CHAPTER VIII.
The Papacy intercepts the Gospel—The King consults Sir Thomas More—Ecclesiastical Conferences about the Divorce—The Universities—Clark—The Nun of Kent—Wolsey decides to do the king's Will—Mission to the Pope—Four Documents—Embarrassment of Charles V—Francis Philip at Madrid—Distress and Resolution of Charles—He turns away from the Reformation—Conference at the Castle of St. Angelo—Knight arrives in Italy—His Flight—Treaty between the Pope and the Emperor—Escape of the Pope—Confusion of Henry VIII—Wolsey's Orders—His Entreaties.
POPERY INTERCEPTS THE GOSPEL.
The sun of the word of God, which daily grew brighter in the sky of the sixteenth century, was sufficient to scatter all the darkness in England; but popery, like an immense wall, intercepted its rays. Britain had hardly received the Scriptures in Greek and Latin, and then in English, before the priests began to make war upon them with indefatigable zeal. It was necessary that the wall should be thrown down in order that the sun might penetrate freely among the Anglo-Saxon people. And new events were ripening in England, destined to make a great breach in popery. The negotiations of Henry VIII with Clement VII play an important part in the Reformation. By showing up the Court of Rome, they destroyed the respect which the people felt for it; they took away that power and strength as Scripture says, which the monarchy had given it; and the throne of the pope once fallen in England, Jesus Christ uplifted and strengthened his own.
Henry, ardently desiring an heir, and thinking that he had found the woman that would ensure his own and England's happiness, conceived the design of severing the ties that united him to the queen, and with this view he consulted his most favourite councillors about the divorce. There was one in particular whose approval he coveted: this was Sir Thomas More. One day as Erasmus's friend was walking with his master in the beautiful gallery at Hampton Court, giving him an account of a mission he had just executed on the continent, the king suddenly interrupted him: "My marriage to the queen," he said, "is contrary to the laws of God, of the church, and of nature." He then took up the Bible, and pointed out the passages in his favour.[714] "I am not a theologian," said More, somewhat embarrassed; "your majesty should consult a council of doctors."
Accordingly, by Henry's order, Warham assembled the most learned canonists at Hampton Court; but weeks passed away before they could agree.[715] Most of them quoted in the king's favour those passages in Leviticus (xviii, 16; xx, 21,) which forbid a man to take his brother's wife.[716] But Fisher, bishop of Rochester, and the other opponents of the divorce, replied that, according to Deuteronomy (xxv, 5,) when a woman is left a widow without children, her brother-in-law ought to take her to wife, to perpetuate his brother's name in Israel. "This law concerned the Jews only," replied the partisans of the divorce; they added that its object was "to maintain the inheritances distinct, and the genealogies intact, until the coming of Christ. The Judaical dispensation has passed away; but the law of Leviticus, which is a moral law, is binding upon all men in all ages."
To free themselves from their embarrassment, the bishops demanded that the most eminent universities should be consulted; and commissioners were forthwith despatched to Oxford, Cambridge, Paris, Orleans, Toulouse, Louvain, Padua, and Bologna, furnished with money to reward the foreign doctors for the time and trouble this question would cost them. This caused some little delay, and every means was now to be tried to divert the king from his purpose.
CLARKE'S OBJECTION.
Wolsey, who was the first to suggest the idea of a divorce, was now thoroughly alarmed. It appeared to him that a nod from the daughter of the Boleyns would hurl him from the post he had so laboriously won, and this made him vent his ill-humour on all about him, at one time threatening Warham, and at another persecuting Pace. But fearing to oppose Henry openly, he summoned from Paris, Clarke, bishop of Bath and Wells, at that time ambassador to the French court. The latter entered into his views, and after cautiously preparing the way, he ventured to say to the king: "The progress of the inquiry will be so slow, your majesty, that it will take more than seven years to bring it to an end!"—"Since my patience has already held out for eighteen years," the king replied coldly, "I am willing to wait four or five more."[717]
FOUR DOCUMENTS REQUIRED OF THE POPE.