Page:EB1911 - Volume 21.djvu/1010

Rh it was soon regarded with the utmost horror by many. But at Viterbo it was in favour, and the orthodox interpretation was regarded rather than the other which might be taken in the Lutheran sense. Pole's own attitude to the question of justihcation by faith is given by Vittoria Colonna, to whom he said that she ought to set herself to believe as though she must be saved by iaith alone and to act as though she must be saved by works alone In the excited temper of the times any defender of justification by faith was looked upon by the old school as heretical; and Pole, with the circle at Viterbo, was denounced to the Inquisition, with all sorts of crimes imputed to him. Though the process went on from the pontificate of Paul III. to that of Paul IV., nothing was done against the cardinal until the time of the latter pope, who was his personal enemy. It is by no means certain that Pole ever knew about the process begun against him; and immediate subsequent events show that no credence was given to the charges.1

While at Viterbo his rule was firm but mild; and no charge of persecuting heretics is made against him. He regained many, such as his friend Flaminio, by patience and kindliness, to a reconsideration of their errors. During this time also he was still engaged in furthering a proposed armed expedition to Scotland to aid the papal party, and in 1 54 5 he was again asking help from Charles V. But the Council of Trent (a.v.), first summoned in 1536, was at last on the point of meeting, and this required all his attention. In 1542 he had been appointed one of the presiding legates and had written in preparation his work De cumilio; and now in I § 4S, after a brief visit to Rome, he went secretly, on account of fear of assassination by Henry's agents, to Trent, where he arrived on the 4th of May 1 S4 5. At the council he took a high spiritual line, and his learning and devout life made him a great leader in that assembly. He advocated that dogmatic decrees should go together with those on reform as affording the only stable foundation. His views on the subject of original sin, akin as it is to that of justihcation, were accepted and embodied in the decree. He was present when the latter subject was introduced, and he entreated the fathers to study the subject well before committing themselves to a decision. On the 28th of June 1546 he left Trent on account of ill-health and went to Padua. While he was there frequent communications passed between him and the council and the draft of the decree on justification was sent to him. His suggestions and amendments were accepted, and the decree embodies the doctrines that Pole had always held of justihcation by a living faith which showed itself in good works. This effectually disproves the story that he left the Council of Trent so as to avoid taking part in an adverse decree. On the death of Hen1y (jan. 28, 1547), Pole, by name, was left out of the general pardon; and in the subsequent rising in the West the insurgents demanded that he should be sent for and made the first on the record in the council. He wrote several times to England to prepare a conference, but only received a rude reply from Somerset, who sent him a copy of the Book of Common Prayer. At the conclave of 1549 Pole received two-thirds of the votes, but by a delay, caused by his sense of responsibility, he lost the election and Julius III. succeeded. He then retired to Magazzano on the Lake of Garda and occupied himself by editing his book Pro unitate ecclesiae, with an intended dedication to Edward VI. The accession of Mary opens the third period of his life. On the 5th of August 1555 he was appointed legate to the new queen and began his negotiations. But many difficulties were put in the way of return. He was still under attainder; and the temper of England was not yet ripe for the presence of a cardinal. § ee, however, Herzog-Hauck, Realencyklopadze (ed 3) § “ Pole, ” where it is said that ' only his procrastination, and then his death saved him from appearing before the Inquisition.” N1th1n the institution of the Inquisition his name continued to be regarded as that of a heretic and mislead er of others, as is proved by the mass of eudence accumulated against him in the Compendzum inquzszlorum (v. archww della .xoczetd dz storm Patna, Rome, 1880), p. 283, &c.-(ED)

I

The project of the queen's marriage was also an obstacle. A marriage between her and Pole, who was then only a deacon, was proposed by some, but this did not at all meet the views of the emperor, who therefore hindered him the more from setting out for England. The marriage with Philip, of which Pole did not approve, having taken place (July 2 5, 1554), and Rome yielding on the practical difficulties of the lay holders of Church lands, a parliament favourable to the proposed reunion now assembled, and Pole was allowed to return to England as cardinal. On his landing he was informed that the attainder had been reversed; and he received the royal patent authorizing his performance of the legatine duties within the realm. Arriving at Whitehall, where he was received with joy by Mary and Philip on the 30th of November, he proceeded to parliament and there absolved the kingdom and accepted in the pope's name the demands respecting ecclesiastical property. He entered wisely on his work of reformation, for which he was well prepared. One of the most important matters he had to deal with was to rectify the canonical position of those who had been ordained or consecrated since the breach with Rome. Acting according to the instructions he had received from Rome, where the matter had been fully gone into, he made an investigation, and divided the clergy ordained after that period into two classes; one consisting of those ordained in schism, indeed, but according to the old Catholic rite, and the other of those who had been ordained by the new rite drawn up by Cranmer and enforced by act of parliament 1st of April 1550. The first class, after submission, were absolved from their irregularity, and, receiving penance, were reinstated; the second class were simply regarded as laymen and dismissed without penance or absolution. At his first convocation he exhorted the bishops to use gentleness rather than rigour in their dealings with heretics; and Pole, in himself, was true to his principle. He was not responsible for the cruel persecution by which the reign was disfigured. On the 4th of November 1555 Pole opened, in the chapel royal at Westminster, a legatine synod, consisting of the united convocations of the two provinces, for the purpose of laying the foundations of wise and solid reforms. In the Reformatio Angliae which he brought out in 1556, based on his Legatine Constitutions of 1555, he ordered that every cathedral church should have its seminary, and the very words he uses on this subject seem to have been copied by the Council of 'I' rent in the twenty-third session (1563). He also ordered that the Catechism of Caranza, who, like him, was to suiier from the Inquisition for this very book, should be translated into English for the use of the laity. On Cranmer'S deprivation, Pole became archbishop of Canterbury; and, having been ordained priest two days before, he was consecrated on the zznd of March 1556, the day after Cranmer suffered at Cxford. Soon afterwards the clouds began to gather round him. His personal enemy Carafia had become pope under the name of Paul IV. and was hiding his time. When Rome quarrelled with Spain, and France, on behalf of the pope, took up arms, England could no longer observe neutrality. To injure Spain and hcedless of England's need, Paul IV. deprived Pole of his power both as legate a latere and Zegatus natus as archbishop of Canterbury (June 14, 1557); he also reconstituted the process of the Inquisition against the cardinal and summoned him to Rome to answer to the crime and heresies imputed to him. No remonstrances on the part of the queen, of Pole or the English clergy could induce the pope to withdraw his sentence except to declare that the cardinal still held the position of legatus natus inherent in the primatial see. In a dignified but strcng letter Pole says: “ As you are without example in what you have done against me, I am also without an example how I ought to behave to your Holiness ”: and he drew up a paper containing an account of the various acts of hostility he had experienced from the pope, but on second thoughts he burnt the document, saying it were not well to discover the shame of his father Mary, who had been warned by hei ambassador to the pope that prison awaited Pole, prevented the breve ordering the cardinal to proceed to Rome from being delivered,