‘My lords,’ said Henry, ‘no one disputes your right to preach and administer the sacraments.[[118]] Did not Paul submit to Cæsar’s tribunal, and our Saviour himself to Pilate’s?’ Henry’s ecclesiastical theories prevailed also at York. A great revolution was effected in England, and fresh compromises were to consolidate it.
The king, having obtained what he desired, condescended in his great mercy to pardon the clergy for their unpardonable offence of having recognized Wolsey as papal legate. At the request of the commons this amnesty was extended to all England. The nation, which at first saw nothing in this affair but an act enfranchising themselves from the usurped power of the popes, showed their gratitude to Henry; but there was a reverse to the medal. If the pope was despoiled, the king was invested. Was not the function ascribed to him contrary to the Gospel? Would not this act impress upon the Anglican Reformation a territorial and aristocratic character, which would introduce into the Reformed Church the world with all its splendor and wealth? If the royal preëminence endows the Anglican Church with the pomps of worship, of classical studies, of high dignities, will it not also carry along with it luxury, sinecures, and worldliness among the prelates? Shall we not see the royal authority pronounce on questions of dogma, and declare the most sacred doctrines indifferent? A little later an attempt was made to limit the power of the king in religious matters. ‘We give not to our princes the ministry of God’s Word or sacraments,’ says the thirty-seventh Article of Religion.
CHAPTER X.
SEPARATION OF THE KING AND QUEEN.
(March to June 1531.)
The king, having obtained so important a concession from the clergy, turned to his parliament to ask a service of another kind,—one in his eyes still more urgent.
On the 30th of March, 1531, the session being about to terminate, Sir Thomas More, the chancellor, went down to the House of Commons, and submitted to them the decision of the various universities on the king’s marriage and the power of the pope. The Commons looked at the affair essentially from a political point of view; they did not understand that, because the king had lived twenty years with the queen, he ought not to be separated from her. The documents placed before their eyes ‘made them detest the marriage’ of Henry and Catherine.[[119]] The chancellor desired the members to report in their respective counties and towns that the king had not asked for this divorce of his own will or pleasure, but ‘only for the discharge of his conscience and surety of the succession of his crown.’[[120]] ‘Enlighten the people,’ he said, ‘and preserve peace in the nation, with the sentiments of loyalty due to the monarch.’
Catherine’s Reply.
The king hastened to use the powers which universities, clergy, and parliament had placed in his hands. Immediately after the prorogation certain lords went down to Greenwich and laid before the queen the decisions which condemned her marriage, and urged her to accept the arbitration of four bishops and four lay peers. Catherine replied, sadly but firmly,—‘I pray you tell the king I say I am his lawful wife, and in that point I will abide until the court of Rome determine to the contrary.’[[121]]
The divorce which, notwithstanding Catherine’s refusal, was approaching, caused great agitation among the people; and the members of parliament had some trouble to preserve order, as Sir Thomas More had desired them. Priests proclaimed from their pulpits the downfall of the Church and the coming of Antichrist; the mendicant friars scattered discontent in every house which they entered, the most fanatical of them not fearing to insinuate that the wrath of God would soon hurl the impious prince from his throne. In towns and villages, in castles and alehouses, men talked of nothing but the divorce and the primacy claimed by the king. Women standing at their doors, men gathering round the blacksmith’s forge, spoke more or less disrespectfully of parliament, the bishops, the dangers of the Romish Church, and the prospects of the Reformation. If a few friends met at night around the hearth, they told strange tales to one another. The king, queen, pope, devil, saints, Cromwell, and the higher clergy formed the subject of their conversation. The gipsies at that time strolling through the country added to the confusion. Sometimes they would appear in the midst of these animated discussions, and prophesy lamentable events, at times calling up the dead to make them speak of the future. The terrible calamities they predicted froze their hearers with affright, and their sinister prophecies were the cause of disorders and even of crimes. Accordingly an act was passed pronouncing the penalty of banishment against them.[[122]]
An unfortunate event tended still more to strike men’s imaginations. It was reported that the Bishop of Rochester, that prelate so terrible to the reformers and so good to the poor, had narrowly escaped being poisoned by his cook. Seventeen persons were taken ill after eating porridge at the episcopal palace. One of the bishop’s gentlemen died, as well as a poor woman to whom the remains of the food had been given. It was maliciously remarked that the bishop was the only one who frankly opposed the divorce and the royal supremacy. Calumny even aimed at the throne. When Henry heard of this, he resolved to make short work of all such nonsense; he ordered the offence to be deemed as high-treason, and the wretched cook was taken to Smithfield, there to be boiled to death.[[123]] This was a variation of the penalty pronounced upon the evangelicals. Such was the cruel justice of the sixteenth century.
Reginald Pole.