Part 14 (1/2)
The idea that the ecclesiastical reconciliation of Christendom was still possible--apart from the banned and recalcitrant sovereign of England--was one of which a considerable body of Churchmen by no means despaired. There were men like Contarini and Pole on the one side and Melanchthon on the other whose doctrinal att.i.tude did not seem to be hopelessly irreconcilable. But while the Lutherans demanded for themselves a lat.i.tude of opinion beyond what the Pope would ever have been prepared to concede, the two sides laid down two contradictory propositions as the condition of reconciliation, in respect of the validity of Papal authority. Each was willing, even anxious, for a General Council; but neither would admit one unless so const.i.tuted as to imply that its own view was postulated and _ipso facto_ the opposing view ruled out of court. The Emperor, though anti-Lutheran, was unwilling either to enforce his view at the sword's point, or to subordinate himself to the Pope. The French King was equally ready to win papal favour by persecuting his own protestant subjects, and to encourage the protestant subjects of the Emperor, according as one course or the other seemed more likely to embarra.s.s Charles. Finally the Pope, while set upon the suppression of the Lutheran heretics, was desperately afraid of the accession of strength to Charles which would result from their complete disappearance as a political factor: and he was almost equally afraid that if a Council could not be carried through, Charles would call a national Synod of the Empire to settle the religious question independently.
[Sidenote 1: 1541 Conference of Ratisbon]
[Sidenote 2: 1542 Council of Trent]
Thus attempts to bring about a General Council failed repeatedly. The nearest approach to reconciliation was achieved when a conference was arranged at Ratisbon (1541) at which there were papal as well as Lutheran representatives and it seemed as if common ground of agreement was in course of emerging. But Luther himself held aloof; Paul III. would not ratify the concessions that Contarini and others were willing to make. The Conference ended in failure; and Charles--always embarra.s.sed in his dealings with the Protestants by his need of their support against threatening Turkish aggression--was obliged, a good deal against his private inclinations, to reaffirm the Nuremberg toleration. The result was a renewal of negotiations between Pope and Emperor for the calling of a General Council; whereof the outcome was that in May 1542 the Pope summoned the famous Council of Trent which did not conclude its sittings till twenty years later. Although the Council was formally called for the end of the year, it did not succeed in holding a working Session till 1546; after the spring of 1547 it was transferred to Bologna; nor did it get to work again (once more at Trent) till 1551. The fundamental point however is that, by its const.i.tution, the Lutheran controversy was prejudged and the Lutheran party effectively excluded. It was not a Council representing Christendom; it stood for the Church of Rome seeking internal reformation for itself and arrogating Catholicity to itself. Hence arose the custom of using the terms Catholic and Protestant as party labels for those within and without the ”orthodox” pale, in spite of the objection more particularly of the Anglican body to its implied exclusion from the ”Catholic” Church and inclusion in the same category with the Lutheran and Calvinistic bodies. The historian cannot admit that Rome has a right to monopolise the t.i.tle of Catholic; but during the period when Europe was practically divided politically into two religious camps, it is difficult to avoid using the current labels though their adoption is in some degree misleading.
[Sidenote: 1548 Death of Luther]
With the convocation of the Council of Trent, such hope as there had been for a reunion of Christendom was practically terminated. Its first working sessions in 1546 were contemporaneous with the death of the man who had led the revolt against Rome. But if Martin Luther had been a great cleaving force, in Germany itself his influence had been consistently exerted for national unity. To him more than to any other man it was due that Germany had not as yet been plunged into a civil war. He was hardly gone, when the forces of discord broke loose.
[Sidenote: 1546-49 Charles and the Protestant League]
Charles in fact found the Schmalkaldic League a thorn in his side, and had for some time been resolved on its extinction should a favourable opportunity occur. His war with Francis was terminated by the Peace [Footnote: P. 162, _ante._] of Crepy in September 1544; the pressure from Turkey was relaxed; there was no probability that either England or France would commit themselves to helping the League. In the summer of 1546, the League was put to the ban of the Empire; in the following summer it was crushed at the battle of Muhlberg, largely owing to the support given to the Emperor by the young Protestant Duke of Saxony, Maurice. But while this triumph broke up the League, and led Charles to regard himself as all-powerful, it frightened the Pope into an att.i.tude of hostility; the Protestants were not annihilated; the course taken by Charles satisfied neither party within the Empire; and we shall shortly find a new and formidable Nationalist and anti-Spanish movement evolved in Germany with surprising suddenness and effectiveness.
During these years two religious developments had been in progress--one among the Protestants, the other among the Catholics--both destined to play a very large part in future history. These were the rise of John Calvin on one side and on the other the inst.i.tution of the Society of Jesus familiarly known as the Jesuits.
[Sidenote: The Order Of Jesuits]
This Order was the creation of a Spaniard, Ignatius Loyola. Born in the same year as Henry VIII. he was taking active part as a knight in the wars of 1521, when he was crippled by a cannon shot. He rose from his sick bed a religious enthusiast; with the conception forming in his brain of an a.s.sociation for the service of his Divine Master based on the principles of military obedience carried to the extreme logical point. He devoted many years to training himself, body and brain and soul, for the carrying out of the idea. In course of time he found kindred spirits; at Montmartre in 1534 a little company of seven solemnly vowed themselves to the work. All of them men of birth and high breeding, with rich intellectual endowments and full of an intense devotional fervour, they soon attracted disciples; and in 1543 the new Order was formally sanctioned by the Pope. Utter obedience was their rule, thorough education of their members the primary requirement. Every Jesuit was a consummately cultivated man of the world as well as a religious devotee, responding absolutely to the control of a superior officer as a finished piece of machinery answers to the touch of the engineer; accounting death in the service a welcome martyrdom; shrinking from no act demanded for the fulfilment of orders which might not be questioned. Within a few years of its inst.i.tution, the Society had developed into one of the most potent organisations, whether for good or for evil, that the world has ever known.
[Sidenote: Calvin]
While Loyola was preparing himself for his work, John Calvin was growing up in Picardy. Having adopted the tenets of the Swiss Reformers, the persecution of the heretics--within French territory--by the Most Christian King compelled him to take refuge in Switzerland. There, when only twenty-seven years of age, he published the work known as the ”Inst.i.tutes,”
setting forth that grim theology, the extreme logical outcome of the Zwinglian position, which is a.s.sociated with his name; a system far more antagonistic to that of Rome than was Luther's. His head-quarters, save for a brief interval of banishment, were at Geneva, where he established about 1542 an absolute authority, no less rigorous or intolerant of opposition than the papacy itself; constructing a theory of ecclesiastical government that dominated the civil as the old Church had never dominated the State, and carried the stark severity of its controlling supervision into every detail of private conduct: banis.h.i.+ng the comparative tolerance and charity which had distinguished the Zurich school.
[Sidenote: The ecclesiastical revolution in England]
In the meantime the course of the Reformation in England had been almost stationary. The whole movement in fact during Henry's reign took outwardly the form not of a revision of Religion but of a revolution in the relations of Church and State--a revolution already completed when Cromwell was struck down. Until his day, Englishmen--ecclesiastics and laymen alike--recognised the authority of the Holy See, though not always its claim to unqualified obedience. That authority was now finally and totally repudiated: none external to the kingdom was admitted; the Church was affirmed to be the Church of England, coterminous with the State; while a new interpretation was put upon the supremacy heretofore claimed from time to time by the secular Sovereign. Not only was the right a.s.sumed by the crown of diverting or even confiscating ecclesiastical revenues and of controlling episcopal appointments--so that it was even held doubtful whether the demise of the ruler did not necessitate re-appointment--but the power was appropriated, (though not in set terms), of ultimately deciding points of doctrine and promulgating the formulae of uniformity. This was the essential change which had taken place: resisted to the point of martyrdom by a few like More and Fisher; submitted to under protest by the majority of the clergy; actively promoted by only a very few of them, such as Cranmer. In a.s.serting the position of the Crown, however, the Defender of the Faith admitted no innovations in doctrine and not many in ritual and observances. Now and again, for political purposes, Henry dallied with the Lutheran League; but in this direction he made no concession.
[Sidenote: 1540-46 Progressives and Reactionaries]
No marked alteration then appears after the death of the Vicar-General.
Nevertheless, the contest between the progressive and reactionary parties was not inactive. In one direction alone, however, did the former achieve a distinct success. There was an increasing feeling in favour of the use of the vulgar tongue in place of Latin, not only in rendering the Scriptures but also in the services of the Church. The advanced section had already so far won the contest in respect of the Bible that the reactionaries could only fight for a fresh revision in which stereotyped terms with old a.s.sociations might be re-instated in place of the new phrases which were compatible with, even if they did not suggest, meanings subversive of traditional ideas--a project which was quashed [Footnote: A revising Commission had been appointed; but was suddenly cancelled, with an announcement that the work was to be entrusted to the Universities; which however was not done. The probable explanation is that Cranmer, seeing the bent of the Commission, influenced the King to withdraw the work from their hands, and it was then allowed to drop.] when its intention became manifest. Measures however were taken to restrict the miscellaneous discussion of doctrine, which had not unnaturally degenerated into frequent displays of gross irreverence and indecent brawling; while on the other hand the use of a Litany in English instead of Latin was by Cranmer's influence introduced in 1544.
[Sidenote: 1543 The King's Book]
A year earlier the third formulary of faith--the two preceding had been the Ten Articles and the Bishops' Book--was issued under the t.i.tle of the ”Erudition of a Christian Man,” popularly known as the ”King's Book”. This was the outcome of a group of reports drawn up by bishops and divines, severally, in answer to a series of questions submitted to them. The reports showed great diversities of opinion on disputed questions; but the book which received the imprimatur of Convocation and of the King was in the main a restatement of the doctrines of the Bishops' Book with a more explicit declaration on Transubstantiation and on Celibacy in accordance with the Law as laid down in the Six Articles. Throughout the preliminary discussions, Cranmer had championed the most advanced views which had hitherto been held compatible with orthodoxy; and, becoming shortly afterwards the object of direct attack as the real disseminator of heresy, he openly avowed to the King that he retained the opinions he had held before the pa.s.sing of the Six Articles Act although he obeyed the statute. Henry, to the general surprise, refused to withdraw his favour from the Archbishop, and caused much alarm to the opposing party by the manner in which he rebuked the Primate's traducers. The circ.u.mstances deserve special notice because they show that Cranmer was not the mere cringing time-server that he is sometimes represented to have been; and also as proving that the King himself was for once capable of feeling a sincere and continuous affection.
[Sidenote: Henry stationary]
The hopes of the reactionary party were in fact somewhat dashed by the ”King's Book”; since, despite Cromwell's death, the Six Articles still marked the limit of their influence. A companion volume, known as the _Rationale_, dealing with rites and ceremonies on lines antagonistic to Cranmer, was refused the royal sanction. Henry never lapsed from his professed att.i.tude of rigid orthodoxy. But he showed an increasing disposition to check random and malignant prosecutions for heresy and to give the accused something like fair trial; more especially after the culminating iniquity of Anne Ascue's martyrdom (in the last year of his reign) for denying the doctrine of the Real Presence in the Eucharist. The system of ecclesiastical spoliation was also in 1546 rounded off, by the formal transfer to the crown of chantries which had not been swept away in the dissolution of the monasteries.
[Sidenote: 1546 Attainder of Surrey]
The autumn of 1546 arrived. The King's health was known to be exceedingly precarious, and it was practically certain that there must be some form of regency or protectorate until the boy prince of Wales should attain a responsible age. The most prominent men were on the one side the Duke of Norfolk and Gardiner, on the other the Earl of Hertford and Cranmer. The King's att.i.tude was more favourable to the second of the two parties; the conduct of the Earl of Surrey, Norfolk's son, ensured them the domination.
Surrey was ent.i.tled to bear on his s.h.i.+eld the Arms of England, as a descendant of the Plantagenets; [Footnote: See _Front_. He traced through his mother and the Staffords to Edward III, and also through the other line to Thomas, son of Edward I.] but he a.s.sumed quarterings proper only to the heir-apparent. He used language which showed that he counted on a Norfolk regency and might have meant that it would be claimed by force.