Volume II Part 1 (1/2)
History of England from the Fall of Wolsey to the Death of Elizabeth.
Vol. II.
by James Anthony Froude.
CHAPTER VI.
THE PROTESTANTS.
Where changes are about to take place of great and enduring moment, a kind of prologue, on a small scale, sometimes antic.i.p.ates the true opening of the drama; like the first drops which give notice of the coming storm, or as if the shadows of the reality were projected forwards into the future, and imitated in dumb show the movements of the real actors in the story.
[Sidenote: Prelude to the Reformation in the fourteenth century.]
Such a rehearsal of the English Reformation was witnessed at the close of the fourteenth century, confused, imperfect, disproportioned, to outward appearance barren of results; yet containing a representative of each one of the mixed forces by which that great change was ultimately effected, and foreshadowing even something of the course which it was to run.
[Sidenote: The Lollards forerunners, not fathers, of the Reformation.]
There was a quarrel with the pope upon the extent of the papal privileges; there were disputes between the laity and the clergy,--accompanied, as if involuntarily, by attacks on the sacramental system and the Catholic faith,--while innovation in doctrine was accompanied also with the tendency which characterized the extreme development of the later Protestants--towards political republicanism, the fifth monarchy, and community of goods. Some account of this movement must be given in this place, although it can be but a sketch only. ”Lollardry”[1] has a history of its own; but it forms no proper part of the history of the Reformation. It was a separate phenomenon, provoked by the same causes which produced their true fruit at a later period; but it formed no portion of the stem on which those fruits ultimately grew. It was a prelude which was played out, and sank into silence, answering for the time no other end than to make the name of heretic odious in the ears of the English nation. In their recoil from their first failure, the people stamped their hatred of heterodoxy into their language; and in the word _miscreant_, misbeliever, as the synonym of the worst species of reprobate, they left an indelible record of the popular estimate of the followers of John Wycliffe.
[Sidenote: Changes in the mode of presentation to bishop.r.i.c.ks.]
[Sidenote: Right of free election conceded in the great charter to the chapters and the religious houses.]
The Lollard story opens with the disputes between the crown and the see of Rome on the presentation to English benefices. For the hundred and fifty years which succeeded the Conquest, the right of nominating the archbishops, the bishops, and the mitred abbots, had been claimed and exercised by the crown. On the pa.s.sing of the great charter, the church had recovered its liberties, and the privilege of free election had been conceded by a special clause to the clergy. The practice which then became established was in accordance with the general spirit of the English const.i.tution. On the vacancy of a see, the cathedral chapter applied to the crown for a conge d'elire. The application was a form; the consent was invariable. A bishop was then elected by a majority of suffrages; his name was submitted to the metropolitan, and by him to the pope. If the pope signified his approval, the election was complete; consecration followed; and the bishop having been furnished with his bulls of invest.i.ture, was presented to the king, and from him received ”the temporalities” of his see. The mode in which the great abbots were chosen was precisely similar; the superiors of the orders to which the abbeys belonged were the channels of communication with the pope, in the place of the archbishops; but the elections in themselves were free, and were conducted in the same manner. The smaller church benefices, the small monasteries or parish churches, were in the hands of private patrons, lay or ecclesiastical; but in the case of each inst.i.tution a reference was admitted, or was supposed to be admitted, to the court of Rome.
[Sidenote: Privilege of the pope and of the superiors of the religious orders in controlling the elections.]
[Sidenote: A.D. 1306-7.]
There was thus in the pope's hand an authority of an indefinite kind, which it was presumed that his sacred office would forbid him to abuse, but which, however, if he so unfortunately pleased, he might abuse at his discretion. He had absolute power over every nomination to an English benefice; he might refuse his consent till such adequate reasons, material or spiritual, as he considered sufficient to induce him to acquiesce, had been submitted to his consideration. In the case of nominations to the religious houses, the superiors of the various orders residing abroad had equal facilities for obstructiveness; and the consequence of so large a confidence in the purity of the higher orders of the Church became visible in an act of parliament which it was found necessary to pa.s.s in 1306-7.[2]
[Sidenote: Act to prevent the superiors resident abroad from laying taxes on the English houses.]
”Of late,” says this act, ”it has come to the knowledge of the king, by the grievous complaint of the honourable persons, lords, and other n.o.blemen of his realm, that whereas monasteries, priories, and other religious houses were founded to the honour and glory of G.o.d, and the advancement of holy church, by the king and his progenitors, and by the said n.o.blemen and their ancestors; and a very great portion of lands and tenements have been given by them to the said monasteries, priories, and religious houses, and the religious men serving G.o.d in them; to the intent that clerks and laymen might be admitted in such houses, and that sick and feeble folk might be maintained, hospitality, almsgiving, and other charitable deeds might be done, and prayers be said for the souls of the founders and their heirs; the abbots, priors, and governors of the said houses, _and certain aliens their superiors_, as the abbots and priors of the Cistercians, the Premonstrants, the orders of Saint Augustine and of Saint Benedict, and many more of other religions and orders have at their own pleasure set divers heavy, unwonted heavy and importable tallages, payments, and impositions upon every of the said monasteries and houses subject unto them, in England, Ireland, Scotland, and Wales, without the privity of the king and his n.o.bility, contrary to the laws and customs of the said realm; and thereby the number of religious persons being oppressed by such tallages, payments, and impositions, the service of G.o.d is diminished, alms are not given to the poor, the sick, and the feeble; the healths of the living and the souls of the dead be miserably defrauded; hospitality, almsgiving, and other G.o.dly deeds do cease; and so that which in times past was charitably given to G.o.dly uses and to the service of G.o.d, is now converted to an evil end, by permission whereof there groweth great scandal to the people.” To provide against a continuance of these abuses, it was enacted that no ”religious” persons should, under any pretence or form, send out of the kingdom any kind of rent, tax, or tallage; and that ”priors aliens” should not presume to a.s.sess any payment, charge, or other burden whatever upon houses within the realm.[3]
The language of this act was studiously guarded. The pope was not alluded to; the specific methods by which the extortion was practised were not explained; the tax upon presentations to benefices, either having not yet distinguished itself beyond other impositions, or the government trusting that a measure of this general kind might answer the desired end. Lucrative encroachments, however, do not yield so easily to treatment; nearly fifty years after it became necessary to reenact the same statute; and while recapitulating the provisions of it, the parliament found it desirable to point out more specifically the intention with which it was pa.s.sed.
The popes in the interval had absorbed in their turn from the heads of the religious orders, the privileges which by them had been extorted from the affiliated societies. Each English benefice had become the fountain of a rivulet which flowed into the Roman exchequer, or a property to be distributed as the private patronage of the Roman bishop: and the English parliament for the first time found itself in collision with the Father of Christendom.
[Sidenote: Statute of provisors forbidding the attempts of the popes to present to benefices in England.]
”The pope,” says the fourth of the twenty-fifth of Edward III., ”accroaching to himself the signories of the benefices within the realm of England, doth give and grant the same to aliens which did never dwell in England, and to cardinals which could not dwell here, and to others as well aliens as denizens, whereby manifold inconveniences have ensued.” ”Not regarding” the statute of Edward I., he had also continued to present to bishop.r.i.c.ks, abbeys, priories, and other valuable preferments: money in large quant.i.ties was carried out of the realm from the proceeds of these offices, and it was necessary to insist emphatically that the papal nominations should cease. They were made in violation of the law, and were conducted with simony so flagrant that English benefices were sold in the papal courts to any person who would pay for them, whether an Englishman or a stranger. It was therefore decreed that the elections to bishop.r.i.c.ks should be free as in time past, that the rights of patrons should be preserved, and penalties of imprisonment, forfeiture, or outlawry, according to the complexion of the offence, should be attached to all impetration of benefices from Rome by purchase or otherwise.[4]
[Sidenote: The statute fails, and is again enacted in fresh forms.]
If statute law could have touched the evil, these enactments would have been sufficient for the purpose; but the influence of the popes in England was of that subtle kind which was not so readily defeated. The law was still defied, or still evaded; and the struggle continued till the close of the century, the legislature labouring patiently, but ineffectually, to confine with fresh enactments their ingenious adversary.[5]
[Sidenote: The popes threaten the censures of the church.]