Volume I Part 14 (1/2)

Aleander to Sanga, Brussels, November 25, 1531, Vatican Library, Laemmer, Monumenta, 90. See Lambert's autobiographical sketch, ent.i.tled: ”Rationes propter quas Minoritarum conversationem habitumque rejecit,”

Gerdes., iv. (Doc.) 21-28, and translated, Herminjard, i. 118, etc.; F.

W. Ha.s.sencamp, Fr. Lambert von Avignon; Haag, France prot., s. v.; Baum, Lambert von Avignon.]

[Footnote 245: So says Lambert, who states: ”Novi ilium ex intimis; fuit enim mihi perinde atque Jonathas Davidi.” Praef. ad Comm. in Hoseam, Gerdes., Scrinium antiquarium, vi. 490.]

[Footnote 246: The Bishop of Metz was _John_, Cardinal of Lorraine, uncle of the more notorious Cardinal _Charles_. Chatellain had written a poetical chronicle of Metz reaching to the year 1524. A friendly hand continued it, and recorded the fate of Chatellain, described as

”Augustin, grand Docteur Qui estoit grand predicateur.”

The chronicle, which certainly possesses no striking literary merit, is printed among the _Preuves_ of Dom Calmet, Histoire de Lorraine (Nancy, 1748), iii. pp. cclxxii., etc.]

[Footnote 247: Crespin, Actiones et Monimenta (Geneva, 1560), fol.

44-46.]

[Footnote 248: ”Quorum (Antichristi prophetae) faex in eadem civitate tam multa est, ut eosdem nongentos esse ferant.” Lamberti praef. ad Comm. in Hoseam, Gerdes., Scrinium Antiq., vi. 485, etc.]

[Footnote 249: Ibid., _ubi supra_.]

[Footnote 250: Hist. de l'eglise gallicane, _apud_ Gaillard, vi. 404.]

[Footnote 251: The letter is given by Crespin, Actiones et Monimenta, fol. 50; also Gerdes., iv. (Doc), 48-50.]

[Footnote 252: Gerdes., iv. 51; Crespin, fol. 49-52; Haag, s. v.]

[Footnote 253: The incident, it must be confessed, is by no means above suspicion (see Kirchhofer, Life of Wm. Farel, London ed., p. 40, and Schmidt, Wilhelm Farel, p. 6), although, as Merle d'Aubigne observes, Hist. of the Reformation, bk. xii. c. 13, it is in keeping with Farel's character. colampadius, foreseeing the possibility of his indulging in such inconsiderate words and actions, warned him, as early as Aug.

19, 1524, to temper his zeal with mildness, and to treat his opponents rather as was most expedient, than as they deserved to be treated.

Herminjard, i. 265-267.]

[Footnote 254: ”Ceste heresie lutherienne, _qui commance fort a pulluler par deca. Et jam plures de cineribus valde (Valdo) renasc.u.n.tur plantulae_.” Council of the Archbishop of Lyons to Noel Beda, January 23, 1525. The t.i.tle of primate was a.s.sumed both by the Archbishop of Sens and the Archbishop of Lyons, the former having apparently the better claim and enjoying nominally a Wider supremacy (as ”Primat des Gaules et de Germanie”); but the latter gradually vindicated his pretension to spiritual authority over most of France. See Encyclopedie methodique, s.

v. Sens, and Lyon.]

[Footnote 255: Gaillard, Hist. de Francois premier, vi. 408.]

CHAPTER IV.

INCREASING SEVERITY.--LOUIS DE BERQUIN.

[Sidenote: Captivity of Francis I.]

The year 1525 was critical as well in the religious as in the political history of France. On the twenty-fourth of February, in consequence of the disaster at Pavia, Francis fell into the hands of his rival--Charles, by hereditary descent King of Spain, Naples, and Jerusalem, sovereign, under various t.i.tles, of the Netherlands, and by election Emperor of Germany--a prince whose vast possessions in both hemispheres made him at once the wealthiest and most powerful of living monarchs. With his unfortunate captivity, all the fanciful schemes of conquest entertained by the French king fell to the ground. But France felt the blow not less keenly than the monarch. One of the most gallant armies that ever crossed the Alps had been lost. The kingdom was by no means invulnerable, for the capital itself might easily reward a well-executed invasion from the side of Flanders. The recuperative energies of the country could be put forth to little advantage, so long as the place of the king--_fons omnis jurisdictionis_, as the French legists styled him--was filled by a woman in the capacity of regent.

France bade fair to exhibit to the world the inherent weakness of a despotism wherein all power, in fact as well as in theory, centres ultimately in the single person of the supreme ruler as autocrat. For it was his standing boast that he was ”emperor” in his own realm, holding it of none other than G.o.d, and responsible to G.o.d alone, and that as king and emperor he had the exclusive right to make ordinances from which no subject could appeal without rendering himself liable to the penalties p.r.o.nounced upon traitors.[256] Now that the head was taken away, who could answer for the harmonious action of the body which had been wont to depend upon him alone for direction?

[Sidenote: Change in the religious policy of Louise de Savoie.]

Louise de Savoie, to whom the direction of affairs had been confided during her son's absence in Italy, had, for greater convenience, transferred the court temporarily to the city of Lyons, where, under the protection of Margaret of Angouleme, the most evangelical preachers of France had been allowed to proclaim the tenets of the reformers within the churches and in the hearing of thousands of eager listeners. The queen mother had not yet ventured decidedly to depart from the tolerant system hitherto pursued by the crown.[257] But the announcement of the capture of Francis effected a complete revolution in her policy. There is no inherent improbability in the story that Chancellor Duprat--the statesman and ecclesiastic who had gained so strong an ascendancy over the mind of Louise that he was shortly promoted to the Archbishopric of Sens and rewarded with the rich abbey of Saint Benoit-sur-Loire--insinuated to the queen mother that the misfortunes befalling France were tokens of the Divine displeasure. Had Francis spared no exertions to destroy the first germs of the heresy so insidiously introduced into his kingdom, he would not now, said the churchman, be languis.h.i.+ng in the dungeons of Milan or Madrid. Nor could hopes be entertained of his deliverance, and of a return of Heaven's favor, unless the queen mother bestirred herself to retrieve his mistake by the introduction of new measures to crush heresy. Thus is the chancellor said to have argued, and to have earned the cardinal's hat at the Pope's hands. However this may be, it is certain that motives of policy were no less influential than the pious considerations which, perhaps, might have carried full as much conviction had they come from the lips of a more exemplary prelate.[258] The regent was certainly not ignorant of the fact that the support of Clement the Seventh, now specially needed in the delicate diplomacy lying immediately before her, could best be secured by proving to the pontiff's satisfaction that the house of Valois was clear of all suspicion of harboring or fostering the ”Lutheran” doctrines and their adherents.

The ordinary appliances for the suppression of heresy--a duty entrusted by canon law, so far as the preliminary search and the trial of the suspected was concerned, to the bishops and their courts--had confessedly proved inadequate. The prelates were in great part non-residents, and could not from a distance narrowly watch the progress of the objectionable tenets in their dioceses. One or two of their number were accused of culpable sluggishness, if not of indifference or something worse. The question naturally arose, What new and more effective procedure could be devised?