He therefore turned his attention to the ecclesiastical courts, which from the time of Becket had been antagonistic to royal encroachments. The war between the civil power and these courts had begun before the fall of Wolsey, and had resulted in the curtailment of probate duties, legacies, and mortuaries, by which the clergy had been enriched. A limitation of pluralities and enforcement of residence had also been effected. But a still greater blow to the privileges of the clergy was struck by the Parliament under the influence of Cromwell, who had elevated it in order to give legality to the despotic measures of the Crown; and in this way a law was passed that no one under the rank of a subdeacon, if convicted of felony, should be allowed to plead his "benefit of clergy," but should be punished like ordinary criminals,—thus re-establishing the constitutions of Clarendon in the time of Becket. Another act also was passed, by which no one could be summoned, as aforetime, to the archbishop's court out of his own diocese,—a very beneficent act, since the people had been needlessly subject to great expense and injustice in being obliged to travel considerable distances. It was moreover enacted that men could not burden their estates beyond twenty years by providing priests to sing masses for their souls. The Parliament likewise abolished annats,—a custom which had long prevailed in Europe, which required one year's income to be sent to the Pope on any new preferment; a great burden to the clergy; a sort of tribute to a foreign power. Within fifty years, one hundred and sixty thousand pounds had thus been sent from England to Rome, from this one source of papal revenue alone,—equal to three million pounds at the present time, or fifteen millions of dollars, from a country of only three millions of people. It was the passage of that act which induced Sir Thomas More (a devoted Catholic, but a just and able and incorruptible judge) to resign the seals which he had so long and so honorably held,—the most prominent man in England after Cromwell and Cranmer; and it was the execution of this lofty character, because he held out against the imperious demands of Henry, which is the greatest stain upon this monarch's reign. Parliament also called the clergy to account for excessive acts of despotism, and subjected them to the penalty of a premunire (the offence of bringing a foreign authority into England), from which they were freed only by enormous fines.
Thus it would seem that many abuses were removed by Cromwell and the Parliament during the reign of Henry VIII. which may almost be considered as reforms of the Church itself. The authority of the Church was not attacked, still less its doctrines, but only abuses and privileges the restraint of which was of public benefit, and which tended to reduce the power of the clergy. It was this reduction of clerical usurpations and privileges which is the main feature in the legislation of Henry VIII., so far as it pertained to the Church. It was wresting away the power which the clergy had enjoyed from the days of Alfred and Ina,—a reform which Henry II. and Edward I., and other sovereigns, had failed to effect. This was the great work of Cromwell, and in it he had the support of his royal master, since it was a transfer of power from the clergy to the throne; and Henry VIII. was hated and anathematized by Rome as Henry IV. of Germany was, without ceasing to be a Catholic. He even retained the title of Defender of the Faith, which had been conferred upon him by the Pope for his opposition to the theological doctrines of Luther, which he never accepted, and which he always detested.
Cromwell did not long survive the great services he rendered to his king and the nation. In the height of his power he made a fatal mistake. He deceived the King in regard to Anne of Cleves, whose marriage he favored from motives of expediency and a manifest desire to promote the Protestant cause. He palmed upon the King a woman who could not speak a word of English,—a woman without graces or accomplishments, who was absolutely hateful to him. Henry's disappointment was bitter, and his vengeance was unrelenting. The enemies of Cromwell soon took advantage of this mistake. The great Duke of Norfolk, head of the Catholic party, accused him at the council-board of high treason. Two years before, such a charge would have received no attention; but Henry now hated him, and was resolved to punish him for the wreck of his domestic happiness.
Cromwell was hurried to that gloomy fortress whose outlet was generally the scaffold, he was denied even the form of trial. A bill of attainder was hastily passed by the Parliament he had ruled. Only one person in the realm had the courage to intercede for him, and this was Cranmer, Archbishop of Canterbury; but his entreaties were futile. The fallen minister had no chance of life, and no one knew it so well as himself. Even a trial would have availed nothing; nothing could have availed him,—he was a doomed man. So he bade his foes make quick work of it; and quick work was made. In eighteen days from his arrest, Thomas Cromwell, Earl of Essex, Knight of the Garter, Grand Chamberlain, Lord Privy Seal, Vicar-General, and Master of the Wards, ascended the scaffold on which had been shed the blood of a queen,—making no protestation of innocence, but simply committing his soul to Jesus Christ, in whom he believed. Like Wolsey, he arose from an humble station to the most exalted position the King could give; and, like Wolsey, he saw the vanity of delegated power as soon as he offended the source of power.
"He who ascends the mountain-tops shall find
The loftiest peak most wrapped in clouds and storms.
Though high above the sun of glory shines,
And far beneath the earth and ocean spread,
Round HIM are icy rocks, and loudly blow
Contending tempests on his naked head."
On the disappearance of Cromwell from the stage, Cranmer came forward more prominently, he was a learned doctor in that university which has ever sent forth the apostles of great emancipating movements. He was born in 1489, and was therefore twenty years of age on the accession of Henry VIII. in 1509, and was twenty-eight when Luther published his theses. He early sympathized with the reform doctrines, but was too politic to take an active part in their discussion. He was a moderate, calm, scholarly man, not a great genius or great preacher. He had none of those bold and dazzling qualities which attract the gaze of the world. We behold in him no fearless and impetuous Luther,— attacking with passionate earnestness the corruptions of Rome; bracing himself up to revolutionary assaults, undaunted before kings and councils, and giving no rest to his hands or slumber to his eyes until he had consummated his protests,—a man of the people, yet a dictator to princes. We see no severely logical Calvin,—pushing out his metaphysical deductions until he had chained the intellect of his party to a system of incomparable grandeur and yet of repulsive austerity, exacting all the while the same allegiance to doctrines which he deduced from the writings of Paul as he did to the direct declarations of Christ; next to Thomas Aquinas, the acutest logician the Church has known; a system-maker, like the great Dominican schoolmen, and their common master and oracle, Saint Augustine of Hippo. We see in Cranmer no uncompromising and aggressive reformer like Knox,—controlling by a stern dogmatism both a turbulent nobility and an uneducated people, and filling all classes alike with inextinguishable hatred of everything that even reminded them of Rome. Nor do we find in Cranmer the outspoken and hearty eloquence of Latimer,—appealing to the people at St. Paul's Cross to shake off all the trappings of the "Scarlet Mother," who had so long bewitched the world with her sorceries.
Cranmer, if less eloquent, less fearless, less logical, less able than these, was probably broader, more comprehensive in his views,— adapting his reforms to the circumstances of the age and country, and to the genius of the English mind. Hence his reforms, if less brilliant, were more permanent. He framed the creed that finally was known as the Thirty-nine Articles, and was the true founder of the English Church, as that Church has existed for more than three centuries, neither Roman nor Puritan, but "half-way between Rome and Geneva;" a compromise, and yet a Church of great vitality, and endeared to the hearts of the English people. Northern Germany— the scene of the stupendous triumphs of Luther—is and has been, since the time of Frederick the Great, the hot-bed of rationalistic inquiries; and the Genevan as well as the French and Swiss churches which Calvin controlled have become cold, with a dreary and formal Protestantism, without poetry or life. But the Church of England has survived two revolutions and all the changes of human thought, and is still a mighty power, decorous, beautiful, conservative, yet open to all the liberalizing influences of an age of science and philosophy. Cranmer, though a scholastic, seems to have perceived that nothing is more misleading and uncertain and unsatisfactory than any truth pushed out to its severest logical conclusions without reference to other truths which have for their support the same divine authority. It is not logic which has built up the most enduring institutions, but common-sense and plain truths, and appeals to human consciousness,—the cogito, ergo sum, without whose approval most systems have perished. In mediis tutissimus ibis, is not indeed an agreeable maxim to zealots and partisans and dialectical logicians, but it seems to be induced from the varied experiences of human life and the history of different ages and nations, and applies to all the mixed sciences, like government and political economy, as well as to church institutions.
As Cromwell made his fortune by advising the King to assume the headship of the Church in England, so Cranmer's rise is to be traced to his advice to Henry to appeal to the decision of universities whether or not he could be legally divorced from Catharine, since the Pope—true to the traditions, of the Catholic Church, or from fear of Charles V.—would not grant a dispensation. All this business was a miserable quibble, a tissue of scholastic technicalities. But it answered the ends of Cranmer. The schools decided for the King, and a great injustice and heartless cruelty was done to a worthy and loyal woman, and a great insult offered to the Church and to the Emperor Charles of Germany, who was a nephew of the Spanish Princess and English Queen. This scandal resulted in a separation from Rome, as was foreseen both by Cromwell and Cranmer; and the latter became Archbishop of Canterbury, a prelate whose power and dignity were greater then than at the present day, exalted as the post is even now,—the highest in dignity and rank to which a subject can aspire,—higher even than the Lord High Chancellorship; both of which however, pale before the position of a Prime Minister so far as power is concerned.
The separation from Rome, the suppression of the monasteries, and the curtailment of the powers of the spiritual courts were the only reforms of note during the reign of Henry VIII., unless we name also the new translation of the Bible, authorized through Cranmer's influence, and the teaching of the creed, the commandments, and the Lord's prayer in English. The King died in 1547. Cranmer was now fifty-seven, and was left to prosecute reforms in his own way as president of the council of regency, Edward VI. being but nine years old,—"a learned boy," as Macaulay calls him, but still a boy in the hands of the great noblemen who composed the regency, and who belonged to the progressive school.
I do not think the career of Cranmer during the life of Henry is sufficiently appreciated. He must have shown at least extraordinary tact and wisdom,—with his reforming tendencies and enlightened views,—not to come in conflict with his sovereign as Becket did with Henry II. He had to deal with the most capricious and jealous of tyrants; cruel and unscrupulous when crossed; a man who rarely retained a friendship or remembered a service; who never forgave an injury or forgot an affront; a glutton and a sensualist; although prodigal with his gifts, social in his temper, enlightened in his government, and with very respectable abilities and very considerable theological knowledge. This hard and exacting master Cranmer had to serve, without exciting his suspicions or coming in conflict with him; so that he seemed politic and vacillating, for which he would not be excused were it not for his subsequent services, and his undoubted sincerity and devotion to the Protestant cause. During the life of Henry we can scarcely call Cranmer a reformer. The most noted reformer of the day was old Hugh Latimer, the King's chaplain, who declaimed against sin with the zeal and fire of Savonarola, and aimed to create a religious life among the people, from whom he sprung and whom he loved,—a rough, hearty, honest, conscientious man, with deep convictions and lofty soul.