THE GREAT LORD BURGHLEY
CHAPTER I
1520-1549
It may be stated as an historical truism that great organic changes in the relationship of human beings towards each other are usually preceded by periods of quiescence and apparent stability, during which unsuspected forces of preparation are at work. When the moment of crisis comes, the unthinking marvel that men are ready, as if by magic, to accept, and, if need be, to fight and die for, the new order of ideas. Although the outward manifestation of it may be unexpected, yet, in reality, no vast, far-reaching revolution in human institutions is sudden: only that the short-sightedness of all but the very wisest fails to see the signs until the forces are openly arrayed and the battle set.
The period of the struggle for religious reform in Europe was preceded by such a process of unconscious preparation as this. Over a century elapsed from the martyrdom of John Huss before the bold professor of Wittemberg dared to denounce the Pope’s indulgences. It is true that during that century, and before, satirists and moralists had often pointed the finger of contumely at the corruption of the clergy and the lax discipline of the Church, but no word had been raised against her doctrines. In the meanwhile, the subterranean process which was sapping the foundations of the meek submission of old, was progressing apace with the spread of printed books and the revival of the study of Greek and Hebrew. By the time that Luther first made his daring stand, the learning of cultivated laymen, thanks to Erasmus and others, had far outstripped the cramped erudition of the friars; and when at last a churchman thundered from the Saxon pulpit his startling doctrine of papal fallibility, there were thousands of men throughout Europe who were able to do without monkish commentators, and could read the Scriptures in the original tongues, forming their own judgment of right and wrong by the unobscured light of the inspired Word itself.
Thus it happened that the cry for radical religious reform in 1517 found a world waiting for it, and in an incredibly few years the champions of the old and the new had taken sides ready for the struggle which was to decide the fate of civilisation for centuries to come. By an apparently providential concurrence of circumstances, the personal characters and national ambitions of rulers at the same period were such as to enlist the hardiest and most tenacious of the European peoples on the side of freedom from spiritual and intellectual trammels; and eventually to ally the idea of political emancipation and personal liberty with that of religious reform, to the immense strengthening of both. The fight was to be a long and varied one; it can hardly, indeed, be looked upon as ended even now. Many of the combatants have fainted by the way, and both sides have belied their principles again and again; but looking back over the field, we can see the ground that has been won, and are assured that in the long-run the powers of progress must prevail, as we hope and believe, to the greater glory of God and the greater happiness of men.
The year 1520 saw the first open marshalling of the powers for the great struggle, partly religious and partly political, which was to lead to the triumph of the Anglo-Saxon race. In England, as yet, there was no whisper of revolt against the authority of the papacy. The King had just written his book against the new doctrines of Luther, which was to gain for him the title of Defender of the Faith; Catharine, the Spanish Queen-Consort, an obedient child of the Church, as became the daughter of Isabel the Catholic, lived in yet unruffled happiness with her husband; whilst the all-ruling Wolsey was plotting and intriguing for the reversion of the triple tiara of St. Peter when Pope Leo should die. The first step to the political rise of England was the election (June 1519) of young King Charles of Spain to the imperial crown of Germany, in succession to his grandfather, Maximilian of Hapsburg. The marriage of the new Emperor’s father, Philip of Hapsburg, the heir of Burgundy, with Jane the Mad, the heiress of Spain, had joined to her heritage Flanders, Holland, and the Franche Comté, and had already upset the balance of power. Francis I. had sought to redress matters by securing his own election to the empire, but he had been frustrated, and he saw a Spanish prince in possession of territory on every side of France, shutting her in. Naples had been filched by greedy Ferdinand, and was now firmly Spanish, as Sicily had been for centuries; the Emperor asserted suzerainty over most of Italy, and, above all, over Milan, which Francis himself claimed and occupied. It was clear that the expansion of France was at an end, and her national decline must commence, unless the iron bands braced around her by the Hispano-Germanic Empire could be broken through. It was then that the importance of England as the potential balancing power between the two great rivals became evident. Henry VIII. was rich in money, able, ambitious, and popular. He had devoted all his great energy to improving the resources of his country, and to reconstructing his navy; besides which he held Calais, the key to the frontier battle-ground of Flanders and France, and was as fully conscious of his rising importance as he was determined to carry it to the best market.
It had been for many years the main point of English foreign policy to counteract the unification of France by maintaining a close connection with the House of Burgundy, as possessors of Flanders and Holland, the principal markets for the English wool and cloth. This policy had drawn England and Spain together when the inheritances of Spain and Burgundy were united, and it had also led to the marriage of Catharine of Aragon in England. But Henry’s desire to hold the balance, and Wolsey’s greed and ambition, had made them willing to listen to the blandishments of Francis, and to consent to the distrustful and pompous comedy of the Field of the Cloth of Gold. Charles, the new Emperor, had shown his appreciation of the threatened friendship between France and England, by his Quixotic rush over to England to see Henry earlier in the year (1520). His stay was a short one, only four days, but it was sufficient for his purpose. He could promise more to Wolsey than Francis could, and Henry’s vanity was flattered at the young Emperor’s chivalrous trust in him. When Charles sailed from Dover, he knew full well that, however splendid and friendly might be the interviews of the Field of the Cloth of Gold, Francis would not have the King of England on his side in the inevitable coming war, even if he did not fight against him.