FAILURE OF HIS MISSION.

No sooner was he there than, under great excitement about what had occurred to him at Paris, he wrote to Cromwell, complaining bitterly that Henry VIII., in order to get him into his power, did not scruple to violate both God's law and man's, and even 'to disturb all commerce between country and country.' 'I was ashamed to hear that ... a prince of honor should desire of another prince of like honor, Betray thine own ambassador, betray the legate, and give him into my ambassador's hands to be brought to me.'[236] The like, he says, was never heard of in Christendom. Pole had more hope of the emperor than of Francis I.; but he was soon undeceived. He was not permitted to go out of the town; and a courier entrusted with his despatches was arrested by the Imperialists at Valenciennes and sent back to him. He now resolved on taking a step towards opening communication with the English government; and as he did not venture to present himself to the ambassadors of Henry VIII. in France, he sent to them the bishop of Verona. But this prelate, likewise, was not received, and he was only allowed to speak to one of the secretaries. He endeavored to convince him of the perfect innocence of Pole and of his mission. 'The cardinal-legate,' he said, 'is solely charged by the pope to treat of the safety of Christendom.' This was true in the sense intended by Rome; but it is well known what this safety, in her view, required.

Fresh movements in the north of England tended to increase the anger of Henry VIII. It was not enough that Pole had been driven from France. The king now wrote himself to Hutton, his envoy at Brussels—'You shall deliver unto the regent our letters for the stay of his entry into the emperor's dominions; ... you shall press them ... neither to admit him to her presence, nor to suffer unto him to have any other entertainment than beseemeth the traitor and rebel of their friend and ally.... You shall in any wise cause good secret and substantial espial to be made upon him from place to place where he shall be.'[237] Pole, on his part, spoke as a Roman legate. He summoned the queen to prove her submission to the apostolic see, and to grant him an audience; and he made use of serious menaces. 'If traitors, conspirators, rebels, and other offenders,' said the English ambassador, 'might under the shadow of legacie have sure access into all places, and thereby to trouble and espy all things, that were overmuch dangerous.'[238] Here was no question of rebellion, Pole sent word to the regent by the bishop of Verona, but of the Reformation; and he was sent to refute the errors which it was spreading in England. Her opinion was that he should return, 'for that she had no commission of the emperor to intermeddle in any point of his legacy.'[239]

Hereupon Pole went from Cambray to Liége; but in consequence of the advice of the bishop of Liége, he only ventured to go there in disguise.[240] He was received into the bishop's palace, but his stay there was 'not without great fear.'[241] He set out again on August 22, and went to Rome. Never had any mission of a Roman pontiff so entirely failed. The ambitious projects of the pope against the Reformation in England had proved abortive. But one of the secrets of Roman policy is to put a good face on a bad case. The less successful Pole had been the more necessary it was to assume an air of satisfaction with him and his embassy. In any case, was it not a victory for him to have returned safe and sound after having to do with Francis I., Henry VIII., and Charles V.? It was November when he reached Rome; and he was received as generals used to be received by the ancient Romans after great victories. They carried him, so to speak, on their arms; every one heaped upon him demonstrations of respect and joy; and his secretary, on the last day of the year, 1537, wrote to the Catholics of England, to describe to them the great triumph that was made at Rome for the safe arrival of his master.[242] Rome may beat or be beaten, she always triumphs.

This mission of Reginald Pole had fatal consequences. In the following year, his brothers, Lord Montague, the marquis of Exeter, and Sir Edward Nevil, were arrested and committed to the Tower. Some time afterwards his mother, Margaret, countess of Salisbury, the last of the Plantagenets, a woman of remarkable spirit, was likewise arrested. They were charged with aiming at the deposition of Henry and at placing Reginald on the throne. 'I do perceive,' it was said, 'it should be for my Lord Montague's brother, which is beyond the sea with the bishop of Rome, and is an arrant traitor to the king's highness.'[243] They were condemned and executed in January, 1539. The countess was not executed till a later time.

GERMAN ENVOYS IN ENGLAND.

Paul III. had been mistaken in selecting the cousin of the king to stir up Catholic Europe against him. But some other legate might have a chance of success. Henry felt the necessity of securing allies upon the Continent. Cranmer promptly availed himself of this feeling to persuade Henry to unite with the Protestants of Germany. The elector of Saxony, the landgrave of Hesse, and the other Protestant princes, finding that the king had resolutely broken with the pope, had suppressed the monasteries and begun other reforms, consented to send a deputation. On May 12, Francis Burkhardt, vice-chancellor of Saxony, George von Boyneburg, doctor of law, and Frederick Myconius, superintendent of the church of Gotha—a diplomatist, a jurisconsult, and a theologian—set out for London. The princes wished to be worthily represented, and the envoys were to live in magnificent style and keep a liberal table.[244] The king received them with much good-will. He thanked them that, laying aside their own affairs, they had undertaken so laborious a journey; and he especially spoke of Melanchthon in the most loving terms.[245] But the delegates, whilst they were so honorably treated by their own princes and by the king of England, were much less so by inferior agents. They were hardly settled in the house assigned to them than they were attacked by the inhabitants, 'a multitude of rats daily and nightly running in their chambers.'[246] In addition to this annoyance, the kitchen was adjacent to the parlor, in which they were to dine, so that the house was full of smells, and all who came in were offended.

But certain bishops were to give them more trouble than the rats. Cranmer received them as friends and brethren, and endeavored to take advantage of their presence to promote the triumph of the Gospel in England; but Tonstall, Stokesley, and others left no stone unturned to render their mission abortive. The discussion took place in the archbishop's palace at Lambeth, and they did their best to protract it, obstinately defending the doctrines and the customs of the Middle Ages. They were willing, indeed, to separate from Rome; but this was in order to unite with the Greek church, not with the evangelicals. Each of the two conflicting parties endeavored to gain over to itself those English doctors who were still wavering. One day, Richard Sampson, bishop of Chichester, who usually went with the Scholastic party, having come to Lambeth at an early hour, Cranmer took him aside and so forcibly urged on him the necessity of abandoning tradition that the bishop, a weak man, was convinced. But Stokesley, who had doubtless noticed something in the course of the discussion, in his turn took Sampson aside into the gallery, just when the meeting was breaking up, and spoke to him very earnestly in behalf of the practices of the church. These customs are essential, said Stokesley, for they are found in the Greek church. The poor bishop of Chichester, driven in one direction by the bishop of London and in the opposite by the archbishop of Canterbury, was much embarrassed, and did not know which way to turn. His decision was for the last speaker. The semi-Roman doctors at this period, who sacrificed to the king the Roman rite, felt it incumbent upon them to cross all Europe for the purpose of finding in the Turkish empire the Greek rite, which was for them the Gospel. England must be dressed in a Grecian garb. But Cranmer would not hear of it; and he presented to his countrymen the wedding garment of which the Saviour speaks.[247]

PROLONGED DISCUSSIONS.

The summer was now drawing to an end. The German delegates had been in London three or four months without having made any progress. Wearied with fruitless discussions, they began to think of their departure. But before setting out, about the middle of August, they forwarded to the king a document in which they argued from Holy Scripture, from the testimony of the most ancient of the Fathers, and from the practice of the primitive church, against the withdrawal of the cup, private masses, and the celibacy of priests, three errors which they looked upon as having essentially contributed to the deformation of Christendom. When Cranmer heard of their intention to leave England, he was much affected. Their departure dissipated all his hopes. Must he then renounce the hope of seeing the Word of God prevail in England as it was prevailing in evangelical Germany? He summoned them to Lambeth, and entreated them earnestly and with much kindliness[248] for the king's sake to remain. They replied 'that at the king's request they would be very well content to tarry during his pleasure, not only a month or two, but a year or two, if they were at their own liberty. But forasmuch they had been so long from their princes, and had not all this season any letters from them, it was not to be doubted but that they were daily looked for at home, and therefore they durst not tarry.' However, after renewed entreaties, they said, 'We will consult together.' They discussed with one another the question whether they ought to leave England just at the time when she was perhaps on the point of siding with the truth. Shall we refuse to sacrifice our private convenience to interests so great? They adopted the least convenient but most useful course. We will tarry, they said, for a month, 'upon hope that their tarrying should grow into some good success concerning the points of their commission,' and 'trusting that the king's majesty would write unto their princes for their excuse in thus long tarrying.' The evangelicals of Germany believed it to be their duty to tolerate certain secondary differences, but frankly to renounce those errors and abuses which were contrary to the essential doctrines of the Gospel, and to unite in the great truths of the faith. This was precisely what the Catholic party and the king himself had no intention of doing. When Cranmer urged the bishops to apply themselves to the task of answering the Germans, they replied 'that the king's grace hath taken upon himself to answer the said orators in that behalf ... and therefore they will not meddle with the abuses lest they should write therein contrary to that the king shall write.'[249] It was, indeed, neither pleasant nor safe to contradict Henry VIII. But in this case the king's opinion was only a convenient veil, behind which the bishops sought to conceal their ill-will and their evil doctrines. Their reply was nothing but an evasion. The book was written, not by the king, but by one of themselves, Tonstall, bishop of Durham.[250] He ran no risk of contradicting himself. In spite of this ill-will, the Germans remained not only one month but two. Their conduct, like that of Cranmer, was upright, devoted, noble, and Christian; while the bishops of London and Durham and their friends, clever men no doubt, were souls of a lower cast, who strove to escape by chicanery from the free discussion proposed to them, and passed off their knavery as prudence.