The History of England - Vols. 1 to 6 (213 page)

The bills for regulating the clergy met with some opposition in the house of lords.

Bishop Fisher in particular imputed these measures of the commons to their want of faith; and to a formed design, derived from heretical and Lutheran principles, of robbing the church of her patrimony, and overturning the national religion. The duke of Norfolk reproved the prelate in severe, and even somewhat indecent terms. He told him, that the greatest clerks were not always the wisest men. But Fisher replied, that he did not remember any fools in his time, who had proved great clerks. The exceptions taken at the bishop of Rochester’s speech stopped not there. The commons, by the mouth of Sir Thomas Audley, their speaker, made complaints to the king of the reflections thrown upon them; and the bishop was obliged to put a more

favourable construction on his words.r

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Henry was not displeased, that the court of Rome and the clergy should be sensible, that they were entirely dependant on him, and that his parliament, if he were willing to second their inclinations, was sufficiently disposed to reduce the power and privileges of the ecclesiastics. The commons gratified the king in another particular of moment: They granted him a discharge of all those debts, which he had contracted since the beginning of his reign: and they grounded this bill, which occasioned many complaints, on a pretence of the king’s great care of the nation, and of his regularly employing all the money, which he had borrowed, in the public service. Most of the king’s creditors consisted of friends to the cardinal, who had been engaged by their patron to contribute to the supply of Henry’s necessities; and the present courtiers were well pleased to take the opportunity of mulcting them.
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Several also approved of an expedient, which, they hoped, would ever after discredit a method of supply, so irregular and so unparliamentary.

The domestic transactions of England were at present so

Foreign affairs.

interesting to the king, that they chiefly engaged his attention; and he regarded foreign affairs only in subordination to them. He had declared war against the emperor; but the mutual advantages reaped by the commerce between England and the Netherlands, had engaged him to stipulate a neutrality with those provinces; and except by money contributed to the Italian wars, he had in effect exercised no hostility against any of the imperial dominions. A general peace was this summer established in Europe. Margaret of Austria and Louisa of Savoy met at Cambray, and settled the terms of pacification between the French king and the emperor. Charles accepted of two millions of crowns in lieu of Burgundy; and he delivered up the two princes of France, whom he had retained as hostages. Henry was, on this occasion, so generous to his friend and ally Francis, that he sent him an acquittal of near 600,000 crowns, which that prince owed him. Francis’s Italian confederates were not so well satisfied as the king with the peace of Cambray: They were almost wholly abandoned to the will of the emperor; and seemed to have no means of security left, but his equity and moderation. Florence, after a brave resistance, was subdued by the imperial arms, and finally delivered over to the dominion of the family of Medicis. The Venetians were better treated: They were only obliged to relinquish some acquisition, which they had made on the coast of Naples.

Even Francis Sforza obtained the investiture of Milan, and was pardoned for all past offences. The emperor in person passed into Italy with a magnificent train, and received the imperial crown from the hands of the pope at Bologna. He was but twenty-nine years of age; and having already, by his vigour and capacity, succeeded in every enterprize, and reduced to captivity the two greatest potentates in Europe, the one spiritual, the other temporal, he attracted the eyes of all men; and many prognostications were formed of his growing empire.

But though Charles seemed to be prosperous on every side, and though the conquest of Mexico and Peru now began to prevent that scarcity of money, under which he had hitherto laboured, he found himself threatened with difficulties in Germany; and his desire of surmounting them was the chief cause of his granting such moderate conditions to the Italian powers. Sultan Solyman, the greatest and most accomplished prince that ever sat on the Ottoman throne, had almost entirely subdued Hungary, had besieged Vienna, and though repulsed, still menaced the hereditary dominions of the PLL v6.0 (generated September, 2011)

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house of Austria with conquest and subjection. The Lutheran princes of the empire, finding that liberty of conscience was denied them, had combined in a league for their own defence at Smalcalde; and because they protested against the votes passed in the imperial diet, they thenceforth received the appellation of
protestants.
Charles had undertaken to reduce them to obedience; and on pretence of securing the purity of religion, he had laid a scheme for aggrandizing his own family, by extending its dominion over all Germany.

The friendship of Henry was one material circumstance yet wanting to Charles, in order to ensure success in his ambitious enterprizes; and the king was sufficiently apprized, that the concurrence of that prince would at once remove all the difficulties, which lay in the way of his divorce; that point, which had long been the object of his most earnest wishes. But besides that the interests of his kingdom seemed to require an alliance with France, his haughty spirit could not submit to a friendship imposed on him by constraint; and as he had ever been accustomed to receive courtship, deference, and solicitation from the greatest potentates, he could ill brook that dependance, to which this unhappy affair seemed to have reduced him. Amidst the anxieties with which he was agitated, he was often tempted to break off all connexions with the court of Rome; and though he had been educated in a superstitious reverence to papal authority, it is likely, that his personal experience of the duplicity and selfish politics of Clement, had served much to open his eyes in that particular. He found his prerogative firmly established at home: He observed, that his people were in general much disgusted with clerical usurpations, and disposed to reduce the powers and privileges of the ecclesiastical order: He knew that they had cordially taken part with him in his prosecution of the divorce, and highly resented the unworthy treatment, which, after so many services and such devoted attachment, he had received from the court of Rome. Anne Boleyn also could not fail to use all her efforts, and employ every insinuation, in order to make him proceed to extremities against the pope; both as it was the readiest way to her attaining royal dignity, and as her education in the court of the duchess of Alençon, a princess inclined to the reformers, had already disposed her to a belief of the new doctrines. But notwithstanding these inducements, Henry had strong motives still to desire a good agreement with the sovereign pontiff. He apprehended the danger of such great innovations: He dreaded the reproach of heresy: He abhorred all connexions with the Lutherans, the chief opponents of the papal power: And having once exerted himself with such applause, as he imagined, in defence of the Romish communion, he was ashamed to retract his former opinions, and betray from passion such a palpable inconsistency. While he was agitated by these contrary motives, an expedient was proposed, which, as it promised a solution of all difficulties, was embraced by him with the greatest joy and satisfaction.

Dr. Thomas Cranmer, fellow of Jesus-College in Cambridge, The universities

was a man remarkable in that university for his learning, and still consulteed about the more, for the candour and disinterestedness of his temper. He fell king’s marriage.

one evening by accident into company with Gardiner, now

secretary of state, and Fox, the king’s almoner; and as the business of the divorce became the subject of conversation, he observed, that the readiest way, either to quiet Henry’s conscience or extort the pope s consent, would be to consult all the PLL v6.0 (generated September, 2011)

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universities of Europe with regard to this controverted point: If they agreed to approve of the king’s marriage with Catharine, his remorses would naturally cease; if they condemned it, the pope would find it difficult to resist the solicitations of so great a monarch, seconded by the opinion of all the learned men in Christendom.
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When the king was informed of the proposal, he was delighted with it; and swore, with more alacrity than delicacy, that Cranmer had got the right sow by the ear: He sent for that divine; entered into conversation with him; conceived a high opinion of his virtue and understanding; engaged him to write in defence of the divorce; and immediately, in prosecution of the scheme proposed, employed his agents to collect the judgments of all the universities in Europe.

Had the question of Henry’s marriage with Catharine been examined by the principles of sound philosophy, exempt from superstition, it seemed not liable to much difficulty. The natural reason, why marriages in certain degrees is prohibited by the civil laws, and condemned by the moral sentiments, of all nations, is derived from men’s care to preserve purity of manners; while they reflect, that, if a commerce of love were authorized between near relations, the frequent opportunities of intimate conversation, especially during early youth, would introduce an universal dissoluteness and corruption. But as the customs of countries vary considerably, and open an intercourse, more or less restrained, between different families, or between the several members of the same family, we find, that the moral precept, varying with its cause, is susceptible, without any inconvenience, of very different latitude in the several ages and nations of the world. The extreme delicacy of the Greeks permitted no communication between persons of different sexes, except where they lived under the same roof; and even the apartment of a step-mother, and her daughters, were almost as much shut up against visits from the husband’s sons, as against those from any stranger or more distant relation: Hence, in that nation, it was lawful for a man to marry, not only his niece, but his half-sister by the father: A liberty unknown to the Romans, and other nations, where a more open intercourse was authorized between the sexes. Reasoning from this principle, it would appear, that the ordinary commerce of life, among great princes, is so obstructed by ceremony and numerous attendants, that no ill consequence would result, among them, from marrying a brother’s widow; especially if the dispensation of the supreme priest be previously required, in order to justify what may in common cases be condemned, and to hinder the precedent from becoming too common and familiar. And as strong motives of public interest and tranquillity may frequently require such alliances between the foreign families, there is the less reason for extending towards them the full rigour of the rule, which has

place among individuals.NOTE [G]

But in opposition to these reasons, and many more which might 1530.

be collected, Henry had custom and precedent on his side, the principle by which men are almost wholly governed in their actions and opinions. The marrying of a brother’s widow was so unusual, that no other instance of it could be found in any history or record of any Christian nation; and though the popes were accustomed to dispense with more essential precepts of morality, and even permitted marriages within other prohibited degrees, such as those of uncle and niece, the imaginations of men were not yet reconciled to this particular exercise of his authority. Several universities of Europe, therefore, without hesitation, as well as PLL v6.0 (generated September, 2011)

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without interest or reward,
w
gave verdict in the king’s favour; not only those of France, Paris, Orleans, Bourges, Tolouse, Angiers, which might be supposed to lie under the influence of their prince, ally to Henry; but also those of Italy, Venice, Ferrara, Padua; even Bologna itself, though under the immediate jurisdiction of

Clement. Oxford alonex and Cambridgey
made some difficulty; because these universities, alarmed at the progress of Lutheranism, and dreading a defection from the holy see, scrupled to give their sanction to measures, whose consequences, they feared, would prove fatal to the ancient religion. Their opinion, however, conformable to that of the other universities of Europe, was at last obtained; and the king, in order to give more weight to all these authorities, engaged his nobility to write a letter to the pope, recommending his cause to the holy father, and threatening him with the most

dangerous consequences in case of a denial of justice.z
The convocations too, both of Canterbury and York, pronounced the king’s marriage invalid, irregular, and contrary

to the law of God, with which no human power had authority to dispense.a
But Clement, lying still under the influence of the emperor, continued to summon the king to appear, either by himself or proxy, before his tribunal at Rome; and the king, who knew that he could expect no fair trial there, refused to submit to such a condition, and would not even admit of any citation, which he regarded as a high insult, and a violation of his royal prerogative. The father of Anne Boleyn, created earl of Wiltshire, carried to the pope the king’s reasons for not appearing by proxy; and, as the first instance of disrespect from England, refused to kiss his holiness’s foot, which he very graciously held out to him for that purpose.
b

The extremities, to which Henry was pushed, both against the pope and the ecclesiastical order, were naturally disagreeable to cardinal Wolsey; and as Henry foresaw his opposition, it is the most probable reason that can be assigned for his renewing the prosecution against his ancient favourite. After Wolsey had remained some time at Asher, he was allowed to remove to Richmond, a palace which he had received as a present from Henry, in return for Hampton-Court: But the courtiers, dreading still his vicinity to the king, procured an order for him to remove to his see of York. The cardinal knew it was in vain to resist: He took up his residence at Cawood in Yorkshire, where he rendered himself extremely popular in the neighbourhood, by his affability and hospitality;
c
but he was not allowed to remain long unmolested in this retreat. The earl of Northumberland received orders, without regard to Wolsey’s ecclesiastical character, to arrest him for high treason, and to conduct him to London, in order to his trial. The cardinal, partly from the fatigues of his journey, partly from the agitation of his anxious mind, was seized with a disorder which turned into a dysentery; and he was able, with some difficulty, to reach Leicester-abbey. When the abbot and the monks advanced to receive him with much respect and reverence, he told them, that he was come to lay his bones among them; and he immediately took to his bed, whence he never rose more. A little before he expired,