Part 13 (1/2)
It was now inevitable that the question from which all had started in England, as to the relation between State and Church, should be decided completely in favour of the secular principle. It is very true that Cranmer held fast to the objective view of the visible church. If the ceremonies were altered with which the Romish church imparts the spiritual consecration, yet in this respect only the mystical usages introduced in recent centuries were abandoned, and the ritual restored to the form used in more primitive times, especially in the African church. But it was surely a violent change, when those who wished to receive consecration were now previously asked, whether their inward call agreed both with the will of the Redeemer and the law of the land; they were required to a.s.sent to the principle that Scripture contains all which it is necessary for man to know, and to pledge themselves to guard against any doctrine not in conformity with Scripture. It is generally believed, and the fact is of lasting importance, that the Convocation of the clergy, a commission of the spiritualty, the Primate-Archbishop and a number of bishops, took part in the change; but yet the decisive decrees went forth from the Parliament, to which the spiritual power had been irrevocably attached since Henry VIII, and sometimes from the Privy Council alone. To establish a normal form of doctrine, men set to work to compose a Confession, which was completed at that time in forty-two Articles.
There had been a wish that Melanchthon should have come over in person to aid in composing it; at any rate his labours had much influence in deciding the shape it took. The Articles belong to the cla.s.s of Confessions, as they were then framed in Saxony by Melanchthon, in Swabia by Brenz, to be laid before the coming Council. And it is just in this that their value lies, that by them England attached herself most closely to the Protestant community on the Continent. They are the work of Cranmer, who was entrusted with their composition by the King and Privy Council, and communicated his labours first to the King's tutor, Cheke, and the Secretary of State, Cecil: in conjunction with them he next laid them before the King; with the a.s.sistance of some chaplains their final form was given them; then the Privy Council ordered them to be subscribed. The influence of the government on the nominations to the office of bishop was now still more open: the bishops were to hold office as long as they conducted themselves well,--in other words, as long as the ruling powers were content with them: the church jurisdiction was no longer administered in the name of the bishopric, but, like the temporal jurisdiction, in the King's name and under the King's seal; when they proceeded to revise the church laws, the primary maxim was, not to admit anything that contravened the temporal laws.[153] The use of the power of the keys was also derived by Cranmer from the permission of the sovereign.
Against this ever-increasing dependence some bishops of the old views made a struggle; to avoid coming into direct conflict with the supremacy, which they had acknowledged, they put forth the a.s.sertion that it could not be exercised by a King under age; they connived at the ma.s.s being read in side-chapels of their cathedrals, or refused to allow the change of the altars into communion-tables, or kept alive the controversy as to the doctrine of faith. The government on their side persisted in enforcing uniformity. They brought all opponents before a commission consisting of secular as well as ecclesiastical dignities, which had no scruple in p.r.o.nouncing the deprivation of the bishops: a fate which befell Gardiner of Winchester, Bonner of London, Day of Chichester, Heath of Worcester. In vain did they plead that the court before which they were brought was not a canonical one; the government appealed to the general rights of the temporal power as it had once been exercised by the Roman Emperors. In the conflict of church opinions the Protestant-minded prelates now had the upper hand.
Many who did not conform bought toleration from the government by sacrifices of money and goods. Elsewhere the newly-appointed bishops a.s.sented to concessions which did not always profit even the crown, but sometimes, as at Lichfield, private persons.[154] Already the further question was discussed whether there is in fact any essential distinction between bishops and presbyters: a church of foreigners was set up in London, to present a pattern of the pure apostolic const.i.tution as an example to the country. The government which had acquired such a thorough mastery over the clergy developed an open disinclination to the old forms of const.i.tution in the church. Who could have said, so long as things remained in the path thus once entered upon, whither this would lead?
NOTES:
[139] Froude iv. 515 (extracts from the doc.u.ments).
[140] Collier ii. 220 (Records lii).
[141] Proclamation of 8 July 1549 in Tytler, England under Edward VI and Mary I, p. 180.
[142] The point of view under which it was drawn up appears in a declaration inserted in the edition of 1549: 'the most weighty cause of the abolishment of certain ceremonies was, that they were abused partly by the superst.i.tious blindness of the unlearned, and partly by unsatiable avarice.--Where the old (ceremonies) may be well used there they [their opponents] cannot reprove the old only for their age. They ought rather to have reverence unto them for their antiquity, if they will declare themselves to be more studious of unity and concord, than of innovations and newfangleness which--is always to be eschewed.'
[143] 12 Sept. 1547 in Halliwell ii. 31. Cranmer appointed a prayer in church for the marriage of Edward and Mary, 'to confound all those, which labour to the lett and interruption of so G.o.dly a quiet and amity.' In Somerset's prayer printed, since the first edition of this book, in Froude v. 47, it is said: 'Look upon the small portion of the earth, which professeth thy holy name; especially have an eye to thy small isle of Britain;--that the Scotismen and we might thereafter live in one love and amity, knit into one nation by the marriage of the King's Majesty and the young Scotish Queen.'
[144] G.o.dwin, Rerum Anglicarum Annales 315.
[145] Proofs in Froude v. 136.
[146] So Queen Elizabeth tells us. Ellis, Letters ii. ii. 257.
[147] Cecil however was not the first Master of Requests: Thomas More already appears under this t.i.tle; Nares, Life of Burghley i. 179.
[148] 'You have suffered the rebels to lie in camp and armour against the King his n.o.bles and gentlemen; you did comfort divers of the said rebels.' Articles against the Lord Protector, in Strype, Memorials of Cranmer ii. 342.
[149] Marillac 26 Oct. 1549. 'Ceux-ci (at the Emperor's court) font une merveilleuse demonstration de joye de ce que le protecteur est abattu.' In Turnbull, Calendar of State Papers 1861 p. 47 an Instruction of the Council is mentioned, 'to acquaint the Emperor with the proceeding taken against the Duke of Somerset.' We should like to be better informed about this Instruction, in which too the Emperor was asked for aid.
[150] Soranzo, Relatione d'Inghilterra 1554. 'Per posseder la sua grazia ben amplamente, non solo faceva qualche spettacolo, per dargli piacere, ma gli diede liberta di danari.' Florentine Collection viii.
37.
[151] As he advises a friend: 'Apply yourself to riding shooting or tennis--not forgetting sometimes when you have leisure, your learning, chiefly reading the Scripture.' Halliwell ii. 49.
[152] Wheatly in Soames, History of the Reformation iii. 604.
[153] In the commission of 32 members (bishops, divines, civilians, lawyers) we find the names of Will. Cecil, Will Peters, Thomas Smith.
[154] Compare Heylin, History of the Reformation 50, 101.
CHAPTER VII.
TRANSFER OF THE GOVERNMENT TO A CATHOLIC QUEEN.
We can easily see how the power of the crown, founded by the first Tudor, and developed by the second through the emanc.i.p.ation from the Papacy, was further strengthened under the third. From Edward VI we have essays, in which he speaks about the spiritual and temporal government with the consciousness of a sovereign, whose actions depend only on himself. In the Homilies, which obtained legal sanction, there is found an express condemnation of resistance to the King, 'for G.o.des sake, from whom Kings are, and for orders sake.'
Whilst men were now expecting that Edward VI would arrive at manhood, and take the government completely into his own hands, and conduct it in the sense he had hitherto foreshadowed--not merely carrying out the Reformation thoroughly at home, but a.s.suming the leaders.h.i.+p of the Protestant world, symptoms appeared in him of the malady to which his half-brother Richmond had succ.u.mbed at an early age. But how then if the same fate befell him? According to Henry VIII's arrangement Mary was then to ascend the throne who, through her descent from Queen Catharine and from an inborn disposition which had become all the more confirmed by her opposition to her father and brother, represented the Catholic and Spanish interest. Nothing else could be expected but that she would employ the whole power of the State in support of her own views, would, so far as it could possibly be done, bring back the church to its earlier form, would depress the men who had hitherto played a great part by the side of the King and subject them to the opposite faction. But were they quietly to acquiesce in their fate?
The ambition of the Duke of Northumberland a.s.sociated itself with the great interests of religion, to prevent the threatening ruin. He persuaded the young King that it lay in his power to alter his father's settlement of the succession, as in itself not conformable to law, neither Mary nor the younger sister Elizabeth being ent.i.tled to the throne, as the two marriages from which they sprang had been declared illegal, and a b.a.s.t.a.r.d could not be made capable of wearing the English crown by any act of Parliament. Henry VIII had in his settlement of the succession pa.s.sed over the descendants of his elder sister, married in Scotland, as foreigners, but acknowledged those of the younger, Mary of Suffolk, as the next heirs after his own children. Mary's elder daughter Frances had married Henry Grey of Dorset, who had already obtained the t.i.tle of Suffolk, and had three daughters, the eldest of whom was Jane Grey. It was to her, whom the Duke of Northumberland married to one of his sons, that he now directed the King's attention, and induced him to prefer her to his sisters. Yet it was not so much to herself in person as to her male issue that Edward's attention was originally directed. Never yet had a Queen ruled in England in her own right, and even now there was a wish to avoid it. Edward arranged that, if he himself died without male heirs, the male heirs of Lady Frances, and if she too left none, then those of Lady Jane, should succeed. He hoped still to live till such an heir should be eighteen years old, in which case he could enter on the government immediately after himself. If his death occurred earlier, Jane was to conduct the administration during the interval, not as Queen but as Regent, and conjointly with a Council of government still to be named by him.[155] This Council of executors was to avoid all war, all other change, and especially not to alter the established religion in any point: rather it was to devote itself to completing the ecclesiastical legislation in conformity with that religion, and to the abolition of the Papal claims.[156] We see that Edward's view was, like that of many other sovereigns, to secure the continuance of his political and religious system of government for long years after his own death. The members of the Privy Council, before whom these arrangements were laid in the King's handwriting, promised on their oath and their honour to carry them out in every article, and to defend them with all their power.[157]
And if the affair had been undertaken in this manner, who could say that it might not have succeeded? Northumberland did not neglect to form a strong family interest in favour of the new combination that he designed. He married his own daughter to Lord Hastings, who was descended from the house of York, and one of Jane's sisters with the son of the powerful Earl of Pembroke. He could reckon on the support of the King of France, to whom the succession of a niece of the Emperor was odious, and on the consent of the Privy Council, which was in great part dependent on him; how could the Protestant feeling have failed to gain him a large party in the country, especially since something might be said for the plan itself.