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KINGLY SUPREMACY IN SPIRITUAL THINGS.

necessary to the cause of religious liberty, while England remained Catholic, or as even just; while it seems very certain that for a king to take upon himself the care of spiritual things, was likely to be attended by as many evils, and open to as many inherent objections as the former state of things had been when the Pope claimed temporal power. But that brings one to the connection of Church and Statea question which even in our own time remains unsolved, and will require for its due settlement, much wise thought, and much Christian forbearance and charity on all sides. But, in any case, men like Cromwell must have seen, and men like Cranmer doubtless were glad to see, that the inconsistency of Henry's position as a Catholic, denying the spiritual supremacy of his own head, was only to be got rid of by ceasing to be Catholic; and so another motive-power was added to the mighty progress of the Reformation.

Surely matters were smooth at last? It was necessary of course to tell all to the dutiful House of Commons, and it was even thought advisable to dismiss them to their homes, that they might make known unto the country how just and righteous was the King's policy. And when they returned there were some other matters that it was thought it would be well to finish out of hand before the King would yet venture the last step, and take his costly prize. There was still (1532) a considerable payment made to the Pope, under the name of first-fruits; that was now abolished. The clergy had still a sort of independent power in their Convocation; and that was annexed to the King. Lastly, Henry, before irrevocably committing himself, strove to bind still more closely the friendly ties that existed betwixt himself and Francis I. of France, and to that end proposed a meeting. He wanted to take his darling Anne Bullen with him, and so proposed to Francis an equivalent privilege that he should bring his favourite mistress too. The French King declined that part of the proposition; and, probably foreseeing the future of Anne Bullen, was wise enough to show to her a greater delicacy than her own lover and intended husband exhibited. At this meeting Francis promised to do his best to persuade the Pope to consent to the divorce, for Henry still hankered after the sanction that had apparently become of no sort of importance to him. But he could and would wait no longer. Between midnight and early morning, of a certain day in January, 1533, Dr. Lee, one of the royal chaplains, was summoned to celebrate Mass at Whitehall. To his astonishment he was led along through passages up to a remote garret, where he pre

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sently found himself surrounded by a small group of persons, who were no other than King Henry VIII. and the Lady Anne Bullen, the former attended by two grooms of the royal bedchamber, the latter by a train-bearer. It did not need words to tell the chaplain that this was no assemblage for Mass, but in fact the marriage party that England had looked for so long. What was he to do? No opposition evidently was expected from him; and perhaps that very fact weakened what courage or determination he might have otherwise been prepared to show. Still it is said, that Henry was obliged to invent a lie, and assure Dr. Lee that the Pope had consented, before he would perform the ceremony. As soon as it was over, the party separated, in a silence and secrecy that well accorded with the time-a little before daylight. It is a significant fact, that the previous marriage had not been formally annulled even by such tribunals as the King himself thought proper to create for the purpose.

Cranmer was raised to the see of Canterbury; and with the mean cunning that Henry so often exhibited, in alternation with a cruel boldness such as the world has seldom seen, the Archbishop was required to take the usual oaths to the Pope, and obtain the usual sanction from him, in order that the very sanction thus obtained might make more potential the measures that Cranmer was now to aid in for the utter destruction of the Papal authority in England. That sanction obtained, Parliament was made to prohibit for ever all appeals to Rome, and to declare Katharine was no longer Queen, but only the dowager Princess of Wales (as the wife of Henry's deceased brother, the Prince of Wales); while Cranmer proceeded to cite the unfortunate lady before a final court, but which she did not know was final. Refusing to come, she was pronounced contumax; and then for fifteen days was the mockery of a citation gone through with the same result, till on the 23rd Cranmer pronounced the marriage null and invalid, and five days later announced that Henry was already legally married; and he sanctioned that marriage with his judicial and pastoral authority.

At last then Henry was at the height of bliss, or ought to have been so, considering what tremendous agencies he had set working to attain the desired goal. But there were bitter drops in the cup, and one cannot repress a certain satisfaction that it was so; for if such great criminals, who are above all ordinary and human justice, do not suffer from God's justice, as manifested in the natural results that spring up in their own body and mind from these very outrages on nature; if

P

210

BITTER DROPS IN THE ROYAL CUP.

this were not so, one might despair of the future, and become reckless indeed as to the present. These are but some of the poison drops Henry had to taste:-The Pope solemnly annulled Cranmer's judgment, and excommunicated the royal pair; and public opinion went very much with the former and not with the latter. "Nan Bullen," so the people called her, became as odious from one end of the country to the other, as Katharine became more and more dear to the national heart for her unmerited sufferings. And there were men who dared even to stand before the mighty King himself, face to face, and tell him what they thought. That Friars were not all of them men such as Wycliffe abhorred, and Chaucer held up to good-humoured satire, let the following incident prove:-One Peto, a simple, devout man, preached before the King at Greenwich, and took for his text the story of Ahab, saying, "Even where the dogs licked the blood of Naboth, even there shall the dogs lick thy blood, O king!" He then spoke of those who had deceived the King, and continued: "I am Micheas [Micaiah] whom thou wilt hate, because I must tell thee truly that this marriage is unlawful; and I know I shall eat the bread of affliction and drink the water of sorrow, yet because our Lord hath put it into my mouth, I must speak of it." Perhaps there is a spell in courage like this akin to the power said to be possessed by the eye when fixed steadily on wild animals; at all events Henry did not viciously spring upon and rend him, but contented himself with having next Sunday a very different kind of preacher, one Dr. Curwen, who abused poor Peto with all the foulest epithets he could collect, and ended by saying, “I speak to thee, Peto, . . . but now thou art not to be found, being fled for fear and shame," etc. But a monk starts up in the wood-loft, one Elstow, and tells the sycophant preacher that he knows well that Peto is gone to a council at Canterbury, whither he had been ordered to go, and then challenged Curwen, offering at the risk of his life to prove the truth of all Peto had said. "I challenge thee before God and all equal judges; even unto thee, Curwen, I say it, which art one of the four hundred prophets into whom the spirit of lying is entered, and seekest by adultery to establish succession, betraying the King into endless perdition, more for thine own vainglory and hope of promotion than for the discharge of thy clogged conscience and the King's salvation.” So went on the brave friar, till Henry himself shouted out a vehement command that he should hold his peace. Next day the two friars were brought before a council and severely rebuked. The Earl of Essex said

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they deserved to be thrown in a sack into the Thames. One of them, Elstow, smiled in reply, and said with a grand spirit of heroism, that ought never to be forgotten while English history exists :-"Threaten these things to rich and dainty folk, which are clothed in purple and fare deliciously, and have their chiefest hope in this world, for we heed them not; but are joyful that for the discharge of our duties we are driven hence: and thanks to God, we know the way to heaven to be as ready by water as by land, and therefore care not which way we go." The friars were banished shortly after; while Dr. Curwen was made a bishop. That they were only banished, was probably owing to Henry's secret desire to be yet reconciled in some fashion to the Pope. He had obtained all he really wanted; and if the Papacy had shown some of that subtle worldly-wise policy now which it exhibited on so many other occasions, Henry would have stopped short, and tried hard, by the aid of the sword and the stake, to make every one else do the same. But his advisers, Cranmer and Cromwell, knew well how inestimable an opportunity was now afforded for the growth of a reformed religion; and both, though probably from different motives, considered it their bounden duty to seize that opportunity, and make the very most of it. Cranmer, though ever temporizing, was not the less ever advancing toward a deeper and higher conviction of the truth of the new faith; and Cromwell's sagacious, statesman-like eye, not only saw the danger of going back, on account of the possible sacrifices of religious and civil liberty that would result from the restoration of the Papal influence in this country, but he may even have seen, from a variety of indications, that such retrogression was not even possible. There is a kind of freemasonry of the intellect, which makes superior men readily, and almost silently, understand each other's mind and purposes; and it is more than probable that Cromwell knew there was a wide-spread and deeply-rooted conviction in the minds of all the moving spirits of the time that a change was impending was inevitable; and it is such convictions, when held by such men, that put the finishing touch to the mightiest resolves of state policy. If we study the events of this critical period in Henry's reign, we shall perceive a decision, an exactitude, and a promptitude of purpose, that could only spring from men who knew perfectly well what they wanted, and how to shape events so as to produce the desired results. There is, for instance, a kind of dramatic felicity and effect perceivable in the simultaneous execution of two sets of measures, by

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LAST WORDS OF THE POPE AND THE PARLIAMENT.

two great bodies, one composed of the pillars of the Romish Church, sitting at Rome, the other being the Parliament of England, assembled at Westminster, and both in March, 1534. By the former it was decided that the King's marriage with Katharine was valid and indissoluble (a sort of last word of the Church); and by the latter (as their last word, in practical reply) a series of bills was carried, which proposed to finally abolish the Papal power in England.

If we have found it impossible, while following the current of events, to avoid bearing harshly on men whose names and memories are still dear to our Catholic brethren, we trust we have more than once shown that it is not in any way owing to our desire to attack the Catholic religion itself, or to lessen the influence which belongs so very justly to many of its most eminent votaries. If we had done so, we should feel rebuked in the presence of the illustrious shade that now rises before us, bearing the name and lineaments of