Volume II Part 32 (1/2)

But the government knew too well the temper of the clergy to trust to outward compliance, or to feel a.s.sured that they acquiesced at heart either in the separation from Rome, or in the loss of their treasured privileges. The theory of an Anglican Erastianism found favour with some of the higher church dignitaries, and with a section perhaps of secular priests; but the transfer to the crown of the first-fruits, which in their original zeal for a free Church of England the ecclesiastics had hoped to preserve for themselves, the abrupt limitation of the powers of convocation, and the termination of so many time-honoured and lucrative abuses, had interfered with the popularity of a view which might have been otherwise broadly welcomed; and while growing vigorously among the country gentlemen and the middle cla.s.ses in the towns, among the clergy it throve only within the suns.h.i.+ne of the court. The rest were overawed for the moment, and stunned by the suddenness of the blows which had fallen upon them. As far as they thought at all, they believed that the storm would be but of brief duration, that it would pa.s.s away as it had risen, and that for the moment they had only to bend. The modern Englishman looks back upon the time with the light of after history. He has been inured by three centuries of division to the spectacle of a divided church, and sees nothing in it either embarra.s.sing or fearful. The ministers of a faith which had been for fifteen centuries as the seamless vesture of Christ, the priests of a church supposed to be founded on the everlasting rock against which no power could prevail, were in a very different position.

They obeyed for the time the strong hand which was upon them, trusting to the interference of accident or providence. They comforted themselves with the hope that the world would speedily fall back into its old ways, that Christ and the saints would defend the church against sacrilege, and that in the meantime there was no occasion for them to thrust themselves upon voluntary martyrdom.[383] But this position, natural as it was, became difficult to maintain when they were called upon not only themselves to consent to the changes, but to justify their consent to their congregations, and to explain to the people the grounds on which the government had acted. The kingdom was by implication under an interdict,[384] yet the services went on as usual; the king was excommunicated; doubt hung over the succession; the facts were imperfectly known; and the never-resting friars mendicant were busy scattering falsehood and misrepresentation. It was of the highest moment that on all these important matters the mind of the nation should if possible be set at rest; and the clergy, whose loyalty was presumed rather than trusted, furnished the only means by which the government could generally and simultaneously reach the people. The clergy therefore, as we have seen, were called upon for their services; the pope's name was erased from the ma.s.s; books; the statute of appeals and the statute of succession were fixed against the doors of every parish church in England, and the rectors and curates were directed every week in their sermons to explain the meaning of these acts. The bishops were held responsible for the obedience of the clergy; the sheriffs and the magistrates had been directed to keep an eye upon the bishops; and all the machinery of centralization was put in force to compel the fulfilment of a duty which was well known to be unwelcome.

[Sidenote: The order for preaching. Every preacher to deliver one sermon against the papal usurpation.]

[Sidenote: The archbishop's sentence to be held a thing of mere verity, not to be again called in question.]

[Sidenote: The clergy are forbidden to preach upon disputed points of doctrine.]

That as little lat.i.tude as possible might be left for resistance or evasion, books were printed by order of council, and distributed through the hands of the bishops, containing a minute account of the whole proceedings on the divorce, the promises and falsehoods of the pope, the opinions of the European universities, and a general epitome of the course which had been pursued.[385] These were to be read aloud to the congregations; and an order for preaching was at the same time circulated, in which the minuteness of the directions is as remarkable as the prudence of them. Every preacher was to deliver one sermon at least (”and after at his liberty”) on the encroachments and usurpations of the papal power. He was to preach against it, to expose and refute it to the best of his ability, and to declare that it was done away, and might neither be obeyed nor defended further. Again in all places ”where the king's just cause in his matter of matrimony had been detracted, and the incestuous and unjust [matrimony] had been set forth [and extolled],” the clergy were generally directed ”to open and declare the mere verity and justice” of the matter, declaring it ”neither doubtful nor disputable,” but to be a thing of mere verity, and so to be allowed of all men's opinions. They were to relate in detail the pope's conduct, his many declarations in the king's favour; the first decretal, which was withheld by Campeggio, in which he had p.r.o.nounced the marriage with Catherine invalid; his unjust avocation of the cause to Rome; his promises to the King of France; and finally, his engagement at Ma.r.s.eilles to p.r.o.nounce in the King of England's favour, if only he would acknowledge the papal jurisdiction.[386] They were therefore to represent the king's conduct as the just and necessary result of the pope's duplicity. These things the clergy were required to teach, not as matters of doubt and question, but as vital certainties on which no difference of opinion could be tolerated. Finally, there were added a few wholesome admonitions on other subjects, which mark the turning of the tide from Catholic orthodoxy. The clergy were interdicted from indulging any longer in the polemics of theology. ”To keep unity and quietness in the realm it” was ”ordained that no preachers” should ”contend openly in the pulpit one against another, nor uncharitably deprave one another in open audience. If any of them” were ”grieved one with another,” they were to ”complain to the King's Highness or the archbishop or bishop of the diocese.” They were ”purely, sincerely, and justly” to ”preach the scripture and words of Christ, and not mix them with men's inst.i.tutions, or make men believe that the force of G.o.d's law and man's law was the like.” On subjects such as purgatory, wors.h.i.+p of saints and relics, marriage of the clergy, justification by faith, pilgrimages and miracles, they were to keep silence for one whole year, and not to preach at all.[387]

[Sidenote: Difficulty of securing obedience to the order.

Obstructiveness of the bishops,]

[Sidenote: And of the regular clergy.]

These instructions express distinctly the convictions of the government.

It would have been well if the clergy could have accepted them as they were given, and submitted their understandings once for all to statesmen who were wiser than themselves. The majority (of the parish clergy at least) were perhaps outwardly obedient; but the surveillance which the magistrates were directed to exercise proves that the exceptions were expected to be extensive; and in many quarters these precautions themselves were rapidly discovered to be inadequate. Several even of the most trusted among the bishops attempted an obstructive resistance. The clergy of the north were notoriously disobedient. The Archbishop of York was reported to have talked loosely of ”standing against” the king ”unto death.”[388] The Bishop of Durham fell under suspicion, and was summoned to London. His palace was searched and his papers examined in his absence; and the result, though inconclusive, was unsatisfactory.[389]

The religious orders again (especially the monks of such houses as had been implicated with the Nun of Kent) were openly recusant. At the convent at Sion, near Richmond, a certain Father Ricot preached as he was commanded, ”but he made this addition, that he which commanded him to preach should discharge his conscience: and as soon,” it was said, ”as the said Ricot began to declare the king's t.i.tle,” ”nine of the brethren departed from the sermon, contrary to the rule of their religion, to the great slander of the audience.”[390] Indeed it soon became evident that among the regular clergy no compliance whatever was to be looked for; and the agents of the government began to contemplate the possible consequences, with a tenderness not indeed for the prospective sufferers, but for the authorities whom they would so cruelly compel to punish them. ”I am right sorry,” wrote Cromwell's secretary to him, ”to see the foolishness and obstinacy of divers religious men, so addict to the Bishop of Rome and his usurped power, that they contemn counsel as careless men and willing to die. If it were not for the opinion which men had, and some yet have, in their apparent holiness, it made no great matter what became of them, so their souls were saved. And for my part, I would that all such obstinate persons of them as be ready to die for the advancement of the Bishop of Rome's authority were dead indeed by G.o.d's hand, that no man should run wrongfully into obloquy for their just punishment.”[391]

[Sidenote: Powers of the confessional.]

[Sidenote: The clergy in some cases advise their penitents to take the oaths with a mental reservation.]

But the open resistance of mistaken honesty was not the danger which the government most feared. Another peril threatened their authority, deeper and more alarming by far. The clergy possessed in the confessional a power of secret influence over the ma.s.ses of the people, by which they were able at once (if they so pleased) to grant their penitents licences for insincerity, to permit them to perjure themselves under mental reservations, and to encourage them to expiate a venial falsehood by concealed disaffection. The secrets of confession were inviolable.

Anathemas the most fearful forbade their disclosure; and, secured behind this impenetrable s.h.i.+eld, the church might defy the most stringent provisions, and baffle every precaution.

From the nature of the case but little could transpire of the use or the abuse which was made at such a time of so vast a power; but Cromwell, whose especial gift it was to wind himself into the secrets of the clergy, had his sleuth-hounds abroad, whose scent was not easily baffled. The long tyranny of the priesthood produced also its natural retribution in the informations which were too gladly volunteered in the hour of revenge; and more than one singular disclosure remains among the _State Papers_, of language used in this mysterious intercourse. Every man who doubted whether he might lawfully abjure the pope, consulted his priest. Haughton, the Prior of Charterhouse, in all such cases, declared absolutely that the abjuration might not be made.[392] He himself refused openly; and it is likely that he directed others to be as open as himself. But Haughton's advice was as exceptional as his conduct.

Father Forest, of Greenwich, who was a brave man, and afterwards met n.o.bly a cruel death, took the oath to the king as he was required; while he told a penitent that he had abjured the pope in the outward, but not in the inward man, that he ”owed an obedience to the pope which he could not shake off,” and that it was ”his use and practice in confession, to induce men to hold and stick to the old fas.h.i.+on of belief.”[393]

[Sidenote: Confession of John Staunton.]

Here, again, is a conversation which a treacherous penitent revealed to Cromwell; the persons in the dialogue being the informer, John Staunton, and the confessor of Sion Monastery, who had professed the most excessive loyalty to the crown.[394] The informer, it must be allowed, was a good-for-nothing person. He had gone to the confessor, he said, to be shriven, and had commenced his confession with acknowledging ”the seven deadly sins particularly,” ”and next the misspending of his five wits.” As an instance of the latter, he then in detail had confessed to heresy; he could not persuade himself that the priest had power to forgive him. ”Sir,” he professed to have said to the confessor, ”there is one thing in my stomach which grieveth my conscience very sore; and that is by reason of a sermon I heard yesterday of Master Latimer, saying that no man of himself had authority to forgive sins, and that the pope had no more authority than another bishop; and therefore I am in doubt whether I shall have remission of my sins of you or not, and that the pardon is of no effect.”

The priest answered, ”That Latimer is a false knave;” and seven or eight times he called him false knave, and said he was an eretycke. ”Marry, this I heard Latimer say,” the confessor continued, ”that if a man come to confession, and be not sorry for his sins, the priest hath no power to forgive him. I say the pope's pardon is as good as ever it was; and he is the Head of the Universal Church, and so I will take him. Here in England the king and his parliament hath put him out; but be of good comfort, and steadfast in your faith; this thing will not last long, I warrant you. You shall see the world change shortly.”

To this the informer said that he had replied, ”You know how that we be sworn unto the King's Grace, and he hath already abjured the pope.”

[Sidenote: The confessor thinks that an oath loosely made may be loosely broken.]

[Sidenote: Reported advice of Cranmer to the confessor of Sion.]

”As for that,” said the priest, ”an oath loosely made may be loosely broken; and by this example be ye in ease. I had an enemy come unto this church, and one of his friends and mine came unto me and said, 'Sir, I pray you let us go drink with yonder man.' And the said friend maketh such importunate suit unto me to drink with my enemy, that I promise him by my faith that I will go and drink with him; and so indeed doth drink with him. But what then,” said the priest; ”though I go and drink with him upon this promise, trow you that I will forgive him with my heart.

Nay, nay, I warrant you. And so in like wise in this oath concerning the abjuration of the pope. I will not abjure him in my heart,” said the priest, ”for these words were not spoken unto Peter for nought--'I will give thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven'--and the pope is Peter's successor. Of this matter,” said the priest, ”I communed once with the Bishop of Canterbury,[395] and I told the bishop I would pray for the pope as the chief and papal head of Christ's church. And the bishop told me it was the king's pleasure that I should not. I said unto him I would do it; and though I did it not openly, yet would I do it secretly. And he said I might pray for him secretly, but in any wise do it not openly.”[396]

[Sidenote: Maitland the Black Friar, by his science of nigromancy, foretells a counter-revolution.]

Trifles of this kind may seem unimportant; but at the time they were of moment, for their weight was c.u.mulative; and we can only now recover but a few out of many. Such as they are, however, they show the spirit in which the injunctions were received by a section at least of the English clergy. Nor was this the worst. We find language reported, which shows that many among the monks were watching for symptoms of the promised imperial invasion, and the progress of the Irish insurgents. A Doctor Maitland, of the order of Black Friars in London, had been ”heard divers times to say, he trusted to see every man's head that was of the new learning, and the maintainers of them, to stand upon a stake, and Cranmer's to be one of them. The king,” he hoped, might suffer ”a violent and shameful death;” and ”the queen, that mischievous wh.o.r.e, might be brent.” ”He said further, that he knew by his science, which was nigromancy, that all men of the new learning should be suppressed and suffer death, and the _people of the old learning should be set up again by the power of the king's enemies from the parts beyond the sea_.”[397]