IV
CONTRA ECCLESIAM
It does not in effect militate against this view, that before Cromwell could have set any agency in motion, Parliament did itself lead the way by attacking certain minor and universally recognised abuses, without waiting for Convocation to deal with them. It needed nothing in the way of a campaign to ensure reforms being demanded and approved where the clergy themselves admitted that the existing state of things was scandalous. The first real blow was struck some months after Cromwell had obtained the king’s ear, when Convocation, towards the close of 1530, was startled by a message that the whole of the clergy had offended against the Statute of Præmunire in admitting the Legatine authority of the deceased Cardinal. That authority had of course been sanctioned by the approval of the king; but the fact that it was illegal was not thereby altered. Technically, there was no possibility of evading the charge. The clergy had broken the law; they must pay the penalty. They did, fining themselves to the tune of a million or so of our money. If they had not been perfectly helpless, the impudence of the demand, coming from the king, would have been simply colossal: but a demand which cannot be gainsaid can hardly be called impudent. Wolsey, of course, had been penalised for exercising the authority, but then there was the superficial excuse that he had obtained his master’s sanction by beguiling his unsuspecting innocence. Here the king could not even produce that flimsy excuse.
This financial operation, however, struck the keynote of the Cromwellian policy. Wolsey had over-ridden the law in procuring the Legatine appointment: he had sought to do so by demanding Benevolences: he had sought to do so by overawing Parliament. Now, everything was to be done under form of law. Even if—unwittingly of course—the authorities transgressed their legal powers, the transgression was to be regularised by a statute ad hoc. The principle was equally agreeable to the tender conscience of Henry and the legal proclivities of his minister.
The huge fine, however, did not satisfy the requirements. Convocation, in passing the Bill, was compelled to pass also a clause acknowledging the king as the “Only Supreme Head” of the Church, though it was allowed to introduce the qualifying phrase “so far as the law of Christ permits.” Except as an ingenious salve to clerical consciences, the qualification was futile, since, in the exercise of his supremacy, Henry would certainly not admit that he was going farther than those laws permitted, and he would also be the de facto judge on the question if any one should dare to raise it. The whole clause might be interpreted as meaning everything, or as meaning nothing—but the king would be the interpreter.
The Bill, with the clause, was passed in 1531. Again the campaign rested for about a year. So far, apart from a slight rectification of abuses, nothing more—in form—had been done than to exact from the clergy a penalty to which they had rendered themselves technically liable, and to demand from them the formal admission of what was asserted to be already the constitutional position of the Crown in relation to them. In theory there had been nothing in the nature of innovation. Now, it was time for innovation; so Parliament had to be called in, as against the Church. But the innovation was to threaten the Papal claims, so the Church must share the responsibility. Thus a fresh phase of the campaign opened with the beginning of 1532.
Again there were in the first place obvious abuses which were dealt with under Acts concerning mortmain and benefit of clergy. These, of themselves, implied nothing in particular. But it was a very different thing with the Annates Act: the first direct and manifest challenge of a Papal claim. Rome had claimed from every bishop on his appointment to a See the whole of the first year’s revenue. This, as the Act pointed out, was a very grievous burden on the bishops, for whose relief this system was to be stopped. Until quite recently, it has never been disputed that this Bill was introduced in response to the actual petition of Convocation. That idea was based on the existence of a document which—closer examination leaves no doubt—did not proceed from Convocation at all, as had hitherto been supposed. Chapuys reported at the time that the bishops opposed the measure. By this time, doubtless, the supremacy business had awakened their alarm, and others besides Fisher were beginning to dread a rupture with the Papacy. There are however, two special features which demand our attention. The Bill was framed ostensibly for the relief of the clergy, implying that the Crown, not the Papacy, was the true protector of their interests, and emphasising an antagonism between English Churchmen and the Pope. Also, it was not required to be put in immediate execution, but was to be held in suspense during the king’s pleasure. A double purpose was served thereby, though the intention was masked. Clement could buy the withdrawal of the measure by conceding the divorce: while if he should elect to close that door to reconciliation, it would not be too late to divert the annates into the king’s pocket, instead of abolishing the impost. The clergy would be none the better in either event, but the trick would have helped to keep them on the king’s side till it was too late to change. Henry was still playing for a divorce with the Papal sanction; he had not come to regard a final breach with the Papacy as an end desirable per se. Cromwell, we may assume, took a different view, but of course could not dream of forcing Henry’s hand: what he could do was to have everything in thorough order for a decisive breach, if and when the moment should come.
There was something more, however, for Parliament to do, namely its presentation of the Supplication against the Ordinaries. There is no doubt at all that in every essential this was Cromwell’s personal handiwork. It was a double-barrelled attack, from the popular point of view, on the way in which the Church exercised its jurisdiction; from the sovereign’s point of view, on the authority of the Church’s legislation. The whole intention of it was to force the clergy as a body to admit that their authority, whether as individuals or as a corporate body, was subordinate to that of the sovereign. Its object was attained with entire success: it resulted in what was known as the “Submission of the Clergy,” virtually a complete surrender. The defeat was practically the death-blow of the aged Archbishop Warham; while the Lord Chancellor, Sir Thomas More, found himself so totally opposed to the principle involved that he resigned office and went into retirement.
Warham’s death at this juncture was most convenient. The old man had not been sufficiently stout of heart to offer a stubborn resistance to the new policy, but he had yielded with much misgiving and soreness of spirit. He had been restive enough to make it doubtful whether in the last resort he might not decline to pronounce a judgment against Katharine in defiance of the Pope. By appointing Cranmer to the Archbishopric, Henry made sure of a primate who would have no qualms on the point. This security made him ready to precipitate the crisis which the Pope was craving to postpone or evade. The simple truth was that Clement felt himself to be completely in the grip of the emperor, and no conceivable threats from England could have extracted the desired verdict from him. The fact was unmistakeably revealed by the publication, in February, of what was in effect an order to Henry to re-instate Katharine on pain of excommunication. The reply was the Act in Restraint of Appeals—in form an Act declaratory of the existing law of England, in effect an announcement of independence—immediately followed by Cranmer’s judicial pronouncement invalidating the marriage with Katharine ab initio. Until Clement retorted by declaring Cranmer’s judgment void, Henry abstained from confirming either the Act in Restraint of Appeals or the Annates Act; their confirmation was his rejoinder. After that, there might be talk of reconciliation, but the practical possibility was gone past recall.