When the parliament met on April 28, 1539, the lord chancellor announced that the king was very anxious to see all his subjects holding one and the same opinion in religion, and required that a committee should be nominated to examine the various opinions, and to draw up articles of agreement to which every one might give his consent. On May 5 nine commissioners were named, five of whom were Anglo-Catholics, and at their head was Lee, archbishop of York. A project was presented 'for extirpating heresies among the people.' A catalogue of heresies was to be drawn up and read at all the services. The commissioners held discussion for one day, but neither of the two parties would make any concession. As the vicegerent Cromwell and the archbishop of Canterbury were in the ranks of the reformation party, the majority was unable to gain the ascendency, and the commission arrived at no decision.
The king was very much dissatisfied with this result. He had been willing to leave the work of conciliation in the hands of the bishops, and now the bishops did not agree. His patience, of which he had no large stock, was exhausted. The Anglo-Catholic party took advantage of his dissatisfaction, and hinted to him that if he really aimed at unity he would have to take the matter into his own hands, and settle the doctrine to which all must assent. Why should he allow his subjects the liberty of thinking for themselves? Was he not in England master and ruler of every thing?
THE SIX ARTICLES.
Another circumstance, of an entirely different kind, acted powerfully, about this time, upon the king's mind. The pope had just entered into an alliance with the emperor and the king of France. A fact of such importance could not fail to make a great noise in England. 'Methinks,' said one of the foreign diplomatists now in England, 'that if the pope sent an interdict and excommunications, with an injunction that no merchant should trade in any way with the English, the nation would, without further trouble, bestir itself and compel the king to return to the church.'[285] Henry, in alarm, adopted two measures of defence against this triple alliance. He gave orders for the fortification of the ports, examination of the condition of various landing-places, and reviewing of the troops; and at the same time, instead of endeavoring after a union of the two parties, he determined to throw himself entirely on the Scholastic and Catholic side. He hoped thereby to satisfy the majority of his subjects, who still adhered to the Roman church, and perhaps also to appease the powers. 'The king is determined on grounds of policy,' it was said, 'that these articles should pass.'[286]
Six articles were therefore drawn up of a reactionary character, and the duke of Norfolk was selected to bring them forward. He did not pride himself on scriptural knowledge. 'I have never read the Holy Scriptures and I never will read them,' he said; 'all that I want is that every thing should be as it was of old.' But if Norfolk were not a great theologian, he was the most powerful and the most Catholic lord of the Privy Council and of the kingdom. On the 16th of May the duke rose in the upper house and spoke to the following effect:—'The commission which you had named has done nothing, and this we had clearly foreseen. We come, therefore, to present to you six articles, which, after your examination and approval, are to become binding. They are the following: 1st, if any one allege that after consecration there remains any other substance in the sacrament of the altar than the natural body of Christ conceived of the Virgin Mary, he shall be adjudged a heretic and suffer death by burning, and shall forfeit to the king all his lands and goods, as in the case of high treason; 2d, if any one teach that the sacrament is to be given to laymen under both kinds; or 3d, that any man who has taken holy orders may nevertheless marry; 4th, that man or woman who has vowed chastity may marry; 5th, that private masses are not lawful and should not be used; or 6th, that auricular confession is not according to the law of God, any such person shall be adjudged to suffer death, and forfeit lands and goods as a felon.'[287]
Cromwell had been obliged to sanction, and perhaps even to prepare, this document. When once the king energetically announced his will the minister bowed his head, knowing well that if he raised it in opposition he would certainly lose it. Nevertheless, that he might to some extent be justified in his own sight, he had resolved that the weapon should be two-edged, and had added an article purporting that any priest giving himself up to uncleanness should for the first offence be deprived of his benefices, his goods, and his liberty, and for the second should be punished with death like the others.
CRANMER'S OPPOSITION.
These articles, which have been called the whip with six strings and the bloody statute,[288] were submitted to the parliament. But none of the lords temporal, or of the commons, aware that the king was fully resolved, ventured to assail them. One man, however, rose, and this was Cranmer. 'Like a constant patron of God's cause,' says the chronicler, 'he took upon him the earnest defence of the truth oppressed in the parliament; three days together disputing against those six wicked articles; bringing forth such allegations and authorities as might easily have helped the cause, nisi pars major vicisset, ut sæpe olet, meliorem.'[289] Cranmer spoke temperately, with respect for the sovereign, but also with fidelity and courage. 'It is not my own cause that I defend,' he said, 'it is that of God Almighty.'
The archbishop of Canterbury was not, however, alone. The bishops who belonged to the evangelical party, those of Worcester, Rochester, St. David's, Ely, and Salisbury, likewise spoke against the articles.[290] But the king insisted, and the act passed. These articles, said Cranmer at a later time, were 'in some things so enforced by the evil counsel of certain papists against the truth and common judgment both of divines and lawyers, that if the king's Majesty himself had not come personally into the parliament house, those laws had never passed.'[291] Cranmer never signed nor consented to the Six Articles.[292]
The parliament at the same time conferred on the king unlimited powers. A bill was carried purporting that some having by their disobedience shown that they did not well understand what a king can do by virtue of his royal power, it was decreed that every proclamation of his majesty, even when inflicting fines and penalties, should have the same force as an act of parliament. Truth had already been sacrificed, and liberty was to be the next victim.