wrote Lord Wiltshire to Henry, "is stiffly bent against your Grace's matter, and is most earnest in it; while the pope is led by the emperor, and neither will nor dare displease him."²⁵⁹ From that quarter, so long as parties remained in their existing attitude, there was no hope. It seems to have been hinted, indeed, that if war broke out again between Charles and Francis, something might be done as the price of Henry's surrendering the French alliance;²⁶⁰ but the suggestion, if it was made, was probably ironical; and as Charles was unquestionably acting against his interest in rejecting the English overtures, it is fair to give him credit for having acted on this one occasion of his life, upon generous motives. A respectful compliment was paid to his conduct by Henry himself in the reproaches which he addressed to the pope.²⁶¹

So terminated the first and the last overture on this subject which Henry attempted with Charles V. The ambassadors remained but a few days at Bologna, and then discharged their commission and returned. The pope, however, had played his part with remarkable skill, and by finessing dexterously behind the scenes, had contrived to prevent the precipitation of a rupture with himself. His simple and single wish was to gain time, trusting to accident or Providence to deliver him from his dilemma. On the one hand, he yielded to the emperor in refusing to consent to Henry's demand; on the other, he availed himself of all the intricacies to parry Catherine's demand for a judgment in her favour. He even seemed to part with the emperor on doubtful terms. "The latter," said the Bishop of Tarbès,²⁶² "before leaving Bologna, desired his Holiness to place two cardinals' hats at his disposal, to enable him to reward certain services." His Holiness ventured to refuse. During his imprisonment, he said he had been compelled to nominate several persons for that office whose conduct had been a disgrace to their rank; and when the emperor denied his orders, the pope declared that he had seen them. The cardinals' hats, therefore, should be granted only when they were deserved, "when the Lutherans in Germany had been reduced to obedience, and Hungary had been recovered from the Turks." If this was acting, it was skilfully managed, and it deceived the eyes of the French ambassador.

Still further to gratify Henry, the pope made a public declaration with respect to the dispute which had arisen on the extent of his authority, desiring, or professing to desire, that all persons whatever throughout Italy should be free to express their opinions without fear of incurring his displeasure. This declaration, had it been honestly meant, would have been creditable to Clement's courage: unfortunately for his reputation, his outward and his secret actions seldom corresponded, and the emperor's agents were observed to use very dissimilar language in his name. The double policy, nevertheless, was still followed to secure delay. Delay was his sole aim,—either that Catherine's death, or his own, or Henry's, or some relenting in one or other of the two princes who held their minatory arms extended over him, might spare himself and the church the calamity of a decision. For to the church any decision was fatal. If he declared for Charles, England would fall from it; if for Henry, Germany and Flanders were lost irrecoverably, and Spain itself might follow. His one hope was to procrastinate; and in this policy of hesitation for two more years he succeeded, till at length the patience of Henry and of England was worn out, and all was ended. When the emperor required sentence to be passed, he pretended to be about to yield; and at the last moment, some technical difficulty ever interfered to make a decision impossible. When Henry was cited to appear at Rome, a point of law was raised upon the privilege of kings, threatening to open into other points of law, and so to multiply to infinity. The pope, indeed, finding his own ends so well answered by evasion, imagined that it would answer equally those of the English nation, and he declared to Henry's secretary that "if the King of England would send a mandate ad totam causam, then if his Highness would, there might be given so many delays by reason of matters which his Highness might lay in, and the remissorials that his Grace might ask, ad partes, that peradventure in ten years or longer a sentence should not be given."²⁶³ In point of worldly prudence, his conduct was unexceptionably wise; but something beyond worldly prudence was demanded of a tribunal which claimed to be inspired by the Holy Ghost.

The dreary details of the negotiations I have no intention of pursuing. They are of no interest to any one,—a miserable tissue of insincerity on one side, and hesitating uncertainty on the other. There is no occasion for us to weary ourselves with the ineffectual efforts to postpone an issue which was sooner or later inevitable.

I may not pass over in similar silence another unpleasant episode in this business,—the execution of Cranmer's project for collecting the sentiments of Europe on the pope's dispensing power. The details of this transaction are not wearying only, but scandalous; and while the substantial justice of Henry's cause is a reason for deploring the means to which he allowed himself to be driven in pursuing it, we may not permit ourselves either to palliate those means or to conceal them. The project seemed a simple one, and likely to be effective and useful. Unhappily, the appeal was still to ecclesiastics, to a body of men who were characterised throughout Europe by a universal absence of integrity, who were incapable of pronouncing an honest judgment, and who courted intimidation and bribery by the readiness with which they submitted to be influenced by them. Corruption was resorted to on all sides with the most lavish unscrupulousness, and the result arrived at was general discredit to all parties, and a conclusion which added but one more circle to the labyrinth of perplexities. Croke,²⁶⁴ a Doctors' Commons lawyer, who was employed in Italy, described the state of feeling in the peninsula as generally in Henry's favour; and he said that he could have secured an all but universal consent, except for the secret intrigues of the Spanish agents, and their open direct menaces, when intrigue was insufficient. He complained bitterly of the treachery of the Italians who were in the English pay; the two Cassalis, Pallavicino, and Ghinucci, the Bishop of Worcester. These men, he said, were betraying Henry when they were pretending to serve him, and were playing secretly into the hands of the emperor.²⁶⁵ His private despatches were intercepted, or the contents of them by some means were discovered; for the persons whom he named as inclining against the papal claims, became marked at once for persecution. One of them, a Carmelite friar, was summoned before the Cardinal Governor of Bologna, and threatened with death;²⁶⁶ and a certain Father Omnibow, a Venetian who had been in active co-operation with Dr. Croke, wrote himself to Henry, informing him in a very graphic manner of the treatment to which, by some treachery, he had been exposed. Croke and Omnibow were sitting one morning in the latter's cell, "when there entered upon them the emperor's great ambassador, accompanied with many gentlemen of Spain, and demanded of the Father how he durst be so bold to take upon him to intermeddle in so great and weighty a matter, the which did not only lessen and enervate the pope's authority, but was noyful and odious to all Realms Christened."²⁶⁷ Omnibow being a man of some influence in Venice, the ambassador warned him on peril of his life to deal no further with such things: there was not the slightest chance that the King of England could obtain a decision in his favour, because the question had been placed in the hands of six cardinals who were all devoted to the emperor: the pope, it was sternly added, had been made aware of his conduct, and was exceedingly displeased, and the general²⁶⁸ of his order had at the same time issued an injunction, warning all members to desist at their peril from intercourse with the English agents. The Spanish party held themselves justified in resorting to intimidation to defend themselves against English money; the English may have excused their use of money as a defence against Spanish intimidation; and each probably had recourse to their several methods prior to experience of the proceedings of their adversaries, from a certain expectation of what those proceedings would be. Substantially, the opposite manœuvres neutralised each other, and in Catholic countries, opinions on the real point at issue seem to have been equally balanced. The Lutheran divines, from their old suspicion of Henry, were more decided in their opposition to him. "The Italian Protestants," wrote Croke to the king, "be utterly against your Highness in this cause, and have letted as much as with their power and malice they could or might."²⁶⁹ In Germany Dr. Bames and Cranmer found the same experience. Luther himself had not forgotten his early passage at arms with the English Defender of the Faith, and was coldly hostile; the German theologians, although they expressed themselves with reserve and caution, saw no reason to court the anger of Charles by meddling in a quarrel in which they had no interest; they revenged the studied slight which had been passed by Henry on themselves, with a pardonable indifference to the English ecclesiastical revolt.

If, however, in Germany and Italy the balance of unjust interference lay on the imperial side, it was more than adequately compensated by the answering pressure which was brought to bear in England and in France on the opposite side. Under the allied sovereigns, the royal authority was openly exercised to compel such expressions of sentiment as the courts of London and Paris desired; and the measures which were taken oblige us more than ever to regret the inventive efforts of Cranmer's genius. For, in fact, these manœuvres, even if honestly executed, were all unrealities. The question at issue was one of domestic English politics, and the metamorphosis of it into a question of ecclesiastical law was a mere delusion. The discussion was transferred to a false ground, and however the king may have chosen to deceive himself, was not being tried upon its real merits. A complicated difficulty vitally affecting the interests of a great nation, was laid for solution before a body of persons incompetent to understand or decide it, and the laity, with the alternative before them of civil war, and the returning miseries of the preceding century, could brook no judgment which did not answer to their wishes.

The French king, contemptuously indifferent to justice, submitted to be guided by his interest; feeling it necessary for his safety to fan the quarrel between Henry and the emperor, he resolved to encourage whatever measures would make the breach between them irreparable. The reconciliation of Herod and Pontius Pilate²⁷⁰ was the subject of his worst alarm; and a slight exercise of ecclesiastical tyranny was but a moderate price by which to ensure himself against so dangerous a possibility.

Accordingly, at the beginning of June, the University of Paris was instructed by royal letters to pronounce an opinion on the extent to which the pope might grant dispensations for marriage within the forbidden degrees. The letters were presented by the grand master, and the latter in his address to the faculty, maintained at the outset an appearance of impartiality. The doctors were required to decide according to their conscience, having the fear of God before their eyes; and no open effort was ventured to dictate the judgment which was to be delivered.

The majority of the doctors understood their duty and their position, and a speedy resolution was anticipated, when a certain Dr. Beda, an energetic Ultramontane, commenced an opposition. He said that, on a question which touched the power of the pope, they were not at liberty to pronounce an opinion without the permission of his Holiness himself; and that the deliberation ought not to go forward till they had applied for that permission and had received it. This view was supported by the Spanish and Italian party in the university. The debate grew warm, and at length the meeting broke up in confusion without coming to a resolution. Beda, when remonstrated with on the course which he was pursuing, did not hesitate to say that he had the secret approbation of his prince; that, however Francis might disguise from the world his real opinions, in his heart he only desired to see the pope victorious. An assertion so confident was readily believed, nor is it likely that Beda ventured to make it without some foundation. But being spoken of openly it became a matter of general conversation, and reaching the ears of the English ambassador, it was met with instant and angry remonstrance. "The ambassador," wrote the grand master to Francis, "has been to me in great displeasure, and has told me roundly that his master is trifled with by us. We give him words in plenty to keep his beak in the water; but it is very plain that we are playing false, and that no honesty is intended. Nor are his words altogether without reason; for many persons declare openly that nothing will be done. If the alliance of England, therefore, appear of importance to your Highness, it would be well for you to write to the Dean of the Faculty, directing him to close an impertinent discussion, and require an answer to the question asked as quickly as possible."²⁷¹ The tone of this letter proves, with sufficient clearness, the true feelings of the French government; but at the moment the alternative suggested by the grand master might not be ventured. Francis could not afford to quarrel with England, or to be on less than cordial terms with it, and for a time at least his brother sovereigns must continue to be at enmity. The negotiations for the recovery of the French princes out of their Spanish prison, were on the point of conclusion; and, as Francis was insolvent, Henry had consented to become security for the money demanded for their deliverance. Beda had, moreover, injured his cause by attacking the Gallican liberties; and as this was a point on which the government was naturally sensitive, some tolerable excuse was furnished for the lesson which it was thought proper to adminster to the offending doctor.

On the seventeenth of June, 1530, therefore, Francis wrote as follows to the President of the Parliament of Paris:—

"We have learnt, to our great displeasure, that one Beda, an imperialist, has dared to raise an agitation among the theologians, dissuading them from giving their voices on the cause of the King of England.—On receipt of this letter, therefore, you shall cause the said Beda to appear before you, and you shall show him the grievous anger which he has given us cause to entertain towards him. And further you shall declare to him, laying these our present writings before his eyes that he may not doubt the truth of what you say, that if he does not instantly repair the fault which he has committed, he shall be punished in such sort as that he shall remember henceforth what it is for a person of his quality to meddle in the affairs of princes. If he venture to remonstrate; if he allege that it is matter of conscience, and that before proceeding to pronounce an opinion it is necessary to communicate with the pope; in our name you shall forbid him to hold any such communication: and he and all who abet him, and all persons whatsoever, not only who shall themselves dare to consult the pope on this matter, but who shall so much as entertain the proposal of consulting him, shall be dealt with in such a manner as shall be an example to all the world. The liberties of the Gallican Church are touched, and the independence of our theological council, and there is no privilege belonging to this realm on which we are more peremptorily determined to insist."²⁷²

The haughty missive, a copy of which was sent to England,²⁷³ produced the desired effect. The doctors became obedient and convinced, and the required declaration of opinion in Henry's favour, was drawn up in the most ample manner. They made a last desperate effort to escape from the position in which they were placed when the seal of the university was to be affixed to the decision; but the resistance was hopeless, the authorities were inexorable, and they submitted. It is not a little singular that the English political agent employed on this occasion, and to whose lot it fell to communicate the result to the king, was Reginald Pole. He it was, who behind the scenes, and assisting to work the machinery of the intrigue, first there, perhaps, contracted his disgust with the cause on which he was embarked. There learning to hate the ill with which he was forced immediately into contact, he lost sight of the greater ill to which it was opposed; and in the recoil commenced the first steps of a career, which brought his mother to the scaffold, which overspread all England with an atmosphere of treason and suspicion, and which terminated at last after years of exile, rebellion, and falsehood, in a brief victory of blood and shame. So ever does wrong action beget its own retribution, punishing itself by itself, and wrecking the instruments by which it works. The letter which Pole wrote from Paris to Henry will not be uninteresting. It revealed his distaste for his occupation, though prudence held him silent as to his deeper feelings.

"Please it your Highness to be advertised, that the determination and conclusion of the divines in this university was achieved and finished according to your desired purpose, upon Saturday last past. The sealing of the same has been put off unto this day, nor never could be obtained before for any soliciting on our parts which were your agents here, which never ceased to labour, all that lay in us, for the expedition of it, both with the privy president and with all such as we thought might in any part aid us therein. But what difficulties and stops hath been, to let the obtaining of the seal of the university, notwithstanding the conclusion passed and agreed unto by the more part of the faculty, by reason of such oppositions as the adversary part hath made to embezzle the determination that it should not take effect nor go forth in that same form as it was concluded, it may please your Grace, to be advertised by this bearer, Master Fox; who, with his prudence, diligence, and great exercise in the cause, hath most holp to resist all these crafts, and to bring the matter to that point as your most desired purpose hath been to have it. He hath indeed acted according to that hope which I had of him at the beginning and first breaking of the matter amongst the faculty here, when I, somewhat fearing and foreseeing such contentions, altercations, and empeschements as by most likelihood might ensue, did give your Grace advertisement, how necessary I thought it was to have Master Fox's presence. And whereas I was informed by Master Fox how it standeth with your Grace's pleasure, considering my fervent desire thereon, that, your motion once achieved and brought to a final conclusion in this university, I should repair to your presence, your Grace could not grant me at this time a petition more comfortable unto me. And so, making what convenient speed I may, my trust is shortly to wait upon your Highness. Thus Jesu preserve your most noble Grace to his pleasure, and your most comfort and honour. Written at Paris, the seventh day of July, by your Grace's most humble and faithful servant, REGINALD POLE."²⁷⁴

We must speak of this transaction as it deserves, and call it wholly bad, unjust, and inexcusable. Yet we need not deceive ourselves into supposing that the opposition which was crushed so roughly was based on any principal of real honesty. In Italy, intrigue was used against intimidation. In France intimidation was used against intrigue; and the absence of rectitude in the parties whom it was necessary to influence, provoked and justified the contempt with which they were treated.

The conduct of the English universities on the same occasion was precisely what their later characters would have led us respectively to expect from them. At Oxford the heads of houses and the senior doctors and masters submitted their consciences to state dictation, without opposition, and, as it seemed, without reluctance. Henry was wholly satisfied that the right was on his own side; he was so convinced of it, that an opposition to his wishes among his own subjects, he could attribute only to disloyalty or to some other unworthy feeling; and therefore, while he directed the convocation, "giving no credence to sinister persuasions, to show and declare their just and true learning in his cause," he was able to dwell upon the answer which he expected from them, as a plain matter of duty; and obviously as not admitting of any uncertainty whatever.

"We will and command you," he said, "that ye, not leaning to wilful and sinister opinions of your own several minds, considering that we be your sovereign liege lord [and] totally giving your time, mind, and affections to the true overtures of divine learning in this behalf, do show and declare your true and just learning in the said cause, like as ye will abide by: wherein ye shall not only please Almighty God, but also us your liege lord. And we, for your so doing, shall be to you and to our university there so good and gracious a lord for the same, as ye shall perceive it well done in your well fortune to come. And in case you do not uprightly, according to divine learning, handle yourselves herein, ye may be assured that we, not without great cause, shall so quickly and sharply look to your unnatural misdemeanour herein, that it shall not be to your quietness and ease hereafter."²⁷⁵ The admonitory clauses were sufficiently clear; they were scarcely needed, however, by the older members of the university. An enlarged experience of the world which years, at Oxford as well as elsewhere, had not failed to bring with them, a just apprehension of the condition of the kingdom, and a sense of the obligations of subjects in times of political difficulty, sufficed to reconcile the heads of the colleges to obedience; and threats were not required where it is unlikely that a thought of hesitation was entertained. But there was a class of residents which appears to be perennial in that university, composed out of the younger masters; a class of men who, defective alike in age, in wisdom, or in knowledge, were distinguished by a species of theoretic High Church fanaticism; who, until they received their natural correction from advancing years, required from time to time to be protected against their own extravagance by some form of external pressure. These were the persons whom the king was addressing in his more severe language, and it was not without reason that he had recourse to it.

In order to avoid difficulty, and to secure a swift and convenient resolution, it was proposed that both at Oxford and Cambridge the universities should be represented by a committee composed of the heads of houses, the proctors, and the graduates in divinity and law: that this committee should agree upon a form of a reply; and that the university seal should then be affixed without further discussion. This proposition was plausible as well as prudent, for it might be supposed reasonably that young half-educated students were incapable of forming a judgment on an intricate point of law; and to admit their votes was equivalent to allowing judgment to be given by party feeling. The masters who were to be thus excluded refused however to entertain this view of their incapacity. The question whether the committee should be appointed was referred to convocation, where, having the advantage of numbers, they coerced the entire proceedings; and some of them "expressing themselves in a very forward manner" to the royal commissioners,²⁷⁶ and the heads of houses being embarrassed, and not well knowing what to do, the king found it necessary again to interpose. He was unwilling, as he said, to violate the constitution of the university by open interference, "considering it to exist under grant and charter from the crown as a body politic, in the ruling whereof in things to be done in the name of the whole, the number of private suffrages doth prevail." "He was loth, too," he added, "to show his displeasure, whereof he had so great cause ministered unto him, unto the whole in general, whereas the fault perchance consisted and remained in light and wilful heads," and he trusted that it might suffice if the masters of the colleges used their private influence and authority²⁷⁷ in overcoming the opposition. For the effecting of this purpose, however, and in order to lend weight to their persuasion, he assisted the convocation towards a conclusion with the following characteristic missive:—

"To our trusty and well-beloved the heads of houses, doctors, and proctors of our University of Oxford:

"Trusty and well-beloved, we greet you well; and of late being informed, to our no little marvel and discontentation, that a great part of the youth of that our university, with contentious and factious manner daily combining together, neither regarding their duty to us their sovereign lord, nor yet conforming themselves to the opinions and orders of the virtuous, wise, sage, and profound learned men of that university, wilfully do stick upon the opinion to have a great number of regents and non-regents to be associate unto the doctors, proctors, and bachelors of divinity for the determination of our question; which we believe hath not been often seen, that such a number of right small learning in regard to the other should be joined with so famous a sort, or in a manner stay their seniors in so weighty a cause. And forasmuch as this, we think, should be no small dishonour to our university there, but most especially to you the seniors and rulers of the same; and as also, we assure you, this their unnatural and unkind demeanour is not only right much to our displeasure, but much to be marvelled of, upon what ground and occasion, they being our mere subjects, should show themselves more unkind and wilful in this matter than all other universities, both in this and all other regions do: we, trusting in the dexterity and wisdom of you and other the said discreet and substantial learned men of that university, be in perfect hope that ye will conduce and frame the said young persons unto order and conformity as it becometh you to do. Whereof we be desirous to hear with incontinent diligence; and doubt you not we shall regard the demeanour of every one of the university according to their merits and deserts. And if the youth of the university will play masteries as they begin to do, we doubt not but they shall well perceive that non est bonum irritare crabrones.²⁷⁸

"Given under our hand and seal, at our Castle of Windsor,

"HENRY R."²⁷⁹

It is scarcely necessary to say, that, armed with this letter, the heads of houses subdued the recalcitrance of the overhasty "youth;" and Oxford duly answered as she was required to answer.

The proceedings at Cambridge were not very dissimilar; but Cambridge being distinguished by greater openness and largeness of mind on this as on the other momentous subjects of the day than the sister university, was able to preserve a more manly bearing, and escape direct humiliation. Cranmer had written a book upon the divorce in the preceding year, which, as coming from a well-known Cambridge man, had occasioned a careful ventilation of the question there; the resident masters had been divided by it into factions nearly equal in number, though unharmoniously composed. The heads of houses, as at Oxford, were inclined to the king, but they were embarrassed and divided by the presence on the same side of the suspected liberals, the party of Shaxton, Latimer, and Cranmer himself. The agitation of many months had rendered all members of the university, young and old, so well acquainted (as they supposed) with the bearings of the difficulty, that they naturally resisted, as at the other university, the demand that their power should be delegated to a committee; and the Cambridge convocation, as well as that of Oxford, threw out this resolution when it was first proposed to them. A king's letter having made them more amenable, a list of the intended committee was drawn out, which, containing Latimer's name, occasioned a fresh storm. But the number in the senate house being nearly divided, "the labour of certain friends" turned the scale; the vote passed, and the committee was allowed, on condition that the question should be argued publicly in the presence of the whole university. Finally, judgment was obtained on the king's side, though in a less absolute form than he had required, and the commissioners did not think it prudent to press for a more extreme conclusion. They had been desired to pronounce that the pope had no power to permit a man to marry his brother's widow. They consented only to say that a marriage within those degrees was contrary to the divine law; but the question of the pope's power was left unapproached.²⁸⁰

It will not be uninteresting to follow this judgment a further step, to the delivery of it into the hands of the king, where it will introduce us to a Sunday at Windsor Castle three centuries ago. We shall find present there, as a significant symptom of the time, Hugh Latimer, appointed freshly select preacher in the royal chapel, but already obnoxious to English orthodoxy, on account of his Cambridge sermons. These sermons, it had been said, contained many things good and profitable, "on sin, and godliness, and virtue," but much also which was disrespectful to established beliefs, the preacher being clearly opposed to "candles and pilgrimages," and "calling men unto the works that God commanded in his Holy Scripture, all dreams and unprofitable glosses set aside and utterly despised." The preacher had, therefore, been cited before consistory courts and interdicted by bishops, "swarms of friars and doctors flocking against Master Latimer on every side."²⁸¹ This also was to be noted about him, that he was one of the most fearless men who ever lived. Like John Knox, whom he much resembled, in whatever presence he might be, whether of poor or rich, of laymen or priests, of bishops or kings, he ever spoke out boldly from his pulpit what he thought, directly if necessary to particular persons whom he saw before him respecting their own actions. Even Henry himself he did not spare where he saw occasion for blame; and Henry, of whom it was said that he never was mistaken in a man—loving a man²⁸² where he could find him with all his heart—had, notwithstanding, chosen this Latimer as one of his own chaplains.

The unwilling bearer of the Cambridge judgment was Dr. Buckmaster, the vice-chancellor, who, in a letter to a friend, describes his reception at the royal castle.

"To the right worshipful Dr. Edmonds, vicar of Alborne, in Wiltshire, my duty remembered,—

"I heartily commend me unto you, and I let you understand that yesterday week, being Sunday at afternoon, I came to Windsor, and also to part of Mr. Latimer's sermon; and after the end of the same I spake with Mr. Secretary [Cromwell], and also with Mr. Provost; and so after evensong I delivered our letters in the Chamber of Presence, all the court beholding. The king, with Mr. Secretary, did there read them; and did then give me thanks and talked with me a good while. He much lauded our wisdom and good conveyance in the matter, with the great quietness in the same. He showed me also what he had in his hands for our university, according to that which Mr. Secretary did express unto us, and so he departed from me. But by and bye he greatly praised Mr. Latimer's sermon; and in so praising said on this wise: 'This displeaseth greatly Mr. Vice-Chancellor yonder; yon same,' said he to the Duke of Norfolk, 'is Mr. Vice-Chancellor of Cambridge,' and so pointed unto me. Then he spake secretly unto the said duke, which, after the king's departure, came unto me and welcomed me, saying, among other things, the king would speak with me on the next day. And here is the first act. On the next day I waited until it was dinner time; and so at the last Dr. Butts, [king's physician,] came unto me, and brought a reward, twenty nobles for me, and five marks for the junior proctor which was with me, saying that I should take that for a resolute answer, and that I might depart from the court when I would. Then came Mr. Provost, and when I had shewed him of the answer, he said I should speak with the king after dinner for all that, and so he brought me into a privy place where after dinner he would have me wait. I came thither and he both; and by one of the clock the king entered in. It was in a gallery. There were Mr. Secretary, Mr. Provost, Mr. Latimer, Mr. Proctor, and I, and no more. The king then talked with us until six of the clock. I assure you he was scarce contented with Mr. Secretary and Mr. Provost, that this was not also determined, an Papa possit dispensare. I made the best, and confirmed the same that they had shewed his Grace before; and how it would never have been so obtained. He opened his mind, saying he would have it determined after Easter, and of the same was counselled awhile.

"Much other communication we had, which were too long here to recite. Then his Highness departed, casting a little holy water of the court; and I shortly after took my leave of Mr. Secretary and Mr. Provost, with whom I did not drink, nor yet was bidden, and on the morrow departed from thence, thinking more than I did say, and being glad that I was out of the court, where many men, as I did both hear and perceive, did wonder at me. And here shall be an end for this time of this fable.

"All the world almost crieth out of Cambridge for this act, and specially on me; but I must bear it as well as I may. I have lost a benefice by it, which I should have had within these ten days; for there hath one fallen in Mr. Throgmorton's²⁸³ gift which he hath faithfully promised unto me many a time, but now his mind is turned and alienate from me. If ye go to court after Easter I pray you have me in remembrance. Mr. Latimer preacheth still,—quod æmuli ejus graviter ferunt.

"Thus fare you well. Your own to his power,
WILLIAM BUCKMASTER.²⁸⁴
Cambridge, Monday after Easter, 1530."

It does not appear that Cambridge was pressed further, and we may, therefore, allow it to have acquitted itself creditably, If we sum up the results of Cranmer's measure as a whole, it may be said that opinions had been given by about half Europe directly or indirectly unfavourable to the papal claims; and that, therefore, the king had furnished himself with a legal pretext for declining the jurisdiction of the court of Rome, and appealing to a general council. Objections to the manner in which the opinions had been gained could be answered by recriminations equally just; and in the technical aspect of the question a step had certainly been gained. It will be thought, nevertheless, on wider grounds, that the measure was a mistake; that it would have been far better if the legal labyrinth had never been entered, and if the divorce had been claimed only upon those considerations of policy for which it had been first demanded, and which formed the true justification of it. Not only might a shameful chapter of scandal have been spared out of the world's history, but the point on which the battle was being fought lay beside the real issue. Europe was shaken with intrigue, hundreds of books were written, and tens of thousands of tongues were busy for twelve months weaving logical subtleties, and all for nothing. The truth was left unspoken because it was not convenient to speak it, and all parties agreed to persuade themselves and accept one another's persuasions, that they meant something which they did not mean. Beyond doubt the theological difficulty really affected the king. We cannot read his own book²⁸⁵ upon it without a conviction that his arguments were honestly urged, that his misgivings were real, and that he meant every word which he said. Yet it is clear at the same time that these misgivings would not have been satisfied, if all the wisdom of the world—pope, cardinals, councils, and all the learned faculties together—had declared against him, the true secret of the matter lying deeper, understood and appreciated by all the chief parties concerned, and by the English laity, whose interests were at stake; but in all these barren disputings ignored as if it had no existence.

It was perhaps less easy than it seems to have followed the main road. The bye ways often promise best at first entrance into them, and Henry's peculiar temper never allowed him to believe beforehand that a track which he had chosen could lead to any conclusion except that to which he had arranged that it should lead. With an intellect endlessly fertile in finding reasons to justify what he desired, he could see no justice on any side but his own, or understand that it was possible to disagree with him except from folly of ill-feeling. Starting always with a foregone conclusion, he arrived of course where he wished to arrive. His "Glasse of Truth" is a very picture of his mind. "If the marshall of the host bids us do anything," he said, "shall we do it if it be against the great captain? Again, if the great captain bid us do anything, and the king or the emperor commandeth us to do another, dost thou doubt that we must obey the commandment of the king or emperor, and contemn the commandment of the great captain? Therefore if the king or the emperor bid one thing, and God another, we must obey God, and contemn and not regard neither king nor emperor." And, therefore, he argued, "we are not to obey the pope, when the pope commands what is unlawful."²⁸⁶ These were but many words to prove what the pope would not have questioned; and either they concluded nothing or the conclusion was assumed.

We cannot but think that among the many misfortunes of Henry's life his theological training was the greatest; and that directly or indirectly it was the parent of all the rest. If in this unhappy business he had trusted only to his instincts as an English statesman; if he had been contented himself with the truth, and had pressed no arguments except those which in the secrets of his heart had weight with him, he would have spared his own memory a mountain of undeserved reproach, and have spared historians their weary labour through these barren deserts of unreality.