Thus, by the opening of 1539, everything was ready for the two final measures. The regrettable conduct of the monastic establishments in associating themselves with treason provided a final justification for the complete suppression of the system, and incidentally the further enrichment of the Crown. In the field of constitutional practice, the Crown had frequently proceeded by Royal Proclamations, but there was generally some attendant danger of the authority of these being challenged. Parliament was now called upon formally to concede to such proclamations the effect of regular Statutes. It may be remarked in passing that the Parliament called in 1529 had been responsible for the whole of the legislation down to its last session in the early spring of 1536, when it passed the Act dissolving the lesser monasteries. Whether it was subservient or not, Cromwell had nothing to do with packing it: it was only at the last moment that he was provided with a seat in it. But there is no doubt that the subsequent Parliaments, beginning with that summoned in May 1536, were packed by Cromwell and his agents. That was an inevitable part of the system which was to make the king absolute, whilst preserving the traditional forms.
VI
CROMWELL AND PROTESTANTISM
The policy of organising a Despotism was necessarily anti-Papal and also anti-clerical. In the former aspect, it complicated foreign relations; in the latter, it was involved with the movement towards a spiritual and dogmatic reformation of religion. Cromwell’s course in foreign politics was dictated by anti-Papal considerations. So long as Katharine, the aunt of Charles V., was alive, there was no prospect of reconciliation between the Emperor and Henry, so that England could not work on Wolsey’s favourite line of holding the balance between Charles and the French king, who felt himself perfectly safe from any risk of a renewed combination between his rivals. Hence, Cromwell usually hankered for close association with the German Protestant princes, united in the League of Schmalkad, as an effective counter to the Emperor. Such an alliance might either coerce Charles into a reconciliation with Protestantism and England, or might make Francis think it worth his while to join an anti-Papal league. Having this idea in his mind, Cromwell’s attitude towards Lutheranism abroad and the religious progressives in England was always friendly: since he realised that the course of events must divide Christendom under the Papal and anti-Papal standards, which came to be called Catholic and Protestant respectively. If Rome were cast off by some of her children, while others remained faithful, sooner or later the latter would be compelled to unite for the purpose of crushing the rebels. Thus the defiance of Rome and of Charles by the pronouncement of the divorce in 1533, was attended by overtures to the League of Protestant Princes.
The Lutherans, however, looked askance. They feared the Greeks et dona ferentes; had not Henry taken the field conspicuously against their leader? German Lutheranism was deep-rooted in a genuine religious feeling; it could feel no confidence in the king of England as a convert to the Augsburg confession. Therefore the princes and the divines of Protestant Germany went warily. On the other hand, the isolation of England made Francis more than careless of an English alliance unless on terms extremely profitable to himself. The death of Katharine, however, in January 1536, changed the situation. It was no longer necessary for the emperor to range himself against England. It is noteworthy that the immediate effect on Cromwell was to make him desire an Imperial (which meant the old Burgundian) alliance, but he was promptly pulled up by the king, who had learnt once before that Wolsey had been right in his policy of holding the balance, and that he himself had erred in forcing an alliance with Charles. The emperor and Francis fell to fighting again, and for a while England was approximately in the old position of having each of the great Powers intriguing for her alliance, while she held aloof and coquetted with both. Then the combatants grew tired, and, with the improved prospect of their reconciliation, their ardour for English friendship cooled.
Just before this time, Henry’s third wife died. Neither his first nor his second spouse had provided him with a male heir; he had divorced the one, and cut off the head of the other. Jane Seymour did what was expected of her, but died in the execution of her duty. One not too sturdy baby boy, and two daughters who had been judicially pronounced illegitimate, gave room for uneasiness as to the succession. A fourth matrimonial venture was thus rendered advisable: providing opportunities for diplomatic intrigue. The royal ladies of Europe, however, do not seem to have coveted the position: “If I had two heads, one should be at the King of England’s disposal,” is said to have been the caustic comment of a suggested bride. Neither Francis nor Charles would be inveigled. On the contrary, they patched up a peace in the summer of 1538, and Henry’s policy of keeping them at odds with each other, while dangling an English alliance before both, broke down, as Cromwell’s previous attempt to join decisively with Charles had been frustrated. Cromwell fell back on the line which in his heart he would probably have preferred throughout, of alliance with the Lutherans: and at last he hoped—by finding a Lutheran bride for Henry—to attach his master decisively to that policy. Henry gave a half-hearted assent; the minister made his final throw. In the moment of seeming victory, his knell was sounded. Before we come to this, the last act in Cromwell’s drama, we may revert to his relations with the religious movement in England.
In the whole of his record, so far as we have at present reviewed it, there is not a scintilla of evidence to suggest that Henry’s Vicar-General ever cared a straw about any properly religious question at all. We can be tolerably sure, no doubt, as to some of the things he did not believe in. He did not believe that the Pope was the holder of the keys to heaven. He did not believe that the clergy were the divinely appointed channel through whom alone salvation must be obtained. He did not believe in the effectual sanctity of relics. Such beliefs would at least have been impossible to reconcile with his anti-Papal and anti-clerical campaigns. But it would be exceedingly difficult to find any positive dogma to which it would be possible to point as an article of faith with him. On the other hand, every circumstance of his life before 1529, known or surmised, was calculated to produce and to foster scepticism on the intellectual and carelessness on the emotional side of religion, generating a hardened materialism. The resulting attitude towards men who were actuated by strong religious convictions would be regulated entirely by policy.
Obviously, then, doctrines which weakened the hold of the Papacy, the priesthood, and the monks, on the popular imagination, would recommend themselves to his mind—not as particularly credible or true, but as deserving encouragement, weakening the spell of the great organisation whose power he desired, for reasons of policy, to reduce to the uttermost. Hence, it would be his wish to be at least on friendly terms with the reformers who were defying the Pope and setting ecclesiastical conventions at naught. More particularly, he would find the most dangerous opponents of his political design in that school of English Churchmen, headed by the Bishop of Winchester, who were determined to employ every instrument of intrigue to retain as much power as possible for the clergy, and he would seek as natural allies the men like Cranmer who were unqualified advocates of the Royal Supremacy. Further, he foresaw the ultimate necessity of a political understanding, if not the actual alliance which he would have preferred, with Continental Protestantism. On the other hand, he was thoroughly aware that the king plumed himself on his theological learning and orthodoxy; and it was no part of his scheme to run counter to the king. Hence, it became his business so far as he could to influence Henry in favour of the respectable reformers—not, of course, those who were tainted with Anabaptism or the suspicion thereof. But there is no hint anywhere in his conduct that he thought of the actual tenets of any reformers as in themselves worth any sacrifice. The king took a keen interest in theological controversies on their merits; his minister did not.
This view of his attitude, or of what we should have expected his attitude to be, tallies precisely with what we know of his actions. When called upon to intervene in clerical controversies, he habitually backed up Cranmer as against Gardiner, working in concert with him, except when he perceived that Cranmer wanted to go farther than Henry was willing to accompany him. Cranmer was a useful ally, who never lost his place in the royal favour: and the archbishop’s greatest enemy was his own also. But when the Six Articles Act was introduced, and he knew the king’s mind on the subject, he promptly left his ally in the lurch; though no doubt his influence was exerted, when it had been passed, to check its active enforcement. The passing of the Act—the crack of the “whip with six strings”—sufficiently served Henry’s immediate purpose, which was to make a display of rigid orthodoxy for the benefit of the emperor and King Francis. Cromwell, who had just committed himself to the Lutherans too deeply to retract, must have viewed the Act itself with painful feelings; but he could not afford to resist. Compliance offered the one chance of bringing his master round.