"From the Court at Whitehall, 28 of Dec. 1581. Your loving friends."*
* Exactly the same treatment was endured by his descendant Sir Henry
Arundell Bedingfeld in 1713. The following instance affords a proof of
the extraordinary persistence with which the penal laws against
Catholics were enforced 110 years after Elizabeth's death.
"Licence from the justices, August 10, 1713, for Sir Henry Bedingfeld to go from home for a month.
"Whereas Sir Henry Bedingfeld of Oxburgh, Bart., being a recusant, and confined to the usual place of his abode, or within the compass of five miles from the same, and whereas it has been represented to us on the part of the said Sir Henry Bedingfeld that he has very necessary and urgent business, which does require his attention at this time, and whereas the said Sir Henry Bedingfeld has made an oath before us of the truth of the same, and that he will not make any causeless stay from his said place of habitation, we therefore, four of his Majesty's Justices of the Peace for the said county upon examination taken by us as of the premisses, do give this our licence to the said Sir Henry Bedingfeld to travel out of the precincts or compass of five miles from the place of his abode limited by the statute at all times, from the 13 of this instant August, until the thirteenth of September following, by which time he is to return again to his place of abode at the parish of Oxburgh, aforesaid. Given under our hand and seal this Loth of August 1713." Signed in the margin, "E. Bacon, T. De Grey, Tho. Wright, Nath. Life, H. Partridge, Dep. Lieut. I do assent to this licence."
Sir Henry Bedingfeld succumbed to his infirmities in 1583, and was buried in the Bedingfeld chapel in Oxburgh church, where an elaborate monument to his memory may still be seen. It is to be regretted that the loss of the Privy Council Registers for the year 1583 entails also the loss of any mention of the last days of this celebrated Englishman.
IV. THE CATHOLIC REFORMATION IN GERMANY
In spite of the valiant efforts of isolated Catholic reformers in Germany, to stem the tide of corruption which threatened to sweep the Church into a vortex of ruin, for a long time little impression was made on the vast sea of abuses, and but little permanent good was effected. It almost seemed as though the Poor Clares of Nuremburg, the brave Dominicanesses of Strassburg, Johannes Busch, Johannes Geiler, Cardinal Nicholas of Cusa, St. John Capistran, the Brethren of the Common Life, and the celebrated author of the Imitation of Christ had lived and fought, suffered and preached, in vain. They, and some few others were like brilliant meteors, only making the darkness of the night more apparent.
The nations were as little responsive to preachers of reform as were the princes of Europe to the appeals of the Pope for a crusade against the infidel Turk, who menaced, after his conquest of Constantinople, the very centre of Christendom. While the citadel was in danger, those who should have assembled vast cohorts in its defence were either suffering from the inertia that follows on some kinds of disease, or were actively employed in spreading the new heresies. Then at last struck the hour for the dawning of a new day. And here perhaps lies the solution to the problem why so much energy, self-denial, penance on the part of the preachers of reform, produced so little result; why such brave efforts failed to restore, renew and edify the Church. Was she then incapable of rising to a new life? The answer lies in the words of her Divine Founder: "My hour is not yet come." Until then, all reformers preached more or less in the wilderness; for few had ears to hear. God's hour was assuredly winging its flight, but it would not come till the Church was almost in extremis; till decay of faith following on decay of morals threatened her very existence. The catastrophe was hastened by the fatal pouring of the new wine of the later Renaissance into the old, now worn-out bottles of Mediaevalism, thereby paganising Rome and corrupting the College of Cardinals to so large an extent, that the election to the papacy of a Rodrigo Borgia was made possible.
Neither the fiery denunciations of Fra Girolamo Savonarola, nor the cold sarcasms of Erasmus of Rotterdam had a more lasting effect on the world than had Busch's missionary zeal or Geiler's ascetic discourses. Then arose Martin Luther, and centered in himself all those scandals and floating heresies, which for a hundred years had poisoned the spiritual and intellectual atmosphere. Insidious disease lurking in dark places was now become a stalking pestilence that braved the daylight unabashed. Faith was all but moribund. But the Church's extremity was God's opportunity; His hour had struck at last, and the spirit of the Lord brooded on the face of the waters.
Then the whole situation was changed. The enemy was not yet crushed, but formidable hosts were everywhere set in opposition to him. Instead of isolated efforts there was an almost universal movement towards reform. Begun in Italy, it spread into every country of Europe. Seminaries sprang up for the education of priests; St. Philip Neri became the Apostle of Rome, St. Charles Borromeo that of Milan. The Order of Theatines was founded, and the Barnabite Order, devoted to the education of youth was ready to send its members wherever the need was greatest. Above all, the long-deferred General Council, assembled at Trent in 1545, gave cohesion to all the various movements that were set on foot by defining disputed doctrines, and by drawing up a formula which declared the belief of the Catholic Church on all points attacked by the new sectaries. The Church was threatened with a dozen heresies, but so completely did she vindicate her doctrines at the Council of Trent, that for more than three hundred years no further General Council was needed. If Italy may boast of the victories achieved by her great Catholic reformers, France, though somewhat later in the field had her Bossuet, Bourdaloue, St. Francis of Sales, St. Vincent of Paul, and many other Catholic champions. To Spain were given St. Ignatius of Loyola, St. Francis Borgia, St. Francis Xavier, St. Peter of Alcantara, St. John of the Cross, St. John of God, St. Joseph Calasanctius, St. Teresa, and others whose names have first added a splendour to their native land, and have then gone forth to illumine the uttermost ends of the earth.