Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 8.djvu/354

Rh 334 E N G L A N D [nisTOKY. the existing system, whatever it was, was the only system that was allowed. Every other form of worship was for bidden under penalties, heavier or lighter. And there was always some form or degree of theological error which sent its professors to the flames. And, besides burnings for heresy, as heresy was understood at each successive stage, this period of English history is especially distinguished for the cloaking of what was really religious persecution under the guise of punishment for political offences. During the reign of Henry, every man who would now be deemed a conscientious Catholic was liable to die the death of a traitor. Every man who would now be deemed a con scientious Protestant was liable to die the death of a heretic. Under Edward and Elizabeth the standard of belief was changed, so changed that only a few extreme sec taries were now in danger of the flames. But the differ ence simply was that the line was drawn at a different point. Those who went beyond that point were burned by those who a few years before might have been burned themselves. AJminis- For twenty years after his accession, Henry was famous, trationof no (on |y f or strict orthodoxy of dogma, but for special se ^ devotion to the Roman see. He had received a learned education, and he believed himself to be a special master of theology. His writings in that character, as a defender of Roman doctrine against Luther, won him in 1521 the title of Defender of the Faith, which by a singular irony was conferred by Leo X. Through all this first period of his reign, the series of ecclesiastical statesmen still goes on. For fourteen years, from 1515 to 1529, ecclesiastical statesmanship was in truth at its highest pitch in the person of Thomas Wolsey, archbishop, cardinal, and chancellor. During the administration of this famous man, we are instinctively reminded of the joint rule of an earlier Henry and an earlier Thomas ; but the fate of the two great chancellors was widely different. No English minister before Wolsey, and few after him, ever attained so great an European position. He dreamed of the popedom, while .his master dreamed of the empire. In his home adminis tration Wolsey carried out the policy which had become usual since Edward IV., and summoned parliament as seldom as possible. On the other hand, his administration of justice won the highest general confidence, and his hand was far from heavy on the maintainers of the new religious doctrines. On the whole his position is rather European than English. He is the minister of Henry in his earlier character as warrior, conqueror, and arbiter of Europe. He is more like the great cardinals who ruled in other lands than anything to which we are used in England. The purely English work of Henry s reign was done by the hands of men of another kind. The aera of the lay states men now begins in the mightiest and most terrible of their Thomas number, Thomas Cromwell. From this time the highest Crom- offices are still occasionally held by churchmen, even as late well- as the middle of the seventeenth century. But the holding of office by churchmen now becomes exceptional ; lay ad ministration is the rule. Henry s There is no need to go through the endless tale of mar- Henry s marriages, divorces, and beheadings of wives, riages. except so far as they have a political or ecclesiastical bearing. The mere number of Henry s wives is unparalleled in our history, and has not many parallels in any history ; and the king was, to say the least, unlucky, who, out of six wives, found himself obliged to divorce two and behead two others. But, even in these matters, the peculiar character of Henry s tyranny stands forth. Everything is done with some show of legal form. When he wishes to get rid of a wife, or to exchange one wife for another, the first is divorced or beheaded by some process which has at least the show of legal authority. &quot; Non nisi legitime vult nubere. &quot; Of all Henry s doings in this way, the long story of the Effects divorce of Katharine of Aragon is the first, and the most Katha remarkable in its historical bearings. We may pass by rine&amp;gt;s details and points of controversy ; but it is plain that the divorc validity of the marriage of Henry and Katharine was on any showing doubtful, and that doubts had been from time to time raised on the point before the great con troversy arose. It is further plain that it was most desir able for the kingdom to have an heir whose legitimacy could not be called in question. It is also plain that it is quite in the character of Henry, if be wished to get rid of Katharine and to marry Anne, to seize upon every shadow either of political expediency or of canonical subtlety which might help him to put a fair show on the course to which his own fancy led him. What he did he would do with some shadow of legal right, even though such shadow of legal right was to be -had only by devising a new juris prudence, by upsetting the relations of Church and State as they were then understood, by jeoparding the relations of his kingdoms with foreign powers, and by shedding any amount of innocent blood, provided always that it could be shed in legal form. It is enough for our purpose that Henry s wish to put Anne in the place of Katharine led to the endless disputes as to the validity of Katharine s marriage, and, as its first great result in England, to the fall of the great cardinal in 1529, followed by his death in the next year. Events now follow fast on one another. In 1531, by one of the meanest tricks that ever king played, the whole estate of the clergy was held to have fallen -into a proemunire by admitting the legatine authority of Wolsey, which he had exercised with the king s full sanction. Their pardon was bought only by an enormous subsidy, and by acknowledging the king as Supreme Head on earth of the Church of England, a form of words now heard for the Supre first time. In 1532, when all hope of a favourable sen- Head, tence from Rome had passed by, Henry is believed to have privately married Anne. In 1533 the death of Arch bishop Warham made room for the promotion of Thomas Cranmev to the see of Canterbury, a promotion which was still made by papal authority. The first act of the new primate was to hold a court which declared the marriage of Katharine null and the marriage of Anne lawful. Then camo the great legislation of the year 1534. by which the papal authority was wholly abolished, while the Abolil Act of Submission on the part of the clergy subordinated of paj all ecclesiastical legislation within the kingdom to the royal authoj will. The succession to the crown was settled in favour of the issue of Anne, to the exclusion of the issue of Katharine, and the punishment of treason was denounced against all who refused to swear to the succession so or dained. The title of Supreme Head of the Church, already voted by the clergy, was now bestowed by parliament, and full ecclesiastical powers were annexed to it. These powers were allowed to be exercised by deputy, and in 1535 Cromwell was made vicegerent for the king in ecclesiastical matters, with precedence in the ecclesiastical convocation over the metropolitan himself. On the other hand, a strict statute was passed for the suppression of heresy. The scheme of Henry was now fully established ; the religion of England was Popery without the Pope. It was only in an indirect way that such a change as this indire could give any encouragement to the professors of the re- results formed doctrines. It was only in a still more indirect way of the that it could tend to the establishment of religious toleration c or the acknowledgment of liberty of conscience. Still, however indirectly, the first steps were now taken towards change in the received doctrines of the Church, and towards the toleration of dissent from those doctrines. So great a change could not fail to lead to further changes, and the next six years of Henry s reign were a time in which all