Long before the rise of Lollardy, burning at the stake was the recognised punishment for heresy, just as decapitation and hanging were the penalty for the crimes of treason and murder. An obstinate Albigensian was burned in London in 1210, and in 1222 a deacon suffered death at Oxford, for turning Jew, and marrying a Jewess.[528] The first Act of Parliament against heresy was passed in the reign of Henry IV. (1401) and dealt with the suppression of Lollardy. Nevertheless, the placing of the new law on the statute book was not followed by any great increase in the number of punishments, and there were more burnings in the reign of Henry VIII. than in the whole of the previous century.
The second authority on the Catholic side on the subject of the punishment of heresy is an Englishman, Sir Thomas More, who says:—
“As touching heretics, I hate that vice of theirs, and not their persons, and very fain would I that the one were destroyed and the other saved. And that I have toward no man any other mind than this—how loudly soever these blessed new brethren and professors and preachers of heresy belie me—if all the favour and pity that I have used among them to their amendment were known, it would, I warrant you well and plain appear; whereof, if it were requisite, I could bring forth witnesses more than men would ween. Howbeit, because it were neither right nor honesty, that any man should look for more than he deserveth, I will that all the world wit it on the other side, that whoso be so deeply grounded in malice, to the harm of his own soul, and other men’s too, and so set upon the sowing of seditious heresies, that no good means that men may use unto him can pull that malicious folly out of his poisoned, proud, obstinate heart, I would rather be content that he were gone in time, than overlong to tarry to the destruction of other.”[529]
Mary’s Parliament of 1554, which abolished her title of Supreme Head of the Church of England, threw out the bill for reviving the Act of 1401 against heresy, chiefly on Paget’s motion, but it was brought in again in the following January, and in four days it had passed through both Houses without opposition.
It was felt that a breakwater had become imperatively necessary to stop the inflowing tide of sedition. Ross, a reformed preacher, prayed openly, that God would “either convert the heart of the Queen, or take her out of this world”. It was then made treason to pray in public for the Queen’s death. But those who had been already committed for this offence might recover their liberty, by making humble protestation and promise of amendment.
While the Council were debating on the manner in which the revived Act should be enforced, the Queen sent them a message, written in her own hand, in which, after expressing her wishes with regard to several points of ecclesiastical discipline, she said:—
“Touching punishment of heretics, me thinketh it ought to be done without rashness, not leaving in the meanwhile to do justice to such as by learning would seem to deceive the simple: and the rest so to be used, that the people might well perceive them not to be condemned without just occasion, whereby they shall both understand the truth, and beware to do the like: and especially within London, I would wish none to be burnt without some of the Council’s presence, and both there and everywhere good sermons at the same”.[530]
From the fact that the Queen advocated sermons at the stake it has been inferred that Philip exercised considerable influence on the persecution, as it was the Spanish custom for preachments to be held at the autos da fe of heretics. But indeed the custom was quite as much an English as it was a Spanish one. At the burning of Friar Forest, for refusing to acknowledge Henry’s ecclesiastical supremacy, Hugh Latimer preached for three hours against the Papal claims, when the martyr fixing his eyes on him said: “Seven years back thou durst not have made such a sermon for thy life!”
It is probable, that neither Philip nor Mary was keen to punish as heresy, the rebellious spirit manifested by the religionists. The persecution was a movement of expediency, set on foot by the Council, as a means of coping with the disturbances. The Emperor and Renard were distinctly opposed to it, and now the Spanish friar, Alfonso de Castro, Philip’s confessor, in preaching before the court, strenuously denounced the measure, which he would scarcely have ventured to do in so public a manner, if it had been ardently desired by the King and Queen. Moreover, the most enlightened among the English clergy, including the Bishop of London, who had at first been in favour of it, though agreeing in the general principle, that erroneous thinking led to erroneous acting, were against its adoption at this juncture. But Parliament willed it, and “it was not therefore,” says an authority on English law, “the policy of the church but of the crown, and not merely of the crown but of the state. It was the act of the crown with the authority of Parliament, and the assent of the council.”[531]