Thomas Cromwell is the representative of the political reform achieved by that prince. He was one of those powerful natures which God creates to work important things. His prompt and sure judgment taught him what it would be possible to do under a Tudor king, and his intrepid energy put him in a position to accomplish it. He had an instinctive horror of superstitions and abuses, tracked them to their remotest corner, and threw them down with a vigorous arm. Every obstacle was scattered under the wheels of his car. He even defended the evangelicals against their persecutors, without committing himself, however, and encouraged the reading of Holy Scripture; but the royal supremacy, of which he was the originator, was his idol.
The exactions of Rome in England were numerous: the king and Cromwell were content for the moment to abolish one, the appropriation by the papacy of the first year’s income of all ecclesiastical benefices. ‘These annates,’ said Cromwell, ‘have cost England eight hundred thousand ducats since the second year of Henry VII.[[170]] If, in consequence of the abolition of annates, the pope does not send a bishop his bull of ordination, the archbishop or two bishops shall ordain him, as in the old times.’ Accordingly, in March, 1532, the Lower House agreed to a resolution, which they expressed in these words: A cest bille les communes sont assentes, To this bill the Commons assent.
The bishops were overjoyed: they had to incur great expenses for their establishment, and the first money arising from their benefice went to the pope. Their friends used to make them pecuniary advances; but if the bishop died shortly after his enthronization, these advances were lost. Some of the bishops, fearing the opposition of the pope, exclaimed: ‘These exactions are contrary to God’s law. St. Paul bids us withdraw ourselves from all such as walk inordinately. Therefore, if the pope claims to keep the annates, let it please your Majesty and parliament to withdraw the obedience of the people from the see of Rome.’[[171]] The king was more moderate than the prelates: he said he would wait a year or two before giving his assent to the bill.
If the bishops refused the pope his ancient revenue, they refused the king the new authority claimed by the crown, and maintained that no secular power had any right to meddle with them.[[172]] Cromwell resisted them, and determined to carry out the reform of abuses. ‘The clergy,’ said the Commons to the king, ‘make laws in convocation without your assent and ours which are in opposition to the statutes of the realm, and then excommunicate those who violate such laws.’[[173]] A second time the frightened bishops vainly prayed the king to make his laws harmonize with theirs. Henry VIII. insisted that the Church should conform to the State, and not the State to the Church, and he was inexorable. The bishops knew well that it was their union with powerful pontiffs, always ready to defend them against kings, which had given them so much strength in the middle ages, and that now they must yield. They therefore lowered their flag before the authority which they had themselves set up. Convocation did, indeed, make a last effort. It represented that ‘the authority of bishops proceeds immediately from God, and from no power of any secular prince, as your Highness hath shown in your own book most excellently written against Martin Luther.’ But the king was firm, and made the prelates yield at last.[[174]] Thus was a great revolution accomplished: the spiritual power was taken away from those arrogant priests who had so long usurped the rights of the members of the Church. It was only justice; but it ought to have been placed in better hands than those of Henry VIII.
Contradictory Oaths.
Cromwell was preparing a fresh blow that would strike the pontiff’s triple crown. He drew his master’s attention to the oaths which the bishops took at their consecration, both to the king and to the pope. Henry first read the oath to the pope. ‘I swear,’ said the bishop, ‘to defend the papacy of Rome, the regality of St. Peter, against all men. If I know of any plot against the pope, I will resist it with all my might, and will give him warning. Heretics, schismatics, and rebels to our holy father, I shall resist and persecute with all my power.’[[175]] On the other hand, the bishops took an oath to the king at the same time, wherein they renounced every clause or grant which, coming from the pope, might be in any way detrimental to his Majesty. In one breath they must obey the pope and disobey him.
Such contradictions could not last: the king wanted the English to be, not with Rome but with England. Accordingly he sent for the Speaker of the Commons, and said to him: ‘On examining the matter closely, I find that the bishops, instead of being wholly my subjects, are only so by halves. They swear an oath to the pope quite contrary to that they swear to the crown; so that they are the pope’s subjects rather than mine.[[176]] I refer the matter to your care.’ Parliament was prorogued three days later on account of the plague; but the prelates declared that they renounced all orders of the pope prejudicial to his Majesty’s rights.[[177]]
The political party was delighted, the papal party confounded. The convents reëchoed with rumors, maledictions, and the strangest projects. The monks, during the visits they made in their daily rounds, raved against the encroachments made on the power of the pope. When they went up into the pulpit, they declaimed against the sacrilege of which Cromwell (they said) was the author and the English people the victims.
To the last the English priests had hoped in Sir Thomas More. That disciple of Erasmus had acted like his master. After assailing the Romish superstitions with biting jests, he had turned round, and seeing the Reformation attack them with weapons still more powerful, he had fought against the evangelicals with fire. For two years he had filled the office of lord-chancellor with unequalled activity and integrity. Convocation having offered him four thousand pounds sterling ‘for the pains he had taken in God’s quarrel,’[[178]] he answered: ‘I will receive no recompense save from God alone;’ and when the priests urged him to accept the money he said: ‘I would sooner throw it into the Thames.’ He did not persecute from any mercenary motives; but the more he advanced, the more bigoted and fanatical he became. Every Sunday he put on a surplice and sang mass at Chelsea. The Duke of Norfolk surprised him one day in this equipment. ‘What do I see?’ he exclaimed. ‘My lord-chancellor acting the parish clerk ... you dishonour your office and your king.’[[179]]—‘Not so,’ answered Sir Thomas, seriously, ‘for I am honoring his master and ours.’
The great question of the bishop’s oath warned him that he could not serve both the king and the pope. His mind was soon made up. In the afternoon of the 16th of May he went to Whitehall gardens, where the king awaited him, and in the presence of the Duke of Norfolk resigned the seals.[[180]] On his return home, he cheerfully told his wife and daughters of his resignation, but they were much disturbed by it. As for Sir Thomas, delighted at being freed from his charge, he indulged more than ever in his flagellations, without renouncing his witty sayings—Erasmus and Loyola combined in one.