EXECUTIONS.
Now began the condemnations and the executions; and Henry VIII. included in the trial not only those who were guilty but also the near relatives and servants of the queen, who, though well knowing her offences, had not reported them to the king. On the 7th, the council determined that the duchess-dowager of Norfolk, grandmother to the queen, her uncle, Lord William Howard, her aunts Lady Howard and Lady Bridgewater, together with Alice Wilks, Catherine Tylney, Damport, Walgrave, Malin Tilney, Mary Lascelles, Bulmer, Ashby, Anne Haward and Margaret Benet were all guilty of not having revealed the crime of high treason, and that they should be prosecuted. On the 8th the king ordered that all these persons, Mary Lascelles excepted, should be committed to the Tower: and this was done. Lord William Howard was imprisoned on December 9; the duchess of Norfolk on the 10th, and Lady Bridgewater on the 13th. All of them stoutly protested their ignorance and their innocence.[404] On December 10, 1541, Culpeper was beheaded at Tyburn; and the same day Derham was hung, drawn and quartered.[405]
Meanwhile, the duke of Norfolk had taken refuge at Kenninghall, about eighty miles from London. On December 15, he wrote to the king, saying that by reason of the offences committed by his family he found himself in the utmost perplexity. Twice in his letter he 'prostrates himself at the king's feet;' and he expresses 'some hope that your Highness will not conceive any displeasure in your most gentle heart against me; that, God knoweth, never did think thought which might be to your discontentation.'[406] There did, however, remain something in the 'most gentle heart' of Henry VIII.
Parliament met, by the king's command, on January 16, 1542, to give its attention to this business. Thus it was to the highest national assembly that the king entrusted the regulation of his domestic interests. On January 21, the chancellor introduced in the upper house a bill in which the king was requested not to trouble himself about the matter, considering that it might shorten his life; to declare guilty of high treason the queen and all her accomplices; and to condemn the queen and Lady Rochford to death. The bill passed both houses and received the royal assent.[407]
On February 12, the queen and Lady Rochford, her accomplice, were taken to Tower Hill and beheaded. The queen, while she confessed the offences which had preceded her marriage, protested to the last before God and his holy angels that she had never violated her faith to the king. But her previous offences gave credibility to those which were subsequent to her marriage. With regard to Lady Rochford, the confidant of the queen, she was universally hated. People called to mind the fact that her calumnies had been the principal cause of the death of the innocent Anne Boleyn and of her own husband; and nobody was sorry for her. The king pardoned the old duchess of Norfolk and some others who had been prosecuted for not disclosing the crime.
THE QUEEN'S GUILT.
These events did not call forth within the realm many remarks of a painful kind for Henry VIII.; but the great example of immorality presented by the English court lessened the esteem in which it was held in Europe. There was no lack of similar licentiousness in France and elsewhere; but there a veil was thrown over it, while in England it was public talk. Opinion afterwards became severe with regard to the king; and when his conduct to three of his former wives was remembered, people said of the disgrace cast on him by Catherine Howard, he well deserved it. As for the Catholic party, which had given Catherine to Henry and had cherished the hope that by her influence it should achieve its final triumph, it was greatly mortified, and it has been so down to our own time. Some Catholics, referring to these offences, have tried to lessen the abhorrence and the shame of them by saying 'that a conspiracy was hatched to bring the queen to the scaffold.' But the evidence produced against Catherine is so clear that they have been obliged to alter their tone. Catholicism assuredly has had its virtuous princesses in abundance, but it must be acknowledged that she who became its patroness in England in 1541 did not do it much honor.[408]
The elevation of Catherine Howard to the throne had been followed by an elevation of Catholicism in England; and the fall of this unhappy woman was followed by a depression of the party to which she belonged. This is our reason for dwelling on her history. These last events appear to have given offence at Rome. Pope Paul III. displayed more irritation than ever against Henry VIII. One of the king's ambassadors at Venice wrote to him at this time,—'The bishop of Rome is earnestly at work to bring about a union of the emperor and the king of France for the ruin of your majesty;' and the secret reflection that the count Ludovico de Rangon had been in England filled the pope with fury[409] and rage. The zeal and the caution of Cranmer in the affair of Catherine had greatly increased the king's liking for him. Cranmer, however, was in no haste to take advantage of this to get any bold measures passed in favor of the Reformation. He knew that any such attempt would have had a contrary result. But he lost no opportunity of diffusing in England the principles of the Reformation.
Parliament met on January 16, 1542, and the Convocation of the clergy on the 20th of the same month. On Friday, February 17, the translation of the Holy Scriptures was on the order of the day. The suppression of the English Bible was desired by the majority of the bishops, most of all by Gardiner, who, since the fall of Catherine Howard, felt more than ever the necessity of resisting reformation. As he was unable to re-establish at once the Vulgate as a whole, he endeavored to retain what he could of it in the translation, so that the people might not understand what they read and might abandon it altogether. He proposed therefore to keep in the English translation one hundred and two Latin words 'for the sake of their native meaning and their dignity.' Among these words were—Ecclesia, pœnitentia, pontifex, holocaustum, simulacrum, episcopus, confessio, hostia, and others. In addition to the design which he entertained of preventing the people from understanding what they read, he had still another in regard to such as might understand any part of it. If he was desirous of retaining certain words, this was for the purpose of retaining certain dogmas. 'Witness,' says Fuller, 'the word Penance, which according to vulgar sound, contrary to the original sense thereof, was a magazine of willworship, and brought in much gain to the Priests who were desirous to keep that word, because that word kept them.'[410] Cranmer gave the king warning of the matter; and it was agreed that the bishops should have nothing to do with the translation of the Bible. On March 10 the archbishop informed Convocation that it was the king's intention to have the translation examined by the two universities. The bishops were greatly annoyed; but Cranmer assured them that the king's determination was to be carried out. All the prelates but two protested against this course. This decree, however, had no other object than to get rid of the bishops, for the universities were never consulted. This was obviously a blow struck at the Convocation of the clergy.[411]
HYPOCRISY OF BONNER.