Part 17 (2/2)
[Sidenote 1: Fresh attack on Somerset]
[Sidenote 2: 1552 Execution of Somerset]
Warwick therefore, endowed with plentiful cunning and no scruples, decided to be rid of him once for all, and put in the mouth of an accomplice a story, with enough truth in it to be plausible, which sufficed for his purpose. In October Warwick, having procured his own elevation to the Dukedom of Northumberland, that of Dorset to the Dukedom of Suffolk, and that of Herbert to the Earldom of Pembroke, arrested Somerset at the Council. The Duke was accused of compa.s.sing the deaths of several Lords of the Council, and of preparations for an armed revolt and for appealing to the populace. On the greater part of the specific charges, the evidence was quite inadequate--but finding that Somerset might be held to have gone far enough to incur the death-sentence for felony under the law pa.s.sed by the parliament of 1549-50, Northumberland (as Warwick must now be called) made a show of magnanimously withdrawing the accusations so far as he was personally affected. Somerset was duly condemned; but it was not till the end of January (1552) that he was actually executed, in spite of the somewhat pathetic demonstrations in his favour of the populace, who refused to the last to believe that the sentence would really be carried out, and lamented his doom with tears.
[Sidenote: Pacification of Pa.s.sau]
While Somerset's trial was still going on, agents arrived in England from the German Protestants, inviting a.s.sistance in the contemplated revolt against Charles--a movement carried out with sudden and triumphant effectiveness by Maurice of Saxony in the following spring. Had Northumberland given his adhesion, the formation of a Lutheran alliance at this juncture might have very materially altered the subsequent course of events. The opportunity however was not taken. Indeed it is scarcely surprising that the signs of the times should have been misread. Maurice had helped Charles against the Schmalkaldic League before; yet everything depended on his discarding the apparently erratic politics of his past career, and displaying in full measure the organising and military genius of which he had given promise, though it still remained to be conclusively proved. He did in fact prove it a few months later, when he all but succeeded in pouncing on the Emperor at Innsbruck. Charles was forced to a hasty flight, and, finding a practically united Germany in arms against him, was reduced to accept the pacification of Pa.s.sau (July), conceding all that the Lutherans demanded. Maurice's brilliant exploit not only terminated Charles's resistance to the Reformation in Germany; it also released England from all danger of his active hostility.
[Sidenote: England stands aside]
In view however of the uncertainty still, at the end of 1551, attendant on the motives, the aims, and the capacity of Duke Maurice, the decision of the professedly enthusiastic protestants in England to stand aside is hardly a ground for reproach. Disaster had so often been escaped during recent years, through some lucky turn of events abroad supervening on the purely temporising policy of the Government, that they had good reason to hesitate about committing themselves to any irrevocable course; while personal intrigues and the strife of religious parties gave the individual leaders sufficient occupation. Possibly also the influence of the Swiss school, antagonistic as ever to the peculiar tenets of Lutheranism, was not altogether in favour of a too intimate a.s.sociation with German protestantism.
[Sidenote: The Reformation;]
We have remarked upon the increasing influence of this party in the Church; an influence which, as far as concerns the formularies of the Anglican body, was to reach its high-water mark in 1552 and 1553, in the revised prayer-book authorised by Parliament immediately after Somerset's death, and the ”Forty-two Articles” promulgated about a year later.
[Sidenote: Its Limits under Henry and under Somerset]
In the reign of the late King, the Reformation which had taken place was almost entirely political and financial--in the const.i.tution of the government of the ecclesiastical body, and the allocation of its endowments. The Sovereign had claimed and enforced his own supremacy, involving the repudiation of papal authority, the submission of the clergy to the Supreme Head, and the appropriation by the Crown of Monastic property. As a necessary corollary, the Crown had also taken upon itself to sanction formularies of belief and to regulate rites and ceremonies; but in doing so it had held by the accepted dogmas, suppressed little except obvious and admitted abuses, and affirmed no heresies. The Archbishop had been in favour of further innovations, but these had not been allowed. All, however, that Cranmer had then advocated, was adopted by Somerset's administration--the extended destruction of images, the liturgy in the vulgar tongue, the marriage of the clergy, the Communion in both kinds; the last being perhaps the most marked deviation from the established order. But though the new liturgy might be reconciled with acceptance of doctrines. .h.i.therto accounted heretical, it did not enjoin them; it was still reconcilable also with the _King's Book_. It had aimed, in short at the maximum of comprehension. The result was to include within the same pale the adherents of a very slightly modified Ma.s.s and the extremists of the Swiss school, for whom the Communion Service was purely and simply commemorative.
[Sidenote: The extremists dissatisfied]
Until the death of Henry, the English clergy from the Archbishop down had almost without exception held the hitherto authorised view of the Eucharist. Since then however Cranmer had followed the lead of Ridley, under the influence of the foreign theologians, and had adopted personally a conception [Footnote: This conception is expressed in the phrase of the Catechism that ”the Body and Blood of Christ are verily and indeed taken and received by the faithful,” coupled with the direct repudiation of Transubstantiation, _i.q._ the doctrine that the substance of the bread and wine is changed by the Act of Consecration.] which rejected alike in set terms the Transubstantiation of the Roman Ma.s.s, the Consubstantiation of the Lutherans, and, implicitly though not explicitly, the purely commemorative theory of Hooper and the Zwinglians.
[Sidenote: 1552 The Liturgy revised]
Thus the extreme comprehensiveness of the first Prayer-book failed to satisfy the school who could not away with the Ma.s.s, and those who regarded the Swiss doctrine as heretical. Greater precision, closer definitions, were called for--by way not of changing doctrines but of removing uncertainties. To this end a revision of the volume had been taken in hand, and now received the sanction of Parliament: a revision favouring in the main the Swiss interpretations, the term ”minister” taking the place of ”priest,” ”altar” giving way to ”table,” and the doctrine of transubstantiation being clearly eliminated. At the same time the instruction that the Sacrament was to be received kneeling conveyed a presumption, though not the necessity, that the rite involved a Mystery, that it implied an act of adoration. This was most unsatisfactory to the ultra-protestants, recently re-inforced by the vigorous presence in the North of England of John Knox the Scottish reformer; and before the volume was issued from the press at the end of the year a determined attempt was made to have the obnoxious instruction removed by order. The Archbishop however with resolute dignity protested against the arbitrary subversion of what Parliament had sanctioned. He carried his point, and the instruction was retained, though an explanatory note (known as the Black Rubric)[Footnote: _Cf_. Dixon, iii., 475 ff.] was appended, with which Knox and his friends were forced, however reluctantly, to be satisfied.
[Sidenote: Nonconformity]
This episode, with that of the consecration of Hooper as bishop of Gloucester, are ill.u.s.trative of the original sense of the term Nonconformity. Nonconformity, of which Hooper is often referred to as the ”father,” did not seek separation from the ecclesiastical organisation, but expressed dissatisfaction with particular observances, which it sought to have modified in the Swiss sense: not as being in themselves intolerable, but as tending to encourage superst.i.tious and papistical ideas. So Hooper, after an obstinate struggle, submitted to don the vestments ordered at his consecration; so also Knox, when he was finally worsted in the ”kneeling”
controversy, submitted to the order though with a very ill grace. The Nonconformists in short may be defined as Puritans who still remained within the pale of the Church. The idea of forming sects outside her borders, of challenging the right to enforce uniformity where points in dispute were not ”essential” but ”convenient,” was still opposed to all recognised principles; the Nonconformists themselves being by no means disposed to surrender the position that if they became predominant they would be ent.i.tled to enforce their own views no less rigidly. No one thought of protesting against the burning of one Joan Bocher, in 1550, for affirming a peculiarly unintelligible heresy concerning the mode of the Incarnation.
[Sidenote: Parliament]
The session at the beginning of 1552 was the last held by this, the first, Parliament of Edward VI. Besides authorising the revised Prayer-book, it pa.s.sed a second Act of Uniformity, of which the novel feature was that penalties were imposed on laymen for non-compliance. In other respects, it did not show itself altogether subservient to Northumberland. A new Treasons Act further reviving some of Henry's provisions was introduced in the Upper House, but rejected by the Commons; who did indeed restore ”verbal treason,” but pointedly required that two witnesses at least should prove the guilt of the accused to his face-with evident reference to the recent trial of Somerset.
Cranmer had been occupied not only with the Prayer-book, but also with the preparation of Articles of Belief, and of a scheme which, as drawn up, was generally known as the _Reformatio Legum_, elaborating a plan of ecclesiastical administration. The latter appears to have seen the light either in 1551 or 1552, but it was never authorised. The Forty-two articles, substantially the same as the Thirty-nine of the present Prayer-book, certainly did not come before parliament and probably did not come before Convocation, [Footnote: Dixon, iii., 513 ff. Gairdner, _English Church_, 311.] but were sanctioned by almost the last act of the King in Council in 1553.
[Sidenote: 1553 A new Parliament]
The national finances continued in an increasingly chaotic condition, and Northumberland's struggles to raise money during 1552 were attended with such inadequate results that he found it necessary to summon a new Parliament in the spring of 1553. There were not wanting, from the last reign, precedents for bringing royal pressure to bear on const.i.tuencies to secure the selection of amenable representatives, and the principle was now applied with a reckless comprehensiveness. Nevertheless the Houses when a.s.sembled were by no means prepared to carry out a programme which would satisfy Northumberland.
[Sidenote: Northumberland's programme]
In fact that man of many wiles lacked the art, necessary for one with his ambitions, of securing a devoted personal following. For some time past the probability of the young King's early decease had been recognised, and Northumberland's intrigues had been directed to excluding Mary from the succession, and securing a sovereign whom he would himself be able to dominate. He had had his chance, when the Protector was overthrown in 1549, of taking the line of policy which would bring him into accord with the heir presumptive; he made his election, and thenceforward was committed to the Reforming party and to political destruction if Mary should become Queen. He devoted his attention then primarily to gaining a predominant influence over the young King, with great success-the result, in no small measure, of his posing as a puritan; for the boy had all the uncompromising partisans.h.i.+p natural to the morbid precocity which his ill-health and Tudor cleverness combined to develop. If Edward had lived, no doubt the Tudor penetration would have unmasked Northumberland in due course; but this the Duke would hardly have antic.i.p.ated in any case, and, as it was, he laid his plans on the hypothesis that Edward would die without leaving an heir of his body. Now the succession was fixed by Henry's Will, ratified by Act of Parliament, first on Mary and then on Elizabeth, though both had been declared illegitimate. If they could be set aside, the first claim by descent would lie with Mary Stewart, grandchild of Henry's sister Margaret; but the country would not take her at any price. The next claimant, confirmed also by Henry's Will, would be Lady Jane Grey, pa.s.sing over her mother Frances Brandon, daughter of Henry's second sister Mary. Frances Brandon had married Lord Dorset, created Duke of Suffolk at the same time that Dudley became Duke of Northumberland.
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