Part 33 (2/2)

Geographically, the country was about equally divided between Catholicism and Protestantism. The northwestern half clung to the ancient faith; the southeastern half, including most of the large cities where Wycliffe's doctrines had formerly prevailed was favorable to the Reformation.

On the one hand, Henry prohibited the Lutheran or Protestant doctrine (S340); on the other, he caused the Bible to be translated (SS254, 339), and ordered a copy to be chained to a desk in every parish church in England (1538); but though all persons might now freely read the Scriptures, no one but the clergy was allowed to interpret them.

Later in his reign, the King became alarmed at the spread of discussion about religious subjects, and prohibited the reading of the Bible by the ”lower sort of people.”

358. Henry versus Treason.

Men now found themselves in a strange and cruel delimma. If it was dangerous to believe too much, it was equally dangerous to believe too little. Traitor and heretic were dragged to execution on the same hurdle; for Henry burned as heretics those who declared their belief in Protestantism, and hanged or beheaded, as traitors, those who acknowledged the authority of the Pope and denied the supremacy of the King (S349).

Thus Anne Askew, a young and beautiful woman, was nearly wrenched asunder on the rack, in the hope of making her implicate the Queen in her heresy. She was afterward burned because she insisted that the bread and wine used in the communion service seemed to her to be simply bread and wine, and not in any sense the actual body and blood of Christ, as the King's statute of the Six Articles (S357) solemnly declared.

On the other hand, the aged Countess of Salisbury suffered for treason; but with a spirit matching the King's, she refused to kneel at the block, and told the executioner he must get her gray head off as best he could.

359. Henry's Death.

But the time was at hand when Henry was to cease his hangings, beheadings, and marriages. Worn out with debauchery, he died at the age of fifty-six, a loathsome, unwieldy, and helpless ma.s.s of corruption. In his will he left a large sum of money to pay for perpetual prayers for the repose of his soul. Sir Walter Raleigh said of him, ”If all the pictures and patterns of a merciless prince were lost in the world, they might all again be painted to the life out of the story of this king.”

It may be well to remember this, and along with it this other saying of one of the ablest writers on English const.i.tutional history, that ”the world owes some of tis greatest debts to men from whose memory it recoils.”[1] The obligation it is under to Henry VIII is that through his influence--no matter what the motive--England was lifted up out of the old medieval ruts, and placed squarely and securely on the new highway of national progress.

[1] W. Stubbs's ”Const.i.tutional History of England.”

360. Summary.

In this reign we find that though England lost much of her former political freedom, yet she gained that order and peace which came from the iron hand of absolute power. Next, from the destruction of the monasteries, and the sale or gift of their lands to favorites of the King, three results ensued:

1. A new n.o.bility was in great measure created, dependent on the Crown.

2. The House of Lords was made less powerful by the removal of the abbots who had had seats in it.

3. Pauperism and distress were temporarily increased.

4. Finally, England completely severed her connection with the Pope, and established for the first time an independent National Church, having the King as its head.

Edward VI--1547-1553

361. Bad Government; Seizure of Unenclosed Lands; High Rents; Latimer's Sermon.

Edward, son of Henry VIII by Jane Seymour (S355), died at sixteen. In the first part of his reign of six years the goverment was managed by his uncle, the Duke of Somerset, an extreme Protestant, whose intentions were good, but who lacked practical judgement. During the latter part of his life Edward fell under the control of the Duke of Northumberland, who was the head of a band of scheming and profligate men.

They, with other n.o.bles, seized the unenclosed lands of the country and fenced them in for sheep pastures, thus driving into beggary many who had formerly got a good part of their living from these commons.

At the same time farm rents rose in somee cases ten and even twenty fold,[1] depriving thousands of the means of subsistence, and reducing to poverty many who had been in comfortable circ.u.mstances.

[1] This was oweing to the greed for land on the part of the mercantile cla.s.ses, who had now acquired wealth, and wished to become landed proprietors. See Froude's ”England.”

The bitter complaints of the sufferers found expression in Bishop Latimer's outspoken sermon, preached before King Edward, in which he said: ”My father was a yeoman [small farmer], and had no lands of his own, only he had a farm of three or four pounds [rent] by year, and hereupon tilled so much as kept half a dozen men; he had walk [pasture] for a hundred sheep, and my mother milked thirty kine.

”He was able and did find the King a harness [suit of armor] with himself and his horse, until he came to the place where he should receive the King's wages. I can remember that I buckled his harness when he went into Blackheath Field. He kept me to school, or else I had not been able to have preached before the King's majesty now. He married my sisters with five pounds [dower] ... apiece. He kept hospitality for his poor neighbors, and some alms he gave to the poor.

”And all this he did off the said farm, where he that now hath it payeth sixteen pounds a year or more, and is not able to do anything for his prince, for himself, nor for his children, or give a cup of drink to the poor.” But as Latimer patheticall said, ”Let the preacher preach till his tongue be worn to the stumps, nothing is amended.”[1]

[1] Latimer's first sermon before King Edward VI, 8th of March, 1549.

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