* Cavendish, p. 41.
** Strype, vol. i. p. 114, 115. App. No. 31, etc.
*** Stowe, p. 547.
But his enemies, who dreaded his return to court, never ceased plying the king with accounts of his several offences; and Anne Boleyn, in particular, contributed her endeavors, in conjunction with her uncle, the duke of Norfolk, to exclude him from all hopes of ever being reinstated in his former authority. He dismissed, therefore, his numerous retinue and as he was a kind and beneficent master, the separation passed not without a plentiful effusion of tears on both sides. [*] The king’s heart, notwithstanding some gleams of kindness, seemed now totally hardened against his old favorite. He ordered him to be indicted in the star chamber, where a sentence was passed against him. And, not content with this severity, he abandoned him to all the rigor of the parliament, which now after a long interval, was again assembled. The house of lords voted a long charge against Wolsey, consisting of forty-four articles; and accompanied it with an application to the king for his punishment, and his removal from all authority. Little opposition was made to this charge in the upper house: no evidence of any part of it was so much as called for; and as it chiefly consists of general accusations, it was scarcely susceptible of any.[**] [6] The articles were sent down to the house of commons; where Thomas Cromwell, formerly a servant of the cardinal’s, and who had been raised by him from a very low station, defended his unfortunate patron with such spirit, generosity, and courage, as acquired him great honor, and laid the foundation of that favor which he afterwards enjoyed with the king.
* Cavendish. Stowe, p. 549.
** See note F, at the end of the volume.
Wolsey’s enemies, finding that either his innocence or his caution prevented them from having any just ground of accusing him, had recourse to a very extraordinary expedient. An indictment was laid against him, that, contrary to a statute of Richard II., commonly called the statute of provisors, he had procured bulls from Rome, particularly one investing him with the legatine power, which he had exercised with very extensive authority. He confessed the indictment, pleaded ignorance of the statute, and threw himself on the king’s mercy. He was perhaps within reach of the law but besides that this statute had fallen into disuse, nothing could be more rigorous and severe than to impute to him as a crime what he had openly, during the course of so many years, practised with the consent and approbation of the and the acquiescence of the parliament and kingdom. Not to mention what he always asserted,[*] and what we can scarcely doubt of, that he had obtained the royal license in the most formal manner, which, had he not been apprehensive of the dangers attending any opposition to Henry’s lawless will, he might have pleaded in his own defence before the judges. Sentence, however, was pronounced against him, “That he was out of the king’s protection; his lands and goods forfeited; and that his person might be committed to custody.” But this prosecution of Wolsey was carried no further. Henry even granted him a pardon for all offences; restored him part of his plate and furniture; and still continued, from time to time, to drop expressions of favor and compassion towards him.
The complaints against the usurpations of the ecclesiastics had been very ancient in England, as well as in most other European kingdoms; and as this topic was now become popular every where, it had paved the way for the Lutheran tenets, and reconciled the people, in some measure, to the frightful idea of heresy and innovation. The commons, finding the occasion favorable, passed several bills restraining the impositions of the clergy; one for the regulating of mortuaries; another against the exactions for the probates of wills; [**] a third against non-residence and pluralities, and against church-men’s being farmers of land. But what appeared chiefly dangerous to the ecclesiastical order, were the severe invectives thrown out, almost without opposition, in the house, against the dissolute lives of the priests, their ambition, their avarice, and their endless encroachments on the laity. Lord Herbert [***] has even preserved the speech of a gentleman of Gray’s Inn, which is of a singular nature, and contains such topics as we should little expect to meet with during that period. The member insists upon the vast variety of theological opinions which prevailed in different nations and ages; the endless inextricable controversies maintained by the several sects; the impossibility that any man, much less the people, could ever know, much less examine, the tenets and principles of every sect; the necessity of ignorance and a suspense of judgment with regard to all those objects of dispute: and, upon the whole, he infers, that the only religion obligatory on mankind is the belief of one Supreme Being, the author of nature; and the necessity of good morals, in order to obtain his favor and protection. Such sentiments would be deemed latitudinarian, even in our time; and would not be advanced, without some precaution, in a public assembly.
* Cavendish, p. 72.
** These exactions were quite arbitrary, and had risen to a
great height. A member said in the house, that a thousand
marks had been exacted from him on that account. Hall, fol.
188 Strype, vol. i. p. 73.
*** Page 293.
But though the first broaching of religious controversy might encourage the sceptical turn in a few persons of a studious disposition, the zeal with which men soon after attached themselves to their several parties, served effectually to banish for a long time all such obnoxious liberties.
The bills for regulating the clergy met with some opposition in the house of lords. Bishop Fisher, in particular, imputed these measures of the commons to their want of faith; and to a formed design, derived from heretical and Lutheran principles, of robbing the church of her patrimony, and over-turning the national religion. The duke of Norfolk reproved the prelate in severe, and even somewhat indecent terms. He told him, that the greatest clerks were not always the wisest men. But Fisher replied, that he did not remember any fools in his time who had proved great clerks. The exceptions taken at the bishop of Rochester’s speech stopped not there. The commons, by the mouth of Sir Thomas Audley, their speaker, made complaints to the king of the reflections thrown upon them; and the bishop was obliged to put a more favorable construction on his words.[*]
Henry was not displeased that the court of Rome and the clergy should be sensible that they were entirely dependent on him, and that his parliament, if he were willing to second their inclinations, was sufficiently disposed to reduce the power and privileges of the ecclesiastics. The commons gratified the king in another particular of moment: they granted him a discharge of all those debts which he had contracted since the beginning of his reign,[**] and they grounded this bill, which occasioned many complaints, on a pretence of the king’s great care of the nation, and of his regularly employing all the money which he had borrowed in the public service.
* Parl. Hist. vol. iii. p. 59.
**Burnet, vol. ii. p. 82.