Part 36 (1/2)
Homilies, ”made by certain prelates,” were submitted to Convocation, but the publication of them, and of the rationale of rites and ceremonies, was deferred to the reign of Edward VI.[1147] The greatest of all these compositions, the Litany, was, however, sanctioned in 1545.[1148]
[Footnote 1144: _L. and P._, xvi., 819; Burnet, iv., 509.]
[Footnote 1145: _L. and P._, xvi., 978, 1022, 1027.]
[Footnote 1146: _Ibid._, xvi., 1262; xvii., 176.]
[Footnote 1147: See the present writer's _Cranmer_, pp. 166-72.]
[Footnote 1148: _Ibid._, pp. 172-75.]
The King had more to do with the _Necessary Doctrine_, commonly called the ”King's Book” to distinguish it from the Bishops' Book of 1537, for which Henry had declined all responsibility. Henry, indeed, had urged on its revision, he had fully discussed with Cranmer the amendments he thought the book needed, and he had brought the bishops to an agreement, which they had vainly sought for three years by themselves. It was the King who now ”set forth a true and perfect doctrine for all his people”.[1149] So it was fondly styled by (p. 418) his Council. A modern high-churchman[1150] a.s.serts that the King's Book taught higher doctrine than the book which the bishops had drafted six years before, but that ”it was far more liberal and better composed”. Whether its excellences amounted to ”a true and perfect doctrine” or not, it failed of its purpose. The efforts of the old and the new parties were perpetually driving the Church from the _Via Media_, which Henry marked out. On the one hand, we have an act limiting the use of the Bible to gentlemen and their families, and plots to catch Cranmer in the meshes of the Six Articles.[1151] On the other, there were schemes on the part of some of the Council to entrap Gardiner, and we have Cranmer's a.s.sertion[1152] that, in the last months of his reign, the King commanded him to pen a form for the alteration of the Ma.s.s into a Communion, a design obviously to be connected with the fact that, in his irritation at Charles's desertion in 1544, and fear that his neutrality might become active hostility, Henry had once more entered into communication with the Lutheran princes of Germany.[1153]
[Footnote 1149: _L. and P._, XVIII., i., 534.]
[Footnote 1150: Canon Dixon.]
[Footnote 1151: See the present writer's _Cranmer_, pp. 144-60.]
[Footnote 1152: Foxe, on the authority of Cranmer's secretary, Morice, in _Acts and Monuments_, v., 563, 564; it receives some corroboration from Hooper's letter to Bullinger in _Original Letters_, i., 41.]
[Footnote 1153: See Hasenclever, _Die Politik der Schmalkaldener vor Ausbruch des Schmalkaldischen Krieges_, 1901.]
The only ecclesiastical change that went on without shadow of turning was the seizure of Church property by the King; and it is a matter of curious speculation as to where he would have stayed his hand had he lived much longer. The debas.e.m.e.nt of the coinage had proceeded apace during his later years to supply the King's necessities, and, (p. 419) for the same purpose, Parliament, in 1545, granted him all chantries, hospitals and free chapels. That session ended with Henry's last appearance before his faithful Lords and Commons, and the speech he then delivered may be regarded as his last political will and testament.[1154] He spoke, he said, instead of the Lord Chancellor, ”because he is not so able to open and set forth my mind and meaning, and the secrets of my heart, in so plain and ample manner, as I myself am and can do”. He thanked his subjects for their commendation, protested that he was ”both bare and barren” of the virtues a prince ought to have, but rendered to G.o.d ”most humble thanks” for ”such small qualities as He hath indued me withal.... Now, since I find such kindness in your part towards me, I cannot choose but love and favour you; affirming that no prince in the world more favoureth his subjects than I do you, nor no subjects or Commons more love and obey their Sovereign Lord, than I perceive you do; for whose defence my treasure shall not be hidden, nor my person shall not be unadventured. Yet, although I wish you, and you wish me, to be in this perfect love and concord, this friendly amity cannot continue, except both you, my Lords Temporal and my Lords Spiritual, and you, my loving subjects, study and take pains to amend one thing, which surely is amiss and far out of order; to the which I most heartily require you. Which is, that Charity and Concord is not amongst you, but Discord and Dissension beareth rule in every place. Saint Paul saith to the Corinthians, the thirteenth chapter, _Charity is gentle, Charity is not envious,_ _Charity is not proud_, and so forth. Behold then, what love and (p. 420) charity is amongst you, when one calleth another heretic and anabaptist, and he calleth him again papist, hypocrite and Pharisee?
Be these tokens of Charity amongst you? Are these signs of fraternal love amongst you? No, no, I a.s.sure you that this lack of charity among yourselves will be the hindrance and a.s.suaging of the perfect love betwixt us, except this wound be salved and clearly made whole.... I hear daily that you of the Clergy preach one against another, without charity or discretion; some be too stiff in their old _Mumpsimus_, others be too busy and curious in their new _Sumpsimus_. Thus all men almost be in variety and discord, and few or none preach truly and sincerely the Word of G.o.d.... Yet the Temporalty be not clear and unspotted of malice and envy. For you rail on Bishops, speak slanderously of Priests, and rebuke and taunt preachers, both contrary to good order and Christian fraternity. If you know surely that a Bishop or Preacher erreth, or teacheth perverse doctrine, come and declare it to some of our Council, or to us, to whom is committed by G.o.d the high authority to reform such causes and behaviours. And be not judges of yourselves of your fantastical opinions and vain expositions.... I am very sorry to know and to hear how unreverently that most precious jewel, the Word of G.o.d, is disputed, rhymed, sung, and jangled in every Ale-house and Tavern.... And yet I am even as much sorry that the readers of the same follow it in doing so faintly and so coldly. For of this I am sure, that charity was never so faint amongst you, and virtuous and G.o.dly living was never less used, nor G.o.d Himself among Christians was never less reverenced, honoured, (p. 421) or served. Therefore, as I said before, be in charity one with another like brother and brother; love, dread, and serve G.o.d; to which I, as your Supreme Head and Sovereign Lord, exhort and require you; and then I doubt not but that love and league, that I spake of in the beginning, shall never be dissolved or broke betwixt us.”
[Footnote 1154: Hall, _Chron._, pp. 864-66; Foxe, ed. Townsend, v., 534-36; Herbert, ed. 1672, pp.
598-601.]
The bond betwixt Henry and his subjects, which had lasted thirty-eight years, and had survived such strain as has rarely been put on the loyalty of any people, was now to be broken by death. The King was able to make his usual progress in August and September, 1546; from Westminster he went to Hampton Court, thence to Oatlands, Woking and Guildford, and from Guildford to Chobham and Windsor, where he spent the month of October. Early in November he came up to London, staying first at Whitehall and then at Ely Place. From Ely Place he returned, on the 3rd of January, 1547, to Whitehall, which he was never to leave alive.[1155] He is said to have become so unwieldy that he could neither walk nor stand, and mechanical contrivances were used at Windsor and his other palaces for moving the royal person from room to room. His days were numbered and finished, and every one thought of the morrow. A child of nine would reign, but who should rule? Hertford or Norfolk? The party of reform or that of reaction? Henry had apparently decided that neither should dominate the other, and designed a balance of parties in the council he named for his child-successor.[1156]
[Footnote 1155: This itinerary is worked out from the _Acts of the Privy Council_, ed. Dasent, vol.
i.]
[Footnote 1156: This is the usual view, but it is a somewhat doubtful inference. Henry's one object was the maintenance of order and his own power; he would never have set himself against the nation as a whole, and there are indications that at the end of his reign he was preparing to accept the necessity of further changes. The fall of the Howards was due to the fear that they would cause trouble in the coming minority of Edward VI. Few details are known of the party struggle in the Council in the autumn of 1546, and they come from Selve's _Correspondance_ and the new volume (1904) of the _Spanish Calendar_ (1545-47). These should be compared with Foxe, vol. v.]
Suddenly the balance upset. On the 12th of December, 1546, (p. 422) Norfolk and his son, the Earl of Surrey, were arrested for treason and sent to the Tower. Endowed with great poetic gifts, Surrey had even greater defects of character. Nine years before he had been known as ”the most foolish proud boy in England”.[1157] Twice he had been committed to prison by the Council for roaming the streets of the city at night and breaking the citizens' windows,[1158] offences venial in the exuberance of youth, but highly unbecoming in a man who was nearly thirty, who aspired to high place in the councils of the realm, and who despised most of his colleagues as upstarts. His enmity was specially directed against the Prince's uncles, the Seymours. Hertford had twice been called in to retrieve Surrey's military blunders.
Surrey made improper advances to Hertford's wife, but repudiated with scorn his father's suggestion for a marriage alliance between the two families.[1159] His sister testified that he had advised her to become the King's mistress, with a view to advancing the Howard interests.
Who, he asked, should be Protector, in case the King died, but his father? He quartered the royal arms with his own, in spite of the (p. 423) heralds' prohibition. This at once roused Henry's suspicions; he knew that, years before, Norfolk had been suggested as a possible claimant to the throne, and that a marriage had been proposed between Surrey and the Princess Mary.
[Footnote 1157: _L. and P._, XIV., ii., 141.]
[Footnote 1158: _Acts of the Privy Council_, i., 104; Bapst, _Deux Gentilshommes poetes a la cour d'Henri VIII._, p. 269.]
[Footnote 1159: See the present writer in _D.N.B., s.v._ ”Seymour, Edward”; _cf._ Herbert, pp.
625-33. G.F. Nott in his life of Surrey prefixed to his edition of the poet's works takes too favourable a view of his conduct.]