History of England from the fall of Wolsey to the death of Elizabeth Volume III Part 50

[588] Pate to the Duke of Norfolk: Ibid. p. 355.

[589] Richard Pate, a priest of high Anglican views, and now minister at the Imperial court, supplied the Emperor's silence by his own enthusiasm. He wrote to Henry an ecstatic letter on the "fall of that wicked man who, by his false doctrines and like disciples, so disturbed his Grace's subjects, that the age was in manner brought to desperation, perceiving a new tradition taught." "What blindness," he exclaimed, "what ingrat.i.tude is this of this traitor's, far pa.s.sing Lucifer's, that, endeavouring to pluck the sword out of his sovereign's hand, hath deserved to feel the power of the same. But lauded be our Lord G.o.d that hath delivered your Grace out of the bear's claws, as not long before of a semblable danger of the lioness!"--Pate to Henry VIII.: _State Papers_, Vol. VIII. p. 364.

[590] 32 Henry VIII. cap. 7; _Lords Journals_, 32 Henry VIII. Session June 22.

[591] 32 Henry VIII. cap. 15; _Lords Journals_, 32 Henry VIII. July 1.

[592] Communi omnium procerum consensu nemine discrepante.

[593] "Excepted alway all and all manner of heresies and erroneous opinions touching or concerning, plainly, directly, and only the most holy and blessed sacrament of the altar; and these heresies and erroneous opinions hereafter ensuing: that infants ought not to be baptized, and if they be baptized, they ought to be rebaptized when they come to lawful age; that it is not lawful for a Christian man to bear office or rule in the commonwealth; that no man's laws ought to be obeyed; that it is not lawful for a Christian man to take an oath before any judge; that Christ took no bodily substance of our blessed Lady; that sinners, after baptism, cannot be restored by repentance; that every manner of death, with the time and hour thereof, is so certainly prescribed, appointed, and determined to every man of G.o.d, that neither any prince by his sword can alter it, nor any man by his own wilfulness prevent or change it; that all things be common and nothing several."--32 Henry VIII. cap. 49.

[594] _Lords Journals_, 32 Henry VIII. July 6.

[595] "Upon Tuesday, the sixth of this month, our n.o.bles and commons made suit and request unto us to commit the examination of the justness of our matrimony to the clergy; upon which request made we sent incontinently our councillors the Lord Chancellor, the Duke of Suffolk, the Bishop of Winchester, &c., advertising the queen what request was made, and in what sort, and thereupon to know what answer she would make unto the same. Whereunto, after divers conferences at good length, and the matter by her thoroughly perceived and considered, she answered plainly and frankly that she was contented that the discussion of the matter should be committed to the clergy as unto judges competent in that behalf."--_State Papers_, Vol. VIII. p. 404; and see Anne of Cleves to the King; Ibid. Vol. I. p. 637.

[596] Luculenta Oratione: Strype's _Memorials_, Vol. I. p. 553.

[597] "Inspecta hujus negotii veritate ac solum Deum prae oculis habentes, quod verum, quod honestum, quod sanctum est, id n.o.bis, de communi consilio scripto authentico renuncietis et de communi consensu licere diffiniatis. Nempe hoc unum a vobis nostro jure postulamus ut tanquam fida et proba ecclesiae membra causae huic ecclesiasticae quae maxima est in just.i.tia et veritate adesse velitis."--_State Papers_, Vol. I. p. 630.

[598] _MS. Cotton. Otho_, X. 240.

[599] _State Papers_, Vol. VIII. p. 404.

[600] "Tum vero quid ecclesia in ejusmodi casibus et possit facere et saepenumero ante hac fecerit perpendentes."--Judgment of the Convocation: _State Papers_, Vol. I. p. 632.

[601] Ibid. p. 633.

[602] "Heretofore divers and many persons, after long continuance together in matrimony, and fruit of children having ensued of the same, have nevertheless, by an unjust law of the Bishop of Rome (which is upon pretence of a former contract made and not consummate by carnal copulation, for proof whereof two witnesses by that law were only required), been divorced and separate contrary to G.o.d's law, and so the true matrimonies solemnized in the face of the Church and confirmed by fruit of children, have been clearly frustrate and dissolved. Further, also, by reason of other prohibitions than G.o.d's law admitteth, for their lucre by that court invented, the dispensation whereof they always reserved to themselves, as in kindred or affinity between cousin germains, and so to the fourth and fifth degree, and all because they would get money by it, and keep a reputation to their usurped jurisdiction, not only much discord between lawful married persons hath, contrary to G.o.d's ordinances, arisen, much debate and suit at the law, with the wrongful vexation and great danger of the innocent party hath been procured, and many just marriages brought in doubt and danger of undoing, and also many times undone: marriages have been brought into such uncertainty, that no marriage could be so surely knit and bounden but it should lie in either of the parties' power and arbitre, casting away the fear of G.o.d, by means and compa.s.ses to prove a pre-contract, a kindred, an alliance, or a carnal knowledge, to defeat the same, and so, under the pretence of these allegations afore rehea.r.s.ed, to live all the days of their lives in detestable adultery, to the utter destruction of their own souls and the provocation of the terrible wrath of G.o.d upon the places where such abominations were suffered and used."--32 Henry VIII. cap. 38.

[603] The Protestant refugees became at once as pa.s.sionate, as clamorous, and as careless in their statements as the Catholics.--See especially a letter of Richard Hilles to Bullinger (_Original Letters_, 196): to which Burnet has given a kind of sanction by a quotation. This letter contains about as trustworthy an account of the state of London as a letter of a French or Austrian exile in England or America would contain at present of the Courts of Paris or Vienna.

[604] _Lords Journals_, 32 Henry VIII.

[605] See _State Papers_, Vol. I. p. 637 and Vol. VIII. p. 403, &c.

[606] _State Papers_, Vol. VIII. p. 407.

[607] Ibid., 408.

[608] Ibid., 410.

[609] The bishop, nevertheless, was not satisfied that it would be refused, if it could be had. He thought, evidently, that Henry would act prudently by being liberal in the matter. Speaking of the miscontentment which had been shown, he added: "For any overture that yet hath been opened you may do your pleasure. How be it, in case of their suit unto your Majesty, if the duke shall be content by his express consent to approve your proceeding, specially the said decree of your clergy, whereby all things may be here ended and brought to silence, and the lady there remaining still, this duke, without kindling any further fire, made your Majesty's a.s.sured friend with a demonstration thereof to the world, and that with so small a sum of money to be given unto him (sub colore rest.i.tutionis pecuniae pro oneribus et dote licet vere nulla interesset), or under some other good colour... . G.o.d forbid your Majesty should much stick thereat."--Bishop of Bath to Henry VIII.: _State Papers_, Vol. VIII. p. 425.

[610] _State Papers_, Vol. VIII. p. 392.

[611] Ibid. p. 386.

[612] _State Papers_, Vol. VIII. p. 397.

[613] Pate to the Duke of Suffolk: Ibid. p. 412.

[614] No draft of the bill exists in its original form. As it pa.s.sed it conferred on lay impropriators the same power of recovering t.i.thes as was given to the clergy. The members of the lower house had been, many of them purchasers of abbey lands, and impropriated t.i.thes formed a valuable item of the property. It is likely that the bishops overlooked, and that the commons remembered this important condition.--_Lords Journals_, 32 Henry VIII. Session of July 12.

[615] 32 Henry VIII. cap. 10.

[616] 32 Henry VIII. cap. 26.

[617] Philpot's confession is preserved. He describes how Sir Gregory Botolph, returning to Calais from a journey to Rome, took him one night upon the walls, and after swearing him to secrecy, showed himself a worthy pupil of Reginald Pole.

"If England have not a scourge in time," Botolph said, "they will be all infidels, and no doubt G.o.d to friend, there shall be a redress; and know ye for a truth what my enterprise is, with the aid of G.o.d and such ways as I shall devise. I shall get the town of Calais into the hands of the Pope and Cardinal Pole, who is as good a Catholic man as ever I reasoned with; and when I had declared everything of my mind unto them, no more but we three together in the Pope's chamber, I had not a little cheer of the Pope and Cardinal Pole; and after this at all times I might enter the Pope's chamber at my pleasure."

Philpot asked him how he intended to proceed, Calais being so strong a place. "It shall be easy to be done," Botolph said. "In the herring time they do use to watch in the lantern gate, whereat there be in the watch about a dozen persons, and against the time which shall be appointed in the night, you, with a dozen persons well appointed for the purpose, shall enter the watch and destroy them. That done, ye shall recoil back with your company and keep the stairs, and at the same time I with my company shall be ready to scale the walls over the gate. I will have five or six hundred men that shall enter with me on the first burst. We shall have aid both by sea and land, within short s.p.a.ce."--Confession of Clement Philpot: _Rolls House MS._ Viscount Lisle, the old commandant of Calais, an illegitimate son of Edward IV., was suspected of having been privy to the conspiracy, and was sent for to England. His innocence was satisfactorily proved, but he died in the Tower on the day when he would have been liberated.

[618] 32 Henry VIII. cap. 58: unprinted, _Rolls House MS._

[619] _Lords Journals_, 32 Henry VIII. The clerk of the parliament has attached a note to the summary of the session declaring that throughout its progress the peers had voted unanimously. From which it has been concluded, among other things, that Cranmer voted for Cromwell's execution. The archbishop was present in the house on the day on which the bill for the attainder was read the last time. There is no evidence, however, that he remained till the question was put; and as he dared to speak for him on his arrest, he is ent.i.tled to the benefit of any uncertainty which may exist. It is easy to understand how he, and the few other peers who were Cromwell's friends, may have abstained from a useless opposition in the face of an overwhelming majority. We need not exaggerate their timidity or reproach them with an active consent, of which no hint is to be found in any contemporary letter, narrative, or doc.u.ment.

[620] Ellis, second series, Vol. II. p. 160.

[621] Ellis, second series, Vol. II. p. 160; this is apparently the letter printed by Burnet, _Collectanea_, p. 500.

[622] "Vereor ne frustra c.u.m Reverendissima Dominatione vestra per litteras de Cromwelli resipiscentia sum gratulatus, nec enim quae typis sunt excusa quae ad me missa sunt, in quibus novissima ejus verba recitantur, talem animum mihi exprimunt qualem eorum narratio qui de ejus exitu et de extremis verbis mec.u.m sunt locuti."--Pole to Beccatelli: _Epist._ Vol. III.

[623] Prayer of the Lord Cromwell on the Scaffold: Foxe, Vol. V.

[624] His death seems to have been needlessly painful through the awkwardness of the executioner, "a ragged and butcherly miser, who very ungoodly performed the office."--Hall.

[625] "Men know not what part to follow or to take."--Foxe, Vol. V.