Part 21

On the 25th of October, 1529, the king, by delivering the great seal to Sir Thomas More, constituted him Lord Chancellor. In making this appointment, Henry "hoped to dispose his chancellor to lend his authority to the projects of divorce and second marriage, which now agitated the king's mind, and were the main objects of his policy. ... To pursue this subject through the long negotiations and discussions which it occasioned during six years, would be to lead us far from the life of Sir Thomas More. ... All these proceedings terminated in the sentence of nullity in the case of Henry's marriage with Catherine, pronounced by Cranmer, the espousal of Anne Boleyn by the king, and the rejection of the papal jurisdiction by the kingdom, which still, however, adhered to the doctrines of the Roman catholic church. The situation of More during a great part of these memorable events was embarrassing. The great offices to which he was raised by the king, the personal favour hitherto constantly shown to him, and the natural tendency of his gentle and quiet disposition, combined to disincline him to resistance against the wishes of his friendly master. On the other hand, his growing dread and horror of heresy, with its train of disorders; his belief that universal anarchy would be the inevitable result of religious dissension, and the operation of seven years' controversy for the Catholic church, in heating his mind on all subjects involving the extent of her authority, made him recoil from designs which were visibly tending towards disunion with the Roman pontiff. ... Henry used every means of procuring an opinion favourable to his wishes from his chancellor, who excused himself as unmeet for such matters, having never professed the study of divinity. ... But when the progress towards the marriage was so far advanced that he saw how soon the active co-operation of a chancellor must be required, he made suit to 'his singular dear friend,' the duke of Norfolk, to procure his discharge from this office. The duke, often solicited by More, then obtained, by importunate suit, a clear discharge for the chancellor. ... The king directed Norfolk, when he installed his successor, to declare publicly, that his majesty had with pain yielded to the prayers of sir Thomas More, by the removal of such a magistrate. .... It must be owned that Henry felt the weight of this great man's opinion, and tried every possible means to obtain at least the appearance of his spontaneous approbation. ... The king ... sent the archbishop of Canterbury, the chancellor, the duke of Norfolk, and Cromwell, to attempt the conversion of More. Audley reminded More of the king's special favour and many benefits. More admitted them; but modestly added, that his highness had most graciously declared that on this matter More should be molested no more. {829} When in the end they saw that no persuasion could move him, they then said, 'that the king's highness had given them in commandment, if they could by no gentleness win him, in the king's name with ingratitude to charge him, that never was servant to his master so villainous, nor subject to his prince so traitorous as he.'. . . By a tyrannical edict, mis-called a law, in the same session of 1533-4, it was made high treason, after the 1st of May, 1534, by writing, print, deed, or act, to do or to procure, or cause to be done or procured, anything to the prejudice, slander, disturbance, or derogation of the king's lawful matrimony with queen Anne. If the same offences were committed by words, they were only misprision. The same act enjoined all persons to take an oath to maintain the whole contents of the statute, and an obstinate refusal to make such oath was subjected to the penalties of misprision. ... Sir T. More was summoned to appear before these commissioners at Lambeth, on Monday the 13th of April, 1534. ... After having read the statute and the form of the oath, he declared his readiness to swear that he would maintain and defend the order of succession to the crown as established by parliament. He disclaimed all censure of those who had imposed, or on those who had taken, the oath, but declared it to be impossible that he should swear to the whole contents of it, without offending against his own conscience. ... He never more returned to his house, being committed to the custody of the abbot of Westminster, in which he continued four days; and at the end of that time he was conveyed to the Tower on Friday the 17th of April, 1534. ... On the 6th of May, 1535, almost immediately after the defeat of every attempt to practise on his firmness, More was brought to trial at Westminster, and it will scarcely be doubted, that no such culprit stood at any European bar for a thousand years. ... It is lamentable that the records of the proceedings against such a man should be scanty. We do not certainly know the specific offence of which he was convicted. ... On Tuesday, the 6th of July (St. Thomas's eve), 1535, sir Thomas Pope, 'his singular good friend,' came to him early with a message from the king and council, to say that he should die before nine o'clock of the same morning. ... The lieutenant brought him to the scaffold, which was so weak that it was ready to fall, on which he said, merrily, 'Master Lieutenant, I pray you see me safe up, and for my coming down let me shift for myself.' When he laid his head on the block he desired the executioner to wait till he had removed his beard, for that had never offended his highness."

_Sir J. Mackintosh, Sir Thomas More (Cabinet Cyclopedia: Eminent British Statesmen, volume 1)._

ALSO IN: _S. R. Gardiner, Historical Biographies, chapter 3._

_T. E. Bridgett, Life and Writings of Sir Thomas More, chapters 12-24._

_S. H. Burke, Historical Portraits of the Tudor Dynasty, volume 1, chapter 29._

ENGLAND: A. D. 1531-1563, The genesis of the Church of England.

"Henry VIII. attempted to constitute an Anglican Church differing from the Roman Catholic Church on the point of the supremacy, and on that point alone. His success in this attempt was extraordinary. The force of his character, the singularly favorable situation in which he stood with respect to foreign powers, the immense wealth which the spoliation of the ah beys placed at his disposal, and the support of that class which still halted between two opinions, enabled him to bid defiance to both the extreme parties, to burn as heretics those who avowed the tenets of the Reformers, and to hang as traitors those who owned the authority of the Pope. But Henry's system died with him. Had his life been prolonged, he would have found it difficult to maintain a position assailed with equal fury by all who were zealous either for the new or for the old opinions. The ministers who held the royal prerogatives in trust for his infant son could not venture to persist in so hazardous a policy; nor could Elizabeth venture to return to it. It was necessary to make a choice. The government must either submit to Rome, or must obtain the aid of the Protestants. The government and the Protestants had only one thing in common, hatred of the Papal power. The English reformers were eager to go as far as their brethren on the Continent. They unanimously condemned as Antichristian numerous dogmas and practices to which Henry had stubbornly adhered, and which Elizabeth reluctantly abandoned. Many felt a strong repugnance even to things indifferent which had formed part of the polity or ritual of the mystical Babylon. Thus Bishop Hooper, who died manfully at Gloucester for his religion, long refused to wear the episcopal vestments. Bishop Ridley, a martyr of still greater renown, pulled down the ancient altars of his diocese, and ordered the Eucharist to be administered in the middle of churches, at tables which the Papists irreverently termed oyster boards. Bishop Jewel pronounced the clerical garb to be a stage dress, a fool's coat, a relique of the Amorites, and promised that he would spare no labour to extirpate such degrading absurdities. Archbishop Grindal long hesitated about accepting a mitre from dislike of what he regarded as the mummery of consecration. Bishop Parkhurst uttered a fervent prayer that the Church of England would propose to herself the Church of Zurich as the absolute pattern of a Christian community. Bishop Ponet was of opinion that the word Bishop should be abandoned to the Papist, and that the chief officers of the purified church should be called Superintendents. When it is considered that none of these prelates belonged to the extreme section of the Protestant party, it cannot be doubted that, if the general sense of that party had been followed, the work of reform would have been carried on as unsparingly in England as in Scotland. But, as the government needed the support of the Protestants, so the Protestants needed the protection of the government. Much was therefore given up on both sides: an union was effected; and the fruit of that union was the Church of England."

_Lord Macaulay, History of England, chapter 1._

"The Reformation in England was, singular amongst the great religious movements of the sixteenth century. It was the least heroic of them all--the least swayed by religious passion, or moulded and governed by spiritual and theological necessities. From a general point of view, it looks at first little more than a great political change. The exigencies of royal passion, and the dubious impulses of statecraft, seem its moving and really powerful springs. But, regarded more closely, we recognise a significant train both of religious and critical forces at work. The lust and avarice of Henry, the policy of Cromwell, and the vacillations of the leading clergy, attract prominent notice; but there may be traced beneath the surface a wide-spread evangelical fervour amongst the people, and, above all, a genuine spiritual earnestness and excitement of thought at the universities. {830} These higher influences preside at the first birth of the movement. They are seen in active operation long before the reforming task was taken up by the Court and the bishops."

_J. Tulloch, Rational Theology and Christian Philosophy in England in the 17th Century, volume 1, chapter 2._

"The miserable fate of Anne Boleyn wins our compassion, and the greatness to which her daughter attained has been in some degree reflected back upon herself. Had she died a natural death, and had she not been the mother of Queen Elizabeth, we should have estimated her character at a very low value indeed. Protestantism might still, with its usual unhistorical partizanship, have gilded over her immoralities; but the Church of England must ever look upon Anne Boleyn with downcast eyes full of sorrow and shame. By the influence of her charms, Henry was induced to take those steps which ended in setting the Church of England free from an uncatholic yoke: but that such a result should be produced by such an influence is a fact which must constrain us to think that the land was guilty of many sins, and that it was these national sins which prevented better instruments from being raised up for so righteous an object."

_J. H. Blunt, The Reformation of the Church of England, pages 197-198._

"Cranmer's work might never have been carried out, there might have been no English Bible, no Ten Articles or 'Institution,' no reforming Primers, nor Proclamations against Ceremonies, had it not been for the tact, boldness and skill of Thomas Crumwell, who influenced the King more directly and constantly than Cranmer, and who knew how to make his influence acceptable by an unprincipled confiscation and an absurd exaggeration of the royal supremacy. Crumwell knew that in his master's heart there was a dislike and contempt of the clergy. ... It is probable that Crumwell's policy was simply irreligious, and only directed towards preserving his influence with the King; but as the support of the reforming part of the nation was a useful factor in it, he was thus led to push forward religious information in conjunction with Cranmer. It has been before said that purity and disinterestedness are not to be looked for in all the actors in the English Reformation. To this it may be added that neither in the movement itself nor in those who took part in it is to be found complete consistency. This, indeed, is not to be wondered at. Men were feeling their way along untrodden paths, without any very clear perception of the end at which they were aiming, or any perfect understanding of the situation. The King had altogether misapprehended the meaning of his supremacy. A host of divines whose views as to the distinction between the secular and the spiritual had been confused by the action of the Popes, helped to mislead him. The clergy, accustomed to be crushed and humiliated by the Popes, submitted to be crushed and humiliated by the King; and as the tide of his autocratic temper ebbed and flowed, yielded to each change. Hence there was action and reaction throughout the reign. But in this there were obvious advantages for the Church. The gradual process accustomed men's thoughts to a reformation which should not be drastic or iconoclastic, but rather conservative and deliberate."

_G. G, Perry, History of the Reformation in England, chapter 5._

"With regard to the Church of England, its foundations rest upon the rock of Scripture, not upon the character of the King by whom they were laid. This, however, must be affirmed in justice to Henry, that mixed as the motives were which first induced him to disclaim the Pope's authority, in all the subsequent measures he acted sincerely, knowing the importance of the work in which he had engaged, and prosecuting it sedulously and conscientiously, even when most erroneous. That religion should have had so little influence upon his moral conduct will not appear strange, if we consider what the religion was wherein he was trained up;--nor if we look at the generality of men even now, under circumstances immeasurably more fortunate than those in which he was placed. Undeniable proofs remain of the learning, ability, and diligence, with which he applied himself to the great business of weeding out superstition, and yet preserving what he believed to be the essentials of Christianity untouched. This praise (and it is no light one) is his due: and it is our part to be thankful to that all-ruling Providence, which rendered even his passions and his vices subservient to this important end."

_R. Southey, The Book of the Church, chapter 12._

ENGLAND: A. D. 1535-1539. The suppression of the Monasteries.

"The enormous, and in a great measure ill-gotten, opulence of the regular clergy had long since excited jealousy in every part of Europe. ... A writer much inclined to partiality towards the monasteries says that they held [in England] one-fifth part of the kingdom; no insignificant patrimony. ... As they were in general exempted from episcopal visitation, and intrusted with the care of their own discipline, such abuses had gradually prevailed and gained strength by connivance as we may naturally expect in corporate bodies of men leading almost of necessity useless and indolent lives, and in whom very indistinct views of moral obligations were combined with a great facility of violating them. The vices that for many ages had been supposed to haunt the monasteries, had certainly not left their precincts in that of Henry VIII. Wolsey, as papal legate, at the instigation of Fox, bishop of Hereford, a favourer of the Reformation, commenced a visitation of the professed as well as secular clergy in 1523, in consequence of the general complaint against their manners. ... Full of anxious zeal for promoting education, the noblest part of his character, he obtained bulls from Rome suppressing many convents (among which was that of St. Frideswide at Oxford), in order to erect and endow a new college in that university, his favourite work, which after his fall was more completely established by the name of Christ Church. A few more were afterwards extinguished through his instigation; and thus the prejudice against interference with this species of property was somewhat worn off, and men's minds gradually prepared for the sweeping confiscations of Cromwell [Thomas Cromwell, who succeeded Wolsey as chief minister of Henry VIII.]. The king indeed was abundantly willing to replenish his exchequer by violent means, and to avenge himself on those who gainsayed his supremacy; but it was this able statesman who, prompted both by the natural appetite of ministers for the subjects' money and by a secret partiality towards the Reformation, devised and carried on with complete success, if not with the utmost prudence, a measure of no inconsiderable hazard and difficulty. ... {831} It was necessary, by exposing the gross corruptions of monasteries, both to intimidate the regular clergy, and to excite popular indignation against them. It is not to be doubted that in the visitation of these foundations, under the direction of Cromwell, as lord vice-gerent of the king's ecclesiastical supremacy, many things were done in an arbitrary manner, and much was unfairly represented. Yet the reports of these visitors are so minute and specific that it is rather a preposterous degree of incredulity to reject their testimony whenever it bears hard on the regulars. ... The dread of these visitors soon induced a number of abbots to make surrenders to the king; a step of very questionable legality. But in the next session the smaller convents, whose revenues were less than £200 a year, were suppressed by act of parliament, to the number of 376, and their estates vested in the crown. This summary spoliation led to the great northern rebellion soon afterwards," headed by Robert Ask, a gentleman of Yorkshire, and assuming the title of a Pilgrimage of Grace.

_H. Hallam, Constitutional History of England, chapter 2._

"Far from benefiting the cause of the monastic houses, the immediate effect of the Pilgrimage of Grace was to bring ruin on those monasteries which had as yet been spared. For their complicity or alleged complicity in it, twelve abbots were hanged, drawn and quartered, and their houses were seized by the Crown. Every means was employed by a new set of Commissioners to bring about the surrender of others of the greater abbeys. The houses were visited, and their pretended relics and various tricks to encourage the devotion of the people were exposed. Surrenders went rapidly on during the years 1537 and 1538, and it became necessary to obtain a new Act of Parliament to vest the property of the later surrenders in the Crown. ... Nothing, indeed, can be more tragical than the way in which the greater abbeys were destroyed on manufactured charges and for imaginary crimes. These houses had been described in the first Act of Parliament as 'great and honourable,' wherein 'religion was right well kept and observed.' Yet now they were pitilessly destroyed. A revenue of about £131,607 is computed to have thus come to the Crown, while the movables are valued at £400,000. How was this vast sum of money expended?

(1) By the Act for the suppression of the greater monasteries the King was empowered to erect six new sees, with their deans and chapters, namely, Westminster, Oxford, Chester, Gloucester, Bristol and Peterborough. ...

(2) Some monasteries were turned into collegiate churches, and many of the abbey churches ... were assigned as parish churches.

(3) Some grammar schools were erected.

(4) A considerable sum is said to have been spent in making roads and in fortifying the coasts of the Channel.

(5) But by far the greater part of the monastic property passed into the hands of the nobility and gentry, either by purchase at very easy rates, or by direct gift from the Crown. ...

The monks and nuns ejected from the monasteries had small pensions assigned to them, which are said to have been regularly paid; but to many of them the sudden return into a world with which they had become utterly unacquainted, and in which they had no part to play, was a terrible hardship, ... greatly increased by the Six Article Law, which ... made the marriage of the secularized 'religious' illegal under heavy penalties."

_G. G. Perry, History of the Reformation in England, chapter 4._

"The religious bodies, instead of uniting in their common defence, seem to have awaited singly their fate with the apathy of despair. A few houses only, through the agency of their friends, sought to purchase the royal favour with offers of money and lands; but the rapacity of the king refused to accept a part when the whole was at his mercy."

_J. Lingard, History of England, volume 6, chapter 4._

Some of the social results of the suppression "may be summed up in a few words. The creation of a large class of poor to whose poverty was attached the stigma of crime; the division of class from class, the rich mounting up to place and power, the poor sinking to lower depths; destruction of custom as a check upon the exactions of landlords; the loss by the poor of those foundations at schools and universities intended for their children, and the passing away of ecclesiastical tithes into the hands of lay owners."

_F. A. Gasquet, Henry VIII. and the English Monasteries, volume 2, page 523._

ENGLAND: A. D. 1536-1543. Trial and execution of Anne Boleyn. Her successors, the later wives of Henry VIII.