The intercession was bravely ventured; but it was fruitless. The illegal acts of a minister who had been trusted with extraordinary powers were too patent for denial; and Cranmer himself was forced into a passive acquiescence, while the enemies of the Reformation worked their revenge. Heresy and truth, treason and patriotism! these are words which in a war of parties change their meaning with the alternations of success, till time and fate have pronounced the last interpretation, and human opinions and sympathies bend to the deciding judgment. But while the struggle is still in progress—while the partisans on either side exclaim that truth is with them, and error with their antagonists, and the minds of this man and of that man are so far the only arbiters—those, at such a time, are not the least to be commended who obey for their guide the law as it in fact exists. Men there are who need no such direction, who follow their own course—it may be to a glorious success, it may be to as glorious a death. To such proud natures the issue to themselves is of trifling moment. They live for their work or die for it, as their Almighty Father wills. But the law in a free country cannot keep pace with genius. It reflects the plain sentiments of the better order of average men; and if it so happen, as in a perplexed world of change it will happen and must, that a statesman, or a prophet, is beyond his age, and in collision with a law which his conscience forbids him to obey, he bravely breaks it, bravely defies it, and either wins the victory in his living person, or, more often, wins it in his death. In fairness, Cromwell should have been tried; but it would have added nothing to his chances of escape. He could not disprove the accusations. He could but have said that he had done right, not wrong,—a plea which would have been but a fresh crime. But, in the deafening storm of denunciation which burst out, the hastiest vengeance was held the greatest justice. Any charge, however wild, gained hearing: Chatillon, the French ambassador, informed his court that the Privy Seal had intended privately to marry the Lady Mary, as the Duke of Suffolk had married the king’s sister, and on Henry’s death proposed to seize the crown.[586] When a story so extravagant could gain credence, the circular of the council to the ambassadors rather furnishes matter of suspicion by its moderation.
The attainder passes.
The quarrel with the Emperor is at an end.
The attainder passed instantly, with acclamations. Francis wrote a letter of congratulation to the king on the discovery of the “treason.”[587] Charles V., whose keener eyes saw deeper into the nature of the catastrophe, when the news were communicated to him, “nothing moved outwardly in countenance or word,” said merely, “What, is he in the Tower of London, and by the king’s commandment?”[588] He sent no message, no expression of regret or of pleasure, no word of any kind; but from that moment no menacing demonstrations or violent words or actions ruffled his relations with England, till a new change had passed upon the stage. His own friends were now in power. He knew it, and acknowledged them.[589]
Triumph of the reactionaries.
The barrier which had stemmed the reactionary tide had now fallen. Omnipotent in parliament and convocation, the king inclining in their favour, carrying with them the sympathy of the wealth, the worldliness, and the harder intellect of the country, freed from the dreaded minister, freed from the necessity of conciliating the German Protestants, the Anglican leaders made haste to redeem their lost time, and develope their policy more wisely than before.
The Bishop of Bath is despatched to the Duke of Cleves.
July 1. Improvement of the machinery for the enforcement of the Six Articles.
July 6. Parliament discusses the marriage.
Their handiwork is to be traced in the various measures which occupied the remainder of the session. The first step was to despatch the Bishop of Bath to the Duke of Cleves, to gain his consent, if possible, to his sister’s separation from the king; Anne, herself, meanwhile, being recommended, for the benefit of her health, to retire for a few days to Richmond. The bill of attainder was disposed of on the 19th of June; on the 22d the bishops brought in a bill for the better payment of tithes, which in the few years last past certain persons had contemptuously presumed to withhold.[590] On the 1st of July a bill was read enacting that, whereas in the parliament of the year preceding “a godly act was made for the abolishment of diversity of opinion concerning the Christian religion,” the provisions of which, for various reasons, had not been enforced, for the better execution of the said act the number of commissioners appointed for that purpose should be further increased; and the bishops and the bishops’ chancellors should be assisted by the archdeacons and the officials of their courts.[591] This measure, like the attainder, was passed unanimously.[592] On the 5th a general pardon was introduced, from which heretics were exempted by a special proviso.[593] The new spirit was rapid in its manifestation. The day after (for it was not thought necessary to wait for a letter from Germany) the Cleves’ marriage was brought forward for discussion; and the care with which the pleadings were parodied which had justified the divorce of Catherine, resembled rather a deliberate intention to discredit the first scandal than a serious effort to defend the second; but we must not judge the conduct of a party blinded with passion by the appearance which such conduct seems to wear in a calmer retrospect.