Page:Outlines of European History.djvu/718

 6iz Outlines of European History Henry VIII no Protestant Henry's anxiety to prove him- self a good Catholic The English Bible Henry's tyranny Execution of Sir Thomas More Refusal to take this oath was to be adjudged high treason. Many were unwilling to deny the Pope's headship merely be- cause king and Parliament renounced it, and this legislation led to a persecution in the name of treason which was even more horrible than that which had been carried on in the sup- posed interest of religion. It must be carefully observed that Henry VIII was not^ a Protestant in the Lutheran sense of the word. He was led, it is true, by Clement VH's refusal to declare his first mar- riage illegal, to break the bond between the English and the Roman Church, and to induce the English clergy and Parlia- ment to acknowledge the king as supreme head in the religious as well as in the worldly interests of the country. Important as this was, it did not lead Henry to accept the teachings of Protestant leaders, like Luther, Zwingli, or Calvin. Henry was anxious to prove that he was orthodox, espe- cially after he had seized the property of the monasteries and the gold and jewels which adorned the receptacles in which the relics of the saints were kept. He presided in person over the trial of one who accepted the opinions of Zwingli, and he quoted Scripture to prove the contrary. The prisoner was condemned and burned as a heretic. Henry also authorized a new translation of the Bible into English. A fine edition of this was printed (1539), and every parish was ordered to obtain a copy and place it in the parish church, where all the people could readily make use of it. Henry VIII was heartless and despotic. With a barbarity not uncommon in those days, he allowed his old friend and adviser, Sir Thomas More, to be beheaded for refusing to pro- nounce the marriage with Catherine void. He caused numbers of monks to be executed for refusing to swear that his first marriage was illegal and for denying his title to supremacy in the Church. Others he permitted to die of starvation and disease in the filthy prisons of the time. Many Englishmen would doubtless have agreed with one of the friars who said