Page:Cassell's Illustrated History of England vol 2.djvu/217

] mere will of a king, and who unconsciously contributed to one of the most extensive revolutions of human mind and government which the world has known. No words can more perfectly present the two sides of his character than those of our great dramatist:—

Cavendish, the faithful secretary of Wolsey, rode on from Leicester to London, to announce the decease of the cardinal to the king. He found him engaged in a match of archery in the park of Hampton Court, that magnificent pile raised and presented to him by that magnificent minister. When the sport was finished, and Cavendish had delivered his solemn message, Henry seemed considerably touched by it, but almost immediately began to inquire with great eagerness after a sum of £1,500, which some one had told him Wolsey had secreted in some private place. Cavendish assured him that it had been put into the hands of a certain priest. Henry questioned him over and over again regarding this coveted sum, and said:—"Then, keep this gear secret between yourself and me: three may keep counsel, if two be away. If I thought my cap knew my mind, I would cast it into the fire and burn it. And if I hear any more of this, I shall know by whom it has been revealed."

In following the story of Wolsey to its close, we have a little overstepped the progress of affairs. As soon as the great man was out of the way, a ministry was formed of of the leading persons of the Boleyn party. The Duke of Norfolk, Anne's uncle, was made president of the council, Brandon, Duke of Suffolk, lord marshal, and the Earl of Wiltshire, the father of Anne Boleyn, had a principal place. Sir Thomas More, unfortunately for him as it proved, was made lord chancellor instead of Wolsey, a promotion which he reluctantly accepted. Amongst the king's servants, Stephen Gardiner, who had been introduced and much employed by Wolsey, still remained high in the king's favour, and occupied the post of his secretary. Gardiner, a bigoted Catholic, and afterwards one of the most bloody persecutors of the reformers, now, however, in trying to promote the wishes of the king for the divorce, unconsciously promoted the Reformation.

The king, returning from the progress which he had made to Moore Park, and to Grafton, remained one night at Waltham. Gardiner and Fox were lodged in the house of a Mr. Cressy, a gentleman of good family. After supper the conversation turned on the grand topic of the day—the king's divorce, and Gardiner and Fox detailed the difficulties that surrounded it, and the apparent impossibility of getting the Pope to move in it. A grave clergyman, the tutor of the family, of the name of Thomas Cranmer, after listening to the discourse, was asked by Fox and Gardiner what he thought of the matter. At first ho declined to give his opinion on so high a matter, but being pressed, he said, he thought they were wrong altogether in the way they were seeking the divorce. That as the Pope evidently would not commit himself upon the subject, his opinion was that they should not waste any more time in fruitless solicitations at Rome, but submit this plain question to the most learned men and chief universities of Europe: "Do the laws of God permit a man to marry his brother's widow?" If, as he imagined, the answers were in the negative, the Pope would not dare to pronounce a sentence in opposition to the opinions of all these learned men and learned bodies.

On the return of the Court to Greenwich, Fox and Gardiner related this conversation to the king, who instantly swore that "the man had got the right sow by the ear," and ordered him instantly to be sent for to Court. Cranmer, on his arrival, maintained his opinion in a manner which wonderfully delighted Henry, and raised his hope of having at length hit on the true mode of solving the difficulty. He immediately retained Cranmer in his service, appointed him his chaplain, and placed him in the family of Anne's father, the Earl of Wiltshire, where he was to write a book in favour of the divorce, and to devote himself to the promotion of this great object. Cranmer, like almost every one who took the fancy of Henry, soon rose to great honour, became Archbishop of Canterbury, a great champion of the Reformation, and ended his life, like most others of the great courtiers of that monarch, by a violent death. Fatal were the honours conferred by Henry VIII.: they led rapidly upwards to the block or the fagot.

Cranmer went zealously into the work appointed for him, for it was a grand step towards that object which he had above all others secretly in his heart—the reformation of the Church; and no doubt his friends and coadjutors gave him all possible aid in his labours. The course which he was pursuing went not only to effect Henry's divorce, but to establish the fact that the laws of God were to be appealed to in the Bible, and not in the Pope; and this once determined in so public and notorious a case, would create a broach betwixt Rome and England which never would be filled up. He very soon, therefore, had his treatise ready, which was printed—for now that great engine, the press, was beginning its revolutionising operations—and was diligently circulated, both at home and abroad.

Agents were dispatched to obtain the required opinion from the different universities, both in England and on the Continent, well provided with that most persuasive of rhetoricians—money. At his own universities, however, Henry found no little opposition. The doctors and seniors were, out of hope of promotion, found ready to decide as the king wished; but the younger members were determined and uproarious in resistance. The subject was debated in Convocation at Oxford with great heat and confusion, and the assembly was obliged to be dissolved without coming to any conclusion. Henry was highly indignant at this proceeding, and addressed one of his bullying remonstrances to the university, calling on the heads of houses to bring their juniors into