In October of that year (1529) the King, enraged by the Legate’s delay in the marriage business, deprived Wolsey of the Seals, seized his furniture and plate, and ordered him to leave London. In November of the same year, at a Parliament held in the Palace of Bridewell, a Bill was passed by the Lords disabling the Cardinal from being restored to his dignities. In February 1530 Wolsey was restored to his Archbishopric but without his palace, which the King kept for himself; he was summoned to London on a charge of treason, but he fell ill and died on the way.
No Englishman before or after Wolsey has ever maintained so much state and splendour; no Englishman has ever affected the popular imagination so much as Cardinal Wolsey. Contemporary writers exhaust themselves in dwelling upon the more than regal Court kept up by this priest. It is like reading of the Court of a great king. We must, however, remember, that all this state was not the ostentation of the man so much as, first, the glorification of the Church and of the ecclesiastical dignities, and next, a visible proof of the greatness of the King in having so rich a subject.
Between 1527 and 1534 there were disputes on the subject of tithes and offerings to the clergy. At this time began the dissolution of the Monasteries, to which we will return presently.
THE KING IN PARLIAMENT
From a print in the British Museum.
So far as regards the relations between the King and the City. Let us now return to the City itself. We have already seen that the intervals of freedom from plague were growing shorter. In this reign of thirty-eight years there was a return of the sweating sickness in 1518; a return of the plague, which lasted from 1519 to 1522; another appearance of the sweating sickness in 1528; and another attack of the plague in 1543. It seems strange that no physician should have connected the frequency and violence of the disease with the foulness and narrowness of the streets. From the beginning of the sixteenth century to the Great Fire of 1666, London, crowded and confined, abounded with courts and slums of the worst possible kind; it swarmed with rogues and tramps and masterless men who lived as they could, like swine. There were no great fires to cleanse the City. The condition of the ground, with its numberless cesspools, its narrow lanes into which, despite laws, everything was thrown; its frequent laystalls; the refuse and remains of all the workshops; the putrefying blood of the slaughtered beasts sinking into the earth,—must have been truly terrible had the people realised it; but they did not. Fluid matter sank into the earth and worked its wicked will unseen and unsuspected; the rains washed the surface; no man saw farther than the front of his own house; therefore when pestilence appeared among them it did not creep, according to its ancient wont, from house to house, but it flew swiftly with wings outspread over street and lane and court.
Steps were taken to protect and to improve the medical profession. It was ordained in 1512 that no one should practise medicine or surgery within the City or for seven miles outside the City walls without a license from the Bishop of London or the Dean of St. Paul’s; the said license only to be obtained by examination before the Bishop or the Dean by four of the Faculty. Two years later surgeons were exempted from serving on juries, bearing arms, or serving as constables. In 1519 the Physicians obtained a Charter of Incorporation, by which they were allowed a common seal; to elect a President annually; to purchase and hold land; and to govern all persons practising physic within seven miles of London. The College of Physicians, observe, was at first only considered as one of the City Companies: it had jurisdiction over London and over seven miles round London, but no more. The positions of both Physicians and Surgeons were enormously improved by these Acts of Parliament.
There were in this reign, for the admiration of the people, an extraordinary number of executions, both of noble lords and hapless ladies, as well as of divines, monks, friars, gentlemen, gentlewomen, and the common sort, for treason, heresy, and the crimes which are the most commonly brought before the attention of justice. What reign before this would exhibit such a list as the following? Two Queens, Anne Boleyn and Katherine Howard; of others, the Marquis of Exeter, the Earl of Surrey, the Earl of Kildare, the Duke of Buckingham, Lord Rochford, Lady Rochford, Lady Salisbury, Fisher, More, Empson, Dudley, Cromwell. Of abbots, priors, monks, friars, doctors, priests, for refusing the oath of the King’s supremacy a great number; of lesser persons for heresy or treason another goodly company. Some were beheaded—those were fortunate; others were burned, not being so fortunate; the rest were drawn on hurdles, and treated in the manner we have already seen.
The dissolution of the Religious Houses, the changes in the Articles of Religion, and their effect upon the City of London, will be found in another place (see [p. 109]). In this chapter a few cases are given to illustrate the changes of thought and the general excitement in the minds of men.
There is, first, the case of Lambert. He was a learned man and a schoolmaster who denied the Real Presence in the Sacrament. The case had been already brought before the Archbishop, who had given a sentence against Lambert. The King, who ardently believed in the Real Presence, announced his intention of arguing publicly with this heretic. The argument was actually held in Westminster Hall in the presence of a great number of people. In the end the King, apparently, got the worst of it, for we find him becoming judge as well as disputant, and ordering the unfortunate man to recant or burn. Lambert would not recant—the pride and stubbornness of these heretics were wonderful; in some cases, perhaps in this, the man stood for a party: he would not recant for the sake of his friends as well as himself. He was burned.