Part 17

Apparently, Cranmer and the Protector worked in complete harmony, save in the one matter of the chantries; but there is no sign at all that he took his cue from the Protector. The principles of Somerset’s reformation were his. Those principles, moreover, do not appear to have gone beyond what the most anti-Protestant of modern Anglicans accept. The statutory changes, however, were accompanied by proceedings of a regrettable character. In the attack on images, individuals were guilty of violence and irreverence, not to say sacrilege. Extravagant and inflammatory language was used in the pulpits. The treatment of the leaders of the Opposition was not altogether free from vindictiveness. For the first group, Cranmer was in no way responsible; Somerset was, because in some respects he set a bad example himself. For the second, the two were jointly responsible, since preaching was restricted to licensed persons, and the licences were issued only by the Protector and the Archbishop. For the third, Somerset was guiltless. The attacks on Gardiner and Bonner were made in his absence and supported by his colleague. But the mildest of men do not often view opportunities of retaliation with entire indifference. Gardiner had certainly done his best to ruin Cranmer under Henry; and by comparison at least the measures taken against him were mild enough.

Some consideration, however, must be given to the argument that the Protector’s government forced Protestantism hastily and prematurely on a reluctant nation. Whether the religion formulated in the first Prayer Book of Edward VI. can be legitimately called Protestantism at all may be left to the controversialists; but there is no manner of doubt that the methods attending the introduction of the Service Book were ill-judged and vexatious. On the other hand, the evidence that there was any strong opposition to the change itself lies mainly in the fact that the Western rising which immediately followed was professedly directed against it. Nevertheless, the mere fact that there was an almost simultaneous rising in the Eastern counties, which beyond all question was exclusively agrarian in character, suggests forcibly that the real moving force of the Western revolt also was agrarian. Ket’s supporters, significantly enough, held daily services, using the new Service Book: while one of the demands of the Cornishmen was for the restoration of the monastic lands--that is, of the monasteries as landlords in place of their rapacious supplanters. Clerical agitators would have found little difficulty in making the Westland rustics believe that half their troubles were due to the attacks on the Church in the past reign; and the identification of greedy landlords with the cause of ecclesiastical reform was at the worst colourable. Cranmer might condemn and Latimer might lash the landlords from the pulpit, Somerset might set up his Court of Requests; these things did not reach the remote districts. But there, men did see the spoilers of the Church enclosing commons, changing tillage into sheep-runs, and evicting small tenants. And they drew their conclusions. The Reformation would have had to wait half a century if it had been delayed till that argument was deprived of all force. But it may certainly be granted that the changes which preceded Somerset’s fall went quite as far as the country at large was prepared for.

It is rather curious to observe that Cranmer fairly lost his temper over the Cornish rebellion, and scolded the insurgents somewhat after the model set by Henry VIII. when he rated the Lincolnshire men a dozen years earlier.

VI

THE FLOWING TIDE OF PROTESTANTISM

Cranmer had no hand at all in the intrigue which overthrew the Protector. For a brief interval there was even some uncertainty whether the group who had captured the Government might not make terms with the Opposition, release Gardiner, and possibly take him into partnership. If Warwick ever had such an idea in his mind, he was far too acute to entertain it for long. Gardiner as a colleague would have been a very dangerous rival. The alternative was to assume the lead of the advanced wing of the progressive party. Warwick, who died professing himself a devout Catholic, had no difficulty in assimilating the jargon of the zealots, and convincing their honest enthusiasm that they might look upon him as a Joshua, while he doubled the part with that of Achan. To him, religion was not among the things that mattered; but religion might be made to serve its turn in forwarding his own ambitions.

Hitherto the Reformation in England had moved a good deal more closely along the lines laid down a hundred and fifty years before by Wiclif than on those of Luther or of Calvin; approximating more nearly to the Zurich school, though by no means identical with them. Zurich had proved more attractive to English refugees also. But now the abolition of the penal laws in England, and the dissatisfaction caused by the Augsburg Interim in Germany, brought into the country a number of foreigners, Lutheran and Calvinist as well as Zwinglian, including on the one hand Bucer and on the other John Knox--besides returning English refugees. Not a few of these foreign visitors were inspired with a lively missionary zeal, and the freedom of discussion permitted naturally caused debate and controversy to wax fast and furious. If the country in general found the concessions already made to the new learning somewhat larger than was quite to its taste, the followers of the new learning were very far from satisfied with them. And they were vocal exceedingly, if not precisely harmonious. It was very soon evident that the comprehensive ambiguity of the new Book of Common Prayer was in the eyes of the Reformers too liberal to the old Catholics and not sufficiently advanced for the new Protestants--controversy raging chiefly over two subjects, the first being the Eucharist, and the second Forms and Ceremonies.

Without attempting to examine the actual views on the former subject held at this time by Cranmer--as to which critics appear able to form very positive but very contradictory conclusions--it may be quite safely asserted that he had quite definitely given up all belief in Transubstantiation, but had not accepted the view most remote from it, that the service was purely commemorative. The varied range of intermediate views might be associated with either of these in a common Form of Service, but these extremes were evidently incompatible. One or other must be excluded. Cranmer, his right-hand man Ridley, and their associates, were all travelling towards the Zwinglian position, whether they ultimately reached it or not. If there was to be any more defining, it was the followers of the old learning who would be shut out thereby.

It was much the same with forms and ceremonies. The extreme men, whether they looked to Zurich or Geneva for guidance, regarded nearly everything in the way of vestments and ceremonial as the trappings of the Scarlet Woman. The Archbishop did not. Where these things did not directly imply the truth of specific doctrines definitely discarded--the sacrifice of the Mass, the worship of images, and the like--their preservation, in his view, tended to decency and reverence. Here, again, it was evident that any changes must tend to the exclusion of the rigid Catholics. They and the Calvinists could not travel in the same boat.

The result is to be seen in the second Prayer Book of Edward VI., in the new Ordinal, and in the Forty-two Articles which, with slight modification, became the Thirty-nine of Queen Elizabeth. Warwick--otherwise Northumberland--was with the extremists, who were vigorous and loud-voiced, and altogether exercised an amount of forcing-power quite disproportionate to the number of their adherents among the general public. If they had had their way, the re-modelling would have been on lines satisfactory to John Knox. Northumberland’s government would not have stood in the way. The Lutheranism of Germany and the Augsburg Confession was uncongenial. It was Cranmer, Ridley, and their adherents who succeeded in retaining for the Church of England a form to which she could mould herself, after the Marian _régime_, without returning to the Roman obedience or adopting the Scottish model. If that was a praiseworthy achievement, it is to Cranmer primarily that the praise is rightfully due.

That is what Cranmer did. From Somerset’s record, it may reasonably be inferred that it is very much what he would have endeavoured to do if he had remained in power. But he did not have the opportunity, because he was not in power, and Warwick cut his head off.

What Cranmer would have liked to do, beyond what he did, is another matter, and may be gathered from his proposed _Reformatio Legum Ecclesiasticarum_--a document which shows that, Erastian though he was, he desired the clergy to have much ampler powers of jurisdiction than there was the faintest chance of the State delegating to them. It was an essay in constitution-making of a decidedly academic order: the machinery would never have worked. It does not reveal unsuspected qualities of constructive statesmanship; but it does not detract from the credit due to the manner in which the Archbishop managed to steer the ship through very stormy waters with a mutinous crew on board. The performance was not, perhaps, masterly; but it is not extravagant praise to call it meritorious.

VII

DE PROFUNDIS

Northumberland’s methods did not make him popular; but they made him powerful, and it was his primary object to place on the throne in succession to Edward some one who should be his own puppet. To this end he devoted himself in the last months of the young king’s life. By Henry VIII.’s will, the succession was fixed first on Mary, then on Elizabeth, then on the Greys--not Suffolk himself, but his wife Frances Brandon and their children. The accession of Mary could only mean destruction for Northumberland. He could not be sure of Elizabeth, who was now in her twentieth year. But he thought he could make quite sure of Lady Jane Grey, who was hardly more than a child and had been brought up under pronounced Protestant tutelage. His plan was to marry her to one of his own sons, induce Edward to assume the authority formally granted to his father and name her his heir--ostensibly, of course, on the ground that both his sisters had been declared illegitimate and those judgments had not been revoked--and trust to intrigue and force to secure her on the throne. Having won the king over, he succeeded in entangling several of the Council in the conspiracy; the rest were then worked upon individually to give their adherence. One after another did so, reluctantly, till all were drawn in save Hales--Cranmer being the last, and assenting only on the positive assurance that the Crown lawyers had guaranteed the constitutional validity of the instrument he was called upon to sign, and under direct personal pressure from the king. Northumberland, however, had completely miscalculated the forces at work. He knew that the very signatories of the document could not be relied on when out of his reach; but having them under his grip, he thought himself safe. But the country rallied to Mary; the troops deserted to her standard; the plot failed, ignominiously and utterly. Mary was hailed Queen; the arch-traitor was sent to the block; for the rest, only a few of those most conspicuously compromised were sent to the Tower.

It was, of course, obvious at the outset that Mary’s rule must mean the return to power of the party which had been in opposition under Somerset and more actively repressed under his successor. The daughter of Katharine of Aragon was a convinced adherent of the entire Roman position. That she would go so far as to restore the Roman obedience might have been a matter of doubt; but, short of that, she was not likely to allow limits to reaction. Gardiner and Bonner, Tunstal and Day and Heath, had all been imprisoned and deprived of their sees during the last four years; it was not likely that the advanced bishops would be allowed to retain their functions. And, beyond theological differences, some of them had been driven by the religious motive into open and vigorous support of Lady Jane Grey’s succession. Of Cranmer himself the most that could be said was that he was an assenting party; but Ridley, Bishop of London, had committed himself to the cause in somewhat inflammatory language.

Nevertheless, Mary was in no haste to strike. Every one who feared for his own skin was given time and opportunity to retire from the country--whereof not a few made haste to take advantage. Ridley was arrested; but Cranmer, Latimer, and others who stood their ground manfully, might have gone if they would. After all, no Catholics during the last reign had suffered anything worse than imprisonment, and Mary’s leniency towards the participators in the rebellion may well have given an impression that retaliation would not go beyond the infliction of corresponding penalties.

Cranmer, then, remained at large for a time. But a report was circulated that he was about to make submission, and had himself set up the Mass again. Had it not been for this, he might have hoped to be allowed to retire into obscurity; but the rumour stirred him to an indignant and uncompromising denial, which was promptly followed by his arrest for complicity in Northumberland’s plot. The Archbishop was by nature a sanguine man, but he can hardly have imagined that this protest of his would be allowed to pass; for it was practically a challenge to all and sundry who desired the Mass to be restored. No government of the time would have dreamed of ignoring the action of its author.

Even when he was safely in the Tower along with Ridley, the hopefulness of Cranmer’s temperament displayed itself. He had an incurable conviction that any one who listened to him was bound to recognise the entire reasonableness of his views; and from prison he petitioned Mary for leave to “open his mind” to her. That accomplished, he felt that he would have discharged his conscience and could retire from further controversy without reproach, even though he might fail to persuade his sovereign. The duty of conformity, in conduct at least, to the sovereign’s decrees, was, as already remarked, a cardinal belief with him.

The petition was not granted. Moreover, the reign of clemency was destined to very brief duration. Wyatt’s rebellion hardened the Queen, whose determination to marry Philip of Spain strengthened _pari passu_ with her determination to be reconciled with Rome and to discharge her duty as a daughter of the Church by bringing her subjects back to the fold. Throughout 1554 signs accumulated, ominous of the coming storm. Whatever Mary’s original intent may have been, mercy to Cranmer must have ceased to be a part of it at an early stage; though, if she had definitely resolved on his destruction, it is difficult to find an adequate explanation of the extreme prolongation of his imprisonment.

In April 1554, the three who were most obnoxious to Mary and the reactionaries, Cranmer, Ridley, and Latimer, were removed to Oxford, to play their part in a great disputation. All three held their ground stoutly. It was pronounced, of course, that all three had been completely refuted, and were manifest heretics; but being thereupon invited to recant, they all refused. Cranmer had been treated with considerable rudeness in the course of the debates; but the mildness and dignity of his bearing throughout were such that one of his chief antagonists, the Prolocutor, Dean Weston, thanked him openly for his admirable behaviour.

This condemnation, however, was of no practical account, since, in 1554, the penal laws against heresy were not yet re-enacted. On the other hand, to punish Cranmer for treason would be a palpable piece of pure vindictiveness. His treason, such as it was, had been shared by several of the men who were now on the Council. But the arrival of Pole and the formal reconciliation with Rome at the close of the year were accompanied by the revival of the statute _de heretico comburendo_, and the great persecution opened in February with the burning of Rogers. A twelvemonth more passed before the end came for Cranmer himself. It is perhaps, after all, a sufficient explanation of the delay that the Primate of England could only be condemned for heresy by the Pope. Other cases fell within the jurisdiction of the legatine or national ecclesiastical courts; his did not.

In September 1555, a Papal Commission sat in Oxford to examine the case of the Archbishop and report to Rome for the Pope to pass judgment. Cranmer refused to recognise the jurisdiction, but made a declaration in answer to the questions put to him as coming from the Queen’s Proctors, who were on the Commission. He maintained his views on the Sacrament, and on the Royal Supremacy, and on the usurpations of Rome; and justified his actions on all points in respect of which it had been impugned. The trial over, he followed up his defence by a vigorous address to the Queen, asserting the utter incompatibility of any sovereign authority with the Papal claims. On November 25 the Pope pronounced his excommunication. In the meantime Ridley and Latimer had been condemned by a court under the authority of the Legate, Cardinal Pole, on October 1, and on the 16th they suffered martyrdom--Cranmer, it is said, witnessing the scene from the roof of his prison.

Cranmer remained in prison, cut off from every sympathiser. It is easy to forget, but it should not be difficult to realise, the tremendous strain on a nature like his--sensitive, diffident, imaginative. All his life he had been surrounded and supported by the personal affection of friends. Now, every conceivable incentive to doubt whether he had been in the right after all was set to work on him simultaneously. Yet month followed month, and he remained steadfast--unless his expression of a desire to confer with Tunstal or Pole was a sign of weakening. Before he could be handed over to the secular arm, his ecclesiastical degradation was necessary. The sentence was carried out with every circumstance of public ignominy--Bonner, the principal performer, excelling himself in his coarse brutality. For a man with highstrung nerves, the thing must have been simply shattering.

At the ceremony (February 14) he had drawn from his sleeve an appeal from the Pope to a general council; and about this time he signed in close succession what are called four recantations. Two of them probably preceded the degradation; the other two Bonner extracted from him on February 15. None of them are recantations at all. They are submissions to the authority of the sovereign, to whom he had always taught that submission is due. He had obeyed his own conscience in contravention of his own theory hitherto; now, he returned to the theory, and owned that if the secular sovereign willed to establish Papal authority, obedience was still due. As to doctrine he recanted nothing. But this was not nearly enough for Mary and Pole, who were bent on extracting something which should altogether discredit the cause of the Reformation.

Within ten days the writ for his burning was issued. Then, before three more weeks had passed Cranmer broke down under the strain, writing first a full and complete recantation of every impugned doctrine, and then one more--dictated to him (March 18). No man ever repudiated his whole past in terms more ignominious. His enemies had what they wanted; if they had stopped there and pardoned him, the force of the blow would have been incalculable. But their thirst for his blood gave him the chance of salvation, changing their victory to hopeless rout. They did not pardon. They demanded from the victim the public confirmation from his own lips of the recantations he had written and signed. That one disastrous moment of weakness was to be gloriously redeemed.

Three days after his fall, on a morning of foul March weather, Cranmer was conveyed from his prison to listen himself to his own funeral discourse and then to play his own allotted part. No suspicion seems to have crossed the mind of his gaolers that there was anything for them to fear. The oration over--he had listened with frequent tears--he was bidden to make public avowal of his recantation. He arose; he confessed the grievousness of his sin, entreating pardon before the Throne of Omnipotence. And then he declared the nature of his sin. Before those about him could realise what was happening, he had recanted his recantation, declaring the truth of all he had before upheld, and proclaiming, “As my hand offended in writing contrary to my heart, therefore my hand shall first be punished. For if I may come to the fire, it shall first be burned.” Hastily he was silenced, and hurried to the stake; but of his own will he moved so swiftly that the confessors could scarce keep pace with him. And when, indeed, he “came to the fire” he fulfilled his words. Men saw him thrust the offending right hand into the flame, and hold it there till it was consumed.

* * * * *

So tragically, so triumphantly, closed the drama of Cranmer’s life--surely a close fitted for “purging the passions through pity and fear.” A vase of fine porcelain whirled into the eddies in company with pots of brass and stoneware; a scholar, dragged from academic cloisters to control a revolution; a man with a receptive mind, when receptivity was about as dangerous a quality, for himself, as he could possess. A man whom men have ventured to call craven, yet who alone of his contemporaries dared to remonstrate with Cromwell in his policy and with the eighth Henry in the day of his wrath, and that not once, nor twice. A man who endured till the eleventh hour, and then--fell.

But a man who, ere the twelfth hour had struck, rose up the Victor.

WILLIAM CECIL, LORD BURGHLEY

I

THE MINISTERS OF QUEEN ELIZABETH

William Cecil was born in 1520. He lived to the age of seventy-eight, dying in the same year as Philip II. of Spain, who was five years his junior. His political connexion began before Henry VIII. was in his grave; and for more than fifty years it continued, except for his retirement from the public eye during the complete period of the Marian persecution. Even in his old age, when his son Robert was already becoming, in his own crafty fashion, the most important person in Queen Elizabeth’s Council, the father was still the adviser on whom she leaned in the last resort. For forty years he was, in fact, the mainstay of her Government. For twenty of those years--roughly from 1569 to 1589--a man of even higher ability, in some respects, than himself, Francis Walsingham, was his loyal colleague. They served the cleverest, the most successful, and the most exasperating princess who ever sat upon a throne. Both of them--especially Walsingham--told her home-truths on occasion; both of them--especially Walsingham--she on occasion abused like a Billingsgate fish-wife. But all three were unfailingly loyal to each other; and among them they raised England to the forefront of the nations of Christendom.