Volume 1 / Part 100 — CHAPTER XXXI. HENRY VIII. (continued 2)

1538.

The suppression of the rebellion and the birth of a son, as they confirmed Henry’s authority at home, increased his consideration among foreign princes, and made his alliance be courted by all parties. He maintained, however, a neutrality in the wars which were carried on with various success, and without any decisive event, between Charles and Francis; and though inclined more to favor the latter, he determined not to incur, without necessity, either hazard or expense on his account. A truce concluded about this time between these potentates, and afterwards prolonged for ten years, freed him from all anxiety on account of his ally, and reestablished the tranquillity of Europe.

Henry continued desirous of cementing a union with the German Protestants; and for that purpose he sent Christopher Mount to a congress which they held at Brunswick; but that minister made no great progress in his negotiation. The princes wished to know what were the articles in their confession which Henry disliked; and they sent new ambassadors to him, who had orders both to negotiate and to dispute. They endeavored to convince the king, that he was guilty of a mistake in administering the eucharist in one kind only, in allowing private masses, and in requiring the celibacy of the clergy.[*]

Henry would by no means acknowledge any error in these particulars; and was displeased that they should pretend to prescribe rules to so great a monarch and theologian. He found arguments and syllogisms enough to defend his cause; and he dismissed the ambassadors without coming to any conclusion. Jealous, also, lest his own subjects should become such theologians as to question his tenets, he used great precaution in publishing that translation of the Scripture which was finished this year. He would only allow a copy of it to be deposited in some parish churches, where it was fixed by a chain: and he took care to inform the people by proclamation, “that this indulgence was not the effect of his duty, but of his goodness and his liberality to them: who therefore should use it moderately, for the increase of virtue, not of strife: and he ordered that no man should read the Bible aloud, so as to disturb the priest while he sang mass, nor presume to expound doubtful places without advice from the learned.” In this measure, as in the rest, he still halted half way between the Catholics and the Protestants.

There was only one particular in which Henry was quite decisive; because he was there impelled by his avarice, or, more properly-speaking, his rapacity, the consequence of his profusion: this measure was the entire destruction of the monasteries. The present opportunity seemed favorable for that great enterprise, while the suppression of the late rebellion fortified and increased the royal authority; and as some of the abbots were suspected of having encouraged the insurrection, and of corresponding with the rebels, the king’s resentment was further incited by that motive. Anew visitation was appointed of all the monasteries in England; and a pretence only being wanted for their suppression, it was easy for a prince, possessed of such unlimited power, and seconding the present humor of a great part of the nation, to find or feign one. The abbots and monks knew the danger to which they were exposed; and having learned by the example of the lesser monasteries that nothing could withstand the king’s will, they were most of them induced, in expectation of better treatment, to make a voluntary resignation of their houses. Where promises failed of effect, menaces and even extreme violence were employed; and as several of the abbots, since the breach with Rome, had been named by the court with a view to this event, the king’s intentions were the more easily effected. Some, also, having secretly embraced the doctrine of the reformation, were glad to be freed from their vows; and on the whole, the design was conducted with such success, than in less than two years the king had got possession of all the monastic revenues.

In several places, particularly the county of Oxford, great interest was made to preserve some convents of women, who, as they lived in the most irreproachable manner, justly merited, it was thought, that their houses should be saved from the general destruction.[*]

There appeared, also, great difference between the case of nuns and that of friars; and the one institution might be laudable, while the other was exposed to much blame. The males of all ranks, if endowed with industry might be of service to the public; and none of them could want employment suited to his station and capacity. But a woman of family who failed of a settlement in the married state,—an accident to which such persons were more liable than women of lower station,—had really no rank which she properly filled; and a convent was a retreat both honorable and agreeable, from the inutility, and often want, which attended her situation. But the king was determined to abolish monasteries of every denomination; and probably thought that these ancient establishments would be the sooner forgotten, if no remains of them of any kind were allowed to subsist in the kingdom.

The better to reconcile the people to this great innovation, stories were propagated of the detestable lives of the friars in many of the convents; and great care was taken to defame those whom the court had determined to ruin. The relics also and other superstitions, which had so long been the object of the people’s veneration, were exposed to their ridicule; and the religious spirit, now less bent on exterior observances and sensible objects, was encouraged in this new direction. It is needless to be prolix in an enumeration of particulars: Protestant historians mention on this occasion, with great triumph, the sacred repositories of convents; the parings of St. Edmond’s toes; some of the coals that roasted St. Laurence; the girdle of the Virgin shown in eleven several places; two or three heads of St. Ursula; the felt of St Thomas of Lancaster, an infallible cure for the headache; part of St. Thomas of Canterbury’s shirt, much reverenced by big-bellied women; some relics, an excellent preventive against rain; others, a remedy to weeds in corn. But such fooleries, as they are to be found in all ages and nations, and even took place during the most refined periods of antiquity, form no particular or violent reproach to the Catholic religion.

There were also discovered, or said to be discovered, in the monasteries some impostures of a more artificial nature. At Hales, in the county of Glocester, there had been shown, during several ages, the blood of Christ, brought from Jerusalem; and it is easy to imagine the veneration with which such a relic was regarded. A miraculous circumstance also attended this miraculous relic; the sacred blood was not visible to any one in mortal sin, even when set before him; and till he had performed good works sufficient for his absolution, it would not deign to discover itself to him. At the dissolution of the monastery, the whole contrivance was detected. Two of the monks, who were let into the secret, had taken the blood of a duck, which they renewed every week: they put it in a phial, one side of which consisted of thin and transparent crystal, the other of thick and opaque. When any rich pilgrim arrived, they were sure to show him the dark side of the phial, till masses and offerings had expiated his offences and then, finding his money, or patience, or faith, nearly exhausted, they made him happy by turning the phial.[*]

A miraculous crucifix had been kept at Boxley, in Kent, and bore the appellation of the “rood of grace.” The lips, and eyes, and head of the image moved on the approach of its votaries. Hilsey, bishop of Rochester, broke the crucifix at St. Paul’s Cross, and showed to the whole people the springs and wheels by which it had been secretly moved. A great wooden idol, revered in Wales, called Darvel Gatherin, was also brought to London, and cut in pieces; and by a cruel refinement in vengeance, it was employed as fuel to burn friar Forest,[**] who was punished for denying the supremacy, and for some pretended heresies. A finger of St. Andrew, covered with a thin plate of silver, had been pawned by a convent for a debt of forty pounds; but as the king’s commissioners refused to pay the debt, people made themselves merry with the poor creditor on account of his pledge.

But of all the instruments of ancient superstition, no one was so zealously destroyed as the shrine of Thomas à Becket, commonly called St. Thomas of Canterbury. This saint owed his canonization to the zealous defence which he had made for clerical privileges; and on that account also the monks had extremely encouraged the devotion of pilgrimages towards his tomb, and numberless were the miracles which they pretended his relics wrought in favor of his devout votaries. They raised his body once a year; and the day on which this ceremony was performed, which was called the day of his translation, was a general holiday: every fiftieth year there was celebrated a jubilee to his honor, which lasted fifteen days: plenary indulgences were then granted to all that visited his tomb; and a hundred thousand pilgrims have been registered at a time in Canterbury. The devotion towards him had quite effaced in that place the adoration of the Deity; nay, even that of the Virgin. At God’s altar, for instance, there were offered in one year three pounds two shillings and sixpence; at the Virgin’s, sixty-three pounds five shillings and sixpence; at St. Thomas’s, eight hundred and thirty-two pounds twelve shillings and threepence. But next year the disproportion was still greater; there was not a penny offered at God’s altar; the Virgin’s gained only four pounds one shilling and eight pence; but St. Thomas had got for his share nine hundred and fifty-four pounds six shillings and threepence.[*] Lewis VII. of France had made a pilgrimage to this miraculous tomb, and had bestowed on the shrine a jewel, esteemed the richest in Christendom. It is evident how obnoxious to Henry a saint of this character must appear, and how contrary to all his projects for degrading the authority of the court of Rome. He not only pillaged the rich shrine dedicated to St. Thomas; he made the saint himself be cited to appear in court, and be tried and condemned as a traitor: he ordered his name to be struck out of the calendar; the office for his festival to be expunged from all breviaries; his bones to be burned, and the ashes to be thrown in the air.

On the whole, the king at different times suppressed six hundred and forty-five monasteries; of which twenty-eight had abbots that enjoyed a seat in parliament. Ninety colleges were demolished in several counties; two thousand three hundred and seventy-four chantries and free chapels; a hundred and ten hospitals. The whole revenue of these establishments amounted to one hundred and sixty-one thousand one hundred pounds.[**] It is worthy of observation, that all the lands and possessions and revenue of England had, a little before this period, been rated at four millions a year; so that the revenues of the monks, even comprehending the lesser monasteries, did not exceed the twentieth part of the national income; a sum vastly inferior to what is commonly apprehended. The lands belonging to the convents were usually let at very low rent; and the farmers, who regarded themselves as a species of proprietors, took always care to renew their leases before they expired.[***] 13

Great murmurs were every where excited on account of these violences; and men much questioned whether priors and monks, who were only trustees or tenants for life, could, by any deed, however voluntary, transfer to the king the entire property of their estates, In order to reconcile the people to such mighty innovations, they were told that the king would never thenceforth have occasion to levy taxes, but would be able, from the abbey lands alone, to bear, during war as well as peace, the whole charges of government.[*] While such topics were employed to appease the populace, Henry took an effectual method of interesting the nobility and gentry in the success of his measures:[**] he either made a gift of the revenues of convents to his favorites and courtiers, or sold them at low prices, or exchanged them for other lands on very disadvantageous terms. He was so profuse in these liberalities, that he is said to have given a woman the whole revenue of a convent, as a reward for making a pudding which happened to gratify his palate.[***] He also settled pensions on the abbots and priors, proportioned to their former revenues or to their merits; and gave each monk a yearly pension of eight marks: he erected six new bishoprics, Westminster, Oxford, Peterborough, Bristol, Chester, and Glocester; of which five subsist at this day: and by all these means of expense and dissipation, the profit which the king reaped by the seizure of church lands fell much short of vulgar opinion. As the ruin of convents had been foreseen some years before it happened, the monks had taken care to secrete most of their stock, furniture, and plate; so that the spoils of the great monasteries bore not, in these respects, any proportion to those of the lesser.

Besides the lands possessed by the monasteries, the regular clergy enjoyed a considerable part of the benefices of England, and of the tithes annexed to them; and these were also at this time transferred to the crown, and by that means passed into the hands of laymen; an abuse which many zealous churchmen regarded as the most criminal sacrilege. The monks were formerly much at their ease in England, and enjoyed revenues which exceeded the regular and stated expense of the house. We read of the abbey of Chertsey, in Surrey, which possessed seven hundred and forty-four pounds a year, though it contained only fourteen monks: that of Furnese, in the county of Lincoln, was valued at nine hundred and sixty pounds a year, and contained but thirty.[*] In order to dissipate their revenues, and support popularity, the monks lived in a hospitable manner; and besides the poor maintained from their offals, there were many decayed gentlemen who passed their lives in travelling from convent to convent, and were entirely subsisted at the tables of the friars. By this hospitality, as much as by their own inactivity, did the convents prove nurseries of idleness; but the king, not to give offence by too sudden an innovation, bound the new proprietors of abbey lands to support the ancient hospitality. But this engagement was fulfilled in very few places, and for a very short time.

It is easy to imagine the indignation with which the intelligence of all these acts of violence was received at Rome; and how much the ecclesiastics of that court, who had so long kept the world in subjection by high-sounding epithets and by holy execrations, would now vent their rhetoric against the character and conduct of Henry. The pope was at last incited to publish the bull which had been passed against that monarch; and in a public manner he delivered over his soul to the devil, and his dominions to the first invader. Libels were dispersed, in which he was anew compared to the most furious persecutors in antiquity; and the preference was now given to their side: he had declared war with the dead, whom the pagans themselves respected; was at open hostility with Heaven; and had engaged in professed enmity with the whole host of saints and angels. Above all, he was often reproached with his resemblance to the emperor Julian, whom, it was said, he imitated in his apostasy and learning, though he fell short of him in morals. Henry could distinguish in some of these libels the style and animosity of his kinsman Pole; and he was thence incited to vent his rage, by every possible expedient, on that famous cardinal.

Reginald de la Pole, or Reginald Pole, was descended from the royal family, being fourth son of the countess of Salisbury, daughter of the duke of Clarence. He gave in early youth indications of that fine genius and generous disposition by which, during his whole life, he was so much distinguished and Henry, having conceived great friendship for him, intended to raise him to the highest ecclesiastical dignities; and, as a pledge of future favors, he conferred on him the deanery of Exeter,[*] the better to support him in his education. Pole was carrying on his studies in the university of Paris at the time when the king solicited the suffrages of that learned body in favor of his divorce; but though applied to by the English agent, he declined taking any part in the affair. Henry bore this neglect with more temper than was natural to him; and he appeared unwilling, on that account, to renounce all friendship with a person whose virtues and talents, he hoped, would prove useful as well as ornamental to his court and kingdom. He allowed him still to possess his deanery, and gave him permission to finish his studies at Padua: he even paid him some court, in order to bring him into his measures; and wrote to him, while in that university, desiring him to give his opinion freely with regard to the late measures taken in England for abolishing the papal authority. Pole had now contracted an intimate friendship with all persons eminent for dignity or merit in Italy—Sadolet, Bembo, and other revivers of true taste and learning; and he was moved by these connections, as well as by religious zeal, to forget, in some respect, the duty which he owed to Henry, his benefactor and his sovereign. He replied by writing a treatise of the Unity of the Church, in which he inveighed against the king’s supremacy, his divorce, his second marriage; and he even exhorted the emperor to revenge on him the injury done to the imperial family and to the Catholic cause. Henry, though provoked beyond measure at this outrage, dissembled his resentment; and he sent a message to Pole, desiring him to return to England, in order to explain certain passages in his book which he found somewhat obscure and difficult. Pole was on his guard against this insidious invitation; and was determined to remain in Italy, where he was universally beloved.

The pope and emperor thought themselves obliged to provide for a man of Pole’s eminence and dignity, who, in support of their cause, had sacrificed all his pretensions to fortune in his own country. He was created a cardinal; and though he took not higher orders than those of a deacon, he was sent legate into Flanders about the year 1536.[**]

Henry was sensible that Pole’s chief intention in choosing that employment, was to foment the mutinous disposition of the English Catholics; and he therefore remonstrated in so vigorous a manner with the queen of Hungary, regent of the Low Countries, that she dismissed the legate, without allowing him to exercise his functions. The enmity which he bore to Pole was now as open as it was violent; and the cardinal, on his part, kept no further measures in his intrigues against Henry. He is even suspected of having aspired to the crown, by means of a marriage with the lady Mary; and the king was every day more alarmed by informations which he received of the correspondence maintained in England by that fugitive. Courtney, marquis of Exeter, had entered into a conspiracy with him; Sir Edward Nevil, brother to the lord Abergavenny; Sir Nicholas Carew, master of horse, and knight of the garter; Henry de la Pole, Lord Montacute, and Sir Geoffrey de la Pole, brothers to the cardinal. These persons were indicted, and tried, and convicted, before Lord Audley, who presided in the trial as high steward; they were all executed, except Sir Geoffrey de la Pole, who was pardoned; and he owed this grace to his having first carried to the king secret intelligence of the conspiracy. We know little concerning the justice or iniquity of the sentence pronounced against these men: we only know, that the condemnation of a man who was at that time prosecuted by the court, forms no presumption of his guilt; though, as no historian of credit mentions in the present case any complaint occasioned by these trials, we may presume that sufficient evidence was produced against the marquis of Exeter and his associates.[*]