Volume II Part 12 (2/2)
[Sidenote: But Europe having declared in his favour in his great matter, ”by the inspiration of the Most High,” he has married another wife.]
[Sidenote: He fears that the pope, who has injured him throughout, may now pa.s.s the censures of the church against him.]
The general features of the case were then recapitulated. His marriage with his brother's wife had been p.r.o.nounced illegal by the princ.i.p.al universities of Europe, by the clergy of the two provinces of the Church of England, by the most learned theologians and canonists, and finally, by the public judgment of the church.[155] He therefore had felt himself free; and, ”by the inspiration of the Most High, had lawfully married another woman.” Furthermore, ”for the common weal and tranquillity of the realm of England, and for the wholesome rule and government of the same, he had caused to be enacted certain statutes and ordinances, by authority of parliaments lawfully called for that purpose.” ”Now, however,” he continued, ”we fearing that his Holyness the Pope ...
having in our said cause treated us far otherwise than either respect for our dignity and desert, or the duty of his own office required at his hands, and having done us many injuries which we now of design do suppress, but which hereafter we shall be ready, should circ.u.mstances so require, to divulge ... may now proceed to acts of further injustice, and heaping wrong on wrong, may p.r.o.nounce the censures and other penalties of the spiritual sword against ourselves, our realm, and subjects, seeking thereby to deprive us of the use of the sacraments, and to cut us off, in the sight of the world, from the unity of the church, to the no slight hurt and injury of our realm and subjects:
[Sidenote: He appeals from any such censures to the next general council.]
”Fearing these things, and desiring to preserve from detriment not only ourselves, our own dignity and estimation, but also our subjects, committed to us by Almighty G.o.d; to keep them in the unity of the Christian faith, and in the wonted partic.i.p.ation in the sacraments; that, when in truth they be not cut off from the integrity of the church, nor can nor will be so cut off in any manner, they may not appear to be so cut off in the estimation of men; [desiring further] to check and hold back our people whom G.o.d has given to us, lest, in the event of such injury, they refuse utterly to obey any longer the Roman Pontiff, as a hard and cruel pastor: [for these causes] and believing, from reasons probable, conjectures likely, and words used to our injury by his Holiness the Pope, which in divers manners have been brought to our ears, that some weighty act may be committed by him or others to the prejudice of ourselves and of our realm;--We, therefore, in behalf of all and every of our subjects, and of all persons adhering to us in this our cause, do make our appeal to the next general council, which shall be lawfully held, in place convenient, with the consent of the Christian princes, and of such others as it may concern--not in contempt of the Holy See, but for defence of the truth of the Gospel, and for the other causes afore rehea.r.s.ed. And we do trust in G.o.d that it shall not be interpreted as a thing ill done on our part, if preferring the salvation of our soul and the relief of our conscience to any mundane respects or favours, we have in this cause regarded more the Divine law than the laws of man, and have thought it rather meet to obey G.o.d than to obey man.”[156]
By the appeal and the causes which were a.s.signed for it, Henry preoccupied the ground of the conflict; he entrenched himself in the ”debatable land” of legal uncertainty; and until his position had been p.r.o.nounced untenable by the general voice of Christendom, any sentence which the pope could issue would have but a doubtful validity. It was, perhaps, but a slight advantage; and the niceties of technical fencing might soon resolve themselves into a question of mere strength; yet, in the opening of great conflicts, it is well, even when a resort to force is inevitable, to throw on the opposing party the responsibility of violence; and Henry had been led, either by a refinement of policy, or by the plain straightforwardness of his intentions, into a situation where he could expect without alarm the unrolling of the future.
[Sidenote: The news of the divorce p.r.o.nounced at Dunstable arrives at Rome.]
[Sidenote: General indignation in the consistory.]
[Sidenote: Bonner is impertinent. The pope threatens to boil him in lead. He writes in terror to England.]
[Sidenote: Henry comforts him.]
The character of that future was likely soon to be decided. The appeal was published on the 29th of June; and as the pope must have heard, by the middle of the month at latest, of the trial and judgment at Dunstable, a few days would bring an account of the manner in which he had received the intelligence. Prior to the arrival of the couriers, Bennet, with the a.s.sistance of Cardinal Tournon, had somewhat soothed down his exasperation. Francis, also, having heard that immediate process was threatened, had written earnestly to deprecate such a measure;[157] and though he took the interference ”very displeasantly,”[158] the pope could not afford to lose, by premature impatience, the fruit of all his labour and diplomacy, and had yielded so far as to promise that nothing of moment should be done. To this state of mind he had been brought one day in the second week of June.
The morning after, Bennet found him ”sore altered.” The news of ”my Lord of Canterbury's proceedings” had arrived the preceding night; and ”his Holiness said that [such] doings were too sore for him to stand still at and do nothing.”[159] It was ”against his duty towards G.o.d and the world to tolerate them.” The imperialist cardinals, impatient before, clamoured that the evil had been caused by the dilatory timidity with which the case had been handled from the first.[160] The consistory sate day after day with closed doors;[161] and even such members of it had before inclined to the English side, joined in the common indignation.
”Some extreme process” was instantly looked for, and the English agents, in their daily interviews with the pope, were forced to listen to language which it was hard to bear with equanimity. Bennet's well-bred courtesy carried him successfully through the difficulty; his companion Bonner was not so fortunate. Bonner's tongue was insolent, and under bad control. He replied to menace by impertinence; and on one occasion was so exasperating, that Clement threatened to burn him alive, or boil him in a caldron of lead.[162] When fairly roused, the old man was dangerous; and the future Bishop of London wrote to England in extremity of alarm. His letter has not been found, but the character of it may be perceived from the rea.s.suring reply of the king. The agents, Henry said, were not to allow themselves to be frightened; they were to go on calmly, with their accustomed diligence and dexterity, disputing the ground from point to point, and trust to him. Their cause was good, and, with G.o.d's help, he would be able to defend them from the malice of their adversaries.[163]
[Sidenote: The consistory cools into prudence.]
[Sidenote: July 12. The pope declares the divorce illegal, and commands Henry to cancel the process. If he fails to obey, he is declared excommunicated.]
Fortunately for Bonner, the pope's pa.s.sion was of brief duration, and the experiment whether Henry's arm could reach to the dungeons of the Vatican remained untried. The more moderate of the cardinals, also, something a.s.suaged the storm; and angry as they all were, the majority still saw the necessity of prudence. In the heat of the irritation, final sentence was to have been p.r.o.nounced upon the entire cause, backed by interdict, excommunication, and the full volume of the papal thunders. At the close of a month's deliberation they resolved to reserve judgment on the original question, and to confine themselves for the present to revenging the insult to the pope by ”my Lord of Canterbury.” Both the king and the archbishop had disobeyed a formal inhibition. On the 12th of July, the pope issued a brief, declaring Cranmer's judgment to have been illegal, the English process to have been null and void, and the king, by his disobedience, to have incurred, _ipso facto_, the threatened penalties of excommunication. Of his clemency he suspended these censures till the close of the following September, in order that time might be allowed to restore the respective parties to their old positions: if within that period the parties were not so restored, the censures would fall.[164] This brief was sent into Flanders, and fixed in the usual place against the door of a church in Dunkirk.
[Sidenote: Henry again urges Francis to decline to meet the pope.]
Henry was prepared for a measure which was no more than natural. He had been prepared for it as a possibility when he married. Both he and Francis must have been prepared for it on their meeting at Calais, when the French king advised him to marry, and promised to support him through the consequences. His own measures had been arranged beforehand, and he had secured himself in technical entrenchments by his appeal.
After the issue of the brief, however, he could allow no English emba.s.sy to compliment Clement by its presence on his visit to France. He ”knew the pope,” as he said. Long experience had shown him that nothing was to be gained by yielding in minor points; and the only chance which now remained of preserving the established order of Christendom, was to terrify the Vatican court into submission by the firmness of his att.i.tude. For the present complications, the court of Rome, not he, was responsible. The pope, with a culpable complacency for the emperor, had shrunk from discharging a duty which his office imposed upon him; and the result had been that the duty was discharged by another. Henry could not blame himself for the consequences of Clement's delinquency.
He rather felt himself wronged in having been driven to so extreme a measure against his will. He resolved, therefore, to recal the emba.s.sy, and once more, though with no great hope that he would be successful, to invite Francis to fulfil his promise, and to unite with himself in expressing his resentment at the pope's conduct.
[Sidenote: August 8.]
His despatch to the Duke of Norfolk on this occasion was the natural sequel of what he had written a few weeks previously. That letter had failed wholly of its effect. The interview was resolved upon for quite other reasons than those which were acknowledged, and therefore was not to be given up. A promise, however, had been extracted, that it should be given up, if in the course of the summer the pope ”innovated anything” against the King of England; and Henry now required, formally, that this engagement should be observed. ”A notorious and notable innovation” had been made, and Francis must either deny his words, or adhere to them. It would be evident to all the world, if the interview took place under the present circ.u.mstances, that the alliance with England was no longer of the importance with him which it had been; that his place in the struggle, when the struggle came, would be found on the papal side.
[Sidenote: The cause at issue is the independence of princes.]
[Sidenote: He has been required to repeal the Act of Appeals,]
[Sidenote: Which is impossible.]
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