Page:The New International Encyclopædia 1st ed. v. 09.djvu/836

* HENRY VIII. 772 HENRY VIII. resources and power of the Crown. Henry ac- cused the clergy of having violated the Statute of Pra-munire (q.v. ) in accepting Wolsey's lega- tine authority, although they would have met with swift punishment if they had presumed to act otherwise, and although Henry himself had called in the legate Campeggio a short time be- fore. Large numbers of the laity were also equally involved : but this was merely a violent and unscrupulous method of securing the clergy at home before proceeding against the authority of the Pope. Henry's complete success and tiie very moderate resistance of the clergy show how- times had changed since the days of Henry II. and Thomas of Canterbury. The Pope had never fully regained his prestige after the movement of Wicliff; and the English clergy were not only wealthy and therefore timid, but since YoI- sey as Royal Chancellor and Papal legate had practically- united supreme power in State and Church, they had grown compliant to the royal will. The Convocation of Canterbury offered a gift of £100,000 (equal to at least £2,000,000 at the present day) to be freed from the penalties of pra?munire, which involved the confiscation of all their property. Henry demanded in addi- tion that he be recognized as the supreme head of the Church of England, which after some re- sistance they accepted with the vague qualifica- tion, "so far as is permitted by the law of Christ." The Convocation of York soon after bought its pardon on the same condition and the payment of £18,000. Henry found support in these measures in Parliament, whose elections he practically controlled, and whose members ■were eitlier lawyers or counti-y squires, with little aiTection for the Church! In 1532 the clergy submitted its entire body of canons to the King's examination, and renounced the right to make new canons without royal permission, thus putting an end forever to the' freedom of the English Church. In 1533 Henry made retreat impossible by secretly marrying Anne Boleyn without a divorce. In the same year he made Cranmer, an able but compliant and vacillating ■churchman. Archbishop of Canterbury, who on May 23d decided that Henry's marriage with Catharine was void, and on May 28th that his secret marriage with Anne was "lawful. About a year after, Clement decided in favor of Cath- arine, but not until Henry, foreseeing the result, had all but severed the "connection between the English Church and Rome. In 1534 Parliament ehanged the provisional Act of Annates of 1532 into an unconditional one, giving the King the annates or first fruits which were formerly paid to the Pope. It also provided for the appoint- ment of bishops without reference to Papal au- thority, and abolished appeals to Rome. Hence- forth the Pope was merely 'the Bishop of Rome,' w-ith no more authority" in England than any other foreign bishop. The new royal supremacy found its first ex- pression in three acts which, taken together, as- sumed an intolerably tyrannical character. The first act of succession of 1533 not only fixed the inheritance to the crown in the issue of -Anne Boleyn, and declared that the marriage with Catharine was invalid from the beginning, but required all subjects to take oath aflimiing their full acceptance of the contents of the act" ■vhich no Catholic could conscientiously do: and it further declared that any one wlio refused should be guilty of high treason. The act of supremacy and the treason act of the following year confirmed the royal title 'supreme head of the Church of England,' and declared that any one who should deprive the King of his titl'e should be guilty of high treason. The King thus tried not only to rule over men's actions, but over their consciences. Numerous victims met a traitor's death for refusing to swear that Cath- arine's marriage was unlawful, though otherwise they w-ere willing to accept the new succession. With incredible callousness, Henry sent to the block Sir Thomas More, his fornier friend and boon companion, one of the ornaments of the age. and Fisher, whom the Pope shortly before had made cardinal. Many friars were burned merely for refusing to take the oath on conscientious grounds. Some of them had spoken against the King's second marriage, but others had not. In 1536 A nn e was executed, on charges of which we have no proof. Ten days later Henry married Jane Sejrmour, and a new act of succession made it treasonable to affirm what it was formerly treasonable to deny. The resistance of the friars no doubt helped to call the attention of Cromwell, who had been made vicar-general in ecclesiastical matters in 1535, to the rich booty to be acquired through the 'dissolution of the monasteries, at that time widely established throughout England. He ven- tured at first to despoil only the lesser houses. A royal visitation of the year 1535 made the con- venient discovery that monasteries '"where the congregation of such religious persons is under the number of twelve persons" were the seats of "manifest sin. vicious, carnal, and abominable living," while those with more than twelve per- sons were not. Parliament thereupon (1536) dissolved the smaller houses and gave their prop- erty to the King. The Catholic rising in the northern and more conservative districts in 1536, known as the 'Pilgrimage of Grace,' in- volved some of the remaining abbots of that re- gion, and this was a signal for the dissolution of the greater monasteries. Those w-ho were im- plicated in the revolt were executed for treason, and the others were gradually frightened into surrendering their authority and property into the hands of the King, "of their own free and voluntary minds, good wills and assents, with- out constraint, coercion, or compulsion of any manner of person or persons," as the Parlia- mentary act of 1539 puts it. Henry used the enormous spoils of the monasteries partly for religious objects, partly for military purposes; but much was granted to ro.val favorites, and many prominent families in England at the pres- ent day derive their fortunes from this source. One of the unexpected consequences of the dis- solution was the formation of a considerable party keenly interested in maintaining the reli- gious innovations. It was not, however, Henry's first intention to introduce religious innovations, other than the royal supremacy. If More and Fisher were beheaded for denying the royal supremacy, John Frith was burned for denying the doctrine of tran- substantiation. Yet preachers with Protestant tendencies were appearing and criticising the old order of things with great asperity. To prevent these disturbances, the Ten Articles were promul- gated in 1336 by royal order, containing a creed which in the main held to the old order, yet