Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 20.djvu/349

Rh REFORMATION 331 politan, and on receiving these it was also requisite that he should take the oaths of canonical obedience and sub- jection to the Roman pontiff. His conduct in this dilemma has been generally regarded as indefensible. In order to show that he disclaimed the right of the pontiff to nomi- nate to ecclesiastical offices in England, he surrendered the several bulls, eleven in number, into Henry's hands ; and, having done this, he took the usual oath of obedience to the see of Rome. 1 Before doing so, however, he made a protestation to the effect that he did not intend thereby to bind himself to do anything contrary to the laws of God, the king's prerogative, or the commonwealth and statutes of the kingdom. On 23d May 1533 he proceeded, as archbishop and legate of the apostolic see, to pronounce the king's marriage with Catherine of Aragon null and void ab initio, as contrary to the divine law; and five days later he gave judicial confirmation to the royal marriage with Anne Boleyn. In the following year (23d March 1534) Clement rejoined by a manifesto declaring the validity of the first marriage, and calling upon Henry to take back his first wife and to observe "a perpetual silence " in relation to the question for the future. 2 This decisive step was mainly the result of the parliamentary action that had in the meantime been going on. The parliament of 1529 had in various ways limited the privi- leges of the clergy, and by the Act 21 Hen. VIII. c. 13 had deprived them of the power of holding pluralities by virtue of licences obtained from Rome for money. Fisher, from his place in the House of Lords, vainly sought to combat these reforms by declaring that Lutheranisnvwas spreading in the nation and by reminding his audience of Germany and Bohemia and the miseries that had already befallen those countries. The allusion to the Lutheran movement appears to have been, indeed, singularly inju- dicious, and there can be no doubt that at this period it was the aim not only of the king but of the bishops to dissociate the Reformation movement in England from the movement that was in progress in Germany. As yet the repudiation of the papal supremacy and a reform in matters of discipline were all that was contemplated either by the crown or the parliament. In 1531 appeared a pro- clamation making it penal to introduce bulls from Rome, and this was shortly followed by an Act visiting with severe penalties all who should be found going about the country for the purpose of carrying on the sale of indul- gences ; while under the famous Statute of Praemunire the whole body of the clergy were convicted of having recog- nized the validity of Wolsey's acts as papal legate, and thereby placed both their liberties and their possessions at the mercy of the king. In April 1533 there followed the Act providing that all causes should henceforth be tried in the courts of the kingdom, and forbidding appeals to Rome under any circumstances whatever, the body "now being usually called the English Church" being held "sufficient and meet of itself to declare and deter- mine all such doubts and duties as to their rooms [i.e., offices] spiritual doth appertain." These successive enact- ments had already paved the way for Henry's final rejoinder to Clement's demands, the Act of Supremacy (November 1534), whereby the king was not only declared to be supreme head of the Church of England, but was at the same time invested with full power " to repress and amend all such errors and heresies as, by any manner of spiritual jurisdiction, might and ought to be lawfully reformed." 1 It should, however, be noted that Cranmer's oath as metropolitan contained the clause " salvo ordine meo," and this clause might prob- ably, in the judgment of canonists, render his subsequent reservation more defensible. See Sarum Pontifical in Camb. Univ. Lib. (Mm. iii. 21) ; Maskell, Monitmenta Ritualia, ii. 317 ; Strype, Memorials of Cranmer, App. No. VI. 2 Records of the Reformation, ii. 532. While such was the progress of events in England and in Political Germany there had been going on in Switzerland a corre- c p n <li- sponding movement, second only in importance to that I"" 1. * initiated by Luther. The political relations of the Swiss i an( j. confederation at this period exercised a very appreciable influence over the whole course of the Reformation. With the commencement of the century the cantons had already reached the number of thirteen; and the confederates, in combination with the Leaguers, represented Italian as well as German interests. In great crises they were not incapable of presenting a combined front to the common foe ; but more generally they were divided by political jealousies and differences, while the majority of the men in each canton were mere military adventurers, ready to serve under the banner of the empire, France, the pope, or the duke of Milan, according as the one or the other power seemed likely best to reward their services. An important change in the ecclesiastical relations of the cantons had recently brought them into closer connexion with Rome. The six bishoprics into which Switzerland was divided Lausanne, Sion (Sitten), Como, Basel, Chur, and Constance had formerly been severally subject to the metropolitan jurisdiction of Mainz, Besanon, and Milan. But this jurisdiction had been superseded by the creation of the nunciatures, whereby each bishopric was brought into direct connexion with the papal see. The nuncios often exercised a potent influence on the political relations of the confederates. They negotiated with large bodies of Switzers the conditions of military service under the pope; they directed the traffic in indulgences; and they watched with especial jealousy the first appearance of schism. The experience, however, of those of the con- federates who accepted military service in Italy did not serve to increase their reverence for the Curia and its aims. They carried back with them to their homes a contempt for the whole administration of the Roman see and its dependencies which communicated itself to their country- men, and at no centres were opinions adverse to Catho- licism now spreading more rapidly than at Zurich, Bern, and Basel. Born in the same year as his brother Reformer, Ulrich Zwingli. Zwingli was scarcely less distinguished by commanding powers, devotion to study, and a yet more notable devo- tion to truth ; but in the enlightened tolerance which marked his whole career we recognize the contrast be- tween his early associations and those which nurtured the somewhat narrow though fervid patriotism of Luther. The latter, in the retirement of his monastic cell, had pondered over the profound speculations of Augustine, the imaginative subtleties of De Lyra, and the mysticism of Tauler. The other, at the universities of Vienna and Basel, had become familiarized with classic models, and his genius had gained a brighter inspiration from converse with the masterpieces of antiquity. It was in connexion with the church at Glarus that Zwingli first assumed the discharge of pastoral duties. It was characteristic of his true and discerning patriotic feeling that he strongly dis- approved of the acceptance of mercenary service by his countrymen, and more especially of the service of France, and his outspoken sentiments on the subject eventually rendered it necessary for him to quit Glarus for Einsiedeln. Here he was for a short time in receipt of a pension from the pope and was generally regarded as a supporter of Catholic institutions. In conjunction with the abbot of Einsiedeln he aimed, however, at the development of a less superstitious spirit among both the clergy and the laity, who resorted in great numbers to the monastery (a noted centre for pilgrimages). It was here that he formed the acquaintance of one of the most eminent of the Re- formers, Oswald Geisshausler (better known as Myconius),