[258] 'Usque ad nauseam.'—Ibid. p. 669.
[259] 'Orbis terrarum ardet odiis et furore.'—Corpus Reform. iii. p. 53.
[260] Calvin.
[261] 'In England nicht so plötzlich kann alles nach der Lehre in's Werk bracht werden.'—Letter to the Vice-Chancellor. Lutheri Epp. iv. p. 688.
[262] 'Regia dignitas vestra suscipiat emendationem Idolomaniæ pontificiæ.'—Corpus Reform. iii. p. 64.
CHAPTER IX.
ACCUSATION OF ANNE.
(1535 to May 1536.)
If feeble minds did not shrink from bending beneath the royal despotism, men of fanatical mould cherished vengeance in their hearts. Great wounds had been inflicted on the papacy, and they burnt to strike some signal blow against the cause of Reform. That also, they said, must have its victim. For all these monasteries sacrificed, one person must be immolated: one only, but taken from the most illustrious station. The king having, on the one side, struck his tutor and his friend, must now, to maintain the balance, strike his wife on the other. A tragedy was about to begin which would terminate in a frightful catastrophe. Anne Boleyn had not been brought up, as some have said, 'in the worst school in Europe,'[263] but in one of the best—in the household of the pious Margaret of Angoulême, who was the enlightened protectress not only of the learned, but of all friends of the Gospel. Anne had learnt from that princess to love the Reformation and the Reformers. And accordingly she was in the eyes of the papal partisans, the principal cause of the change that had been wrought in the king's mind, and by him throughout the kingdom. The Reformation, as we have seen, began in England about 1517 with the reading of the Holy Scriptures in the universities; but the most accredited Roman doctors have preferred assigning it another origin, and, speaking of Cranmer's connexion with Anne Boleyn, thirteen years later, have said, 'Such is the beginning of the Reformation in England.'[264] In this assertion there is an error both of chronology and history.
=CRANMER'S ELOQUENCE.=
Since her coronation, the queen had been in almost daily communication with the archbishop of Canterbury, and habitually—even her enemies affirmed it—the interests of the evangelical cause were treated of. At one time Anne prayed Cranmer to come to the assistance of the persecuted protestants. At another, full of the necessity of sending reapers into the harvest, she interested herself about such young persons as were poor, but whose pure morals and clear intellect seemed to qualify them for the practice of virtue and the study of letters;[265] these she assisted with great generosity.[266] This was also an example that Margaret of Valois had given her. The queen did not encourage these students heedlessly: she required testimonials certifying as to the purity of their morals and the capacity of their intellect. If she was satisfied, she placed them at Oxford or Cambridge, and required them to spread around them, even while studying, the New Testament and the writings of the reformers. Many of the queen's pensioners did great service to the Church and State in after years. With these queenly qualities Anne combined more domestic ones. Cranmer saw her, like good Queen Claude, gathering round her a number of young ladies distinguished by their birth and their virtues, and working with them at tapestry of admirable perfection for the palace of Hampton Court, or at garments for the indigent. She established in the poor parishes vast warehouses, filled with such things as the needy wanted. 'Her eye of charity, her hand of bounty,' says a biographer, 'passed through the whole land.'[267] 'She is said in three quarters of a year,' adds Lord Herbert of Cherbury, the celebrated philosopher and historian, 'to have bestowed fourteen or fifteen thousand pounds in this way,' that is, in alms.[268] And this distinguished writer, ambassador of England at the court of Louis XIII., and known in France by the exertions he made in behalf of the protestants, adds: 'She had besides established a stock for poor artificers in the realm.'[269] Such were the works of Queen Anne. Cranmer, who had great discernment of men and things, being touched by the regard which the queen had for those who professed the Gospel, and seeing all that she did for the Reformation and the consolation of the wretched, declared that next to the king, Anne was of all creatures living 'the one to whom he was most bound.'[270]