Luther, vol. 4 of 6

by Hartmann Grisar

In England hopes were entertained that these favourable offers would induce a more friendly attitude towards the question of Henry’s divorce. Concerning this Luther merely says in the letter cited: “In the matter of the royal marriage, the ‘suspensio’ has already been decided,” without going into any further particulars; he, however, reserves the case to be dealt with by the theologians exclusively.

In August, 1535, Melanchthon had dedicated one of his writings to the King of England, and had, on this occasion, lavished high praise on him. It was probably about this time that the King sent the presents to Wittenberg, to which Catherine Bora casually alludes in the Table-Talk. “Philip received several gifts from the Englishman, in all five hundred pieces of gold; for our own part we got at least fifty.”[20]

Melanchthon took no offence at the cruel execution of Sir Thomas More or at the other acts of violence already perpetrated by Henry VIII; on the contrary, he gave his approval to the deeds of the royal tyrant, and described it as a commandment of God “to use strong measures against fanatical and godless men.”[21] The sanguinary action of the English tyrant led Luther to express the wish, that a similar fate might befall the heads of the Catholic Church at Rome. In the very year of Bishop Fisher’s execution he wrote to Melanchthon: “It is easy to lose our tempers when we see what traitors, thieves, robbers, nay devils incarnate the Cardinals, the Popes and their Legates are. Alas that there are not more Kings of England to put them to death!”[22] He also refers to the alleged horrors practised by the Pope’s tools in plundering the Church, and asks: “How can the Princes and Lords put up with it?”

In Dec., 1535, a convention of the Schmalkalden Leaguers, at Melanchthon’s instance, begged the envoys despatched by Henry, who were on their way to Wittenberg, to induce their master to promote the Confession of Augsburg—unless, indeed, as they added with unusual consideration, “they and the King should be unanimous in thinking that something in the Confession might be improved upon or made more in accordance with the Word of God.”[23]

Just as in the advances made by the King to Wittenberg “the main point had been to obtain a favourable pronouncement from the German theologians in the matter of his divorce,” so too in consenting to discuss the Confession of Augsburg he was actuated by the thought that this would lead to a discussion on the Papal power and the question of the divorce, i.e. to those points which the King had so much at heart.[24]

On the arrival immediately after of the envoys at Wittenberg they had the satisfaction of learning from Luther and his circle, that the theologians had already changed their minds in the King’s favour concerning the lawfulness of marriage with a brother’s widow. Owing to the influence of Osiander, whom Henry VIII had won over to his side, they now had come to regard such marriages as contrary to the natural moral law. Hence Henry’s new marriage might be considered valid. They were not, however, as yet ready to draw this last inference from the invalidity of the previous marriage between the King and Catherine.[25]

Luther, however, became more and more convinced that marriage with a brother’s widow was invalid; in 1542, for instance, on the assumption of the invalidity of such a union, he unhesitatingly annulled the marriage of a certain George Schud, as a “devilish abomination” (“abominatio diaboli”).[26]

The spokesman of the English mission, Bishop Edward Fox, demanded from Luther the admission that the King had separated from his first wife “on very just grounds.” Luther, however, would only agree that he had done so “on very many grounds.” He said later, in conversation, that his insistence on this verbal nicety had cost him three hundred Gulden, which he would have received from England in the event of his compliance. [27] He cannot indeed be accused of having been, from ecclesiastico-political motives, too hasty in gratifying the King’s demands in the matter of the divorce. Yet, on the other hand, it is not unlikely that the desire to pave the way for a practical understanding was one of the motives for his mode of action. His previous outspoken declarations against any dissolution of the Royal marriage compelled him to assume an attitude not too strongly at variance with his earlier opinion.

After the new marriage had taken place negotiations with England continued, principally with the object of securing such acceptance of the new doctrine as might lead to a politico-religious alliance between that country and the Schmalkalden Leaguers. Luther, however, stubbornly refused to concede anything to the King in the matter of his chief doctrines, for instance, regarding Justification or the rejection of the Mass.