Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 11.djvu/698

Rh 664 HEN 11 Y VIII [OF ENGLAND. had gratified the national pride of his subjects by restoring England to a leading position in Europe. This should not be forgotten during the troubled and more questionable events that were to follow. The year 1528 may justly be fixed as the turning-point of Henry s life. By that time the divorce had become a national and even a European question, and Henry had decisively committed himself to the course which was to result in the separation from Rome. It is not clear when jhe plan of a divorce began to take shape in Henry s mind ; it was the slow result of a variety of causes which were not clear to the king himself. We know, however, that Anne Boleyn returned to the court of England in 1522 ; that she made quite a sensation there as soon as she appeared ; and that among other admirers, married and unmarried, Henry soon expressed a decided preference for her. On the other hand, he seems to have been alienated from Catherine long ere the question of divorce became public ; if we may trust a statement of his own, he had abstained from her bed since 1524, and his coldness for her increased with his love for Anne. That his scruples regarding his marriage awoke about the same time was certainly a very convenient coin cidence. The danger, however, of a disputed succession in the absence of male heirs was a real one. The situation probably justified such an extraordinary measure as a divorce, though we must recollect that the raising of a second family, rival to Mary the daughter of Catherine, might precipitate the very crisis which men feared. Still we must admit on the whole that the national interest and the inclination of Henry coincided, and that concern for his kingdom probably had a large part in the mixed motives which urged him to seek a divorce. When the demand for a divorce was first formally laid before the pope in 1527, no one anticipated that it would encounter so many difficulties. The great opponent of it was Charles V., who loyally supported his aunt, and who, as the event proved, had the pope entirely in his power. But for the emperor, Clement would soon have arranged every thing to the satisfaction of-the English court. As it was, he sought safety in delay. Thus he declined giving any decisive answer himself, and when he delegated the case to Wolsey and Campeggio, he managed still further to defer the question and then to revoke it to Rome (1529). By that time Henry s patience was exhausted. As early as 1528, and as if sure of a speedy decision in their favour, the king and Anne were living familiarly together under the same roof. Their disappointment was natural, and Henry soon began to take more active measures. He appealed from the pope to th? universities. Notwithstanding his life-long services Wolsey was discarded, because he was supposed not to have been sufficiently earnest about the divorce. The same year (1529) a parliament was called, which proved to be the ready auxiliary of the king in his new policy. This parliament, which sat at intervals from 1529 to 1536, had little independent or substantive power ; it was made up largely of the nominees and creatures of the court, and seldom moved but at the royal initiative. Still it was well that the old forms should be recognized in the great changes that were coming, ani significant that the strong-willed Tudor felt it safe to have the nation at his back. The changes themselves were gradual, and were by no means disagreeable to the advanced and influential part of the nation. Only a very small minority had any sympathy with the Lutheran movement ; but many wished to see the church reformed, to have her power curtailed, and that England should take up a more independent attitude towards the pope. Under these circumstances Henry found it easy to carry the majority, especially the active and pro gressive part, of the nation with him. In no case was the parliament of 1529 conscious of its destiny ; what it con templated was not a revolution but only some necessary reform; it, as well as Henry, would have been astonished to hear that they were working on the side of Luther. Yet the parliament soon proceeded to take some very decisive steps. In 1529 the probate duties and mortuaries (or burial fees) exacted by the church were curtailed ; the clergy were prohibited from following secular employments ; residence was enforced, and pluralities forbidden. In 1531 the clergy were laid under the charge of prsemunire, which they bought off by the payment of .118,000, and the acknowledgment that the king was supreme head of the church. In 1532 the abuses of &quot; Benefit of Clergy&quot; were reformed, annates abolished conditionally, and the inde pendent legislative power given up by convocation. Soon after the king took a step which precipitated the crisis ; he married Anne Boleyn, an event which was quickly followed by the publication in Flanders of a threat of excommunica tion from Rome. After this the Act of Appeals was passed, forbidding appeals from the English ecclesiastical courts to Rome, and Cranmer, in a court at Dunstable, declared the marriage with Catherine null and void. In the following year (1534) the papal authority in England was annulled, and by the Act of Supremacy Henry was declared supreme head of the English Church. The next step was a sad one ; but it convinced the world that the king was in earnest. Sir Thomas More and Fisher, bishop of Winchester, the noblest champions of the old faith, two of the best and noblest Englishmen of the time, were executed for refusing to accept the Supremacy Act (1535). Such an event pro duced a deep sensation in Europe, but it was decisive ; when the pope drew up the Bull of Deposition in 1536, which, however, was not published till 1538, the rupture with Rome was complete. In the same year (1536) the first Articles of religion, ten in number, were drawn up ; in effect they were a great simplification of the old creed, though they gave little encouragement to Lutheranism. At the same time the Act for the dissolution of the smaller monasteries, which was based upon the report of a com mission of inquiry, was passed, being the final important measure of the first Reformation parliament. With such events as the abolition of the papal power in England and the dissolution of the monasteries modern England begins ; they inaugurate a fundamental change in the national policy and in the structure and habits of society. While the purpose, real or ostensible, of Henry had been merely to marry a younger woman and provide for the succession, he had effected the greatest revolution which England has undergone. Henry had indeed succeeded in the task to which he had applied himself nine years before ; but the enemies lie had raised were formidable, and he was destined to many a bitter disappointment. He had excited the hostility of the pope and the emperor ; worst of all, he had seriously hurt the feelings and prejudices of a large class of his subjects. The clanger of foreign invasion was greatly increased by the discontent both in the north and west of England, where the love of use and wont in the church and in the national habits was strongest. The death of Catherine had indeed greatly relieved him, as it made reconciliation with the emperor practicable, and deprived the English opposition of a common centre. The rising in Ireland was suppressed without much difficulty, but the discontent in the north which broke out in the Pilgrimage of Grace was a formid able danger (1536). It was averted more by skilful states manship on Henry s part than by open show of force. The opposition in the west was nipped in the bud by the execu tion of its leaders, the marquis of Exeter and Lord Montague (1538). These measures of the king and of his minister Cromwell sometimes appeared cruel and unjustifi able, but they kept the country united ; Charles was con-