In the mean time the emperor's designs on England were abandoned; and the quarrel between him and Henry seemed likely to be brought to a peaceful issue. Thus one hope which Pole entertained of seeing divine judgments fall on the king of England was blighted. Yet his book must be completed. The king must have the first reading of it. He would not even submit it to Pope Paul III. through Cardinal Contarini. Perhaps he feared that his holiness would think it ill-timed or intemperate. We certainly find him lamenting that the pope did not convince the emperor how much more blessed it would be to fight with Henry than with the Turks—to be the champion of the Christian faith in Europe, and drive back the fearful encroachments of heresy.[100]
At length, in May, 1536, Pole's De Unitate Ecclesiæ, was completed. His ardent disposition and his indignant piety found vent in this composition, and it rolled along like a river swollen by rains. The very passages in it which Mr. Froude holds up to reprobation and scorn are those which Catholics in general will regard with the most pleasure; they will strike upon their ears as the voice of one crying in the wilderness, and denouncing in just and measured terms the crimes of a royal heresiarch. It will appear to them instinct with affection rather than hatred. "I will cry in your ears," he says, "as in the ears of a dead man—dead in your sins. I love you—wicked as you are, I love you. I hope for you, and may God hear my prayer. I should be a traitor did I conceal from you the truth. I owe my learning to your care." He draws a hideous picture of Henry's guilt and presumption, and then proceeds to dissect a book which Henry had sent him on the supremacy by Dr. Sampson, Bishop of Chichester. He inveighs against the abuse which Henry made of his regal power, maintaining that the king exists for the people, not the people for the king. He makes the people the source of kingly power; and his words, populus regem procreat, "the people make the king," involve a distinct denial of
"The right divine of kings to govern wrong."
He subordinates the regal office to that of the priest, and in language singularly modern, he asserts that sovereigns are responsible to their people, and that Henry, by breaking his coronation oath, has forfeited his right to the crown, and justified the rebellion of his subjects.
The third and most important section follows. It is addressed to Henry VIII., to England, to the emperor, and to the Spanish army. He accuses the king of intriguing with Mary Boleyn before his marriage with Anne, and brands the "supreme head of the church" as the "vilest of plunderers, a thief, and a robber." He relates in forcible language the story of the martyrdom of Sir Thomas More, Bishop Fisher, and the Charterhouse monks. He calls on England loudly to rebel.
"O my country!" he says, "if any memory remains to you of your ancient liberties, remember—remember the time when kings who ruled over you unjustly were called to account by the authority of your laws. They tell you that all is the king's. I tell you that all is the commonwealth's. You my country, are all. The king is but your servant and minister."
No trumpet of revolt could blow louder, yet Pole did not stop even here. He proclaimed his intention of exciting the Emperor Charles to invade England, and to assemble under his banner all those English who remained true to God and his holy church. This part of the treatise, when printed, was circulated as a pamphlet in the German States. It protested that Pole acted in the love of his country, and "in that love of the church which was given him by the Son of God." The Spaniards above all men were bound in his view to vindicate the honor of the noble daughter of Isabella of Castile, whom Henry had divorced. The king of France, he believed, would make peace with the emperor, and at the pope's bidding undertake the chastisement of the towering enemy of God and man.
But the address is not all rebuke and menace; the tones of wrath melt into tenderness at the last, and die away in exhortation to repentance and promises of mercy. It effected little. Catharine of Aragon died in Kimbolton Castle in the same year in which it came to hand, and Anne Boleyn, four months later, passed from the bridal-chamber to the scaffold. Henry had broken for ever with the holy see, and England, torn from the centre of unity, sank and wandered in an abyss. The book was sent to England from Venice on the 27th of May, 1536. It was accompanied by two letters, one to the king, the other to Tunstall, Bishop of Durham. The bishop was to read for the king what was intended for his majesty only. By which we must understand that, if the treatise produced the desired effect on Henry's mind, it would be considered as a secret communication; but if it failed, the author would then be at liberty to publish it to the world. It is not certain that Henry ever read it. He heard reports of it, however, from Tunstall and Starkey, and made no mystery of his displeasure to those around him. To Pole himself he wrote briefly, requiring him to return to England and explain his ideas more fully. Starkey and Tunstall wrote also, pointing out Reginald's presumption, which, they said, if persevered in would become a crime, and urging him to return to England, and seek the king's pardon. Pole was far too astute to obey this summons. Other letters were addressed to him, and finding that he would not venture on the English shore, Henry's agents tried to persuade him not to publish the work, and to give up or burn any copies of it which he might have retained. But this request was as fruitless as the former. Pole continued for a time to receive his pension, and his book, the effects of which were likely to be formidable, was reserved in manuscript till a fitting occasion for publishing it should arise.
Being an English subject, in the enjoyment of certain emoluments and dignities, Reginald Pole was not altogether free in his movements abroad. He could not accept an invitation from the pope to visit him at Rome without first obtaining Henry's permission, or without, at least, expressing a hope that his majesty would not be offended if he repaired to the eternal city. Henry did not deign to reply, but he induced Reginald's mother and brothers, Cromwell, and his friends at home, together with some members of both houses of parliament, to endeavor to deter him from the journey and from accepting any office that might be offered him in Rome. For a time, therefore, he resisted the importunities of his friend Contarini, and declined the purple held out to him by Pope Paul III.; for he knew that in accepting it he should make the king his implacable enemy and expose his family to cruel persecution. But other circumstances arose, which made the cardinalate appear desirable; and he accepted it about Christmas, 1536,[101] and trusted that it might in the issue aid him in accomplishing the main purpose of his life. That purpose was the recovery of England, in part at least, if not entirely, to the Catholic faith. The rising in England which he had predicted had taken place. The suppression of the monasteries had filled the faithful in the north with indignation, and from the Wash to the borders of Scotland the people in general flew to arms. They bore on their standards the emblems of faith, and the image of Christ crucified was carried in their front. The revolt was styled the "Pilgrimage of Grace," and its object was not the overthrow of the throne or the sovereign, but the removal from him of all evil counsellors and "villein's blood." It is deeply to the disgrace of Englishmen that they did not rise to a man and support the cause of freedom and religion against the worst of tyrants. Pole was anxious to afford the insurgents all the assistance in his power, and to remove from them and from the English in general any pretext for acquiescence in the changes forced upon them. A legate's commission was granted him, and he was instructed to land in England, or to hover over its coasts in France or Flanders as circumstances might require.[102] He knew not whether the insurrection were crushed, or whether Henry, on the contrary, were in the power of the rebels. He therefore manœuvred with the English government till things should take a decisive turn, and executed his commission with delicacy and dexterity. His professed object was to receive in Flanders such commissioners from the king as he might think proper to send for the purpose of discussing the points at issue between the government and the pope. He brought with him as credentials five letters; one to the Catholic people of England; a second to James of Scotland; a third to Francis King of France; a fourth to the Regent of the Netherlands; and a fifth to the Prince Bishop of Liege. He was ready to treat with Henry on any reasonable terms, and hopes were still entertained at Rome of England's being reconciled to the holy see. He was instructed to exhort the emperor and the King of France to cease hostilities against each other, and to turn their arms against the Turks. By this means they would forward the supreme pastor's design of convening a general council for the reformation of manners and the reconcilement of nations which had fallen from the faith to the unity of Christendom.
No sooner had Pole entered France than the English ambassador there required that he should be delivered up, and sent as a prisoner to England. The lengths to which Henry VIII. had gone altered the position of his Catholic subjects, and to be faithful to God and the holy see was to be nothing less than a traitor. Reginald Pole especially had incurred this charge, and as soon as it suited Henry's purpose, he preferred it against him without scruple. The king of France refused to deliver him up, but he requested Pole not to ask for an audience, and to prosecute his journey as speedily as possible. A treaty with England obliged the French government to give no shelter to political offenders, and Pole was compelled to turn aside from Paris and repair to Cambray. His welcome there was no warmer than in France. The Regent of the Netherlands had been terrified by Henry, and Pole was conveyed under an escort to Liege. A price of fifty thousand crowns was put on his head by the king of England, and four thousand auxiliaries were offered to the emperor to aid him in his campaign against France, provided he would deliver up the person of the cardinal into Henry's hands. The hatred of the king became implacable, and he pursued Pole ever after with the most murderous intentions.