A History of the Reformation (Vol. 2 of 2)

by Thomas M. Lindsay

The English nobles, who had long chafed under the rule of Wolsey, took advantage of the great Minister’s failure in the Divorce negotiations to press forward his downfall. He was deprived of the Lord Chancellorship, which was given to Sir Thomas More, and was further indicted before the King’s Bench for infringement of the law of Præmunire—an accusation to which he pleaded guilty.[401]

Meanwhile Henry had taken measures to summon a Parliament; and in the interval between summons and assembly, it had been suggested to him that Cranmer was of opinion that the best way to deal with the Divorce was to take it out of the hands of the Curia and consult the canonists of the various Universities of Europe. Cranmer was instructed to prepare the case to be laid before them. This was done so successfully that the two great English Universities, the French Universities of Paris, Orleans, Bourges, and Toulouse, decided that the King’s marriage with Catharine was not valid; the Italian Universities of Ferrara, Padua, Pavia, and Bologna came to the same conclusion in spite of a proclamation issued by the Pope prohibiting all doctors from maintaining the invalid nature of the King’s marriage.[402]

Parliament met on November 3rd, 1529, and, from the matters brought before it, received the name of the “Parliament for the enormities of the clergy.”[403] It revealed the force of lay opinion on which Henry might count in the struggle he was about to begin with the clergy. With a view of strengthening his hands still further, the King summoned an assembly of Notables,[404] which met on June 12th, 1530, and addressed the Pope in a letter in which they prayed him to consent to the King’s desire, pointed out the evils which would follow from delaying the Divorce, and hinted that they might be compelled to take the matter into their own hands. This seems to have been the general feeling among the laity of England; for a foreigner writing to the Republic of Florence says: “Nothing else is thought of in that island every day, except of arranging affairs in such a way that they do no longer be in want of the Pope, neither for filling vacancies in the Church, nor for any other purpose.”[405]

Having made himself sure of the great mass of the laity, Henry next set himself to force the clergy into submission. He suddenly charged them all with being guilty of Præmunire because they had accepted the authority of Papal Legates within the kingdom; and managed to extort a sum of £100,000, to be paid in five yearly instalments, by way of a fine from the clergy of the Province of Canterbury.[406] At the same meeting of Convocation (1531) the clergy were compelled, under threat of the law of Præmunire, to declare that the King was “their singular protector and only supreme lord, and, as far as that is permitted by the law of Christ, the Supreme Head of the Church and of the clergy.” The ambiguity in the acknowledgment left a loophole for weak consciences; but the King was satisfied with the phrase, feeling confident that he could force his own interpretation of the acknowledgment on the Church. “It is all the same,” Charles V.’s ambassador wrote to his master, “as far as the King is concerned, as if they had made no reservation; for no one now will be so bold as to contest with his lord the importance of this reservation.”[407]

This acknowledgment was, according to the King, simply a clearer statement of what was contained in the old statutes of Præmunire, and in all his subsequent ecclesiastical legislation he claimed that he was only giving effect to the earlier laws of England.

The Parliament of 1532 gave the King important assistance in forcing on the submission, not only of the clergy of England, but of the Pope, to his wishes. The Commons presented a petition complaining of various grievances affecting the laity in the working of the ecclesiastical courts, which was sent with a set of demands from the King to the Convocation. The result was the important resolution of Convocation (May 15th, 1532) which is called the Submission of the Clergy, where it is promised not to make any new canons without the King’s licence and ratification, and to submit all previous canons to a committee of revision, to consist of thirty-two persons, sixteen from Parliament and sixteen from the clergy, and all to be chosen by the King. This committee was to expunge all containing anything prejudicial to the King’s prerogative. This Act of Convocation practically declared that the Church of England could neither make any rules for its own guidance without the King’s permission, nor act according to the common law of the mediæval Church when that, in the King’s opinion, invaded the royal prerogative.[408] From this Act the Church of England has never been able to free itself. The other deed of this Parliament which was destined to be of the greatest use to Henry in his dealings with the Pope was an Act dealing with the annates, i.e. one year’s income from all ecclesiastical benefices paid to the Pope on entrance into any benefice. The Act declared that the annates should be withheld from the Pope and given to the King, but permitted His Majesty to suspend its operation so long as it pleased him.[409] It was the suspensory clause which enabled Henry to coerce the Pope, and he was not slow to take advantage of it.[410] Writing to Rome (March 21st, 1532), he said: “The Pope and Cardinals may gain our friendship by truth and justice. Take care that they do not hope or despair too much from this power which has been committed to us by the statute. I do not mean to deceive them, but to tell them the fact that this statute will be to their advantage, if they show themselves deserving of it; if not, otherwise. Nothing has been defined at present, which must be to their advantage if they do not despise my friendship.”[411]

Archbishop Warham, who had presided at the Convocation which made the submission of the clergy, died in August 1532; and Henry resolved that Cranmer, notwithstanding his unwillingness, should succeed him as Archbishop of Canterbury. Cranmer conscientiously believed that the royal supremacy was a good thing, and would cure many of the ecclesiastical evils which no appeals to the Pope seemed able to reform; and he was also convinced that the marriage of Henry with Catharine had been one for which not even the highest ecclesiastical authority could give a dispensation. He was prepared to carry out the King’s wishes in both respects. He could not be an acceptable Primate to the Roman Curia. Yet Henry, by threatening the Pope with the loss of the annates, actually compelled him to send Bulls to England, and that with unusual speed, ratifying the appointment to the Primacy of a man who was known to believe in the nullity of the King’s marriage, and to be ready to give effect to his opinion; and this at a time when the Parliament of England had declared that the Primate’s court was the supreme ecclesiastical tribunal for the English Church and people. The deed made the Curia really responsible for almost all that followed in England. For Parliament in February 1533, acting on the submission of the clergy, had passed an Act prohibiting all appeals to Rome from the Archbishop’s court, and ordering that, if any appeals were taken, they must be to the King’s Court of Chancery. This was the celebrated Act of Restraint of Appeals.[412]

In the beginning of 1533 (Jan. 25th), Henry VIII. was privately married to Anne Boleyn. He had taken the Pope’s advice in this one particular, to get married without waiting for the Divorce; but soon afterwards (April 5th) he got from the Convocation of Canterbury a document declaring that the Pope had no power to grant a dispensation in such a case as the marriage of Henry with Catharine;[413] and the Act of Restraint of Appeals had made such a decision practically final so far as England was concerned.