Volume III Part 18 (2/2)
to worm out secrets--treachery undermined by greater treachery; and, at last, expectations but half gratified, a victory left but half gained.
The two princes refused to see each other. They communicated only through the Pope. In the end, terms of actual peace could not be agreed upon. The conferences closed with the signature of a general truce, to last for ten years. One marked consolation only the Pope obtained.
Notwithstanding the many promises, Henry's name was not so much as mentioned by the Emperor. He was left out, as Wyatt expressed it, ”at the cart's tail.” Against him the Pope remained free to intrigue and the princes free to act, could Pole or his master prevail upon them. The secret history of the proceedings cannot be traced in this place, if indeed the materials exist which allow them to be traced satisfactorily. With infinite comfort, however, in the midst of the diplomatic trickeries, we discover one little island of genuine life on which to rest for a few moments,--a group, distinctly visible, of English flesh and blood existences.
Henry, unable, even after the Nice meeting had been agreed upon, to relinquish his hopes of inducing other princes to imitate his policy towards Rome, was determined, notwithstanding avowals of reluctance on the part of Charles, that his arguments should have a hearing; and, as the instrument of persuasion, he had selected the facile and voluble Dr.
Bonner. Charles was on his way to the congress when the appointment was resolved upon.
[Sidenote: Mission of Dr. Bonner to convert the Emperor. The Emperor will not argue with him,]
[Sidenote: And Dr. Bonner becomes Wyatt's guest.]
Bonner crossed France to meet him; but the Emperor, either distrustful of his ability to cope with so skilful a polemic, or too busy to be trifled with, declined resolutely to have anything to do with him.
Bonner was thus thrown upon Wyatt's hospitality, and was received by him at Villa Franca, where, for convenience and economy, the English emba.s.sy had secured apartments remote from the heat and crowd in Nice itself.
Sir John Mason, Mr. Blage, and other friends of the amba.s.sadors, were of the party. The future Bishop of London, it seems, though accepted as their guest, was not admitted to their intimacy; and, being set aside in his own special functions, he determined to console himself in a solid and substantial manner for the slight which had been cast upon him. In an evil hour for himself, three years after, he tried to revenge himself on Wyatt's coldness by accusations of loose living, and other calumnies. Wyatt, after briefly disposing of the charges against his own actions, retorted with a sketch of Bonner's.
[Sidenote: How the future Bishop of London amused himself at Nice.]
”Come, now, my Lord of London,” he said, ”what is my abominable and vicious living? Do ye know it, or have ye heard it? I grant I do not profess chast.i.ty--but yet I use not abomination. If ye know it, tell with whom and when. If ye heard it, who is your author? Have you seen me have any harlot in my house while you were in my company? Did you ever see a woman so much as dine or sup at my table? None but, for your pleasure, the woman that was in the galley--which, I a.s.sure you, may be well seen--for, before you came, neither she nor any other woman came above the mast; but because the gentlemen took pleasure to see you entertain her, therefore they made her dine and sup with you. And they liked well your looks--your carving to Madonna--your drinking to her--and your playing under the table. Ask Mason--ask Blage--ask Wolf that was my steward. They can tell how the gentlemen marked it and talked of it. It was play to them, the keeping your bottles, that no man might drink of them but yourself, and that the little fat priest was a jolly morsel for the signora. This was their talk. It was not my device.
Ask others whether I do lie.”[347]
Such was Bonner. The fame, or infamy, which he earned for himself in later years condemns his minor vices to perpetual memory; or perhaps it is a relief to find that he was linked to mankind by partic.i.p.ating in their more venial frailties.
Leaving Nice, with its sunny waters, and intrigues, and dissipations, we return to England.
[Sidenote: Demolition of the religious houses.]
[Sidenote: Mutinous condition of the houses unsuppressed.]
[Sidenote: Voluntary surrenders become frequent. The friars of St.
Francis, in Stamford, consider that Christian living does not consist in ducking and becking.]
Here the tide, which had been checked for awhile by the rebellion, was again in full flow. The abbeys within the compa.s.s of the act had fallen, or were rapidly falling. Among these the demolition was going actively forward. Among the larger houses fresh investigations were bringing secrets into light which would soon compel a larger measure of destruction. The restoration of discipline, which had been hoped for, was found impossible. Monks who had been saturated with habits of self-indulgence, mutinied and became unmanageable when confined within the convent walls.[348] Abbots in the confidence of the government were accused as heretics. Catholic abbots were denounced as traitors.
Countless letters lie among the State Papers, indicating in a thousand ways that the last hour of monasticism was approaching; that by no care of government, no efforts to put back the clock of time, could their sickly vitality be longer sustained. Everywhere, as if conscious that their days were numbered, the fraternities were preparing for evil days by disposing of their relics,[349] secreting or selling their plate and jewels, cutting down the timber on the estates, using in all directions their last opportunity of racking out their properties. Many, either from a hope of making terms for themselves, or from an honest sense that they were unfit to continue, declared voluntarily that they would burden the earth no longer, and voted their own dissolution. ”We do profoundly consider,” said the warden and friars of St. Francis in Stamford, ”that the perfection of a Christian living doth not consist in douce ceremonies, wearing of a grey coat, disguising ourselves after strange fas.h.i.+ons, ducking and becking, girding ourselves with a girdle of knots, wherein we have been misled in times past; but the very true way to please G.o.d, and to live like Christian men without hypocrisy or feigned dissimulation, is sincerely declared unto us by our master Christ, his Evangelists and Apostles. Being minded, therefore, to follow the same, conforming ourselves unto the will and pleasure of our Supreme Head under G.o.d in earth, and not to follow henceforth superst.i.tious traditions, we do, with mutual a.s.sent and consent, surrender and yield up all our said house, with all its lands and tenements, beseeching the king's good grace to dispose of us as shall best stand with his most gracious pleasure.”[350]
[Sidenote: The prior and convent of St. Andrews confess to carnal living.]
”We,” said the prior and convent of St. Andrews, ”called religious persons, taking on us the habit and outward vesture of our rule, only to the intent to lead our lives in idle quietness, and not in virtuous exercise, in a stately estimation, and not in obedient humility, have, under the shadow of the said rule, vainly, detestably, and unG.o.dly devoured the yearly revenues of our possessions in continual ingurgitations and farcings of our bodies, and other supporters of our voluptuous and carnal appet.i.tes, to the manifest subversion of devotion and cleanness of living, and to the most notable slander of Christ's holy Evangile, withdrawing from the minds of his Grace's subjects the truth and comfort which they ought to have by the faith of Christ, and also the honour due to the glorious majesty of G.o.d Almighty, stirring them with persuasions, engines, and policy to dead images and counterfeit relics for our d.a.m.nable lucre; which our horrible abominations and long-covered hypocrisy, we revolving daily, and pondering in our sorrowful hearts, constrained by the anguish of our consciences, with hearts most contrite and repentant, do lamentably crave his Highness' most gracious pardon,”--they also submitting and surrendering their house.[351]
[Sidenote: General investigation into the pretensions of images and relics.]
[Sidenote: The blood of Hales.]
[Sidenote: Our Lady's taper of Cardigan.]
Six years had pa.s.sed since four brave Suffolk peasants had burnt the rood at Dovercourt; and for their reward had received a gallows and a rope. The high powers of state were stepping now along the road which these men had pioneered, discovering, after all, that the road was the right road, and that the reward had been altogether an unjust one. The ”materials” of monastic religion were the real or counterfeit relics of real or counterfeit saints, and images of Christ or the Virgin, supposed to work miraculous cures upon pilgrims, and not supposed, but ascertained, to bring in a pleasant and abundant revenue to their happy possessors. A special investigation into the nature of these objects of popular devotion was now ordered, with results which more than any other exposure disenchanted the people with superst.i.tion, and converted their faith into an equally pa.s.sionate iconoclasm. At Hales in Worcesters.h.i.+re was a phial of blood, as famous for its powers and properties as the blood of St. Januarius at Naples. The phial was opened by the visitors in the presence of an awe-struck mult.i.tude. No miracle punished the impiety. The mysterious substance was handled by profane fingers, and was found to be a mere innocent gum, and not blood at all, adequate to work no miracle either to a.s.sist its wors.h.i.+ppers or avenge its violation.[352] Another rare treasure was preserved at Cardigan. The story of our Lady's taper there has a picturesque wildness, of which later ages may admire the legendary beauty, being relieved by three centuries of incredulity from the necessity of raising harsh alternatives of truth or falsehood. An image of the Virgin had been found, it was said, standing at the mouth of the Tivy river, with an infant Christ in her lap, and the taper in her hand burning. She was carried to Christ Church, in Cardigan, but ”would not tarry there.” She returned again and again to the spot where she was first found; and a chapel was at last built there to receive and shelter her. In this chapel she remained for nine years, the taper burning, yet not consuming, till some rash Welshman swore an oath by her, and broke it; and the taper at once went out, and never could be kindled again. The visitors had no leisure for sentiment. The image was torn from its shrine. The taper was found to be a piece of painted wood, and on experiment was proved submissive to a last conflagration.[353]
<script>