CH. 3. with the substance of victory. The reply to their A.D. 1529. petition had perhaps by that time been made known to them, and at any rate they had been accused of sympathy with heresy, and they would not submit to the hateful charge without exacting revenge. The more clamorous of the clergy out of doors were punished probably by the stocks; from among their opponents in the Upper House, Fisher was selected for especial and signal humiliation. The words of which he had made use were truer than the Commons knew; perhaps the latent truth of them was the secret cause of the pain which they inflicted; but the special anxiety of the English reformers was to disconnect themselves, with marked emphasis, from the movement in Germany, and they determined to compel the offending bishop to withdraw his words. The Com mons de mand an apology from the Rochester. They sent the speaker, Sir Thomas Audeley, to the king, who'very eloquently declared what dishonour it was to his Majesty and the realm, Bishop of that they which were elected for the wisest men in the shires, cities, and boroughs within the realm of England, should be declared in so noble a presence to lack faith.' to lack faith.' It was equivalent to saying that they were infidels, and no Christians -as ill as Turks and Saracens.' Wherefore he 'most humbly besought the King's Highness to call the said bishop before him, and to cause him to speak more discreetly of such a number as was in the Commons House.'* Henry consented to their request, it is likely with no great difficulty, * HALL, 766. A.D. 1529. are sum fore the vocate, and and availed himself of the opportunity to read a Cн. 3. lesson much needed to the remainder of the bench. He sent for Fisher, and with him for the Archbishop of Canterbury, and for six other The bishops bishops. The speaker's message was laid before moned be them, and they were asked what they had to say. king. It would have been well for the weak trembling old men if they could have repeated what they believed and had maintained their right to believe it. Bold conduct is ever the most safe; it is fatal only when there is courage but for the first step, and fails when a second is required to support it. But they were forsaken in their hour of calamity, not by courage only, but by prudence, by judgment, by conscience itself. The Bishop of Rochester stooped to an equivoca- They equition too transparent to deceive any one; he said are disthat he meant only the doings of the Bohemians missed. were for lack of faith, and not the doings of the Commons House'-' which saying was confirmed by the bishops present.' The king allowed the excuse, and the bishops were dismissed; but they were dismissed into ignominy, and thenceforward, in all Henry's dealings with them, they were treated with contemptuous disrespect. For Fisher himself we must feel only sorrow. After seventysix years of a useful and honourable life, which he might have hoped to close in a quiet haven, he was launched suddenly upon stormy waters, to which he was too brave to yield, which he was too timid to contend against; and the frail vessel drifting where the waves drove it, was soon piteously to perish. Сн. 3. A.D. 1529. prorogued. Dec. 17. เ Thus triumphant on every side, the parliament, in the middle of December, closed its sesParliament sion, and lay England celebrated its exploits as a national victory. The king removed to Greenwich, and there kept his Christmas with the queen with great triumph, with great plenty of viands, and disguisings, and interludes, to the great rejoicing of his people;'* the members of the House of Commons, we may well believe, following the royal example in town and country, and being the little heroes of the day. Only the bishops carried home sad hearts within them, to mourn over the perils of the church and the impending end of all things; Fisher, unhappily for himself, to listen to the wailings of the Nun of Kent, and to totter slowly into treason. Here, for the present leaving the clergy to meditate on their future, and reconsider the wisdom of their answer to the king respecting the ecclesiastical jurisdiction (a point on which they were not the less certain to be pressed, because the process upon it was temporarily suspended), we must turn to the more painful matter which for a time longer, ran parallel with the domestic reformation, and as yet was unable to unite with it. After the departure of Campeggio, the further hearing of the divorce cause had been advoked to Rome, where it was impossible for Henry to consent to plead; while the appearance of the supposed brief had opened avenues of new difficulty which left no hope of a decision within the limits of an ordi HALL, 768. inhibits proceeding England, nary lifetime. Henry was still, however, extremely CH. 3. reluctant to proceed to extremities, and appeal A.D. 1529to the parliament. He had threatened that he 30. would tolerate no delay, and Wolsey had evidently expected that he would not. Queen Catherine's The pope alarm had gone so far, that in the autumn she Henry from had procured an injunction from the pope, which with his had been posted in the churches of Flanders, divorce in menacing the king with spiritual censures if he took any further steps. Even this she feared. that he would disregard, and in March, 1529–30, a second inhibition was issued at her request, couched in still stronger language. But these measures were needless, or at least premature. Henry expected that the display of temper in the country in the late session would produce It unanimous satisfaction at the * So reluctant was he, that at one time he had resolved, rather than compromise the unity of Christendom, to give way. When the disposition of the court of Rome was no longer doubtful, 'his difficultatibus permotus, cum in hoc statu res essent, dixerunt qui ejus verba exceperunt, post profundam secum de universo negotio deliberationem et mentis agitationem, tandem in hæc verba LEGRAND, vol. iii. p. 446. prorupisse, se primum tentâsse The censures were threatened in illud divortium persuasum eccle- the first brief, but the menace siam Romanam hoc idem pro- was withdrawn under the imbaturum-quod si ita illa ab-pression that it was not needed. horreret ab illâ sententiâ ut nullo modo permittendum censeret se nolle cum eâ contendere neque amplius in illo negotio progredi.' Pole, on whose authority we receive these words, says that they were heard with almost LEGRAND, vol. iii. p. 446. The second brief is dated March 7, and declares that the king, if he proceeds, shall incur ipso facto the greater excommunication; that the kingdom will fall under an interdict. A.D. 1529 30. CH. 3. an effect both on the pope and on the emperor; and proposing to send an embassy to remonstrate jointly with them on the occasion of the emperor's coronation, which was to take place in the spring at Bologna, he had recourse in the mean time to an expedient which, though blemished in the execution, was itself reasonable and prudent. A new point raised tent of the papal powers. Among the many technical questions which on the ex- had been raised upon the divorce, the most serious was on the validity of the original dispensation; a question not only on the sufficiency of the form the defects of which the brief had been invented to remedy; but on the more comprehensive uncertainty whether Pope Julius had not exceeded his powers altogether in granting a dispensation where there was so close affinity. No one supposed that the pope could permit a brother to marry a sister; a dispensation granted in such a case would be ipso facto void.-Was not the dispensation similarly void which permitted the marriage of a The object brother's widow? The advantage which Henry expected from raising this difficulty was the transfer of judgment from the partial tribunal of Clement to a broader court. The pope could not, of course, adjudicate on the extent of his own powers; especially as he always declared himself to be ignorant of the law; and the decision of so general a question rested either with a general council, or must be determined by the consent of Christendom, obtained in some other manner. If such general consent declared against the pope, the cause was virtually terminated. If there was some approach to a consent against him, or even with which it was moved. |