than a great political change. The exigencies of royal
passion, and the dubious impulses of statecraft, seem its
moving and really powerful springs. But, regarded more
closely, we recognise a significant train both of religious
and critical forces at work. The lust and avarice of Henry,
the policy of Cromwell, and the vacillations of the leading
clergy, attract prominent notice; but there may be traced
beneath the surface a wide-spread evangelical fervour amongst
the people, and, above all, a genuine spiritual earnestness
and excitement of thought at the universities.
{830}
These higher influences preside at the first birth of the
movement. They are seen in active operation long before the
reforming task was taken up by the Court and the bishops."
J. Tulloch,
Rational Theology and Christian Philosophy
in England in the 17th Century,
volume 1, chapter 2.
"The miserable fate of Anne Boleyn wins our compassion, and
the greatness to which her daughter attained has been in some
degree reflected back upon herself. Had she died a natural
death, and had she not been the mother of Queen Elizabeth, we
should have estimated her character at a very low value
indeed. Protestantism might still, with its usual unhistorical
partizanship, have gilded over her immoralities; but the
Church of England must ever look upon Anne Boleyn with
downcast eyes full of sorrow and shame. By the influence of
her charms, Henry was induced to take those steps which ended
in setting the Church of England free from an uncatholic yoke:
but that such a result should be produced by such an influence
is a fact which must constrain us to think that the land was
guilty of many sins, and that it was these national sins which
prevented better instruments from being raised up for so
righteous an object."
J. H. Blunt,
The Reformation of the Church of England,
pages 197-198.
"Cranmer's work might never have been carried out, there might
have been no English Bible, no Ten Articles or 'Institution,'
no reforming Primers, nor Proclamations against Ceremonies,
had it not been for the tact, boldness and skill of Thomas
Crumwell, who influenced the King more directly and constantly
than Cranmer, and who knew how to make his influence
acceptable by an unprincipled confiscation and an absurd
exaggeration of the royal supremacy. Crumwell knew that in his
master's heart there was a dislike and contempt of the clergy.
... It is probable that Crumwell's policy was simply
irreligious, and only directed towards preserving his
influence with the King; but as the support of the reforming
part of the nation was a useful factor in it, he was thus led
to push forward religious information in conjunction with
Cranmer. It has been before said that purity and
disinterestedness are not to be looked for in all the actors
in the English Reformation. To this it may be added that
neither in the movement itself nor in those who took part in
it is to be found complete consistency. This, indeed, is not
to be wondered at. Men were feeling their way along untrodden
paths, without any very clear perception of the end at which
they were aiming, or any perfect understanding of the
situation. The King had altogether misapprehended the meaning
of his supremacy. A host of divines whose views as to the
distinction between the secular and the spiritual had been
confused by the action of the Popes, helped to mislead him.
The clergy, accustomed to be crushed and humiliated by the
Popes, submitted to be crushed and humiliated by the King; and
as the tide of his autocratic temper ebbed and flowed, yielded
to each change. Hence there was action and reaction throughout
the reign. But in this there were obvious advantages for the
Church. The gradual process accustomed men's thoughts to a
reformation which should not be drastic or iconoclastic, but
rather conservative and deliberate."
G. G, Perry,
History of the Reformation in England,
chapter 5.
"With regard to the Church of England, its foundations rest
upon the rock of Scripture, not upon the character of the King
by whom they were laid. This, however, must be affirmed in
justice to Henry, that mixed as the motives were which first
induced him to disclaim the Pope's authority, in all the
subsequent measures he acted sincerely, knowing the importance
of the work in which he had engaged, and prosecuting it
sedulously and conscientiously, even when most erroneous. That
religion should have had so little influence upon his moral
conduct will not appear strange, if we consider what the
religion was wherein he was trained up;--nor if we look at the
generality of men even now, under circumstances immeasurably
more fortunate than those in which he was placed. Undeniable
proofs remain of the learning, ability, and diligence, with
which he applied himself to the great business of weeding out
superstition, and yet preserving what he believed to be the
essentials of Christianity untouched. This praise (and it is
no light one) is his due: and it is our part to be thankful to
that all-ruling Providence, which rendered even his passions
and his vices subservient to this important end."
R. Southey,
The Book of the Church,
chapter 12.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1535-1539.
The suppression of the Monasteries.
"The enormous, and in a great measure ill-gotten, opulence of
the regular clergy had long since excited jealousy in every
part of Europe. ... A writer much inclined to partiality
towards the monasteries says that they held [in England]
one-fifth part of the kingdom; no insignificant patrimony. ...
As they were in general exempted from episcopal visitation,
and intrusted with the care of their own discipline, such
abuses had gradually prevailed and gained strength by
connivance as we may naturally expect in corporate bodies of
men leading almost of necessity useless and indolent lives,
and in whom very indistinct views of moral obligations were
combined with a great facility of violating them. The vices
that for many ages had been supposed to haunt the monasteries,
had certainly not left their precincts in that of Henry VIII.
Wolsey, as papal legate, at the instigation of Fox, bishop of
Hereford, a favourer of the Reformation, commenced a
visitation of the professed as well as secular clergy in 1523,
in consequence of the general complaint against their manners.
... Full of anxious zeal for promoting education, the noblest
part of his character, he obtained bulls from Rome suppressing
many convents (among which was that of St. Frideswide at
Oxford), in order to erect and endow a new college in that
university, his favourite work, which after his fall was more
completely established by the name of Christ Church. A few
more were afterwards extinguished through his instigation; and
thus the prejudice against interference with this species of
property was somewhat worn off, and men's minds gradually
prepared for the sweeping confiscations of Cromwell [Thomas
Cromwell, who succeeded Wolsey as chief minister of Henry
VIII.]. The king indeed was abundantly willing to replenish
his exchequer by violent means, and to avenge himself on those
who gainsayed his supremacy; but it was this able statesman
who, prompted both by the natural appetite of ministers for
the subjects' money and by a secret partiality towards the
Reformation, devised and
carried on with complete success, if not with the utmost
prudence, a measure of no inconsiderable hazard and
difficulty. ...
{831}
It was necessary, by exposing the gross corruptions of
monasteries, both to intimidate the regular clergy, and to
excite popular indignation against them. It is not to be
doubted that in the visitation of these foundations, under the
direction of Cromwell, as lord vice-gerent of the king's
ecclesiastical supremacy, many things were done in an
arbitrary manner, and much was unfairly represented. Yet the
reports of these visitors are so minute and specific that it
is rather a preposterous degree of incredulity to reject their
testimony whenever it bears hard on the regulars. ... The
dread of these visitors soon induced a number of abbots to
make surrenders to the king; a step of very questionable
legality. But in the next session the smaller convents, whose
revenues were less than £200 a year, were suppressed by act of
parliament, to the number of 376, and their estates vested in
the crown. This summary spoliation led to the great northern
rebellion soon afterwards," headed by Robert Ask, a gentleman
of Yorkshire, and assuming the title of a Pilgrimage of Grace.
H. Hallam,
Constitutional History of England,
chapter 2.
"Far from benefiting the cause of the monastic houses, the
immediate effect of the Pilgrimage of Grace was to bring ruin
on those monasteries which had as yet been spared. For their
complicity or alleged complicity in it, twelve abbots were
hanged, drawn and quartered, and their houses were seized by
the Crown. Every means was employed by a new set of
Commissioners to bring about the surrender of others of the
greater abbeys. The houses were visited, and their pretended
relics and various tricks to encourage the devotion of the
people were exposed. Surrenders went rapidly on during the
years 1537 and 1538, and it became necessary to obtain a new
Act of Parliament to vest the property of the later surrenders
in the Crown. ... Nothing, indeed, can be more tragical than
the way in which the greater abbeys were destroyed on
manufactured charges and for imaginary crimes. These houses
had been described in the first Act of Parliament as 'great
and honourable,' wherein 'religion was right well kept and
observed.' Yet now they were pitilessly destroyed. A revenue
of about £131,607 is computed to have thus come to the Crown,
while the movables are valued at £400,000. How was this vast
sum of money expended?
(1) By the Act for the suppression of the greater monasteries
the King was empowered to erect six new sees, with their deans
and chapters, namely, Westminster, Oxford, Chester,
Gloucester, Bristol and Peterborough. ...
(2) Some monasteries were turned into collegiate churches, and
many of the abbey churches ... were assigned as parish
churches.
(3) Some grammar schools were erected.
(4) A considerable sum is said to have been spent in making
roads and in fortifying the coasts of the Channel.
(5) But by far the greater part of the monastic property
passed into the hands of the nobility and gentry, either by
purchase at very easy rates, or by direct gift from the Crown.
...
The monks and nuns ejected from the monasteries had small
pensions assigned to them, which are said to have been
regularly paid; but to many of them the sudden return into a
world with which they had become utterly unacquainted, and in
which they had no part to play, was a terrible hardship, ...
greatly increased by the Six Article Law, which ... made the
marriage of the secularized 'religious' illegal under heavy
penalties."
G. G. Perry,
History of the Reformation in England,
chapter 4.
"The religious bodies, instead of uniting in their common
defence, seem to have awaited singly their fate with the
apathy of despair. A few houses only, through the agency of
their friends, sought to purchase the royal favour with offers
of money and lands; but the rapacity of the king refused to
accept a part when the whole was at his mercy."
J. Lingard,
History of England,
volume 6, chapter 4.
Some of the social results of the suppression "may be summed
up in a few words. The creation of a large class of poor to
whose poverty was attached the stigma of crime; the division
of class from class, the rich mounting up to place and power,
the poor sinking to lower depths; destruction of custom as a
check upon the exactions of landlords; the loss by the poor of
those foundations at schools and universities intended for
their children, and the passing away of ecclesiastical tithes
into the hands of lay owners."
F. A. Gasquet,
Henry VIII. and the English Monasteries,
volume 2, page 523.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1536-1543.
Trial and execution of Anne Boleyn.
Her successors, the later wives of Henry VIII.
Anne Boleyn had been secretly married to the king in January,
1533, and had been crowned on Whitsunday of that year. "The
princess Elizabeth, the only surviving child, was born on the
7th of September following. ... The death of Catherine, which
happened at Kimbolton on the 29th of January, 1536, seemed to
leave queen Anne in undisturbed possession of her splendid
seat." But the fickle king had now "cast his affections on
Jane Seymour, the daughter of Sir John Seymour, a young lady
then of the Queen's bed-chamber, as Anne herself had been in
that of Catherine." Having lost her charms in the eyes of the
lustful despot who had wedded her, her influence was gone--
and her safety. Charges were soon brought against the
unfortunate woman, a commission (her own father included in
it) appointed to inquire into her alleged misdeeds, and "on
the 10th of May an indictment for high treason was found by
the grand jury of Westminster against the Lady Anne, Queen of
England; Henry Norris, groom of the stole; Sir Francis Weston
and William Brereton, gentlemen of the privy chamber; and Mark
Smeaton, a performer on musical instruments, and a person 'of
low degree,' promoted to be a groom of the chamber for his
skill in the fine art which he professed. It charges the queen
with having, by all sorts of bribes, gifts, caresses, and
impure blandishments, which are described with unblushing
coarseness in the barbarous Latinity of the indictment,
allured these members of the royal household into a course of
criminal connection with her, which had been carried on for
three years. It included also George Boleyn viscount Rochford,
the brother of Anne, as enticed by the same lures and snares
with the rest of the accused, so as to have become the
accomplice of his sister, by sharing her treachery and
infidelity to the king. It is hard to believe that Anne could
have dared to lead a life so unnaturally dissolute, without
such vices being more early and very generally known in a
watchful and adverse court.
{832}
It is still more improbable that she should in every instance
be the seducer. ... Norris, Weston, Brereton, and Smeaton were
tried before a commission of oyer and terminer at Westminster,
on the 12th of May, two days after the bill against them was
found. They all, except Smeaton, firmly denied their guilt to
the last moment. On Smeaton's confession it must be observed
that we know not how it was obtained, how far it extended, or
what were the conditions of it. ... On the 12th of May, the
four commoners were condemned to die. Their sentence was
carried into effect amidst the plaints of the bystanders. ...
On the 15th of May, queen Anne and her brother Rochford were
tried." The place of trial was in the Tower, "which concealed
from the public eye whatever might be wanting in justice."
Condemnation duly followed, and the unhappy queen was executed
May 19, 1536. The king lost little time in wedding Jane
Seymour. "She died in childbed of Edward VI. on the 13th of
October, 1537. The next choice made by or for Henry, who
remained a widower for the period of more than two years," was
the "princess Anne, sister of the duke of Cleves, a
considerable prince on the lower Rhine. ... The pencil of
Holbein was employed to paint this lady for the king, who,
pleased by the execution, gave the flattering artist credit
for a faithful likeness. He met her at Dover, and almost
immediately betrayed his disappointment. Without descending
into disgusting particulars, it is necessary to state that,
though the marriage was solemnised, the king treated the
princess of Cleves as a friend." At length, by common action
of an obsequious parliament and a more obsequious convocation
of the church, the marriage was declared to be annulled, for
reasons not specified. The consent of the repudiated wife was
"insured by a liberal income of £3,000 a year, and she lived
for 16 years in England with the title of princess Anne of
Cleves. ... This annulment once more displayed the triumph of
an English lady over a foreign princess." The lady who now
captivated the brutally amorous monarch was lady Catherine
Howard, niece to the duke of Norfolk, who became queen on the
8th of August, 1540. In the following November, the king
received such information of lady Catherine's dissolute life
before marriage "as immediately caused a rigid inquiry into
her behaviour. ... The confessions of Catherine and of lady
Rochford, upon which they were attainted in parliament, and
executed in the Tower on the 14th of February, are not said to
have been at any time questioned. ... On the 10th of July,
1543, Henry wedded Catherine Parr, the widow of Lord Latimer,
a lady of mature age," who survived him.
Sir J. Mackintosh,
History of England (L. L. C.),
volume 2, chapters 7-8.
ALSO IN:
P. Friedmann,
Ann Boleyn.
H. W. Herbert,
Memoirs of Henry VIII. and his Six Wives.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1539.
The Reformation checked.
The Six Articles.
"Yielding to the pressure of circumstances, he [Henry VIII.]
had allowed the Reformers to go further than he really
approved. The separation from the Church of Rome, the
absorption by the Crown of the powers of the Papacy, the unity
of authority over both Church and State centred in himself, had
been his objects. In doctrinal matters he clung to the Church
of which he had once been the champion. He had gained his
objects because he had the feeling of the nation with him. In
his eagerness he had even countenanced some steps of doctrinal
reform. But circumstances had changed. ... Without detriment
to his position he could follow his natural inclinations. He
listened, therefore, to the advice of the reactionary party,
of which Norfolk was the head. They were full of bitterness
against the upstart Cromwell, and longed to overthrow him as
they had overthrown Wolsey. The first step in their triumph
was the bill of the Six Articles, carried in the Parliament of
1539. These laid down and fenced round with extraordinary
severity the chief points of the Catholic religion at that
time questioned by the Protestants. The bill enacted, first,
'that the natural body and blood of Jesus Christ were present
in the Blessed Sacrament,' and that 'after consecration there
remained no substance of bread and wine, nor any other but the
substance of Christ'; whoever, by word or writing, denied this
article was a heretic, and to be burned. Secondly, the
Communion in both kinds was not necessary, both body and blood
being present in each element; thirdly, priests might not
marry; fourthly, vows of chastity by man or woman ought to be
observed; fifthly, private masses ought to be continued;
sixthly, auricular confession must be retained. Whoever wrote
or spoke against these ... Articles, on the first offence his
property was forfeited; on the second offence he was a felon,
and was put to death. Under this 'whip with six strings' the
kingdom continued for the rest of the reign. The Bishops at
first made wild work with it. Five hundred persons are said to
have been arrested in a fortnight; the king had twice to
interfere and grant pardons. It is believed that only
twenty-eight persons actually suffered death under it."
J. F. Bright,
History of England,
volume 2, page 411.
ALSO IN:
J. H. Blunt,
Reformation of the Church of England,
volume 1, chapter 8-9.
S. H. Burke,
Men and Women of the English Reformation,
volume 2, pages 17-24.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1542-1547.
Alliance with Charles V. against Francis I.
Capture and restoration of Boulogne.
Treaty of Guines.
See FRANCE: A. D. 1532-1547.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1544-1548.
The wooing of Mary Queen of Scots.
See SCOTLAND: A. D. 1544-1548.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1547.
Accession of King Edward VI.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1547-1553.
The completing of the Reformation.
Henry VIII., dying on the 28th of January, 1547, was succeeded
by his son Edward,--child of Jane Seymour,--then only nine
years old. By the will of his father, the young king (Edward
VI.) was to attain his majority at eighteen, and the
government of his kingdom, in the meantime, was entrusted to a
body of sixteen executors, with a second body of twelve
councillors to assist with their advice. "But the first act of
the executors and counsellors was to depart from the
destination of the late king in a material article. No sooner
were they met, than it was suggested that the government would
lose its dignity for want of some head who might represent the
royal majesty." The suggestion was opposed by none except the
chancellor, Wriothesley,--soon afterwards raised to the
peerage as Earl of Southampton. "It being therefore agreed to
name a protector, the choice fell of course on the Earl of
Hertford [afterwards Duke of Somerset], who, as he was the
king's maternal uncle, was strongly interested in his safety."
{833}
The protector soon manifested an ambition to exercise his
almost royal authority without any constraint, and, having
found means to remove his principal opponent, Southampton,
from the chancellorship, and to send him into disgrace, he
procured a patent from the infant king which gave him
unbounded power. With this power in his hand he speedily
undertook to carry the work of church reform far beyond the
intentions of Henry VIII. "The extensive authority and
imperious character of Henry had retained the partisans of
both religions in subjection; but upon his demise, the hopes
of the Protestants, and the fears of the Catholics began to
revive, and the zeal of these parties produced every where
disputes and animosities, the usual preludes to more fatal
divisions. The protector had long been regarded as a secret
partisan of the reformers; and being now freed from restraint,
he scrupled not to discover his intention of correcting all
abuses in the ancient religion, and of adopting still more of
the Protestant innovations. He took care that all persons
intrusted with the king's education should be attached to the
same principles; and as the young prince discovered a zeal for
every kind of literature, especially the theological, far
beyond his tender years, all men foresaw, in the course of his
reign, the total abolition of the Catholic faith in England;
and they early began to declare themselves in favour of those
tenets which were likely to become in the end entirely
prevalent. After Southhampton's fall, few members of the
council seemed to retain any attachment to the Romish
communion; and most of the counsellors appeared even sanguine
in forwarding the progress of the reformation. The riches
which most of them had acquired from the spoils of the clergy,
induced them to widen the breach between England and Rome; and by
establishing a contrariety of speculative tenets, as well as
of discipline and worship, to render a coalition with the
mother church altogether impracticable. Their rapacity, also,
the chief source of their reforming spirit, was excited by the
prospect of pillaging the secular, as they had already done
the regular clergy; and they knew, that while any share of the
old principles remained, or any regard to the ecclesiastics,
they could never hope to succeed in that enterprise. The
numerous and burdensome superstitions with which the Romish
church was loaded had thrown many of the reformers, by the
spirit of opposition, into an enthusiastic strain of devotion;
and all rites, ceremonies, pomp, order, and extreme
observances were zealously proscribed by them, as hindrances
to their spiritual contemplations, and obstructions to their
immediate converse with heaven."
D. Hume,
History of England,
volume 3, chapter 34.
"'This year' [1547] says a contemporary, 'the Archbishop of
Canterbury [Cranmer] did eat meat openly in Lent in the hall
of Lambeth, the like of which was never seen since England was
a Christian country.' This significant act was followed by a
rapid succession of sweeping changes. The legal prohibitions
of Lollardry were removed; the Six Articles were repealed; a
royal injunction removed all pictures and images from the
churches; priests were permitted to marry; the new communion
which had taken the place of the mass was ordered to be
administered in both kinds, and in the English tongue; an
English Book of Common Prayer, the Liturgy, which with slight
alterations is still used in the Church of England, replaced
the missal and breviary, from which its contents are mainly
drawn; a new catechism embodied the doctrines of Cranmer and
his friends; and a Book of Homilies compiled in the same sense
was appointed to be read in churches. ... The power of
preaching was restricted by the issue of licenses only to the
friends of the Primate. ... The assent of the nobles about the
Court was won by the suppression of chantries and religious
guilds, and by glutting their greed with the last spoils of
the Church. German and Italian mercenaries were introduced to
stamp out the wider popular discontent which broke out in the
East, in the West, and in the Midland counties. ... The rule
of the upstart nobles who formed the Council of Regency became
simply a rule of terror. 'The greater part of the people,' one
of their creatures, Cecil, avowed, 'is not in favour of
defending this cause, but of aiding its adversaries, the
greater part of the nobles who absent themselves from court,
all the bishops save three or four, almost all the judges and
lawyers, almost all the justices of the peace, the priests who
can move their flocks any way; for the whole of the commonalty
is in such a state of irritation that it will easily follow
any stir towards change.' But with their triumph over the
revolt, Cranmer and his colleagues advanced yet more boldly in
the career of innovation. ... The Forty-two Articles of
Religion, which were now [1552] introduced, though since
reduced by omissions to thirty-nine, have remained to this day
the formal standard of doctrine in the English Church."
J. R. Green,
Short History of the English People,
chapter 7, section 1.
ALSO IN:
J. Strype,
Memorials of Cranmer,
book 2.
G. Burnet,
History of the Reformation of Church of England,
volume 2, book 1.
L. Von Ranke,
History of England,
book 2, chapter 6.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1548.
First Act for encouragement of Newfoundland fisheries.
See NEWFOUNDLAND: A. D. 1501-1578.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1553.
The right of succession to the throne,
on the death of Edward VI.
"If Henry VII. be considered as the stock of a new dynasty, it
is clear that on mere principles of hereditary right, the
crown would descend, first, to the issue of Henry VIII.;
secondly, to those of [his elder sister] Margaret Tudor, queen
of Scots; thirdly, to those of [his younger sister] Mary
Tudor, queen of France. The title of Edward was on all
principles equally undisputed; but Mary and Elizabeth might be
considered as excluded by the sentence of nullity, which had
been pronounced in the case of Catharine and in that of Anne
Boleyn, both which sentences had been confirmed in parliament.
They had been expressly pronounced to be illegitimate
children. Their hereditary right of succession seemed thus to
be taken away, and their pretensions rested solely on the
conditional settlement of the crown on them, made by their
father's will, in pursuance of authority granted to him by act
of parliament. After Elizabeth Henry had placed the
descendants of Mary, queen of France, passing by the progeny
of his eldest sister Margaret. Mary of France, by her second
marriage with Charles Brandon, duke of Suffolk, had two
daughters,--lady Frances, who wedded Henry Grey, marquis of
Dorset, created duke of Suffolk; and lady Elinor, who espoused
Henry Clifford, earl of Cumberland.
{834}
Henry afterwards settled the crown by his will on the heirs of
these two ladies successively, passing over his nieces
themselves in silence. Northumberland obtained the hand of
lady Jane Grey, the eldest daughter of Grey duke of Suffolk,
by lady Frances Brandon, for lord Guilford Dudley, the
admiral's son. The marriage was solemnised in May, 1553, and
the fatal right of succession claimed by the house of Suffolk
devolved on the excellent and unfortunate lady Jane."
Sir J. Mackintosh,
History of England,
volume 2, chapter 9.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1553.
Accession of Queen Mary.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1553.
The doubtful conflict of religions.
"Great as was the number of those whom conviction or self
interest enlisted under the Protestant banner, it appears
plain that the Reformation moved on with too precipitate a
step for the majority. The new doctrines prevailed in London,
in many large towns, and in the eastern counties. But in the
north and west of England, the body of the people were
strictly Catholics. The clergy, though not very scrupulous
about conforming to the innovations, were generally averse to
most of them. And, in spite of the church lands, I imagine
that most of the nobility, if not the gentry, inclined to the
same persuasion. ... An historian, whose bias was certainly
not unfavourable to Protestantism [Burnet, iii. 190, 196]
confesses that all endeavours were too weak to overcome the
aversion of the people towards reformation, and even intimates
that German troops were sent for from Calais on account of the
bigotry with which the bulk of the nation adhered to the old
superstition. This is somewhat an humiliating admission, that
the protestant faith was imposed upon our ancestors by a
foreign army. ... It is certain that the re-establishment of
popery on Mary's accession must have been acceptable to a
large part, or perhaps to the majority, of the nation."
H. Hallam,
Constitutional History of England,
volume 1, chapter 2.
"Eight weeks and upwards passed between the proclaiming of
Mary queen and the Parliament by her assembled; during which
time two religions were together set on foot, Protestantism
and Popery; the former hoping to be continued, the latter
labouring to be restored. ... No small justling was there
betwixt the zealous promoters of these contrary religions. The
Protestants had possession on their side, and the protection
of the laws lately made by King Edward, and still standing in
free and full force unrepealed. ... The Papists put their
ceremonies in execution, presuming on the queen's private
practice and public countenance. ... Many which were neuters
before, conceiving to which side the queen inclined, would not
expect, but prevent her authority in alteration: so that
superstition generally got ground in the kingdom. Thus it is
in the evening twilight, wherein light and darkness at first
may seem very equally matched, but the latter within little
time doth solely prevail."
T. Fuller,
Church History of Britain,
book 8, section 1, ¶ 5.
ALSO IN:
J. II. Blunt, Reformation of the Church of England,
volume 1; chapters 8-9.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1554.
Wyat's Insurrection.
Queen Mary's marriage with Philip of Spain was opposed with
great bitterness of popular feeling, especially in London and
its neighborhood. Risings were undertaken in Kent, Devonshire,
and the Midland counties, intended for the frustration of the
marriage scheme; but they were ill-planned and soon
suppressed. That in Kent, led by Sir Thomas Wyat, threatened
to be formidable at first, and the Queen's troops retreated
before it. Wyat, however, lost his opportunity for securing
London, by delays, and his followers dispersed. He was taken
prisoner and executed. "Four hundred persons are said to have
suffered for this rebellion."
D. Hume,
History of England,
chapter 36.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1555-1558.
The restoration of Romanism.
The persecution of Protestants by Queen Mary.
"An attempt was made, by authority of King Edward's will, to
set aside both his sisters from the succession, and raise Lady
Jane Grey to the throne, who had lately been married to one of
Northumberland's sons. This was Northumberland's doing; he was
actuated by ambition, and the other members of the government
assented to it, believing, like the late young King, that it
was necessary for the preservation of the Protestant faith.
Cranmer opposed the measure, but yielded. ... But the
principles of succession were in fact well ascertained at that
time, and, what was of more consequence, they were established
in public opinion. Nor could the intended change be supported
on the ground of religion, for popular feeling was decidedly
against the Reformation. Queen Mary obtained possession of her
rightful throne without the loss of a single life, so
completely did the nation acknowledge her claim; and an after
insurrection, rashly planned and worse conducted, served only
to hasten the destruction of the Lady Jane and her husband.
... If any person may be excused for hating the Reformation,
it was Mary. She regarded it as having arisen in this country
from her mother's wrongs, and enabled the King to complete an
iniquitous and cruel divorce. It had exposed her to
inconvenience, and even danger, under her father's reign, to
vexation and restraint under her brother; and, after having
been bastardized in consequence of it, ... an attempt had been
made to deprive her of the inheritance, because she continued
to profess the Roman Catholic faith. ... Had the religion of
the country been settled, she might have proved a good and
beneficent, as well as conscientious, queen. But she delivered
her conscience to the direction of cruel men; and, believing
it her duty to act up to the worst principles of a persecuting
Church, boasted that she was a virgin sent by God to ride and
tame the people of England. ... The people did not wait till
the laws of King Edward were repealed; the Romish doctrines
were preached, and in some places the Romish clergy took
possession of the churches, turned out the incumbents, and
performed mass in jubilant anticipation of their approaching
triumph. What course the new Queen would pursue had never been
doubtful; and as one of her first acts had been to make
Gardiner Chancellor, it was evident that a fiery persecution
was at hand. Many who were obnoxious withdrew in time, some
into Scotland, and more into Switzerland and the Protestant
parts of Germany. Cranmer advised others to fly; but when his
friends entreated him to preserve himself by the like
precaution, he replied, that it was not fitting for him to
desert his post. ... The Protestant Bishops were soon
dispossessed of their sees; the marriages which the Clergy and
Religioners had contracted were declared unlawful, and their
children bastardized.
{835}
The heads of the reformed Clergy, having been brought forth to
hold disputations, for the purpose rather of intimidating than
of convincing them, had been committed to different prisons,
and after these preparatories the fiery process began."
R. Southey,
Book of the Church,
chapter 14.
"The total number of those who suffered in this persecution,
from the martyrdom of Rogers, in February, 1555, to September,
1558, when its last ravages were felt, is variously related,
in a manner sufficiently different to assure us that the
relaters were independent witnesses, who did not borrow from
each other, and yet sufficiently near to attest the general
accuracy of their distinct statements. By Cooper they are
estimated at about 290. According to Burnet they were 284.
Speed calculates them at 274. The most accurate account is
probably that of Lord Burleigh, who, in his treatise called
'The Execution of Justice in England,' reckons the number of
those who died in that reign by imprisonment, torments, famine
and fire, to be near 400, of which those who were burnt alive
amounted to 290. From Burnet's Tables of the separate years,
it is apparent that the persecution reached its full force in
its earliest year."
Sir J. Mackintosh,
History of England,
volume 2, chapter 11.
"Though Pole and Mary could have laid their hands on earl and
baron, knight and gentleman, whose heresy was notorious,
although, in the queen's own guard, there were many who never
listened to a mass, they durst not strike where there was
danger that they would be struck in return. ... They took the
weaver from his loom, the carpenter from his workshop, the
husbandman from his plough; they laid hands on maidens and
boys 'who had never heard of any other religion than that
which they were called on to abjure'; old men tottering into
the grave, and children whose lips could but just lisp the
articles of their creed; and of these they made their
burnt-offerings; with these they crowded their prisons, and
when filth and famine killed them, they flung them out to
rot."
J. A. Froude,
History of England,
chapter 24.
Queen Mary's marriage with Philip of Spain and his arbitrary
disposition, "while it thoroughly alienated the kingdom from
Mary, created a prejudice against the religion which the
Spanish court so steadily favoured. ... Many are said to have
become Protestants under Mary who, at her coming to the
throne, had retained the contrary persuasion."
H. Hallam,
Constitutional History of England,
volume 1, chapter 2.
ALSO IN:
J. Collier,
Ecclesiastical History of Great Britain,
part 2, book 5.
J. Lingard,
History of England,
volume 7, chapter 2-3.
J. Fox,
Book of Martyrs.
P. Heylyn,
Ecclesia Restaurata,
volume 2.
J. Strype,
Memorials of Cranmer,
book 3.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1557-1559.
Involved by the Spanish husband of Queen Mary in war with France.
Loss of Calais.
See FRANCE: A. D. 1547-1559.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1558.
Accession of Queen Elizabeth.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1558-1588.
The Age of Elizabeth:
Recovery of Protestantism.
"The education of Elizabeth, as well as her interest, led her
to favour the reformation; and she remained not long in
suspense with regard to the party which she should embrace.
But though determined in her own mind, she resolved to proceed
by gradual and secure steps, and not to imitate the example of
Mary, in encouraging the bigots of her party to make
immediately a violent invasion on the established religion.
She thought it requisite, however, to discover such symptoms
of her intentions as might give encouragement to the
Protestants, so much depressed by the late violent
persecutions. She immediately recalled all the exiles, and
gave liberty to the prisoners who were confined on account of
religion. ... Elizabeth also proceeded to exert, in favour of
the reformers, some acts of power, which were authorized by
the extent of royal prerogative during that age. Finding that
the Protestant teachers, irritated by persecution, broke out
in a furious attack on the ancient superstition, and that the
Romanists replied with no less zeal and acrimony, she
published a proclamation, by which she inhibited all preaching
without a special licence; and though she dispensed with these
orders in favour of some preachers of her own sect, she took
care that they should be the most calm and moderate of the
party. She also suspended the laws, so far as to order a great
part of the service, the litany, the Lord's prayer, the creed,
and the gospels, to be read in English. And, having first
published injunctions that all churches should conform
themselves to the practice of her own chapel, she forbad the
host to be any more elevated in her presence: an innovation
which, however frivolous it may appear, implied the most
material consequences. These declarations of her intentions,
concurring with preceding suspicions, made the bishops
foresee, with certainty, a revolution in religion. They
therefore refused to officiate at her coronation; and it was
with some difficulty that the Bishop of Carlisle was at last
prevailed on to perform the ceremony. ... Elizabeth, though
she threw out such hints as encouraged the Protestants,
delayed the entire change of religion till the meeting of the
Parliament, which was summoned to assemble. The elections had
gone entirely against the Catholics, who seem not indeed to
have made any great struggle for the superiority; and the
Houses met, in a disposition of gratifying the queen in every
particular which she could desire of them. ... The first bill
brought into Parliament, with a view of trying their
disposition on the head of religion, was that for suppressing
the monasteries lately erected, and for restoring the tenths
and first-fruits to the queen. This point being gained without
much difficulty, a bill was next introduced, annexing the
supremacy to the crown; and though the queen was there
denominated governess, not head, of the church, it conveyed
the same extensive power, which, under the latter title, had
been exercised by her father and brother. ... By this act, the
crown, without the concurrence either of the Parliament or
even of the convocation, was vested with the whole spiritual
power; might repress all heresies, might establish or repeal
all canons, might alter every point of discipline, and might
ordain or abolish any religious rite or ceremony. ... A law
was passed, confirming all the statutes enacted in King
Edward's time with regard to religion; the nomination of
bishops was given to the crown without any election of the
chapters. ... A solemn and public disputation was held during
this session, in presence of Lord Keeper Bacon, between the
divines of the Protestant and those of the Catholic communion.
The champions appointed to defend the religion of the
sovereign were, as in all former instances, entirely
triumphant; and the popish disputants, being pronounced
refractory and obstinate, were even punished by imprisonment.
{836}
Emboldened by this victory, the Protestants ventured on the
last and most important step, and brought into Parliament a
bill for abolishing the mass, and re-establishing the liturgy
of King Edward. Penalties were enacted as well against those
who departed from this mode of worship, as against those who
absented themselves from the church and the sacraments. And
thus, in one session, without any violence, tumult, or
clamour, was the whole system of religion altered, on the very
commencement of a reign, and by the will of a young woman,
whose title to the crown was by many thought liable to great
objections."
D. Hume,
History of England,
chapter 38, pages 375-380 (volume 3).
"Elizabeth ascended the throne much more in the character of a
Protestant champion than her own convictions and inclinations
would have dictated. She was, indeed, the daughter of Ann
Boleyn, whom by this time the Protestants were beginning to
regard as a martyr of the faith; but she was also the child of
Henry VIII., and the heiress of his imperious will. Soon,
however, she found herself Protestant almost in her own
despite. The Papacy, in the first pride of successful
reaction, offered her only the alternative of submission or
excommunication, and she did not for a moment hesitate to
choose the latter. Then commenced that long and close alliance
between Catholicism and domestic treason which is so differently
judged as it is approached from the religious or the political
side. These seminary priests, who in every various disguise
come to England, moving secretly about from manor-house to
manor-house, celebrating the rites of the Church, confirming
the wavering, consoling the dying, winning back the lapsed to
the fold, too well acquainted with Elizabeth's prisons, and
often finding their way to her scaffolds,--what are they but
the intrepid missionaries, the self-devoted heroes, of a
proscribed faith? On the other hand, the Queen is
excommunicate, an evil woman, with whom it is not necessary to
keep faith, to depose whom would be the triumph of the Church,
whose death, however compassed, its occasion: how easy to
weave plots under the cloak of religious intercourse, and to
make the unity of the faith a conspiracy of rebellion! The
next heir to the throne, Mary of Scotland, was a Catholic,
and, as long as she lived, a perpetual centre of domestic and
European intrigue: plot succeeded plot, in which the
traitorous subtlety was all Catholic--the keenness of
discovery, the watchfulness of defence, all Protestant. Then,
too, the shadow of Spanish supremacy began to cast itself
broadly over Europe: the unequal struggle with Holland was
still prolonged: it was known that Philip's dearest wish was
to recover to his empire and the Church the island kingdom
which had once unwillingly accepted his rule. It was thus the
instinct of self-defence which placed Elizabeth at the head of
the Protestant interest in Europe: she sent Philip Sidney to
die at Zutphen: her sailor buccaneers, whether there were
peace at home or not, bit and tore at everything Spanish upon
the southern main: till at last, 1588, Philip gathered up all
his naval strength and hurled the Armada at our shores.
'Afflavit Deus, et dissipati sunt.' The valour of England did
much; the storms of heaven the rest. Mary of Scotland had gone
to her death the year before, and her son had been trained to
hate his mother's faith. There could be no question any more
of the fixed Protestantism of the English people."
C. Beard,
Hibbert Lectures, 1883: The Reformation,
lecture 9.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1558-1598.
The Age of Elizabeth:
The Queen's chief councillors.
"Sir William Cecil, afterwards Lord Burleigh, already
officially experienced during three reigns, though still
young, was the queen's chief adviser from first to last--that
is to say, till he died in 1598. Philip II., who also died in
that year, was thus his exact contemporary; for he mounted the
Spanish throne just when Elizabeth and her minister began
their work together. He was not long in discovering that there
was one man, possessed of the most balanced judgment ever
brought to the head of English affairs, who was capable of
unwinding all his most secret intrigues; and, in fact, the two
arch-enemies, the one in London and the other in Madrid, were
pitted against each other for forty years. Elizabeth had also
the good sense to select the wisest and most learned
ecclesiastic of his day, Matthew Parker, for her Primate and
chief adviser in Church affairs. It should be noted that both
of these sages, as well as the queen herself, had been
Conformists to the Papal obedience under Mary--a position far
from heroic, but not for a moment to be confused with that of
men whose philosophical indifference to the questions which
exercised all the highest minds enabled them to join in the
persecution of Romanists and Anglicans at different times with
a sublime impartiality. ... It was under the advice of Cecil
and Parker that Elizabeth, on coming to the throne, made her
famous settlement or Establishment of religion."
M. Burrows,
Commentaries on the History of England,
book 2, chapter 17.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1558-1603.
The Age of Elizabeth: Parliament.
"The house of Commons, upon a review of Elizabeth's reign, was
very far, on the one hand, from exercising those
constitutional rights which have long since belonged to it, or
even those which by ancient precedent they might have claimed
as their own; yet, on the other hand, was not quite so servile
and submissive an assembly as an artful historian has
represented it. If many of its members were but creatures of
power, ... there was still a considerable party, sometimes
carrying the house along with them, who with patient
resolution and inflexible aim recurred in every session to the
assertion of that one great privilege which their sovereign
contested, the right of parliament to inquire into and suggest
a remedy for every public mischief or danger. It may be
remarked that the ministers, such as Knollys, Hatton, and
Robert Cecil, not only sat among the commons, but took a very
leading part in their discussions; a proof that the influence
of argument could no more be dispensed with than that of
power. This, as I conceive, will never be the case in any
kingdom where the assembly of the estates is quite subservient
to the crown. Nor should we put out of consideration the
manner in which the commons were composed. Sixty-two members
were added at different times by Elizabeth to the
representation; as well from places which had in earlier times
discontinued their franchise, as from those to which it was
first granted; a very large proportion of them petty boroughs,
evidently under the influence of the crown or peerage. The
ministry took much pains with ejections, of which many proofs,
remain.
{837}
The house accordingly was filled with placemen, civilians, and
common lawyers grasping at preferment. The slavish tone of
these persons, as we collect from the minutes of D'Ewes, is
strikingly contrasted by the manliness of independent
gentlemen. And as the house was by no means very fully
attended, the divisions, a few of which are recorded, running
from 200 to 250 in the aggregate, it may be perceived that the
court, whose followers were at hand, would maintain a
formidable influence. But this influence, however pernicious
to the integrity of parliament, is distinguishable from that
exertion of almost absolute prerogative which Hume has assumed
as the sole spring of Elizabeth's government, and would never
be employed till some deficiency of strength was experienced
in the other."
H. Hallam,
Constitutional History of England,
chapter 5.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1558-1603.
The Age of Elizabeth: Literature.
"The age of Elizabeth was distinguished beyond, perhaps, any
other in our history by a number of great men, famous in
different ways, and whose names have come down to us with
unblemished honours: statesmen, warriors, divines, scholars,
poets, and philosophers; Raleigh, Drake, Coke, Hooker,
and--high and more sounding still, and still more frequent in
our mouths--Shakespear, Spenser, Sidney, Bacon, Jonson,
Beaumont, and Fletcher, men whom fame has eternised in her
long and lasting scroll, and who, by their words and acts,
were benefactors of their country, and ornaments of human
nature. Their attainments of different kinds bore the same
general stamp, and it was sterling; what they did had the mark
of their age and country upon it. Perhaps the genius of Great
Britain (if I may so speak without offence or flattery) never
shone out fuller or brighter, or looked more like itself, than
at this period. Our writers and great men had something in
them that savoured of the soil from which they grew: they were
not French; they were not Dutch, or German, or Greek, or
Latin; they were truly English. They did not look out of
themselves to see what they should be; they sought for truth
and nature, and found it in themselves. There was no tinsel,
and but little art; they were not the spoilt children of
affectation and refinement, but a bold, vigorous, independent
race of thinkers, with prodigious strength and energy, with
none but natural grace, and heartfelt, unobtrusive delicacy.
... For such an extraordinary combination and development of
fancy and genius many causes may be assigned; and we may seek
for the chief of them in religion, in politics, in the
circumstances of the time, the recent diffusion of letters, in
local situation, and in the character of the men who adorned
that period, and availed themselves so nobly of the advantages
placed within their reach. ... The first cause I shall
mention, as contributing to this general effect, was the
Reformation, which had just then taken place. This event gave
a mighty impulse and increased activity to thought and
inquiry, and agitated the inert mass of accumulated prejudices
throughout Europe. ... The translation of the Bible was the
chief engine in the great work. It threw open, by a secret
spring, the rich treasures of religion and morality, which had
been there locked up as in a shrine. It revealed the visions
of the prophets, and conveyed the lessons of inspired teachers
(such they were thought) to the meanest of the people. It gave
them a common interest in the common cause. Their hearts burnt
within them as they read. It gave a mind to the people, by
giving them common subjects of thought and feeling. ... The
immediate use or application that was made of religion to
subjects of imagination and fiction was not (from an obvious
ground of separation) so direct or frequent as that which was
made of the classical and romantic literature. For much about
the same time, the rich and fascinating stores of the Greek
and Roman mythology, and those of the romantic poetry of Spain
and Italy, were eagerly explored by the curious, and thrown
open in translations to the admiring gaze of the vulgar. ...
What also gave an unusual impetus to the mind of man at this
period, was the discovery of the New World, and the reading of
voyages and travels. Green islands and golden sands seemed to
arise, as by enchantment, out of the bosom of the watery
waste, and invite the cupidity, or wing the imagination of the
dreaming speculator. Fairyland was realised in new and unknown
worlds. ... Again, the heroic and martial spirit which
breathes in our elder writers, was yet in considerable
activity in the reign of Elizabeth. The age of chivalry was
not then quite gone, nor the glory of Europe extinguished
forever. ... Lastly, to conclude this account: What gave a
unity and common direction to all these causes, was the
natural genius of the country, which was strong in these