The History of England - Vols. 1 to 6 (218 page)

Bocking, a canon of Canterbury; and their design was to raise the credit of an image of the virgin, which stood in a chapel belonging to Masters, and to draw to it such pilgrimages as usually frequented the more famous images and reliques. In prosecution of this design, Elizabeth pretended revelations, which directed her to have recourse to that image for a cure; and being brought before it, in the presence of a great multitude, she fell anew into convulsions; and after distorting her limbs and countenance during a competent time, she affected to have obtained a perfect

recovery by the intercession of the virgin.r
This miracle was soon bruited abroad; and the two priests, finding the imposture to succeed beyond their own expectations, began to extend their views, and to lay the foundation of more important enterprizes.

They taught their penitent to declaim against the new doctrines, which she denominated heresy; against innovations in ecclesiastical government; and against the king’s intended divorce from Catherine. She went so far as to assert, that, if he prosecuted that design, and married another, he should not be a king a month longer, and should not an hour longer enjoy the favour of the Almighty, but should die the death of a villain. Many monks throughout England, either from folly or roguery, or from faction, which is often a complication of both, entered into the delusion; and one Deering, a friar, wrote a book of the revelations and prophecies of Elizabeth.
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Miracles were daily added, to encrease the wonder; and the pulpit every where resounded with accounts of the sanctity and inspirations of the new prophetess.

Messages were carried from her to queen Catherine, by which that princess was exhorted to persist in her opposition to the divorce; the pope’s ambassadors gave encouragement to the popular credulity; and even Fisher, bishop of Rochester, though a man of sense and learning, was carried away by an opinion so favourable to the

party which he had espoused.t
The king at last began to think the matter worthy of his attention: and having ordered Elizabeth and her accomplices to be arrested, he brought them before the star-chamber, where they freely, without being put to the torture, made confession of their guilt. The parliament, in the session held the PLL v6.0 (generated September, 2011)

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beginning of this year, passed an act of attainder against some who were engaged in this treasonable imposture;
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and Elizabeth herself, Masters, Bocking, Deering, Rich, Risby, Gold, suffered for their crime. The bishop of Rochester, Abel, Addison, Lawrence, and others were condemned for misprision of treason; because they had not discovered some criminal speeches which they heard from Elizabeth:
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And they were thrown into prison. The better to undeceive the multitude, the forgery of many of the prophetess’s miracles was detected: and even the scandalous prostitution of her manners was laid open to the public. Those passions, which so naturally insinuate themselves amidst the warm intimacies maintained by the devotees of different sexes, had taken place between Elizabeth and her confederates; and it was found, that a door to her dormitory, which was said to have been miraculously opened, in order to give her access to the chapel, for the sake of frequent converse with heaven, had been contrived by Bocking and Masters for less refined purposes.

The detection of this imposture, attended with so many odious 1535.

circumstances, both hurt the credit of the ecclesiastics, particularly the monks, and instigated the king to take vengeance on them. He suppressed three monasteries of the Observantine friars; and finding that little clamour was excited by this act of power, he was the more encouraged to lay his rapacious hands on the remainder. Meanwhile, he exercised punishment on individuals, who were obnoxious to him. The parliament had made it treason to endeavour depriving the king of his dignity or titles: They had lately added to his other titles, that of supreme head of the church: It was inferred, that to deny his supremacy was treason; and many priors and ecclesiastics lost their lives for this new species of guilt. It was certainly a high instance of tyranny to punish the mere delivery of a political opinion, especially one that nowise affected the king’s temporal right, as a capital offence, though attended with no overt act; and the parliament, in passing this law, had overlooked all the principles, by which a civilized, much more a free people, should be governed: But the violence of changing so suddenly the whole system of government, and making it treason to deny what, during many ages, it had been heresy to assert, is an event which may appear somewhat extraordinary. Even the stern unrelenting mind of Henry was, at first, shocked with these sanguinary measures; and he went so far as to change his garb and dress; pretending sorrow for the necessity by which he was pushed to such extremities. Still impelled, however, by his violent temper, and desirous of striking a terror into the whole nation, he proceeded, by making examples of Fisher and More, to

Trial and execution of

consummate his lawless tyranny.

Fisher, bishop of

Rochester.

John Fisher, bishop of Rochester, was a prelate, eminent for learning and morals, still more than for his ecclesiastical dignities, and for the high favour, which he had long enjoyed with the king. When he was thrown into prison, on account of his refusing the oath which regarded the succession, and his concealment of Elizabeth Barton’s treasonable speeches, he had not only been deprived of all his revenues, but stripped of his very cloaths, and, without consideration of his extreme age, he was allowed nothing but rags, which scarcely sufficed to cover his

nakedness.x
In this condition, he lay in prison above a twelvemonth; when the pope, willing to recompense the sufferings of so faithful an adherent, created him a cardinal; though Fisher was so indifferent about that dignity, that, even if the purple were lying PLL v6.0 (generated September, 2011)

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at his feet, he declared that he would not stoop to take it. This promotion of a man, merely for his opposition to royal authority, rouzed the indignation of the king; and he resolved to make the innocent person feel the effects of his resentment.

Fisher was indicted for denying the king’s supremacy, was tried, 22d June. Of Sir condemned, and beheaded.

Thomas More.

The execution of this prelate was intended as a warning to More, whose compliance, on account of his great authority both abroad and at home, and his high reputation for learning and virtue, was anxiously desired by the king. That prince also bore as great personal affection and regard to More, as his imperious mind, the sport of passions, was susceptible of towards a man, who in any particular opposed his violent inclinations. But More could never be prevailed on to acknowledge any opinion so contrary to his principles as that of the king’s supremacy; and though Henry exacted that compliance from the whole nation, there was, as yet, no law obliging any one to take an oath to that purpose. Rich, the solicitor general, was sent to confer with More, then a prisoner, who kept a cautious silence with regard to the supremacy: He was only inveigled to say, that any question with regard to the law, which established that prerogative, was a two-edged sword: If a person answer one way, it will confound his soul; if another, it will destroy his body. No more was wanted to sound an indictment of high treason against the prisoner. His silence was called malicious, and made a part of his crime; and these words, which had casually dropped from him, were interpreted as a denial of the supremacy.
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Trials were mere formalities during this reign: The jury gave sentence against More, who had long expected this fate, and who needed no preparation to fortify him against the terrors of death. Not only his constancy, but even his cheerfulness, nay, his usual facetiousness, never forsook him; and he made a sacrifice of his life to his integrity with the same indifference that he maintained in any ordinary occurrence. When he was mounting the scaffold, he said to one, “Friend, help me up, and when I come down again, let me shift for myself.” The executioner asking him forgiveness, he granted the request, but told him, “You will never get credit by beheading me, my neck is so short.” Then laying his head on the block, he bade the executioner stay till he put aside his beard: “For,” said he, “it never committed treason.” Nothing was wanting to the glory of this end, except a better cause, more free from weakness and superstition. But as the man followed his principles and sense of duty, however misguided, his constancy and integrity are not the less objects of our admiration.

He was beheaded in the fifty-third year of his age.

6th July.

When the execution of Fisher and More was reported at Rome, especially that of the former, who was invested with the dignity of cardinal, every one discovered the most violent rage against the king; and numerous libels were published, by the wits and orators of Italy, comparing him to Caligula, Nero, Domitian, and all the most unrelenting tyrants of antiquity. Clement VII. had died about six months after he pronounced sentence against the king; and Paul III. of the name of Farnese, had succeeded to the papal throne. This pontiff, who, while cardinal, had always favoured Henry’s cause, had hoped, that, personal animosities being buried with his predecessor, it might not be impossible to form an agreement with England: And the king himself was so desirous of accommodating matters, that, in a negociation, which he entered into with Francis a little before this time, he required, that that monarch PLL v6.0 (generated September, 2011)

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should conciliate a friendship between him and the court of Rome. But Henry was accustomed to prescribe, not to receive terms; and even while he was negociating for peace, his usual violence often carried him to commit offences, which rendered the quarrel totally incurable.

The execution of Fisher was regarded by Paul, as so capital an 30th Aug.

injury, that he immediately passed censures against the king, citing him and all his adherents to appear in Rome within ninety days, in order to answer for their crimes: If they failed, he excommunicated them; deprived the king of his crown; layed the kingdom under an King

interdict; declared his issue by Anne Boleyn illegitimate; excommunicated.

dissolved all leagues which any catholic princes had made with him; gave his kingdom to any invader; commanded the nobility to take arms against him; freed his subjects from all oaths of allegiance; cut off their commerce with foreign states; and declared it lawful for any one to seize them, to make slaves of their

persons, and to convert their effects to his own use.z
But though these censures were passed, they were not at that time openly denounced: The pope delayed the publication, till he should find an agreement with England entirely desperate; and till the emperor, who was at that time hard pressed by the Turks and the protestant princes in Germany, should be in a condition to carry the sentence into execution.

The king knew that he might expect any injury, which it should be in Charles’s power to inflict; and he therefore made it the chief object of his policy to incapacitate that

monarch from wreaking his resentment upon him.a
He renewed his friendship with Francis, and opened negociations for marrying his infant-daughter, Elizabeth, with the duke of Angouleme, third son of Francis. These two monarchs also made advances to the princes of the protestant league in Germany, ever jealous of the emperor’s ambition: And Henry, besides remitting them some money, sent Fox, bishop of Hereford, as Francis did Bellay, lord of Langley, to treat with them. But during the first fervours of the reformation, an agreement in theological tenets was held, as well as a union of interests, to be essential to a good correspondence among states; and though both Francis and Henry flattered the German princes with hopes of their embracing the confession of Augsbourg, it was looked upon as a bad symptom of the sincerity that they exercised such extreme rigour against all preachers of the

reformation in their respective dominions.b
Henry carried the feint so far, that, while he thought himself the first theologian in the world, he yet invited over Melancthon, Bucer, Sturmius, Draco, and other German divines, that they might confer with him, and instruct him in the foundation of their tenets. These theologians were now of great importance in the world; and no poet or philosopher, even in ancient Greece, where they were treated with most respect, had ever reached equal applause and admiration with those wretched composers of metaphysical polemics. The German princes told the king, that they could not spare their divines; and as Henry had no hopes of agreement with such zealous disputants, and knew that in Germany the followers of Luther would not associate with the disciples of Zuinglius, because, though they agreed in every thing else, they differed in some minute particulars with regard to the eucharist, he was the more indifferent on account of this refusal. He could also foresee, that, even while the league of Smalkalde did not act in concert with him, they would always be carried by their interests to oppose the emperor: And the hatred PLL v6.0 (generated September, 2011)

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between Francis and that monarch was so inveterate, that he deemed himself sure of a sincere ally in one or other of these potentates.

During these negociations an incident happened in England, 1536.

which promised a more amicable conclusion of those disputes, and seemed even to open the way for a reconciliation between Henry and Charles.

Queen Catherine was seized with a lingering illness, which at last brought her to her grave: She died at Kimbolton in the county of Huntingdon, in the fiftieth year of her age. A little before she expired, she 6th Jan. Death of