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usurpations,

of abuses,

changes, though they had no desire to lose anything of the Catholic Faith, or to set up any new religion. They were English Churchmen, not Roman Churchmen, and may well be a opposed to Papal called the "Anglicans " or English Party. They were Catholics quite as truly as were those who continued to acknowledge the Pope's authority. The real point of difference was that the "Anglicans " approved of throwing off papal dominion, the Conservatives (who are often, wrongly, called Catholics) desired to retain it. It had always been disliked in England, it was quite unscriptural, and most of the b,and desired reform abuses which existed were due to it. The discreditable state of Church Courts was due largely to the system of Appeals to Rome; the lax condition of Monks and Friars was the result of their being free from the supervision of their Bishops and answerable to the Pope only. Generally speaking, the Parish Priests were doing their duty, and the main body of the nation desired to retain Catholic Faith. Thus the Church of England c, succeeded in remaining Catholic, both in doctrine and in practice, while reforming abuses and freeing herself from papal authority. It was this third party, comprising the main body of the nation, conservative yet reforming, protesting against papal usurpations yet Catholic in doctrine and practice, which both supported and restrained the more ardent spirits who forced the movement of reform. These latter had a brief spell of unlimited power in the reign of Edward VI., but their day was not yet.

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but not the loss of

Catholic Faith and practice.

Henry VIII. = freedom from Рарасу.

With doctrinal changes the King would have nothing to do: IV. Reformation in he remained Defender of the Faith" to the end of his life. His one and only object was to deprive the Pope of his official power in England, at first because it stood in the way of the Divorce, though he soon desired to exercise it himself. At first most men looked with suspicion on his movements. (i.) The Reformation But in 1529 a Parliament was elected which proved willing to carry out his wishes. Henry fully realised the importance of having at any rate the show of Public Opinion on his side 287; Swift 3040; Dixon i.) when attacking so great and venerable a power as the Papacy. a, Its value to Henry It should be borne in mind that the Reformation Parliament,

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Parliament, 1529 -36.

(Stubbs' Lectures,

as it is called, was by no means necessarily representative of the b, Its character. country. There was a form of election, but usually in those days the King directed who was to be elected. The process was very similar to the method of electing Bishops by Congè d'elire. In this Parliament more than half the members were royal officials, and it was particularly open to royal influence. Henry therefore kept it as long as possible. In the whole reign of 38 years only nine Parliaments were elected, but this one lasted for nearly seven years. In the end it was found to have abolished Papal authority in England, and to have set up instead a royal supremacy.

C,

Its work.

(i.) Reforms.

1. Financial.

2. Clergy fined.

3. Act against Annates, 1532.

(Gairdner's Hist. 145.)

Henry was always short of money, and the first work of the Reformation Parliament was to provide him with supplies. This was done by a large reform of the fees payable in connection with wills-then under the control of the Ecclesiastical Courts and their transference to the King. Payments which were made when a priest held more than one living were also transferred from the Pope to the King. Both these measures were popular with the people and, of course, profitable to the King.

But the sums which they brought to the royal treasury were comparatively small, and Henry having confiscated Wolsey's estates on the plea that he had accepted the office of Legate now fined the Clergy a huge sum for having acknowledged him as Legate.

Henry hoped these measures would influence the Pope, but as he still stood firm against the Divorce an Act against Annates was introduced, holding out the threat of depriving him of the large revenue which these annual payments from the Clergy brought him. This having proved useless, Henry determined to have the question of the Divorce decided in England. Cranmer, the new Archbishop, was ready to give sentence in his favour, and, to prevent the carrying out the case to Rome, for Katharine would be sure to appeal from 4. Act of Appeals, Archbishop to Pope, an Act was passed absolutely forbidding such Appeals. It was then that Cranmer gave his decision. So far the Parliament could be described as a Reforming (ii.) Revolutionary Parliament. The changes it had made were not, in themselves, Acts. bad, and they met with general acceptance.

1533.

1. Act of Supremacy 1534, embodies

Clergy,"

But it went further, and began to be revolutionary. The Submission of Clergy in their Convocation had been forced, soon after their with important punishment for owning Wolsey's legatine authority, to draw "" up a submission" to the King, acknowledging his supreme power. It is important to notice two points:

difference.

(Wakeman 210-211,

214-215.)

(Gairdner's Hist. 108, 122.)

a, "Supreme Head" as defined by Clergy.

(Gairdner's Hist. 153-155.)

1. They were careful to add the qualifying words, that he
was Supreme Head of the English Church "so far as
the law of Christ will allow," lest they should seem to
set up any earthly authority in the place of Christ.
2. Henry himself, always a precise theologian, personally
repudiated any claim to spiritual powers.

b, As defined in Act. However when the "Submission of the Clergy" was embodied in an Act of Parliament, called the Act of Supremacy, the qualifying words were absent, and the royal supremacy was not only stated in a form which was offensive, if not blasphemous, but was also open to misconstruction and misuse. The c, Legality of Canons Clergy were also deprived of all power of making new regulato depend on tions for themselves (called Canons) without the consent of the King and Parliament. They were therefore powerless to destroy abuses or to introduce improvements, and this evil

Royal assent.

still continues. Henceforth, as one of the Foreign Ambassadors in England noted, they had less power than the Shoemakers, who at least could make regulations for their own craft. When therefore people complain about abuses in the Church and wonder why the Clergy do not reform them, they should remember that Parliament itself took away, and still withholds, their power of doing this.

An Act of Succession which had been passed at nearly the 2. Act of Succession same time, declared

1. Henry's marriage with Katharine had been unlawful;
2. Anne Boleyn's daughter Elizabeth, not Katharine's

1534.

and Fisher.

(Wakeman 236-238.)

149-153, 159-164)

daughter Mary, was the lawful successor to the throne. It also required an Oath to be taken approving of the Act. Execution of More More, the late Chancellor, the wisest and noblest Englishman of the day, and Fisher, Bishop of Rochester, the most learned of the Bishops, were unable to declare their belief in the illegality of Henry's first marriage, though, as law-abiding (Gairdner's Hist. citizens, they were willing to acknowledge as heir anyone properly appointed by Parliament. They were in consequence executed on the charge of treason. The old Bishop took his New Testament with him to the scaffold, and opened it as he knelt to receive the fatal blow. He chanced upon the words This is life eternal, to know Thee, the only true God." More's good-humoured dignity did not fail him even in his last moment. As the headsman raised his axe he carefully moved his long beard from the block. "Pity that should be cut" he murmured that has never committed treason." Many others died under this Act, many of them being executed with much barbarity and horror.

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66

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Vicar-General.

(Green 341-48;

3. Second Act of Annates, 1534.

Congé d'elire.

The King had now taken to himself most of the power which Crumwell made the Pope had exercised. He made the unscrupulous Crumwell his Vicar-General, with wide authority in ecclesiastical matters such as the Papal Legates had held; he also took the Annates Froude i. 583-589.) in 1534. They had been described as sinful and wrong in the previous Act, but this did not deter Henry from receiving them himself; and the sovereigns of England retained them, most unjustly, till Queen Anne restored them to the Church in what is still called Queen Anne's Bounty." By the same Act it was ordered that bishops should be elected by Congè d'elire i.e. the cathedral body receives from the King leave to elect the bishop; but in practice the sovereign always names, and always has named, the person on whom the choice is to fall. The Pope still retained a strong garrison in England in the (i.) Dissolution ies inmates of the Religious Houses. These were to a large extent outside the authority of the Bishops, and they had grown rich and lazy. Their riches were an irresistible attraction to Henry; their laxity gave a good excuse for attacking them; championship of the Pope made their destruction a necessity. tion ch.4.)

their

Monasteries.

(Wakeman 168-182.

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240-242; Gasquet's H. VIII.

and

Eng. Monasteries';
Swift 41-58;
Dixon ii.;
Perry's 'Reforma-

1. Causes:

a, Supporters of

A series of vile charges was brought against them by vile Pope's authority. agents appointed by Crumwell for this purpose. The charges

b, wealthy.

c, their decline.

d, gross charges

against them. (Gairdner's Hist. 164-166.)

were improbable in themselves and were never proved; and the known character of the accusers, Layton, Legh, and others, prevents their evidence from being trusted.

The Monks certainly had fallen below the high ideals of their founders and first members. But idleness and worldliness were their worst faults and these could have been remedied by proper supervision. No attempt was made to provide this, and in the end the whole monastic system was swept away-in spite of its splendid past, and in spite of the incalculable debt which English Christianity and learning owed to it. The unproved charges formed a sufficient excuse for confiscating the property of the smaller Houses, i.e., those whose income 2. Lesser Monaster- fell below £200 a year (as though merit could be measured by money-value), but it was acknowledged in the Act that in the greater Houses “religion is, thanks be to God, right well kept and observed."

ies confiscated, 1536.

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3. Provokes Pilgri.
mage of Grace,"
1537.
(Green 345; Froude
ii. ch. 13.)

The measure caused much dissatisfaction. In the northern counties a serious rebellion broke out, headed by one Aske. It was a religious rising in defence of the Monks, who at any rate had been friends of the people, and it obtained the name Monasteries. of the Pilgrimage of Grace. There were also complaints of enclosures.

Causes-
a, Religious:

b, Social:

Enclosures.

c, Political: Discontent at novi homines."

1541.

1539.

It was also a revolt of the middle classes against the upper, who were mostly creatures of Henry and who alone stood to profit by the measure. The nobles cruelly repressed the insurgents. The Duke of Norfolk was conspicuous in this work, and the Council of the North was erected to keep the long-continuing discontent in check.

In the west the dissatisfaction infected even the nobles, and Henry took advantage of this excuse to send to execution the old Countess of Salisbury (niece of Edward IV.) whose son had lately been made Cardinal Pole, and even his own cousin the Marquis of Exeter.

66

Some years before, More, when he resigned his Chancellorship, said to Crumwell words which were almost prophetic of the rest of the reign. Master Crumwell, you are now in the service of a most wise, noble, and liberal prince: if you will follow my poor advice, you shall in your counsel-giving to his grace, ever tell him what he ought to do, but never what he is able to do. For if a lion knew his own strength it were hard for any man to rule him." For some time Henry had been learning his strength, and as he learnt it his only standard of right and wrong seemed to be the measure of his own power. Each success only made him hungry for more. It was not likely he would be content with the spoils of the lesser Monasteries, and so it proved.

ies dissolved 1537.

solution of Monasteries.

The larger ones soon followed, and their fall was brought 4. Greater Monasterabout by methods even more questionable than those which had proved fatal to the lesser. Some of them had, naturally enough, sympathised more (iv.) Results of Disactively than was wise with the Pilgrimage of Grace, and on this plea their property was declared forfeited to the King. Some were frightened into surrender. Some were persuaded to surrender in the hope they might thus save themselves. All eventually fell.

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(Wakeman 242 245.)

rics founded.

Power.

new nobility

power.

With the exception of Westminster, Chester, Gloucester, 1. Some new Bishop Peterborough, Oxford and Bristol, which were changed into Cathedrals, all was taken. An almost incredible amount of 2. Increased Royal wealth thus came into Henry's hands. A considerable proportion of the Church lands was given to Henry's friends, and a, Wealth. helped to build up the New Nobility" in the place of the b, Endowment of old which had been so largely destroyed in the Wars of the Roses. Though these new families often took the names of the old there is little real connection between the greedy time- who support royal servers, who grew powerful by the spoils of the Church, and the old patriotic nobles of Plantagenet times. These had, again and again, opposed tyrannical Kings, but the new men were of course obliged to support the Crown which had ennobled and enriched them, and were bound to uphold the religious changes which had supplied the materials for their rise. In Mary's reign the refusal of the lords to give up their Church lands was one of the chief difficulties the Queen had to overcome. Moreover the spiritual lords were diminished in c, Weakening of numbers by one-half by the disappearance of the Mitred Abbots from Parliament, so that the House of Lords became for many years merely the puppet of the Sovereign. We have seen how little real representation there was in the House of Commons, so that both Houses of Parliament fell quite under royal influence.

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Parliament.

a, Injury to Education.

The Dissolution of the Monasteries had other results also. Education suffered terribly, for many monasteries had 3. Social effects. maintained schools and all had had libraries. The books were flung out into the fields or sold cheaply to bookbinders and soap-sellers. The few schools which were spared or afterwards restored, and which now bear the names of Henry VIII., Mary, or Edward VI., were but poor compensation for the blow struck at English education.

The poor lost ready helpers and good friends, while at the b, Loss to poor. same time their ranks were swelled by the multitudes of monks and nuns who were cast adrift upon the world.

The tenants on the monastic estates felt severely the change of masters. The monks had been easy landlords, so easy in fact that many of their houses were in debt. They had lived among their tenants, buying their dairy produce and helping

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