London in the Time of the Tudors

by Walter Besant

As for the spread of the ideas called Lollardry, one knows not how far they survived the persecution under Henry V. and the disturbances of the Civil Wars. But such ideas, whose strength lies in the exercise of reason, so far as men can reason, do not easily die; the case of Richard Hun ([p. 32]) shows that they were still alive. The socialistic side of Lollardry had vanished, but some, at least, of the religious side survived.

Yet the old things went on apparently undisturbed. Nothing could surpass the external splendour of a Cardinal Archbishop: no authority was greater in appearance than his. The rich endowments of the greater Abbeys made the Houses magnificent and the Brethren proud, generous, and profuse in hospitality and in alms. Who could be more dignified than the Abbot of St. Peter’s, Westminster? Still the Church seemed to rule in everything: the Fraternities continued; they still attracted members; they still marched in procession, each with its chaplain and its singing men, its banners and its brethren, through the streets on its appointed day; the City Companies were incorporated as Religious as well as Trade Societies; the Manger and the Holy Tomb still adorned the churches on the great Festivals; the Angel still flew over the people from the roof on the Day of Pentecost; the pictures on the wall in every church recorded the martyrdom of the Saint of Dedication and the miracles which commanded his canonisation. No one could have dreamed, no one could have prophesied, when the scholarly young King thundered against Luther that the old order was drawing to its allotted end, and that for Rome, as well as Northern Europe, Reform was at hand.

In many ways the Church had long lost its former hold. No longer were the architects Churchmen; no longer were the bridge builders a distinct fraternity; the lawyers were clerks, indeed, but not in Holy Orders; the King’s Ministers were no longer necessarily of the Clergy; scholars were no longer of necessity ordained priests or deacons; physicians were laymen; the clergy were allowed to practise surgery, provided that they did not use fire or steel—in other words, did not conduct operations; in trade the lending of money—formerly in the hands of the Jews and afterwards in those of the so-called “Caursini,” Italians licensed by the Popes—was now recognised as necessary, and was carried on more or less openly by merchants; in a word, the daily life of the world, which had been shot through and through, like a piece of silk with its coloured threads, by Religion, had long been emancipating itself, by slow and gradual steps, from the control of the Church and the interference of the priest.

How much these things were understood at the time it is not necessary to inquire. Probably the people, who knew no history, had been unconsciously moulded and changed, and were far from realising the great gulf which now divided them from their ancestors.

Yet there were other signs of change, could they have been rightly interpreted. Scholars, like Erasmus, openly derided the adoration of relics; some of them, under new Pagan influence, denied the Christian faith itself; the scholars of France, like Rabelais and Étienne Dolet, scoffed at the Pope and the Papal pretensions; yet Rabelais did not dare to publish in his lifetime the most daring and the most deadly part of his work.

Add to these things the long-standing disaffection towards the Roman authority. For centuries the Pope had been attempting fresh encroachments, claiming new powers, demanding more contributions. All travellers to Rome brought back the same story of corruption and laxity; men asked themselves why they should submit to the oppression of an Italian prince. In 1529 the House of Commons drew up a petition in which, while they did not ask for a change of doctrine, they complained of the independent legislation claimed by Convocation, the number of officers, the exorbitant fees of ecclesiastical courts, the granting of benefices to children, pluralities, non-residence and other grievances. Surely such a man as Wolsey must have discerned in all these symptoms a warning, clear and loud, that their house must be set in order. Perhaps not, however: nothing is more difficult than for the ecclesiastical mind to see, outside its fences of doctrine and usage, the questioning people, and to hear and understand the awakened mind.

The action of Henry, which, on the face of it, seems the most masterful thing ever attempted by a king, was, on the contrary, approved and accepted by the great mass of the people; especially by the people of London, by the scholars, and by the clergy. There were few who emulated the constancy of the unfortunate Carthusians or the martyrdom of More and Fisher; the old order crumbled and fell to pieces at a touch; out of the débris, among the fallen monarchs of the forest, rose up a tangled mass of vegetation, from which the nobler kinds had to be separated by trial and proof, by persecution and by cultivation.

The first direct step towards the Reformation was, assuredly, not considered as such. It was the suppression by Cardinal Wolsey of certain small houses with whose revenues he endowed his Colleges.

The second direct step was the Petition of the House of Commons, which also passed the Upper House, in 1529.

In January 1531 the House of Commons, in demanding of the clergy the payment of £118,000—an enormous sum, representing more than a million of our money—gave Henry the title of Head of the Church. This was before the break with Rome; so far it meant only that the civil power should be superior to the ecclesiastical.