The Lord High-Almoner and the Bishop of Lincoln immediately called together the younger masters of the university, and declared that a longer resistance might lead to their ruin. But the youth of Oxford were not to be overawed by threats of violence. Lincoln had hardly finished when several masters of arts protested loudly. Some even spoke ‘very wickedly.’ Not permitting himself to be checked by such rebellion, the bishop ordered the poll to be taken. Twenty-seven voted for the king, and twenty-two against. The royal commissioners were not yet satisfied; they assembled all the faculties, and invited the members to give their opinion in turn. This intimidated many, and only eight or ten had courage enough to declare their opposition frankly. The bishop, encouraged by such a result, ordered that the final vote should be taken by ballot. Secrecy emboldened many of those who had not dared to speak; and, while thirty-one voted in favor of the divorce, twenty-five opposed it. That was of little consequence, as the two prelates had the majority. They immediately drew up the statute in the name of the university, and sent it to the king. After which the bishop, proud of his success, celebrated a solemn mass of the Holy Ghost.[[54]] The Holy Ghost had not, however, been much attended to in the business. Some had obeyed the prince, others the pope; and, if we desire to find those who obeyed Christ, we must look for them elsewhere.
Latimer’s Evangelical Courage.
The university of Cambridge was the first to send in its submission to Henry. The Sunday before Easter (1530), Vice-Chancellor Buckmaster arrived at Windsor in the forenoon. The court was at chapel, where Latimer, recently appointed one of the king’s chaplains, was preaching. The vice-chancellor came in during the service, and heard part of the sermon. Latimer was a very different man from Henry’s servile courtiers. He did not fear even to attack such of his colleagues as did not do their duty: ‘That is no godly preacher that will hold his peace, and not strike you with his sword that you smoke again.... Chaplains will not do their duties, but rather flatter. But what shall follow? Marry, they shall have God’s curse upon their heads for their labor. The minister must reprove without fearing any man, even if he be threatened with death.’[[55]] Latimer was particularly bold in all that concerned the errors of Rome which Henry VIII. desired to maintain in the English Church. ‘Wicked persons (he said),—men who despise God,—call out, “We are christened, therefore are we saved.” Marry, to be christened and not obey God’s commandments is to be worse than the Turks! Regeneration cometh from the Word of God. It is by believing this Word that we are born again.’[[56]]
Thus spoke one of the fathers of the British Reformation: such is the real doctrine of the Church of England; the contrary doctrine is a mere relic of popery.
As the congregation were leaving the chapel, the vice-chancellor spoke to the secretary (Cromwell) and the provost, and told them the occasion of his visit. The king sent a message that he would receive the deputation after evening service. Desirous of giving a certain distinction to the decision of the universities, Henry ordered all the court to assemble in the audience-chamber. The vice-chancellor presented the letter to the king, who was much pleased with it. ‘Thanks, Mr. Vice-Chancellor,’ he said; ‘I very much approve the way in which you have managed this matter. I shall give your university tokens of my satisfaction.... You heard Mr. Latimer’s sermon,’ he added, which he greatly praised, and then withdrew. The Duke of Norfolk, going up to the vice-chancellor, told him that the king desired to see him the following day.
The next day Dr. Buckmaster, faithful to the appointment, waited all the morning; but the king had changed his mind, and sent orders to the deputy from Cambridge that he might depart as soon as he pleased. The message had scarcely been delivered before the king entered the gallery. An idea which quite engrossed his mind urged him on; he wanted to speak with the doctor about the principle put forward by Cranmer. Henry detained Buckmaster from one o’clock until six, repeating, in every possible form, ‘Can the pope grant a dispensation when the law of God hath spoken?’[[57]] He even displayed much ill-humor before the vice-chancellor, because this point had not been decided at Cambridge. At last he quitted the gallery; and, to counterbalance the sharpness of his reproaches, he spoke very graciously to the doctor, who hurried away as fast as he could.
CHAPTER VI.
HENRY VIII. SUPPORTED IN FRANCE AND ITALY BY THE CATHOLICS, AND BLAMED IN GERMANY BY THE PROTESTANTS.
(January to September 1530.)
Henry Appeals To Foreign Opinion.
The king did not limit himself to asking the opinions of England; he appealed to the universal teaching of the Church, represented according to his views by the universities and not by the pope. The element of individual conviction, so strongly marked in Tyndale, Fryth, and Latimer, was wanting in the official reformation that proceeded from the prince. To know what Scripture said, Henry was about sending delegates to Paris, Bologna, Padua, and Wittemburg; he would have sent even to the East, if such a journey had been easy. That false catholicism which looked for the interpretation of the Bible to churches and declining schools where traditionalism, ritualism, and hierarchism were magnified, was a counterfeit popery. Happily the supreme voice of the Word of God surmounted this fatal tendency in England.
Henry VIII., full of confidence in the friendship of the King of France, applied first to the university of Paris; but Dr. Pedro Garry, a Spanish priest, as ignorant as he was fanatical (according to the English agents),[[58]] eagerly took up the cause of Catherine of Aragon. Aided by the impetuous Beda, he obtained an opinion adverse to Henry’s wishes.