The
History of Protestantism |
Chapter 1 | . . . | THE FIRST PROTESTANT MARTYRS IN
ENGLAND. Two Sources of Protestantism — The Bible and the Holy Spirit — Wicliffe's Missionaries — Hopes of the Protestants — Petition Parliament for a reformation — England not yet ripe — The Movement Thrown Back — Richard II. Persecutes the Lollards — Richard Loses his Throne — Henry IV. Succeeds — Statute De Haeretico Comburendo — William Sawtrey — the First Martyr for Protestantism in England — Trial and Execution of John Badby — Conversation between the Prince of Wales and the Martyr at the Stake — Offered his Life — Refuses and Dies. |
Chapter 2 | . . . | THE THEOLOGY OF THE EARLY ENGLISH
PROTESTANTS. Protestant Preachers and Martyrs before Henry VIII.'s time — Their Theology — Inferior to that of the Sixteenth Century — The Central Truths clearly Seen — William Thorpe — Imprisoned — Dialogue between him and Archbishop Arundel — His Belief — His Views on the Sacrament — The Authority of Scripture — Is Threatened with a Stake — Christ Present in the Sacrament to Faith — Thorpe's Views on Image-Worship — Pilgrimage — Confession — Refuses to Submit — His Fate Unknown — Simplicity of Early English Theology — Convocation at Oxford to Arrest the Spread of Protestantism — Constitutions of Arundel — The Translation and Reading of the Scriptures Forbidden. |
Chapter 3 | . . . | GROWTH OF ENGLISH PROTESTANTISM. The Papal Schism — Its Providential Purpose — Council of Pisa — Henry's Letter to the Pope — The King exhorts the Pope to Amendment — The Council of Pisa Deposes both Popes — Elects Alexander V. — The Schism not Healed — Protestantism in England continues to grow — Oxford Purged — A Catholic Revival — Aves to Our Lady — Aves to the Archbishop — Persecution of Protestants grows Hotter — Cradle of English Protestantism — Lessons to be Learned beside it. |
Chapter 4 | . . . | EFFORTS FOR THE REDISTRIBUTION OF
ECCLESIASTICAL PROPERTY. The Burning Bush – Petition of Parliament – Redistribution of Ecclesiastical Property – Defence of Archbishop Arundel – The King stands by the Church – The Petition Presented a Second Time – Its Second Refusal – More Powerful Weapons than Royal Edicts – Richard II. Deposed – Henry IV. – Edict De Haeretico Comburendo – Griefs of the King – Calamities of the Country – Projected Crusade – Death of Henry IV. |
Chapter 5 | . . . | TRIAL AND CONDEMNATION OF SIR JOHN
OLDCASTLE. Henry V. – A Coronation and Tempest – Interpretations – Struggles for Liberty – Youth of Henry – Change on becoming King – Arundel his Evil Genius – Sir John Oldcastle – Becomes Lord Cobham by Marriage – Embraces Wicliffe's Opinions – Patronises the Lollard Preachers – Is Denounced by Arundel – Interview between Lord Cobham and the King-Summoned by the Archbishop – Citations Torn Down – Confession of his Faith – Apprehended – Brought before the Archbishop's Court-Examination – His Opinions on the Sacrament, Confession, the Pope, Images, the Church, etc. – His Condemnation as a Heretic – Forged Abjuration – He Escapes from the Tower. |
Chapter 6 | . . . | LOLLARDISM DENOUNCED AS
TREASON. Spread of Lollardism – Clergy Complain to the King – Activity of the Lollards – Accused of Plotting the Overthrow of the Throne and Commonwealth – Midnight Meeting of Lollards at St. Giles-in-the-Fields – Alarm of the King – He Attacks and Disperses the Assembly – Was it a Conspiracy or a Conventicle? – An Old Device Revived. |
Chapter 7 | . . . | MARTYRDOM OF LORD
COBHAM. Imprisonments and Martyrdoms – Flight of Lollards to other Countries – Death of Archbishop Arundel-His Character – Lord Cobham – His Seizure in Wales by Lord Powis – Brought to London – Summoned before Parliament – Condemned on the Former Charge – Burned at St. Giles-in-the-Fields – His Christian Heroism – Which is the Greater Hero, Henry V. or Lord Cobham? – The World's True Benefactors – The Founders of England's Liberty and Greatness -The Seeds Sown -The Full Harvest to Come. |
Chapter 8 | . . . | LOLLARDISM UNDER HENRY V. AND HENRY
VI. Thomas Arundel succeeded by Henry Chicheley – The New Primate pursues the Policy of his Predecessor – Parliament at Leicester – More Stringent Ordinances against the Lollards – Appropriation of Ecclesiastical Possessions – Archbishop Chicheley Staves off the Proposal – Diverts the King's Mind to a War with France – Speech of the Archbishop – Henry V. falls into the Snare – Prepares an Expedition – Invades France – Agincourt – Second Descent on France – Henry becomes Master of Normandy – Returns to England – Third Invasion of France – Henry's Death – Dying Protestation – His Magnificent Funeral – His Character – Lollardism – More Martyrs – Claydon – New Edict against the Lollards – Henry VI. – Maltyrs in his Reign – William Taylor – William White – John Huss – Recantations. |
Chapter 9 | . . . | ROME'S ATTEMPT TO REGAIN DOMINANCY IN
ENGLAND. Henry VI. – His Infancy – Distractions of the Nation – The Romish Church becomes more Intolerant – New Festival – St. Dunstan's and St. George's Days – Indulgences at the Shrine of St. Edmund, etc. – Fresh Attempts by Rome to Regain Dominancy in England – What Led to these – Statutes of Provisors and Praemunire Denounced – Archbishop Chicheley Reprimanded for Permitting these Statutes to Exist – The Pope's Letter. |
Chapter 10 | . . . | RESISTANCE TO PAPAL
ENCROACHMENTS. Embroilment of the Papaey – Why Angry with Archbishop Chicheley – A Former Offence – Advlses the King not to Receive a Legate-a-Latere – Powers of the Legate – Promise exacted of Legate Beaufort – Pope's Displeasure – -Holds the Statutes Void – Commands the Archbishop to Disobey them – Pope's Letter to Duke of Bedford – Chicheley advises Parliament to Repeal the Act – Parliament Refuses – The Pope resumes his Encroachments – Two Currents in England in the Fifteenth Century – Both Radically Protestant – The Evangelic Principle the Master-spring of all Activities then beginning in Society. |
Chapter 11 | . . . | INFLUENCE OF THE WARS OF THE FIFTEENTH
CENTURY ON THE PROGRESS OF PROTESTANTISM. Convulsions of the Fifteenth Century – Fall of Constantinople – Wars in Bohemia – in Italy – in Spain – in Switzerland – Wars of the Papal Schism – Was it Peace or War which the Popes gave to Christendom? – Wars originated by the Popes: the Crusades; the War of Investitures; the Albigensian and Waldensian Crusades; the Wars in Naples, Poland, etc.; the Feuds in Italy; the Hussite Campaigns, etc. – Wars of the Roses – Traced to the Council of Archbishop Chicheley – Providential End of the Wars of the Fifteenth Century – The Nobility Weakened – The Throne made Powerful – Why? – Hussitism and Lollardism. |
BOOK
SEVENTH
PROTESTANTISM IN ENGLAND, FROM THE TIMES OF WICLIFFE TO THOSE OF
HENRY VIII.
CHAPTER 1 Back to
Top
THE FIRST PROTESTANT MARTYRS
IN ENGLAND.
Two
Sources of Protestantism — The Bible and the Holy Spirit — Wicliffe's
Missionaries — Hopes of the Protestants — Petition Parliament for a reformation
— England not yet ripe — The Movement Thrown Back — Richard II. Persecutes the
Lollards — Richard Loses his Throne — Henry IV. Succeeds — Statute De Haeretico
Comburendo — William Sawtrey — the First Martyr for Protestantism in England —
Trial and Execution of John Badby — Conversation between the Prince of Wales and
the Martyr at the Stake — Offered his Life — Refuses and
Dies.
THE Protestant movement, which, after flowing during
the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries within narrow channels, began in the
sixteenth to expand and to fill a wider area, had two sources. The first, which
was in heaven, was the Holy Spirit; the second, which was on the earth, was the
Bible.
For ages the action of both agencies on humam society had been
suspended. The Holy Spirit was withheld and the Bible was hidden. Hence the
monstrous errors that deformed the Church, and hence all the frightful evils
that afflicted the world.
At length a new era had opened. That sovereign,
beneficent, and eternal Spirit, who acts when and where and how He will, began
again to make His presence felt in the world which He had made; He descended to
erect a Temple in which He might dwell with men upon the earth. The Omnipotent
and Blessed One put forth His creative power through the instrumentality which
He Himself had prepared, even the Scriptures of Truth, which He inspired holy
men to write. The recovery of the Holy Scriptures and their diffusion over
Christendom was the one instrumentality, as the Spirit who dwells in and
operates through the Scriptures was the one Author, of that great movement which
was now renewing the world. On this supposition only—that this great movement
was not originated by human forces, but created by a Divine agent—can we account
for the fact that in all the countries of Christendom it appeared at the same
moment, took the same form, and was followed by the same blessed fruits—virtue
in private life and order in public.
We left Luther in the Wartburg. At a
moment of great peril, Providence opened for him an asylum; not there to live
idly, but to do a work essential to the future progress of Protestantism. While
Luther is toiling out of sight, let us look around and note the progress of
Protestantism in the other countries of Christendom. We return to England, the
parent land of the movement, briefly to chronicle events during the century and
a half which divides the era of Wicliffe from that of Luther.
Wicliffe
was dead (1384), and now it was seen what a hold he had taken of England, and
how widely his doctrine had spread. His disciples, styled sometimes Wicliffites,
sometimes Lollards, travelled the kingdom preaching the Gospel. In the Act of
Richard II. (1382), which the clergy, practising upon the youth of the king, got
passed without the knowledge of the Commons, mention is made of a great number
of persons "going about from country to country, and from town to town, in
frieze gowns, without the licence of the ordinaries, and preaching, not only in
churches and churchyards, but in market-places and at fairs, divers sermons
containing heresies and notorious errors, to the blemishing of the Christian
faith, the estate of holy Church, and the great peril of souls."[1] Wicliffe was yet alive,
and these men "in frieze gowns," which the Act empowered the bishops to seize
and confine in their houses and prisons, were the missionaries of the great
Reformer. These preachers were not troubled with doubts touching their right to
assume the sacred office. They reasoned that the same charter which gave to the
Church her right to exist, gave to her members the right to discharge those
functions that are needful to her welfare. They went not to Rome, therefore, but
to the Bible for their warrant to minister.
Their countrymen flocked to
their sermons. The soldiers mingled with the civilians, sword in hand, ready to
defend the preacher should violence be offered to him. Several of the nobility
joined their party, and were not ashamed to confess themselves the disciples of
the Gospel. There followed, wherever their doctrine was received, a reformation
of manners, and in some places a purging of the public worship by the removal of
idolatrous symbols.
These signs promised much; in the eyes of the
Wicliffites they promised everything. They believed that England was ready to
throw off the yoke of Rome, and in this belief they resolved on striking a
vigorous blow at the reigning superstition. Within ten years of the death of
Wicliffe (1395) they petitioned Parliament for a reformation in religion,
accompanying their petition with twelve "conclusions," or grounds,[2] for such a reformation; of
which the second, which we give as a sample of the style and spirit of the
whole, was as follows:—"That our usual priesthood, which took its original at
Rome, and is feigned to be a power higher than angels, is not that priesthood
which Christ ordained unto His disciples. This conclusion is thus proved:
forasmuch as this priesthood is done with signs, and Pontifical rites, and
ceremonies, and benedictions of no force and effect, neither having any ground
in Scripture, forasmuch as the bishops ordinal and the New Testament do nothing
at all agree: neither do we see that the Holy Ghost doth give any good gift
through any such signs or ceremonies, because that He, together with noble and
good gifts, cannot consist and be in any person with deadly sin. The corollary
or effect of this conchsion is that it is a lamentable and dolorous mockery unto
wise men to see the bishops mock and play with the Holy Ghost in the giving of
their orders, because they give (shaven) crowns for their characters, and marks
instead of white hearts, and this character is the mark of Antichrist, brought
into the holy Church, to cloke and cover their idleness." These conclusions they
also posted up on the walls of Westminster, and suspended on the gates of St.
Paul's.[3]
England was not yet
prepared for such "plainness of speech." The great mass of the nation, without
instruction, awed by tradition, and ruled over by the hierarchy, was inert and
hostile. The Wicliffites forgot, too, when they went to Parliament, that
Reformations are not made, they must grow. They cannot be evoked by royal
proclamations, or by Parliamentary edicts; they must be planted by the patient
labor of evangelists, and watered not unfrequently by the blood of martyrs. Of
all harvests that of truth is the slowest to ripen, although the most plentiful
and precious when it has come to full maturity. These were lessons which these
early disciples had yet to learn.
The bold step of the Wicliffites threw
back the movement, or we ought rather to say, made it strike its roots downward
in the nation's heart. The priests took the alarm. Arundel, Archbishop of York,
posted with all speed to Ireland, where Richard II. then was, and implored him
to return and arrest the movement, which was growing to a head. His pious wife,
Anne of Luxemburg, a disciple of Wicliffe, was dead (1394), and the king readily
complied with Arundel's request. He forbade the Parliament to proceed in the
matter of the Lollard petition, and summoning the chief authors of the
"conclusions" before him, he threatened them with death should they continue to
defend their opinions.[4] But Richard II. did not
long retain a scepter which he had begun to wield against the Lollards.
Insurrection broke out in his kingdom; he was deposed, and thrown into the
Castle of Pontefract. There are but few steps between the prisons and the graves
of princes. Richard perished miserably by starvation, and was succeeded by Henry
IV., son of that Duke of Lancaster who had been the friend of
Wicliffe.
The cause which the father had defended in the person of its
great apostle, found no favor in the eyes of the son. Henry had mounted the
throne by Arundel's help, and he must needs repay the service by devotion to the
Church of which Arundel was one of the main pillars. To consolidate his power,
the son of John of Gaunt sacrificed the Wicliffites. In his reign was passed a
law adjudging men to death for religion—the first of the sort to stain the
Statute-book. It enacted that all incorrigible heretics should be burned
alive.
The preamble of the Act sets forth that "divers false and perverse
people of a certain new sect of the faith of the Sacraments, damnably thinking,
and against the law of God and the Church, usurping the office of preaching,"
were going from diocese to diocese, holding conventicles, opening schools,
writing books, and wickedly teaching the people.
To remedy this, the
diocesan was empowered to arrest all persons suspected of heresy, confine them
in his strong prison, bring them to trial, and if on conviction they refused to
abjure, they were to be delivered to the sheriff of the county or the mayor of
the town, who were "before the people, in a high place, them to do to be burnt."
Such was the statute DeHoeretico Comburendo, of which Sir Edward Coke remarks
that it appears that the bishops are the proper judges of heresy, and that the
business of the sheriff was only ministerial to the sentence of the spiritual
court.[5] "King Henry IV.," say's
Fox, "was the first of all English Kings that began the unmerciful burning of
Christ's saints for standing against the Pope." [6]
The law was not
permilted to remain a dead letter. William Sawtrey, formerly Rector of St.
Margaret's in Lynn, and now of St. Osyth in London—"a good man and faithful
priest," says Fox—was apprehended, and an indictment preferred against him.
Among the charges contained in it we find the following:—"That he will not
worship the cross on which Christ suffered, but only Christ who suffered upon
the cross." "That after pronouncing the Sacramental words of the body of Christ,
the bread remaineth of the same nature that it was before, neither doth it cease
to be bread." He was condemned as a heretic by the archbishop's court, and
delivered to the secular power to be burned.[7]
Sawtrey being the
first Protestant to be put to death in England, the ceremony of his degradation
was gone about with great formality. First the paten and chalice were taken out
of his hands; next the chasuble was pulled off his back, to signify that now he
had been completely stripped of all his functions and dignities as a priest.
Next the New Testament and the stole were taken away, to intimate his deposition
from the order of deacon, and the withdrawal of his power to teach. His
deposition as subdeacon was effected by stripping him of the alb. The
candlestick and taper were next taken from him to "put from thee all order of an
acolyte." He was next deprived of the holy water book, and with it he was bereft
of all power as an exorcist [8] By these and sundry other
ceremonies, too tedious to recite, William Sawtrey was made as truly a layman as
before the oil and scissors of the Church had touched him.
Unrobed,
disqualified for the mystic ministry, and debarred the sacrificial shrines of
Rome, he was now to ascend the steps of an altar, whereon he was to lay costlier
sacrifice than any to be seen in the Roman temples. That altar was the stake,
that sacrifice was himself. He died in the flames, February 12, 1401. As England
had the high honor of sending forth the first Reformer, England had likewise the
honor, in William Sawtrey, of giving the first martyr to Protestantism.[9]
His martyrdom was a
virtual prophecy. To Protestantism it was a sure pledge of victory, and to Rome
a terrible prognostic of defeat! Protestantism had now made the soil of England
its own by burying its martyred dead in it. Henceforward it will feel that, like
the hero of classic story, it stands on its native earth, and is altogether
invincible. It may struggle and bleed and endure many a seeming defeat; the
conflict may be prolonged through many a dark year and century, but it must and
shall eventually triumph. It has taken a pledge of the soil, and it cannot
possibly perish from off it. Its opponent, on the other hand, has written the
prophecy of its own defeat in the blood it has shed, and struggle as it may it
shall not prevail over its rival, but shall surely fall before it.[10]
The names of many
of these early sufferers, to whom England owes, under Providence, its liberties
and its Scriptural religion, have fallen into oblivion.
Among those whom
the diligence of our ancient chroniclers has rescued from this fate is that of
John Badby. He was a layman of the diocese of Worcester. Arraigned on the
doctrine of the Sacrament, he frankly confessed his opinions. In vain, he held,
were the "Sacramental words" spoken over the bread on the altar: despite the
conjuration it still remained "material bread." If it was Christ whom the priest
produced on the altar, let him be shown Him in his true form, and he would
believe. There could be but one fate in reserve for the man who, instead of
bowing implicitly to his "mother the Church," challenged her to attest her
prodigy by some proof or sign of its truth. He was convicted before the Bishop
of Worcester of "the crime of heresy," but reserved for final judgment before
Arundel, now become the Archbishop of Canterbury.[11]
On the 1st of
March, 1409, the haughty Arundel, assembling his suffragans, with quite a crowd
of temporal and spiritual lords, sat down on the judgment-seat in St. Paul's,
and commanded the humble confessor to be brought before him. He hoped, perhaps,
that Badby would be awed by this display of authority. In this, however, he was
mistaken. The opinions he had avowed before the Bishop of Worcester, he
maintained with equal courage in presence of the more august tribunal of the
primate, and the more imposing assemblage now convened in St. Paul's. The
prisoner was remanded till the 15th of the same month, being consigned meanwhile
to the convent of the Preaching Friars, the archbishop himself keeping the key
of his cell,[12]
When the day for
the final sentence, the 15th of March, came, Arundel again ascended his
episcopal throne, attended by a yet more brilliant escort of lords spiritual and
temporal, including a prince of the blood. John Badby had but the same answer to
give, the same confession to make, on his second as on his first appearance.
Bread consecrated by the priest was still bread, and the Sacrament of the altar
was of less estimation than the humblest man there present.[13] This rational reply was
too rational for the men and the times. To them it appeared simple blasphemy.
The archbishop, seeing "his countenance stout and his heart confirmed,"
pronounced John Badby "an open and public heretic," and the court "delivered him
to the secular power, and desired the temporal lords then and there present,
that they would not put him to death for that his offense," as if they had been
innocent of all knowledge that that same secular power to which they now
delivered him had, at their instigation, passed a law adjudging all heretics to
the fire, and that the magistrate was bound under excommunication to carry out
the statute De Haeritico Comburendo.
A few hours only elapsed till the
fire was lighted. Sentence was passed upon him in the forenoon: on the afternoon
of the same day, the king's writ, ordering the execution, arrived. Badby was
hurried to Smithfield, "and there," says Fox, "being put in an empty barrel, he
was bound with iron chains fastened to a stake, having dry wood put about him."
As he was standing in the barrel, Prince Henry, the king's eldest son, appeared
at the outskirts of the crowd. Touched with pity for the man whom he saw in this
dreadful position, he drew near and began to address him, exhorting him to
forsake these "dangerous labyrinths of opinion" and save his life.
The
prince and the man in the barrel were conversing together when the crowd opened
and the procession of the Sacrament, with twelve torches burning before it,
passed in and halted at the stake. The Prior of St. Bartholomew, coming forward,
requested Badby to speak his last word.
The slightest act of homage to
the Host, once more presented before him, would loose his chain and set him
free. But no! amid the faggots that were to consume him, as before the assembled
grandees in St. Paul's, the martyr had but the same confession to make: "it was
hallowed bread, not God's body."
The priests withdrew, the line of their
retreat through the dense crowd being marked by their blazing torches, and the
Host borne aloft underneath a silken canopy. The torch was now brought. Soon the
sharp flames began to prey upon the limbs of the martyr. A quick cry escaped him
in his agony, "Mercy, mercy!" But his prayer was addressed to God, not to his
persecutors. The prince, who still lingered near the scene of the tragedy, was
recalled by this wail from the stake. He commanded the officers to extinguish
the fires. The executioners obeyed. Addressing the half-scorched man, he said
that if he would recant his errors and return to the bosom of the Church, he
would not only save him from the fire, but would give him a yearly stipend all
the days of his life.[14] It was kindly meant, no
doubt, on the part of the prince, who commiserated the torments but could not
comprehend the joys of the martyr. Turn back now, when he saw the gates opening
to receive him, the crown ready to be placed upon his head? No! not for all the
gold of England. He was that night to sup with a greater Prince. "Thus," says
Fox, "did this valiant champion of Christ, neglecting the prince's fair words...
not without a great and most cruel battle, but with much greater triumph of
victory... perfect his testimony and martyrdom in the fire."[15]
CHAPTER 2
Back to
Top
THE THEOLOGY OF THE
EARLY ENGLISH PROTESTANTS.
Protestant Preachers and Martyrs before
Henry VIII.'s time — Their Theology — Inferior to that of the Sixteenth Century
— The Central Truths clearly Seen — William Thorpe — Imprisoned — Dialogue
between him and Archbishop Arundel — His Belief — His Views on the Sacrament —
The Authority of Scripture — Is Threatened with a Stake — Christ Present in the
Sacrament to Faith — Thorpe's Views on Image-Worship — Pilgrimage — Confession —
Refuses to Submit — His Fate Unknown — Simplicity of Early English Theology —
Convocation at Oxford to Arrest the Spread of Protestantism — Constitutions of
Arundel — The Translation and Reading of the Scriptures
Forbidden.
THIS violence did not terrify the disciples of the
truth. The stakes they had seen planted in Smithfield, and the edict of
"burning" now engrossed on the Statute-book, taught them that the task of
winning England would not be the easy one which they had dreamed; but this
conviction neither shook their courage nor abated their zeal. A cause that had
found martyrs had power enough, they believed, to overcome any force on earth,
and would one day convert, not England only, but the world. In that hope they
went on propagating their opinions, and not without success, for, says Fox, "I
find in registers recorded, that these foresaid persons, whom the king and the
Catholic Fathers did so greatly detest for heretics, were in divers counties of
this realm increased, especially at London, in Lincolnshire, in Norfolk, in
Hertfordshire, in Shrewsbury, in Calais, and other quarters."[1] Wicliffe was but newly
laid in his grave; Huss had not yet begun his career in Bohemia; in France, in
Germany, and the other countries of Christendom, all was dark; but in England
the day had broken, and its light was spreading. The Reformation had confessors
and martyrs within the metropolis; it had disciples in many of the shires; it
had even crossed the sea, and obtained some footing in Calais, then under the
English crown: and all this a century wellnigh before Henry VIII., whom Romish
writers have credited as the author of the movement, was born.
William
Thorpe, in the words of the chronicler, "was a valiant warrior under the
triumphant banner of Christ." His examination before Thomas Arundel, Archbishop
of Canterbury, shows us the evangelical creed as it was professed by the English
Christians of the fifteenth century. Its few and simple articles led very
directly to the grand center of truth, which is Christ. Standing before him,
these early disciples were in the Light. Many things, as yet,they saw but dimly;
it was only the early morning; the full day was at a distance: those great
lights which God had ordained to illuminate the skies of His Church in the
following century, had not yet arisen: the mists and shadows of a night, not yet
wholly chased away, lay dense on many parts of the field of revelation; but one
part of it was, in their eyes, bathed in light; this was the center of the
field, whereon stands the cross, with the great Sacrifice lifted up upon it, the
one object of faith, the everlasting Rock of the sinner's hope. To this they
clung, and whatever tended to shake their faith in it, or to put something else
in its room, they instinctively rejected. They knew the voice of the Shepherd,
and a stranger they would not follow.
Imprisoned in the Castle of
Saltwood (1407), Thorpe was brought before the primate, Arundel, for
examination. The record of what passed between him and the archbishop is from
the pen of Thorpe. He found Arundel in "a great chamber," with a numerous circle
around him; but the instant the archbishop perceived him, he withdrew into a
closet, attended by only two or three clerics.
Arundel: "William, I know well that thou hast this twenty winters
or more traveled in the north country, and in divers other countries of England,
sowing false doctrine, laboring, with undue teaching, to infect and poison all
this land."
Thorpe: "Sir, since ye deem me a heretic, and out of the
faith, will you give me, here, audience to tell you my belief?"
Arundel:
"Yea, tell on."
Hereupon the prisoner proceeded to declare his belief in
the Trinity; in the Incarnation of the Second Person of the God-head; and in the
events of our Lord's life, as these are recorded by the four Evangelists:
continuing thus —
Thorpe: "When Christ would make an end here of
this temporal life, I believe that in the next day before He was to suffer
passion He ordained the Sacrament of His flesh and His blood, in form of bread
and wine— that is, His own precious body— and gave it to His apostles to eat;
commanding them, and, by them all their after-comers, that they should do it in
this form that He showed to them, use themselves, and teach and administer to
other men and women, this most worshipful and holiest sacrament, in remembrance
of His holiest living, and of this most true preaching, and of His willing and
patient suffering of the most painful passion."
"And I believe that, this
Christ, our Savior, after that He had ordained this most worthy Sacrament of His
own precious body, went forth willingly... and as He would, and when He would,
he died willingly for man's sake upon the cross."
"And I believe in holy
Church— that is, all they that have been, and that now are, and that to the end
of the world shall be, a people that shall endeavor to know and keep the
commandments of God."
"I believe that the gathering together of this
people, living now here in this life, is the holy Church of God, fighting here
on earth against the devil, the prosperity of the world, and their own lusts. I
submit myself to this holy Church of Christ, to be ever ready and obedient to
the ordinance of it, and of every member thereof, after my knowledge and power,
by the help of God."
The prisoner next confessed his faith in the
Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments, "as the council of the Three Persons
of the Trinity," that they were sufficient for man's salvation, and that he was
resolved to guide himself by their light, and willing to submit to their
authority, and also to that of the "saints and doctors of Christ," so far as
their teaching agreed with the Word of God.
Arundel:
"I require that thou wilt swear to me that thou wilt forsake all the opinions
which the sect of the Lollards hold." Further, the archbishop required him to
inform upon his brethren, and cease from preaching till he should come to be of
a better mind. On hearing this the prisoner stood for awhile
silent.
Arundel: "Answer, one way or the other."
Thorpe: "Sir, if
I should do as you require, full many men and women would (as they might full
truly) say that I had falsely and cowardly forsaken the truth, and slandered
shamefully the Word of God."
The archbishop could only say that if he
persisted in this obstinacy he must tread the same road that Sawtrey had gone.
This pointed to a stake in Smithfield.
Hereupon the confessor was again
silent. "In my heart," says he, "I prayed the Lord God to comfort me and
strengthen me; and to give me then and always grace to speak with a meek and
quiet spirit; and whatever I should speak, that I might have authorities of the
Scriptures or open reason for it."
A clerk: "What thing musest thou? Do
as my lord hath commanded thee." Still the confessor spoke not.
Arundel:
"Art thou not yet determined whether thou wilt do as I have said to thee?
"
Thorpe humbly assured the primate that the knowledge which he taught to
others he had learned at the feet of the wisest, the most learned, and the
holiest priests he could hear of in England.
Arundel:
"Who are these holy and wise men of whom thou hast taken thine information?
"
Thorpe: "Master John Wicliffe. He was held by many men the greatest
clerk that they knew then living: great men communed often with him. This
learning of Master John Wicliffe is yet held by many men and women the learning
most in accordance with the living and teaching of Christ and His apostles, and
most openly showing how the Church of Christ has been, and yet should be, ruled
and governed."
Arundel: "That learning which thou callest truth and
soothfastness is open slander to holy Church; for though Wicliffe was a great
clerk, yet his doctrine is not approved of by holy Church, but many sentences of
his learning are damned, as they well deserve. Wilt thou submit thee to me or
no?"
Thorpe: "I dare not, for fear of God, submit me to
thee."
Arundel, angrily to one of his clerks: "Fetch hither quickly the
certificate that came to me from Shrewsbury, under the bailiff's seal,
witnessing the errors and heresies which this fellow hath venomously sown
there."
The clerk delivered to the archbishop a roll, from which the
primate read as follows:—" The third Sunday after Easter, the year of our Lord
1407, William Thorpe came unto the town of Shrewsbury, and through leave granted
unto him to preach, he said openly, in St. Chad's Church, in his sermon, that
the Sacrament of the altar, after the consecration, was material bread; and that
images should in nowise be worshipped; and that men should not go on
pilgrimages; and that priests have no title to tithes; and that it is not lawful
to swear in anywise."
Arundel, rolling up the paper: "Lo, here it is
certified that thou didst teach that the Sacrament of the altar was material
bread after the consecration. What sayest thou?"
Thorpe: "As I stood
there in the pulpit, busying me to teach the commandment of God, a sacred bell
began ringing, and therefore many people turned away hastily, and with noise ran
towards it; and I, seeing this, said to them thus: ' Good men, ye were better to
stand here still, and to hear God's Word. For the virtue of the most holy
Sacrament of the altar stands much more in the faith that you ought to have in
your soul, than in the outward sight of it, and therefore ye were better to
stand still quietly to hear God's Word, because that through the hearing of it
men come to true belief."
Arundel: "How teachest thou men to believe in
this Sacrament?"
Thorpe: "Sir, as I believe myself, so I teach other
men."
Arundel: "Tell out plainly thy belief thereof."
Thorpe:
"Sir, I believe that the night before Jesus-Christ suffered for mankind, He took
bread in His holy hands, lifting up His eyes, and giving thanks to God His
Father, blessed this bread and brake it, and gave it unto His disciples, saying
to them, 'Take and eat of this, all you; this is My body.' I believe, and teach
other men to believe, that the holy Sacrament of the altar is the Sacrament of
Christ's flesh and blood in the form of bread and wine."
Arundel: "Well,
well, thou shalt say otherwise before I leave thee; but what say you to the
second point, that images ought not to be worshipped in anywise?"
Thorpe
repudiated the practice as not only without warrant in Scripture, but as plainly
forbidden in the Word of God. There followed a long contention between him and
the archbishop, Arundel maintaining that it was good to worship images on the
ground that reverence was due to those whom they represented, that they were
aids in devotion, and that they possessed a secret virtue that showed itself at
times in the working of miracles.
The prisoner intimated that he had no
belief in these miracles; that he knew the Word of God to be true; that he held,
in common with the early doctors of the Church, Augustine, Ambrose, and
Chrysostom, that its teaching was in nowise doubtful on the point in question,
that it expressly forbade the making of images, and the bowing down to them, and
held those who did so as guilty of the sin and liable to the doom of idolaters.
The archbishop found that the day was wearing, and passed from the argument to
the next point.
Arundel: "What sayest thou to the third point that is
certified against thee, that pilgrimage is not lawful?"
Thorpe: "There
are true pilgrimages, and lawful, and acceptable to God."
Arundel: "Whom
callest thou true pilgrims?"
Thorpe: "Those travelling towards the
bliss of heaven. Such busy themselves to know and keep the biddings of God; flee
the seven deadly sins; do willingly all the works of mercy, and seek the gifts
of the Holy Ghost. Every good thought they think, every virtuous word they
speak, every fruitful work they accomplish, is a step numbered of God toward Him
into heaven.
"But," continued the confessor, "the most part of men and
women that now go on pilgrimages have not these conditions, nor love to have
them. For, as I well know, since I have full often tried, examine whoever will
twenty of these pilgrims, and he shall not find three men or women that know
surely a commandment of God, nor can say their Paternosters and Ave Maria, nor
their creed, readily, in any manner of language. Their pilgrimage is more to
have here worldly and fleshly friendship, than to have friendship of God and of
His saints in heaven. Also, sir, I know that when several men and women go thus
after their own wills, and fixing on the same pilgrimage, they will arrange
beforehand to have with them both men and women that can sing wanton songs, and
other pilgrims will have with them bagpipes; so that every town that they come
through, what with the noise of their singing, and with the sound of their
piping, and with the tangling of their Canterbury bells, and with the barking of
dogs after them, they make more noise than if the king came there with all his
clarions and minstrels."
Arundel: "What!
janglest thou against men's devotion? Whatever thou or such other say, I say
that the pilgrimage that now is used is to them that do it a praiseworthy and a
good means to come to grace."
After this there ensued another long
contention between Thorpe and the primate, on the subject of confession. The
archbishop was not making much way in the argument, when one of the clerks
interposed and put an end to it.
"Sir," said he, addressing the primate,
"it is late in the day, and ye have far to ride to-night; therefore make an end
with him, for he will make none; but the more, sir, that ye busy you to draw him
toward you, the more contumacious he is made."
"William, kneel down,"
said another, "and pray my Lord's Grace, and leave all thy fancies, and become a
child of holy Church." The archbishop, striking the table fiercely with his
hand, also demanded his instant submission. Others taunted him with his
eagerness to be promoted to a stake which men more learned than he had prudently
avoided by recanting their errors.
"Sir," said he, replying to the
archbishop, "as I have said to you several times to-day, I will willingly and
humbly obey and submit to God, and to His law, and to every member of holy
Church, as far as I can perceive that these members accord with their Head,
Christ, and will teach me, rule me, or chastise me by authority, especially of
God's law."
This was a submission; but the additions with which it was
qualified robbed it of all grace in the eyes of the archbishop. Once more, and
for the last time, the primate put it plainly thus: "Wilt thou not submit thee
to the ordinance of holy Church?"
"I will full gladly submit me," replied
Thorpe, "as I showed you before."[2]
Hereupon Thorpe was
delivered to the constable of the castle. He was led out and thrown into a worse
prison than that in which he had before been confined. At his prison-door we
lose all trace of him. He never again appears, and what his fate was has never
been ascertained.[3]
This examination,
or rather conference between the primate and Thorpe, enables us to form a
tolerable idea of English Protestantism, or Lollardism, in the twilight time
that intervened between its dawn, in the days of Wicliffe, and its brighter
rising in the times of the sixteenth century. It consisted, we may say, of but
three facts or truths. The first was Scripture, as the supreme and infallible
authority; the second was the Cross, as the sole fountain of forgiveness and
salvation; and the third was Faith, as the one instrumentality by which men come
into possession of the blessings of that salvation. We may add a fourth, which
was not so much a primary truth as a consequence from the three doctrines which
formed the skeleton, or frame-work, of the Protestantism of those days—
Holiness. The faith of these Christians was not a dead faith: it was a faith
that kept the commandments of God, a faith that purified the heart, and enriched
the life.
If, in one sense, Lollard Protestantism was a narrow and
limited system, consisting but of a very few facts, in another sense it was
perfect, inasmuch as it contained the germ and promise of all theology. Given
but one fundamental truth, all must follow in due time.
In the authority
of Scripture as the inspired Word of God, and the death of Christ as a complete
and perfect atonement for human guilt, they had found more than one fundamental
truth. They had but to go forward in the path on which they had entered, guiding
themselves by these two lights, and they would come, in due time, into
possession of all revealed truth. At every step the horizon around them would
grow wider, the light falling upon the objects it embraced would grow
continually clearer, the relations of truth to truth would be more easily
traceable, till at last the whole would grow into a complete and harmonious
system, truth linked to truth, and all ranging themselves in beautiful order
around the grand central truths of the religion of Jesus Christ, the Son of
God.
Meanwhile these early English Christians were beset without by
scrupulosities and prejudices, arising from the dimness and narrowness of their
vision. They feared to lay their hand on the New Testament and be sworn; they
scrupled to employ instrumental music in public worship; and some of them
condemned all war. But within what a vast enlargement had they already
experienced! Bowing to the authority of the Word of God, their understandings
were emancipated from the usurped authority of man. Having this anointing, they
refused to look with the eyes of others, and see on the inspired page doctrines
which no rule of exegesis could discover there, and from which their, reason
revolted as monstrous. In leaning on the Cross, they had found that relief of
heart which so many of their countrymen were seeking, but not finding, in fasts,
in penances, in offerings to the saints, and in pilgrimages, performed sometimes
in sackcloth and tears, and severe mortification of the flesh, and sometimes in
gay apparel, and on soft-paced and richly-caparisoned mules, to the screaming of
bagpipes and the music of merry songs.
The best evidence of the continued
spread of Lollardism—in other words, of Protestantism—is the necessity under
which its opponents evidently felt to adopt more vigorous measures for its
repression. The "well" which Wicllffe had digged at Oxford was still flowing;
its waters must be stopped. The light he had kindled in his vernacular Bible was
still burning, and sending its rays over England; it must be extinguished. The
accomplishment of these two objects became now the main labor of Arundel.
Convening at Oxford (1408) the bishops and clergy of his province, he
promulgated certain provisions for the checking of heresy, digested into
thirteen chapters, and known as the Constitutions of Arundel,[4] a designation they are
entitled to bear, seeing they all run under the authority of the archbishop. The
drift of these Constitutions was, first, to prohibit all from exercising the
function of preacher who had not a special licence from the diocesan, or had not
undergone an examination before him touching their orthodoxy; secondly, to
charge preachers to eschew all Wicliffite novelties, and to frame their
discourses in every respect according to the doctrine of holy Church; and
thirdly, seeing "the errors of the Lollards have seized the University of
Oxford, therefore, to prevent the fountain being poisoned, 'tis decreed by the
Synod that every warden, master, or principal of any college or hall shall be
obliged to inquire, at least every month, into the opinions and principles of
the students in their respective houses, and if they find them maintain anything
repugnant to the Catholic faith, to admonish them; and if they continue
obstinate, to expel them." "In regard that," said the sixth Constitution, "the
new roads in religion are more dangerous to travel than the old ones," the
primate, careful for the safety of wayfarers, proceeded to shut up all the new
roads thus: "we enjoin and require that no book or tract, written by John
Wicliffe, or any other person either in Wicliffe's time or since, or who for the
future shall write any other book upon a subject in divinity, shall be suffered
to be read either in schools, halls, or any other places within our Province of
Canterbury, unless such books shall first be examined by the University of
Oxford or Cambridge," etc. The infraction of this enactment subjected the
offender to prosecution, "as one that makes it his business to spread the
infection of schism and heresy."[5]
The seventh
Constitution began thus: "'Tis a dangerous undertaking, as St. Jerome assures
us, to translate the Holy Scriptures. We therefore decree and ordain," it
continued, "that from henceforward no unauthorised person shall translate any
part of Holy Scripture into English, or any other language, under any form of
book or treatise. Neither shall any such book, treatise, or version, made either
in Wicliffe's time or since, be read, either in whole or in part, publicly or
privately, under the penalty of the greater excomunication, till the said
translation shall be approved either by the bishop of the diocese or a
provincial council, as occasion shall require."[6]
No such
authorization was ever given. Consequently all translations of the Sacred
Scriptures into English, or any other tongue, and all reading of the Word of God
in whole or in part, in public or in private, were by this Constitution
proscribed, under the penalty of the greater excommunication.
CHAPTER 3
Back to
Top
GROWTH OF ENGLISH
PROTESTANTISM.
The Papal Schism — Its Providential Purpose — Council
of Pisa — Henry's Letter to the Pope — The King exhorts the Pope to Amendment —
The Council of Pisa Deposes both Popes — Elects Alexander V. — The Schism not
Healed — Protestantism in England continues to grow — Oxford Purged — A Catholic
Revival — Aves to Our Lady — Aves to the Archbishop — Persecution of Protestants
grows Hotter — Cradle of English Protestantism — Lessons to be Learned beside
it.
WE have already spoken of the schism by which the
Papal world was divided, and its governing head weakened, at the very moment
when Wicliffe was beginning his Reformation.[1] To this event, in no small
degree, was it owing that the Reformer was permitted to go to his grave in
peace, and that the seeds of truth which he had scattered were suffered to
spring up and take some hold of the soil before the tempest burst. But if the
schism was a shield over the infant reformation, it was a prolific source of
calamities to the world. Consciences were troubled, not knowing which of the two
chairs of Peter was the indubitable seat of authority and true fountain of
grace. The nations were distracted, for the rival Popes had carried their
quarrel to the battle-field, and blood was flowing in torrents.
To put an
end to these scandals and miseries, the French king sent an embassy to Pope
Gregory XII., to induce him to fulfill the oath he had taken at his election, to
vacate the chair provided his rival could be brought to terms. "He received,"
says Collier, "a shuffling answer."[2]
In November, 1409,
the Cardinal of Bordeaux arrived in England from France, on the design of
engaging the two crowns to employ their authority in compelling Gregory to make
good his oath. The cardinals, too, lent their help towards terminating the,
schism. They took steps for commencing a General Council at Pisa, to which the
English clergy sent three delegates.[3]
King Henry had
previously dispatched ambassadors, who carried, with other instructions, a
letter to the Pope from the king. Henry IV. spoke plainly to his "most Holy
Father." He prayed him to "consider to what degree the present schism has
embarrassed and embroiled Christendom, and how many thousand lives have been
lost in the field in this quarrel." Would he lay these things to heart, he was
sure that "his Holiness" would renounce the tiara sooner than keep it at the
expense of creating "division in the Church, and fencing against peace with
evasive answers. For," added he, "were your Holiness influenced by serviceable
motives, you would be governed by the tenderness of the true mother, who pleaded
before King Solomon, and rather resign the child than suffer it to be cut in
pieces." [4] He who gives good advice,
says the proverb, undertakes a thankless office. The proverb especially holds
good in the case of him who presumes to advise an infallible man. Gregory read
the letter, but made no sign.
Archbishop Arundel, by way of seconding his
sovereign, got Convocation to agree that Peter's pence should be withheld till
the breach, which so afflicted Christendom, were healed. If with the one hand
the king was castigating the Pope, with the other he was burning the Lollards:
what wonder that he sped so ill in his efforts to abate the Papal haughtiness
and obstinacy?
Still the woeful sight of two chairs and two Popes
continued to afflict the adherents of the Papacy. The cardinals, more earnestly
than ever, resolved to bring the matter to an issue between the Pope and the
Church; for they foresaw, if matters went on as they were doing, the speedy ruin
of both.
Accordingly they gave notice to the princes and prelates of the
West, that they had summoned a General Council at Pisa, on the 25th of March
next ensuing (1409). The call met a universal response. "Almost all the prelates
and venerable men of the Latin world," says Walsingham, "repaired to Pisa."[5] The Council consisted of
22 cardinals, 4 patriarchs, 12 archbishops in person and 14 by proxy, 80 bishops
in person and a great many by their representatives, 87 abbots, the ambassadors
of nearly all the princes of Europe, the deputies of most of the universities,
the representatives of the chapters of cathedral churches, etc.[6] The numbers, rank, and
authority of the Council well entitled it to represent the Church, and gave good
promise of the extinction of the schism.
It was now to be seen how much
the Papacy had suffered in prestige by being cleft in twain, and how merciful
this dispensation was for the world's deliverance. Had the Papacy continued
entire and unbroken, had there been but one Pope, the Council would have bowed
down before him as the true Vicar; but there were two; this forced the question
upon the members—Which is the false Pope? May not both be false? And so in a few
days they found their way to the conclusion which they put into a definite
sentence in their fourteenth session, and which, when we take into account the
age, the men, and the functionaries over whom their condemnation was suspended,
is one of the most remarkable decisions on record. It imprinted a scar on the
Papal power which is not effaced to this day. The Council pronounced Gregory
XII. and Benedict XIII. "to be notorious and incorrigible schismatics and
heretics, and guilty of plain perjury; which imputations being evidently proved,
they deprive them both of their titles and authority, pronounce the Apostolic
See vacant, and all the censures and promotions of these pretended Popes void
and of none effect.[7]
The Council, having
ejected ignominiously the two Popes, and having rescued, as it thought, the
chair on which each had laid hold with so tenacious and determined a grasp,
proceeded to place in it the Cardinal of Milan, who began to reign under the
title of Alexander V.[8] This Pontificate was
brief, for within the year Alexander came by his end in a manner of which
Balthazar, who succeeded him as John XXIII., was supposed to know more than he
was willing to disclose. The Council, instead of mending matters, had made them
worse. John, who was now acknowledged the legitimate holder of the tiara,
contributed nothing either to the honor of the Church or the repose of the
world. The two Popes, Gregory and Benedict, refusing to submit themselves to the
Council, or to acknowledge the new Pope, were still in the field, contending
with both spiritual and temporal arms. Instead of two rival Popes there were now
three; "not three crowns upon one Pope's head," says Fox, "but three heads in
one Popish Church," each with a body of followers to support his pretensions.
The schism thus was not only not healed, it was wider than ever; and the
scandals and miseries that flowed from it, so far from being abated or
extinguished, were greatly aggravated; and a few years later, we find another
General Council assembling at Constance, if haply it might effect what that of
Pisa had failed to accomplish.[9]
We return to
England. While the schism continued to scandalize and vex Romanists on the
Continent, the growth of Lollardism was not less a torment to the clergy in
England. Despite the rigour of Arundel, who spared neither edicts nor faggots,
the seeds which that arch-enemy of the Papacy, Wicliffe, had sown, would ever be
springing up, and mingling the wheat of Rome with the tares of heresy. Oxford,
especially, demanded the primate's attention. That fountain had savoured of
Lollardism ever since Wicliffe taught there. It must be purified. The archbishop
set out, with a pompous retinue, to hold a visitation of the university (1411).
The chancellor, followed by a numerous body of proctors, masters, and students,
met him at a little distance from the gates, and told him that if he came merely
to see the town he was welcome, but if he came in his character of visitor, he
begged to remind his Grace that the University of Oxford, in virtue of the Papal
bull, was exempt from episcopal and archiepiscopal jurisdiction. This rebuff
Arundel could ill bear. He left Oxford in a day or two, and wrote an account of
the affair to the king. The heads of the university were sent for to court, and
the chancellor and proctors were turned out of their office. The students,
taking offense at this rigor, ceased their attendance on the public lectures,
and were on the point of breaking up and dissolving their body.
After a
warm contention between the university and the archbishop, the matter, by
consent of both parties, was referred to the king. Henry decided that the point
should remain on the footing on which Richard II. had placed it [10] Thus judgment was given in
favor of the archbishop, and the royal decision was confirmed first by
Parliament and next by John XXIII., in a bull that made void the privilege of
exemption which Pope Boniface had conferred on the university.[11]
This opened the
door of Oxford to the archbishop. Meanwhile Convocation raised a yet louder cry
of Wicliffitism in the university, and pressed the primate to interpose his
authority ere that "former seat of learning and virtue" had become utterly
corrupt. It was an astounding fact, Convocation added, that a testimonial in
favor of Wicliffe and his doctrines, with the seal of the university affixed to
it, had lately issued from the halls of Oxford.[12] Arundel did not delay.
Presently his delegates were down on the college. These inquisitors of heretical
pravity summoned before them the suspected professors, and by threats of Henry's
burning statute compelled them to recant. They next examined the writings of
Wicliffe. They extracted out of them 246 propositions which they deemed
heretical [13] This list they sent to the
archbishop. The primate, after branding it with his condemnation, forwarded it
to the Pope, with a request that he would stamp it with his final anathema, and
that he would send him a bull, empowering him to dig up Wicliffe's bones and
burn them. "The Pope," says Collier, "granted the first, but refused the latter,
not thinking it any useful part of discipline to disturb the ashes of the dead."
[14]
While, with the one
hand, Arundel maintained the fight against the infant Protestantism of England,
with the other he strove to promote a Catholic revival He bethought him by what
new rite he could honor, with what new grace he could crown the "mother of God."
He instituted, in honor of Mary, "the tolling of Aves," with certain Aves, the
due recital of which were to earn certain days of pardon.[15] The ceremonies of the
Roman Church were already very numerous, requiring a whole technological
vocabulary to name them, and wellnigh all the days of the year for their
observance. In his mandate to the Bishop of London, Arundel set forth the
grounds and reasons of this new observance. The realm of England verily owed
"Our Lady" much, the archbishop argued. She had been the "buckler of our
protection." She had "made our arms victorious," and "spread our power through
all the coasts of the earth." Yet more, to the Virgin Mary the nation owed its
escape from a portentous evil that menaced it, and of which it was dreadful to
think what the consequences would have been, had it overtaken it. The archbishop
does not name the monstrous thing; but it was easy to see what was meant, for
the archbishop goes on to speak of a new species of wolf that waited to attack
the inhabitants of England and destroy them, not by tearing them with their
teeth after the usual manner of wild beasts, but in the exercise of some novel
and strange instinct, by mingling poison with their food. "To whom [Mary] we may
worthily ascribe, now of late in these our times, our deliverance from the
ravening wolves, and the mouths of cruel beasts, who had prepared against our
banquets a mess of meat mingled full of gall."[16] On these grounds the
archbishop issued his commands (Feb. 10th, 1410), that peals should be tolled,
morning and evening, in praise of Mary; with a promise to all who should say the
Lord's prayer and a "hail Mary" five times at the morning peal, of a forty-days'
pardon.[17]
To whom, after "Our
Lady," the archbishop doubtless thought, did England owe so much as to himself?
Accordingly, we find him putting in a modest claim to share in the honors he had
decreed to his patroness. This next mandate, directed to Thomas Wilton, his
somner, enjoined that, at what time he should pass through his Province of
Canterbury, having his cross borne before him, the bells of all the parish
churches should be rung, "in token of special reverence that they bear to us."[18] Certain churches in London
were temporarily closed by the archbishop, because "on Tuesday last, when we,
between eight and nine of the clock, before dinner, passed openly on foot as it
were through the midst of the City of London, with our cross carried before us,
they showed toward us unreverence, ringing not their bells at all at our
coming." "Wherefore we command you that by our authority you put all these
churches under our indictment, suspending God's holy organs and instruments in
the same." [19]
"Why," inquires the
chronicler, "though the bells did not clatter in the steeples, should the body
of the church be suspended? The poor organs, methinks, suffered some wrong in
being put to silence in the quire, because the bells rang not in the tower."
There are some who may smile at these devices of Arundel to strengthen Popery,
as betokening vain-glory rather than insight. But we may grant that the astute
archbishop knew what he was about. He thus made "the Church" ever present to
Englishmen of that age. She awoke them from slumber in the morning, she sang
them to repose at night. Her chimes were in their ears and her symbols before
their eyes all day long. Every time they kissed an image, or repeated an Ave, or
crossed themselves with holy water, they increased their reverence for "mother
Church." Every such act was a strengthening of the fetter which dulled the
intellect and bound the soul. At each repetition the deep sleep of the
conscience became yet deeper.
The persecution against the Protestants did
not abate. The pursuit of heretics became more strict; and their treatment, at
the hands of their captors, more cruel. The prisons in the bishops' houses,
heretofore simply places of confinement, were now often provided with
instruments of torture. The Lollards' Tower, at Lambeth, was crowded with
confessors, who have left on the walls of their cell, in brief but touching
phrase, the record of their "patience and faith," to be read by the men of
after-times; nay, by us, seeing these memorials are not yet effaced. Many, weak
in faith and terrified by the violence that menaced them, appeared in
penitential garb, with lighted tapers in their hand, at market crosses, and
church doors, and read their recantation. But not all: else England at this day
would have been what Spain is. There were others, more largely strengthened from
on high, who aspired to the glory, than which there is no purer or brighter on
earth, of dying for the Gospel. Thus the stake had its occasional
victim.
So passed the early years of English Protestantism. It did not
grow up in dalliance and ease, amid the smiles of the great and the applause of
the multitude; no, it was nurtured amid fierce and cruel storms. From its cradle
it was familiar with hardship, with revilings and buffetings, with cruel
mockings and scourgings, nay, moreover, with bonds and imprisonments.
The
mob derided it; power frowned upon it; and lordly Churchmen branded it as
heresy, and pursued it with sword and faggot. Let us draw around its cradle,
placed under no gorgeous roof, but in a prison-cell, with jailers and
executioners waiting beside it. Let us forget, if only for awhile, the
denominational names, and ecclesiastical classifications, that separate us; let
us lay aside, the one his lawn and the other his Genevan cloak, and, simply in
our character of Christians and Protestants, come hither, and contemplate the
lowliness of our common origin. It seems as if the "young child" had been cast
out to perish; the Roman Power stands before it ready to destroy it, and yet it
has been said to it, "To thee will I give England."
There is a lesson
here which, could we humble ourselves, and lay it duly to heart, would go far to
awaken the love and bring back the union and strength of our first
days.
CHAPTER 4
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EFFORTS FOR THE
REDISTRIBUTION OF ECCLESIASTICAL PROPERTY.
The Burning Bush –
Petition of Parliament – Redistribution of Ecclesiastical Property – Defence of
Archbishop Arundel – The King stands by the Church – The Petition Presented a
Second Time – Its Second Refusal – More Powerful Weapons than Royal Edicts –
Richard II. Deposed – Henry IV. – Edict De Haeretico Comburendo – Griefs of the
King – Calamities of the Country – Projected Crusade – Death of Henry
IV.
IN the former chapter we saw the Protestants of
England stigmatised as Lollards, proscribed by edicts, and haled to prisons,
which they left, the many to read their recantation at cathedral doors and
market crosses, and the few to fulfill their witness-bearing at the stake. The
tempest was growing in violence every hour, and the little company on whom it
beat so sorely seemed doomed to extinction. Yet in no age or country, perhaps,
has the Church of God more perfectly realised the promise wrapped up in her
earliest and most significant symbol, than in England at the present time. As
amid the granite peaks of Horeb, so here in England, "The bush burned and was
not consumed."
This way of maintaining their testimony by suffering, was
a surer path to victory than that which the English Protestants had fondly
chalked out for themselves. In the sixth year of Henry IV., they had moved the
king, through Parliament, to take possession of the temporalities of the Church,
and redistribute them in such a manner as would make them more serviceable to
both the crown and the nation.
The Commons represented to the king that
the clergy possessed a third of the lands in the realm, that they contributed
nothing to the public burdens, and that their riches disqualified them from the
due performance of their sacred functions. Archbishop Arundel was by the king's
side when the petition was presented by the Speaker of the house, Sir John
Cheney. He was not the man to stand silent when such an accusation was preferred
against his order. True it was, said the archbishop, that the clergy did not go
in person to the wars, but it was not less true that they always sent their
vassals and tenants to the field, and in such numbers, and furnished with such
equipments, as corresponded to the size of their estates; and further, the
archbishop maintained that as regarded the taunt that the clerics were but
drones, who lived idly at home while their countrymen were serving abroad, the
Speaker had done them injustice. If they donned the surplice or betook them to
their breviary, when their lay brethren buckled on the coat of mail, and grasped
rapier or cross-bow, it was not because they were chary of their blood, or
enamoured of ease, but because they wished to give their days and nights to
prayer for theft country's welfare, and especially for the success of its arms.
While the soldiers of England were fighting, her priests were supplicating;[1] the latter, not less than
the former, contributed to those victories which were shedding such luster on
the arms of England.
The Speaker of the Commons, smiling at the primate's
enthusiasm, replied that "he thought the prayers of the Church but a slender
supply." Stung by this retort, Arundel quickly turned on Sir John, and charged
him with profaneness. "I perceive, sir," said the prelate, "how the kingdom is
likely to thrive, when the aids of devotion, and the favor of Heaven, are thus
slighted and ridiculed."
The king "hung, as it were, in a balance of
thought." The archbishop, perceiving his indecision, dropped on his knees before
him, and implored Henry to remember the oath he had sworn on coming to the
crown, to maintain the rights of the Church and defend the clergy; and he
counselled him, above all, to beware incurring the guilt of sacrilege, and the
penalties thereto annexed. The king was undecided no longer; he bade the
archbishop dismiss his fears, and assured him that the clergy need be under no
apprehensions from such proposals as the present, while he wore the crown; that
he would take care to leave the Church in even a better condition than that in
which he had found it. The hopes of the Lollards were thus rudely dashed.[2]
But their numbers
continued to increase; by-and-by there came to be a "Lollard party," as
Walsingham calls it, in Parliament, and in the eleventh year of Henry's reign
they judged the time ripe for bringing forward their proposal a second time,.
They made a computation of the ecclesiastical estates, which, according to their
showing, amounted to 485,000 merks of yearly value, and contained 18,400 ploughs
of land. This property, they suggested, should be divided into three parts, and
distributed as follows: one part was to go to the king, and would enable him to
maintain 6,000 men-at-arms, in addition to those he had at present in his pay;
it would enable him besides to make a new creation of earls and knights. The
second was to be divided, as an annual stipend, among the 15,000 priests who
were to conduct the religious services of the nation; and the remaining third
was to be appropriated to the founding of 100 new hospitals. But the proposal
found no favor with the king, even though it promised to augment considerably
his military following. He dared not break with the hierarchy, and he might be
justly suspicious of the changes which so vast a project would draw after
it.
Addressing the Commons in a tone of great severity, he charged them
never again, so long as he lived, to come before the throne with any such
proposal. He even refused to listen to the request with which they had
accompanied their petition, that he would grant a mitigation of the edict
against heresy, and permit convicted Lollards to be sent to his own prisons,
rather than be immured in the more doleful strongholds of the bishops. Even
these small favors the Protestants could not obtain, and lest the clergy should
think that Henry had begun to waver between the two faiths, he sealed his
devotion to the Church by anew kindling the pile for the Lollards.[3]
By other weapons
were the Wicliffites to win England than by royal edicts and Parliamentary
petitions. They must take slow and laborious possession of it by their tears and
their martyrdom. Although the king had done as they desired, and the edict had
realised all that they expected from it, it would after all have been but a
fictitious and barren acquisition, liable to be swept away by every varying wind
that blew at court. But when, by their painful teachings, by their holy lives,
and their courageous deaths, they had enlightened the understandings and won the
hearts of their countrymen to the Protestant doctrine, then would they have
taken possession of England in very deed, and in such fashion that they would
hold it for ever. These early disciples did not yet clearly see wherein lay the
great strength of Protestantism. The political activity into which they had
diverged was an attempt to gather fruit, not only before the sun had ripened it,
but even before they had well sowed the seed. The fabric of the Roman Church was
founded on the belief, in the minds of Englishmen, that the Pope was heaven's
delegate for conferring on men the pardon of their sins and the blessings of
salvation. That belief must first be exploded. So long as it kept its hold, no
material force, no political action, could suffice to overthrow the domination
of Rome. Amid the scandals of the clergy and the decay of the nation, it would
have continued to flourish to our day, had not the reforming and spiritual
forces come to the rescue. We can the more easily pardon the mistake of the
English Protestants of the fifteenth century when we reflect that, even yet, the
sole efficacy–the omnipotency –of these forces finds only partial belief in the
general mind of even the religious world.
From the hour that the stake
for Protestantism was planted in England, neither the king nor the nation had
rest. Henry Plantagenet (Bolingbroke) had returned from exile, on his oath not
to disturb the succession to the crown. He broke his vow, and dethroned Richard
II. The Church, through her head the primate, was an accomplice with him in this
deed. Arundel anointed the new king with oil from that mysterious vial which the
Virgin was said to have given to Thomas aBecket, during his exile in France,
telling him that the kings on whose head this oil should be poured would prove
valiant champions of the Church.[4] The coronation was
followed by the dark tragedy in the Castle of Pontefract; and that, again, by
the darker, though more systematic, violence of the edict De Hereretico
Comburendo, which was followed in its turn by the imprisonings in the Tower, and
the burnings in Smithfield. The reign thus inaugurated had neither glory abroad
nor prosperity at home. Faction rose upon faction; revolt trod on the heels of
revolt; and a train of national calamities followed in rapid succession, till at
last Henry had completely lost the popularity which helped him to mount the
throne; and the terror with which he reigned made his subjects regret the weak,
frivolous, and vicious Richard, whom he had deprived first of his crown, and
next of his life. Rumors that Richard still lived, and would one day claim his
own, were continually springing up, and occasioned, not only perpetual alarms to
the king, but frequent conspiracies among his nobles; and the man who was the
first to plant the stake in England for the disciples of the Gospel had, before
many days passed by, to set up scaffolds for the peers of his realm. His son,
Prince Henry, added to his griefs. The thought, partly justified by the wild
life which the prince then led, and the abandoned companions with whom he had
surrounded himself, that he wished to seize the crown before death had given it
to him in the regular way, continually haunted the royal imagination; and, to
obviate this danger, the monarch took at times the ludicrous precaution of
placing the regalia on his pillow when he went to sleep.[5] His brief reign of
thirteen years and five months wore away, as an old chronicler says, "with
little pleasure."
The last year of Henry's life was signalized by a
projected expedition to the Holy Land. The monarch deemed himself called to the
pious labor of delivering Jerusalem from the Infidel. If he should succeed in a
work so meritorious, he would spend what might remain to him of life with an
easier conscience, as having made atonement for the crimes by which he had
opened his way to the throne. As it turned out, however, his efforts to achieve
this grand enterprise but added to his own cares, and to his subjects' burdens.
He had collected ships, money, provisions, and soldiers.
All was ready;
the fleet waited only till the king should come on board to weigh anchor and set
sail [6] But before embarking, the
monarch must needs visit the shrine of St. Edward. "While he was making his
prayers," says Holinshed, "there as it were to take his leave, and so to procede
forth on his journie, he was suddenlie and grievouslie taken, that such as were
about him feared that he should have died presentlie; wherefore, to relieve him,
if it were possible, they bare him into a chamber that was next at hand,
belonging to the Abbot of Westminister, where they laid him on a pallet before
the fire, and used all remedies to revive him. At length he recovered his speech
and understanding, and perceiving himself in a strange place which he knew not,
he willed to know if the chamber had any particular name, whereunto answer was
made that it was called 'Jerusalem.' Then said the king, 'Lauds be given to the
Father of Heaven, for I know that I shall die here in this chamber, according to
the prophecy of me, which declared that I should depart this life in
Jerusalem.'"[7]
CHAPTER 5
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TRIAL AND CONDEMNATION OF SIR JOHN
OLDCASTLE.
Henry V. – A Coronation and Tempest – Interpretations –
Struggles for Liberty – Youth of Henry – Change on becoming King – Arundel his
Evil Genius – Sir John Oldcastle – Becomes Lord Cobham by Marriage – Embraces
Wicliffe's Opinions – Patronises the Lollard Preachers – Is Denounced by Arundel
– Interview between Lord Cobham and the King-Summoned by the Archbishop –
Citations Torn Down – Confession of his Faith – Apprehended – Brought before the
Archbishop's Court-Examination – His Opinions on the Sacrament, Confession, the
Pope, Images, the Church, etc. – His Condemnation as a Heretic – Forged
Abjuration – He Escapes from the Tower.
STRUCK down by apoplexy in the prime of manhood,
March 20th, 1413, Henry IV. was carried to his tomb in Canterbury Cathedral, and
his son, Henry V., mounted his throne. The new king was crowned on Passion
Sunday, the 9th of April. The day was signalised by a fearful tempest, that
burst over England, and which the spirit of the age variously interpreted.[1] Not a few regarded it as a
portent of evil, which gave warning of political storms that were about to
convulsethe State of England.[2] But others, more sanguine,
construed this occurrence more hopefully. As the tempest, said they, disperses
the gloom of winter, and summons from their dark abodes in the earth the flowers
of spring, so will the even-handed justice of the king dispel the moral vapors
which have hung above the land during the late reign, and call forth the virtues
of order and piety to adorn and bless society.[3] Meanwhile the future,
which men were striving to read, was posting towards them, bringing along with
it those sharp tempests that were needful to drive away the exhalations of a
night which had long stagnated over England. Religion was descending to resume
the place that superstition had usurped, and awaken in the English people those
aspirations and tendencies, which found their first arena of development on the
field of battle; and their second, and more glorious one, in the halls of
political and theological discussion; and their final evolution, after two
centuries, in the sublime fabric of civil and religious liberty that stood
completed in England, that other nations might study its principles and enjoy
its blessings.
The youth of Henry V., who now governed England, had been
disorderly. It was dishonored by "the riot of pleasure, the frolic of
debauchery, the outrage of wine."[4] The jealousy of his
father, by excluding him from all public employment, furnished him with an
excuse for filling the vacancies of his mind and his time with low amusements
and degrading pleasures. But when the prince put on the crown he put off his
former self. He dismissed his old associates, called around him the counsellors
of his father, bestowed the honors and offices of the State upon men of capacity
and virtue; and, pensioning his former companions, he forbade them to enter his
presence till they had become better men. He made, in short, a commendable
effort to effect a reformation in manners and religion. "Now placed on the royal
seat of the realm," says the chronicler, "he determined to begin with something
acceptable to the Divine Majesty, and therefore commanded the clergy sincerelie
and trulie to preach the Word of God, and to live accordinglie, that they might
be lanterns of light to the temporalitie, as their profession required. The
laymen he willed to serve God and obey their prince, prohibiting them, above all
things, breach of matrimonie, custom in swearing, and wilful perjurie."[5]
It was the
unhappiness of Henry V., who meant so well by his people, that he knew not the
true source whence alone a real reformation can proceed. The astute Arundel was
still by his side, and guided the steps of the prince into the same paths in
which his father had walked. Lollard blood still continued to flow, and new
victims from time to time mounted the martyr's pile.
The most illustrious
of the Protestants of that reign was Sir John Oldcastle, a knight of
Herefordshire. Having married the heiress of Cowling Castle, near Rochester, he
sat in Parliament under the title of Lord Cobham, in right of his wife's
barony.[6] The youth of Lord Cobham
had been stained with gay pleasures; but the reading of the Bible, and the study
of Wicliffe's writings, had changed his heart; and now, to the knightly virtues
of bravery and honor, he added the Christian graces of humility and purity. He
had borne arms in France, under Henry IV., who set a high value on his military
accomplishments. Hewas not less esteemed by the son, Henry V., for his private
worth,[7] his shrewd sense, and his
gallant bearing as a soldier.[8] But the "dead fly" in the
noble qualities and upright character of the stout old baron:, in the opinion of
the king, was his Lollardism.
With characteristic frankness, Lord Cobham
made no secret of his attachment to the doctrines of Wicliffe. He avowed, in his
place in Parliament, so early as the year 1391, "that it would be very
commodious for England if the Pope's jurisdiction stopped at the town of Calais,
and did not cross the sea." [9]
It is said of him,
too, that he had copies made of Wicliffe's works, and sent them to Bohemia,
France, Spain, Portugal, and other countries.[10]
He threw open
Cowling Castle to the Lollard preachers:, making it their head-quarters while
they itinerated in the neighborhood, preaching the Gospel. He himself often
attended their sermons, taking his stand, sword in hand, by the preacher's side,
to defend him from the insults of the friars.[11] Such open disregard of the
ecclesiastical authority was not likely long to either escape notice or be
exempt from censure.
Convocation was sitting at the time (1413) in St.
Paul's. The archbishop rose and called the attention of the assembly to the
progress of Lollardism, and, pointing specially to Lord Cobham, declared that
"Christ's coat would never be without seam" till that notorious abettor of
heretics were taken out of the way. On that point all were agreed; but Cobham
had a friend in the king, and it would not do to have him out forthwith into
Smithfield and burn him, as if he were an ordinary heretic. They must, if
possible, take the king along with them in all they did against Lord Cobham.
Accordingly, Archbishop Arundel, with other bishops and members of Convocation,
waited on the king, and laid before him their complaint against Lord Cobham.
Henry replied that he would first try what he himself could do with the brave
old knight whom he bore in so high esteem.[12]
The king sent for
Cobham, and exhorted him to abandon his scruples, and submit to his mother the
Church. "You, most worthy prince," was the reply, "I am always prompt and
willing to obey, forasmuch as I know you are a Christian king, and minister of
God; unto you, next to God, I owe my whole obedience, and submit me thereunto.
But, as touching the Pope and his spiritualitie, trulie I owe them neither
suit nor service, forasmuch as I know him, by the
Scriptures, to be the great Antichrist, the open adversary of God, and the
abomination standing in the holy place." [13] At the hearing of these words the king's countenance fell;
his favor for Cobham gave way to his hatred of heresy; he turned away, purposing
with himself to interfere no farther in the matter.
The archbishop came
again to the king, who now gave his ready consent that they should proceed
against Lord Cobham according to the laws of the Church. These, in all such
cases as the present, were compendiously summarised in the one statute of Henry
IV., De Haeretico Comburendo.
The archbishop dispatched a messenger to
Cobham, summoning him to appear before him on September 2nd, and answer to the
articles of accusation. Acting on the principle that he "owed neither suit nor
service" to the Pope and his vassals, Lord Cobham paid no attention to the
summons. Arundel next prepared citations, in due form, and had them posted up on
the gates of Cowling Castle, and on the doors of the neighboring Cathedral of
Rochester. These summonses were speedily torn down by the friends and retainers
of Lord Cobham. The archbishop, seeing the Church in danger of being brought
into contempt, and her authority of being made a laughing-stock, hastened to
unsheathe against the defiant knight her ancient sword, so terrible in those
ages. He excommunicated the great Lollard; but even this did not subdue him. A
third time were citations posted up, commanding his appearance, 'under threat of
severe penalties;[14] and again the summonses were contemptuously torn
down.
Cobham had a stout heart in his bosom, but he would show the king
that he had also a good cause. Taking his pen, he sat down and drew out a
statement of his belief. He took, as the groundwork of his confession of faith,
the Apostles' Creed, giving, mainly in the words of Scripture, the sense in
which he received its several articles. His paper has all the simplicity and
spirituality, but not the clear, well-defined and technical expression, of the
Reformation theology of the sixteenth century.[15] He carried it to the king, craving him to have it examined
"by the most godly, wise, and learned men of his realm." Henry refused to look
at it. Handing it to the archbishop, the king said that, in this matter, his
Grace was judge.
There followed, on the part of Cobham, a proposal which,
doubtless, would cause astonishment to a modern divine, but which was not
accounted incongruous or startling in an age when so many legal, political, and
even moral questions were left for decision to the wager of battle. He offered
to bring a hundred knights and esquires into the field, for his purgation,
against an equal number on the side of his accusers; or else, said he, "I shall
fight, myself, for life or death, in the quarrel of my faith, with any man
living, Christian or heathen, the king and the lords of his council excepted."[16] The proposal was declined, and the issue was that the king
suffered him to be seized, in his privy chamber, and imprisoned in the
Tower.
On Saturday, September 23rd, 1413, Lord Cobham was brought before
Archbishop Arundel, who, assisted by the Bishops of London and Winchester,
opened his court in the chapter-house of St. Paul's. The primate offered him
absolution if he would submit and confess himself. He replied by pulling out of
his bosom and reading a written statement of his faith, handing a copy to the
primate, and keeping one for himself. The court then adjourned till the Monday
following, when it met in the Dominican Friars, on Ludgate Hill, with a more
numerous attendance of bishops, doctors, and friars. Absolution was again
offered the prisoner, on the old terms: "Nay, forsooth will I not," he replied,
"for I never yet trespassed against you, and therefore I will not do it." Then
falling down on his knees on the pavement, and extending his hands toward
heaven, he said, "I shrive me here unto thee, my eternal living God, that in my
frail youth I offended thee, O Lord, most grievously, in pride, wrath, and
gluttony, in covetousness and in lechery. Many men have I hurt, in mine anger,
and done many horrible sins; good Lord, I ask thee, mercy." Then rising up, the
tears streaming down his face, he turned to the people, and cried, "Lo, good
people, for the breaking of God's law these men never yet cursed me; but now,
for their own laws and traditions, they most cruelly handle me and other men."[17]
The court took a little while to recover itself after
this scene. It then proceeded with the examination of Lord Cobham, thus:
–
The archbishop: "What say you, sir, to the four articles sent to the
Tower for your consideration, and especially to the article touching the
Sacrament of the altar? "
Lord Cobham: "My Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ,
sitting at his last supper, with his most dear disciples, the night before he
should suffer, took bread in his hand, and, giving thanks to his eternal Father,
blessed it, brake it, and gave it unto them, saying, ' Take it unto you, and eat
thereof, all. This is my body, which shall be betrayed for you. Do this
hereafter in my remembrance.' This do I thoroughly believe."
The
archbishop: "Do you believe that it was bread after the Sacramental words had
been spoken? "
Lord Cobham: "I believe that in the Sacrament of the altar
is Christ's very body, in form of bread; the same that was born of the Virgin,
done on the cross, and now is glorified in heaven."
A doctor: "After the
Sacramental words be uttered there remaineth no bread, but only the body of
Christ."
Lord Cobham: "You said once to me, in the Castle of Cowling,
that the sacred Host was not Christ's body. But I held then against you, and
proved that therein was his body, though the seculars and friars could not
therein agree, but held one against the other."
Many doctors, with great
noise: "We say all that it is God's body." They angrily insisted that he should
answer whether it was material bread after consecration, or no.
Lord
Cobham (looking earnestly at the archbishop): "I believe surely that it is
Christ's body in form of bread. Sir, believe not you thus? " The archbishop:
"Yea, marry, do I."
The doctors: "Is it only Christ's body after the
consecration of a priest, and no bread, or not? "
Lord Cobham: "It is
both Christ's body and bread. I shall prove it thus: For like as Christ,
dwelling here upon the earth, had in him both Godhood and manhood, and had the
invisible Godhood covered under that manhood which was only visible and seen in
him: so in the Sacrament of the altar is Christ's very body, and very bread
also, as I believe. The bread is the thing which we see with our eyes; the body
of Christ, which is his flesh and his blood, is hidden thereunder, and not seen
but in faith."
Smiling to one another, and all speaking together: "It is
a foul heresy."
A bishop: "It is a manifest heresy to say that it is
bread after the Sacramental words have been spoken."
Lord Cobham: "St.
Paul, the apostle, was, I am sure, as wise as you are, and more godly-learned,
and he called it bread: writing to the Corinthians, he says, 'The bread that we
break, is it not the partaking of the body of Christ?'"
All: "St. Paul
must be otherwise understood; for it is heresy to say that it is bread after
consecration."
Lord Cobham: "How do you make that good? "
The
court: "It is against the determination of holy Church."
The archbishop:
"We sent you a writing concerning the faith of the blessed Sacrament, clearly
determined by the Church of Rome, our mother, and by the holy
doctors."
Lord Cobham: "I know none holier than is Christ and his
apostle. And for that determination, I wot, it is none of theirs, for it
standeth not with the Scriptures, but is manifestly against them. If it be the
Church's, as ye say it is, it hath been hers only since she received the great
poison of worldly possessions, and not afore."
The archbishop: "What do
you think of holy Church? "
Lord Cobham: "Holy Church is the number of
them which shall be saved, of which Christ is the head. Of this Church, one part
is in heaven with Christ; another in purgatory (you say); and the third is here
on earth."
Doctor John Kemp: "Holy Church hath determined that, every
Christian man ought to be shriven by a priest. What say ye to this?"
Lord
Cobham: "A diseased or sore wounded man had need to have a wise surgeon and a
true. Most necessary were it, therefore, to be first shriven unto God, who only
knoweth our diseases, and can help us. I deny not in this the going to a priest,
if he be a man of good life and learning. If he be a vicious man, I ought rather
to flee from him; for I am more likely to have infection than cure from
him."
Doctor Kemp: "Christ ordained St. Peter to be his Vicar here on
earth, whose see is the Church of Rome; and he granted the same power to all St.
Peter's successors in that see. Believe ye not this?"
Lord Cobham: "He
that followeth St. Peter most nearly in holy living is next unto him in
succession."
Another doctor: "What do ye say of the Pope?"
Lord
Cobham: "He and you together maketh the whole great Antichrist. The Pope is the
head; you, bishops, priests, prelates, and monks, are the body; and the Begging
Friars are the tail, for they hide the wickedness of you both with their
sophistry."
Doctor Kemp: "Holy Church hath determined that it is
meritorious to go on pilgrimage to holy places, and there to worship holy relics
and images of saints and martyrs. What say ye to this?"
Lord Cobham: "I
owe them no service by any commandment of God. It were better to brush the
cobwebs from them and put them away, or bury them out of sight, as ye do other
aged people, which are God's images. But this I say unto you, and I would all
the world should know it, that with your shrives and idols, your reigned
absolutions and pardons, ye draw unto you the substance, wealth, and chief
pleasures of all Christian realms."
A priest: "What, sir, will ye not
worship good images?"
Lord Cobham: "What worship should I give unto
them?"
Friar Palmer: "Sir, will ye worship the cross of Christ, that he
died upon?"
Lord Cobham: "Where is it?"
The friar: "I put the
case, sir, that it were here even now before you."
Lord Cobham: "This is
a wise man, to put to me an earnest question of a thing, and yet he himself
knows not where the thing is. Again I ask you, what worship should I give
it?"
A priest: "Such worship as St. Paul speaks of, and that is this,
'God forbid that I should joy, but only in the cross of Jesus
Christ.'"
The Bishop of London: "Sir, ye wot well that Christ died on a
material cross."
Lord Cobham: "Yea, and I wot also that our salvation
came not by that material cross, but by him alone that died thereon; and well I
wot that holy St. Paul rejoiced in no other cross but Christ's passion and
death."
The archbishop: "Sir, the day passeth away. Ye must either submit
yourself to the ordinance of holy Church, or else throw yourself into most deep
danger. See to it in time, for anon it will be too late."
Lord Cobham: "I
know not to what purpose I should submit me."
The archbishop: "We once
again require you to look to yourself, and to have no other opinion in these
matters, save that is the universal faith and belief of the holy Church of Rome;
and so, like an obedient child, return to the unity of your mother. See to it, I
say, in time, for yet ye may have remeid, whereas anon it will be too
late."
Lord Cobham: "I will none otherwise believe in these points than I
have told you before. Do with me what you will."
The archbishop: "We must
needs do the law: we must proceed to a definite sentence, and judge and condemn
you for an heretic."
Hereupon the archbishop stood up to pronounce
sentence. The whole assembly–bishops, doctors, and friars–rose at the same time,
and uncovered. The primate drew forth two papers which had been prepared
beforehand, and proceeded to read them. The first set forth the heresies of
which Lord Cobham had been convicted, and the efforts which the court, "desiring
the health of his soul," had made to bring him to "the unity of the Church;" but
he, "as a child of iniquity and darkness,[18] had so hardened his heart that he would not listen to the
voice of his pastor." "We, thereupon," continued the archbishop, turning to the
second paper, "judge, declare, and condemn the said Sir John Oldcastle, knight,
for a most pernicious and detestable heretic, committing him to the secular
jurisdiction and power, to do him thereupon to death."
This sentence
Arundel pronounced with a sweet and affable voice, the tears trickling down his
face. It is the primate himself who tells us so; otherwise we should not have
known it; for certainly we can trace no signs of pity or relenting in the terms
of the sentence. "I pronounced it," says the archbishop, referring to the
sentence dooming Sir John to the fire, "in the kindest and sweetest manner, with
a weeping countenance."[19] If the primate wept, no one saw a tear on the face of Lord
Cobham. "Turning to the multitude," says Bale, "Lord Cobham said, with a most
cheerful voice, 'Though ye judge my body, which is but a wretched thing, yet can
ye do no harm to my soul. He that created it will, of his infinite mercy, save
it. Of that I have no manner of doubt.' Then falling down on his knees, and
lifting up his eyes, with hands outstretched toward heaven, he prayed, saying,
'Lord God eternal, I beseech thee, for thy great mercy's sake, to forgive my
pursuers, if it be thy blessed will.' He was thereupon delivered to Sir Robert
Morley, and led back to the Tower."[20]
The sentence was not to be executed till afmr fifty
days.[21] This respite, so unusual, may have been owing to a lingering
affection for his old friend on the part of the king, or it may have been
prompted by the hope that he would submit himself to the Church, and that his
recantation would deal a blow to the cause of Lollardism. But Lord Cobham had
counted the cost, and his firm resolve was to brave the horrors of Smithfield,
rather than incur the guilt of apostacy. His persecutors, at last, despaired of
bringing him in a penitent's garb, with lighted tapers, to the door of St.
Paul's, as they had done humbler and weaker confessors, there to profess his
sorrow for having scoffed at the prodigious mystery of transubstantiation, and
placed the authority of the Scriptures above that of the Church. But if a real
recantation could not be had, a spurious one might be fabricated, and given
forth as the knight's confession. This was the expedient to which his enemies
had now recourse. They gave out that "Sir John had now become a good man,
and had lowlily submitted himself in all things to holy Church;" and
thereupon they produced and published a written "abjuration," in which they made
Lord Cobham profess the most unbounded homage for the Pope (John XXIII.!),
"Christ's Vicar on earth and head of the Church," his clergy, his Sacraments,
his laws, his pardons and dispensations, and recommend "all Christian people to
observe, and also most meekly to obey, the aforesaid;" and further, they made
him, in this "abjuration," renounce as "errors and heresies" all the doctrines
he had maintained before the bishops, and, laying his hand upon the "holy
evangel of God," to swear that he should nevermore henceforth hold these
heresies, "or any other like unto them, wittingly." [22]
The fabricators of
this "abjuration" had overshot the mark. But small discernment, truly, was
needed to detect so clumsy a forgery. Its authors were careful, doubtless, that
the eye of the man whom it so grievously defamed should not light upon it; and
yet it would appear that information was conveyed to Cobham, in his prison, of
the part the priests were making him act in public; for we find him sending out
to rebut the slanders and falsehoods that were spread abroad regarding him, and
protesting that as he had professed when he stood before the archbishop, so did
he still believe,[23] "This abjuration," says
Fox, "never came into the hands of Lord Cobham, neither was it compiled by them
for that purpose, but only to blear the eyes of the unlearned multitude for a
time."[24] Meanwhile– whether by the
aid of his friends, or by connivance of the governor, is not certainly
known–Lord Cobham escaped from the Tower and fled to Wales, where he remained
secreted for four years.
CHAPTER 6
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LOLLARDISM DENOUNCED
AS TREASON.
Spread of Lollardism – Clergy Complain to the King –
Activity of the Lollards – Accused of Plotting the Overthrow of the Throne and
Commonwealth – Midnight Meeting of Lollards at St. Giles-in-the-Fields – Alarm
of the King – He Attacks and Disperses the Assembly – Was it a Conspiracy or a
Conventicle? – An Old Device Revived.
LORD COBHAM had for the time escaped from the hands
of his persecutors, but humbler confessors were within their reach, and on these
Arundel and his clergy now proceeded to wreak their vengeance. This thing, which
they branded as heresy, and punished in the fire, was spreading over England
despite all their rigors. That the new opinions were dangerous to the authority
of the Roman Church was sufficiently clear, but it suited the designs of the
hierarchy to represent them as dangerous also to the good order of the State.
They went to the king, and complaining of the spread of Lollardism, told him
that it was the enemy of kings and the foe of commonwealths, and that if it were
allowed to remain longer unsuppressed, it would in no long time be the undoing
of his realm. "The heretics and Lollards of Wicliffe's opinion," said they, "are
suffered to preach abroad so boldly, to gather conventicles unto them, to keep
schools in men's houses, to make books, compile treatises, and write ballads; to
teach privately in angles and corners, as in woods, fields, meadows, pastures,
groves, and caves of the ground. This," they added, "will be a destruction to
the commonwealth, a subversion to the land, and an utter decay of the king's
estate royal, if a remedy be not sought in time."[1]
This picture,
making allowance for some little exaggeration, shows us the wonderful activity
of these early Protestants, and what a variety of agencies they had already
begun to employ for the propagation of their opinions. It justifies the saying
of Bale, that "if England at that time had not been unthankful for the singular
benefit that God then sent it in these good men, the days of Antichrist and his
tyrannous brood had been shortened there long ago."[2]
The machinations of
the priests bore further fruit. The more effectually to rouse the apprehensions
of the king, and lead him to cut off the very men who would have sowed the seeds
of order in his dominions, and been a bulwark around his throne, they professed
to adduce a specific instance in support of their general allegations of
disloyalty and treason against the Lollards. In January, 1414, they repaired to
Eltham, where the king was then residing, and startled him with the intelligence
of a formidable insurrection of the Wicliffites, with Lord Cobham at their head,
just ready to break out. The Lollards, they declared, proposed to dethrone the
king, murder the royal household, pull down Westminster Abbey, and all the
cathedrals in the reahn, and to wind up by confiscating all the possessions of
the Church.[3] To give a coloring of
truth to the story, they specified the time and place fixed upon for the
outbreak of the diabolical plot. The conspirators were to meet on a certain
midnight "in Ficket Field beside London, on the back side of St. Giles," and
then and there begin their terrible work.[4] The king on receiving the
alarming news quitted Eltham, and repaired, with a body of armed men, to his
Palace of Westminster, to be on the spot and ready to quell the expected
rebellion. The night came when this terrible plot was to explode, and to leave
before morning its memorials in the overthrow of the throne, and the destruction
of the hierarchy. The martial spirit of the future hero of Agincourt was roused.
Giving orders for the gates of London to be closed, and "unfurling a banner,"
says Walden, "with a cross upon it"–after the Pope's example when he wars
against the Turk–the king marched forth to engage the rebels. He found no such
assembly as he had been led to expect. There was no Lord Cobham there; there
were no armed men present. In short, instead of conspirators in rank and file,
ready to sustain the onset of the royal troops, the king encountered only a
congregation of citizens, who had chosen this hour and place as the fittest for
a field preaching. Such, in sober truth, appears to have been the character of
the assembly. When the king rode in among them with his men-at-arms, he met
absolutely with no resistance. Without leaders and without arms, the multitude
broke up and fled. Some were cut down on the spot, the rest were pursued, and of
these many were taken.
The gates of the city had been closed, and why?
"To prevent the citizens joining the rebels," say the accusers of the Lollards,
who would fain have us believe that this was an organised conspiracy. The men of
London, say they, were ready to rush out in hundreds to support the Lollards
against the king's troops. But where is the evidence of this? We do not hear of
a single citizen arming himself. Why did not the Londoners sally forth and join
their friends outside before night had fallen and they were attacked by the
soldiery? Why did they not meet them the moment they arrived on Ficket Field?
Their coming was known to their foes, why not also to their friends? No; the
gates of London were shut for the same reason, doubtless, which led, at an
after-period, to the closing of the gates of Paris when a conventicle was held
outside its walls–even that the worshippers, when attacked, might not find
refuge in the city.
The idea that this was an insurrection, planned and
organised, for the overthrow of Government, and the entire subversion of the
whole ecclesiastical and political estate of England, appears to us too absurd
to be entertained.[5] Such revolutionary and
sanguinary schemes were not more alien to the character and objects of the
Lollards than they were beyond their resources. They sought, indeed, the
sequestration or redistribution of the ecclesiastical property, but they
employed for this end none but the legitimate means of petitioning Parliament.
Rapine, bloodshed, revolution, were abhorrent to them. If the work they now had
in hand was indeed the arduous one of overturning a powerful Government, how
came they to assemble without weapons? Why, instead of making a display of their
numbers and power, as they would have done had their object been what their
enemies alleged, did they cover themselves with the darkness of the night? While
so many circumstances throw not only doubt, but ridicule, upon the idea of
conspiracy, where are the proofs of such a thing? When searched to the bottom,
the matter rests only on the allegations of the priests. The priests said so to
the king. Thomas Walsingham, monk of St. Albans, reported it in his Chronicles;
and one historian after another has followed in his wake, and treated us to an
account of this formidable rebellion, which they would have us believe had so
nearly plunged the kingdom into revolution, and extinguished the throne in
blood. No the epithet of heresy alone was not enough to stigmatize the young
Protestantism of England. To heresy must be joined treason, in order to make
Lollardism sufficiently odious; and when this double-headed monster should be
seen by the terrified imaginations of statesmen, stalking through the land,
striking at the throne and the altar, trampling on law as well as on religion,
confiscating the estate of the noble as well as the glebe of the bishop, and
wrapping castle and hamlet in flames, then would the monarch put forth all his
power to crush the destroyer and save the realm. The monks of Paris a hundred
and twenty years after drew the same hideous picture of Protestantism, and
frightened the King of France into planting the stake for the Huguenots. This
was the game which had begun to be played in England. Lollardism, said the
priests, means revolution. To make such a charge is an ancient device. It is
long since a certain city was spoken of before a powerful monarch as "the
rebellious and the bad," within which they had "moved sedition of old time."[6] The calumny has been often
repeated since; but no king ever yet permitted himself to be deceived by it, who
had not cause to rue it in the tarnishing of his throne and the impoverishing of
his realm, and it might be in the ruin of both.
CHAPTER 7
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MARTYRDOM OF LORD
COBHAM.
Imprisonments and Martyrdoms – Flight of Lollards to other
Countries – Death of Archbishop Arundel-His Character – Lord Cobham – His
Seizure in Wales by Lord Powis – Brought to London – Summoned before Parliament
– Condemned on the Former Charge – Burned at St. Giles-in-the-Fields – His
Christian Heroism – Which is the Greater Hero, Henry V. or Lord Cobham? – The
World's True Benefactors – The Founders of England's Liberty and Greatness -The
Seeds Sown -The Full Harvest to Come.
THE dispersion of this unarmed assembly, met in the
darkness of the night, on the then lonely and thicket-covered field of St.
Giles, to listen, it might be, to some favourite preacher, or to celebrate an
act of worship, was followed by the execution of several Lollards. The most
distinguished of these was Sir Roger Acton, known to be a friend of Lord Cobham.
He was seized at the midnight meeting on St. Giles' Field, and was inlmediately
thereafter condemned and executed. The manner of his death has been variously
reported. Some chroniclers say he was burned,[1] others that he was drawn
on a hurdle to Tyburn, and there hanged.[2] Two other Lollards were
put to death at the same time–Master John Brown, and John Beverly, formerly a
priest, but now a Wicliffite preacher. "So many persons were apprehended," says
Holinshed, "that all the prisons in and about London were full." The leaders
only, however, were put to death, "being condemned," says the chronicler, "for
heresy by the clergy, and attainted of high treason in the Guildhall of London,
and adjudged for that offense to be drawn and hanged, and for heresy to be
consumed with fire, gallows and all, which judgment was executed the same month
on the said Sir Roger Acton, and twenty-eight others."[3] The chronicler, however,
goes on to say, what strongly corroborates the view we have taken of this
affair, even that the overthrow of the Government formed no part of the designs
of these men, that their only crime was attachment to Protestant truth, and that
their assembling, which has been magnified into a dark and diabolical plot, was
simply a peaceful meeting for worship. "Certain affirm," says Holinshed, "that
it was for reigned causes, surmised by the spirituality, more upon displeasure
than truth; and that they were assembled to hear their preacher (the aforesaid
Beverly) in that place there, out of the way from resort of people, since they
might not come together openly about any such matter, without danger to be
apprehended."[4] Other martyrdoms followed.
Of these sufferers some were burned in Smithfield, others were put to death in
the provinces; and not a few, to escape the stake, fled into exile, as Bale
testifies. "Many fled out of the land into Germany, Bohemia, France, Spain,
Portugal, and into the wilds of Scotland, Wales, and Ireland."[5] Such terror had the rigor
of the archbishop infused into the now numerous adherents of the Protestant
doctrines.
We pause to record another death, which followed, at the
distance of less than a month, those of which we have just made mention. This
death takes us, not to Smithfield, where the stake glorifies those whom it
consumes, but to the archiepiscopal Palace of Lambeth. There on his bed, Thomas
Arundel, Archbishop of Canterbury, together with his life, was yielding up his
primacy, which he had held for seventeen years.[6]
Thomas Arundel was
of noble birth, being the son of Richard Fitz-Alan, Earl of Arundel. His
talents, naturally good, had been improved by study and experience; he was fond
of pomp, subtle, resolute, and as stern in his measures as he was suave in his
manners. A devoted son of his mother the Church, he was an uncompromising foe of
Protestantism, which bore in his days the somewhat concealing name of
Lollardism, but which his instincts as a Churchman taught him to regard as the
one mortal enemy of that system, wherewith were bound up all dignities, titles,
and happiness. He had experienced great diversity of fortune. He shared the
exile of Henry Plantagenet, and he returned with him to assist in dethroning the
man who had condemned and banished him as a traitor, and in elevating in his
room Henry IV., whom he anointed with oil from the sacred vial which fell down
from Mary out of heaven. He continued to be the evil genius of the king. His
stronger will and more powerful intellect asserted an easy supremacy over Henry,
who never felt quite sure of the ground on which he stood.
When at last
the king was carried to Canterbury, and laid in marble, Arundel took his place
by the side of his son, Henry V., and kept it during the first year of his
reign. This prince was not naturally cruel, but Arundel's arrogant spirit and
subtle counsel seduced him into paths of intolerance and blood. The stakes which
the king and Arundel had planted were still blazing when the latter breathed his
last, and was carried to lie beside his former master in Canterbury Cathedral.
The martyrdoms which succeeded the Lollard assembly in St. Giles' Field, took
place in January, 1414, and the archbishop died in the February following. "Yet
died not," says Bale, "his prodigious tyranny with him, but succeeded with his
office in Henry Chicheley."[7]
Before entering on
any recital of the fortunes of English Protestantism under the new primate, let
us pursue to a close the story of Sir John Oldcastle the good Lord Cobham, as
the people called him. When he escaped from the Tower, the king offered a reward
of 1,000 marks to any one who should bring him to him, dead or alive. Such,
however, was the general estimation in which he was held, that no one claimed or
coveted the price of blood. During four years Cobham remained undisturbed in his
concealment among the mountains of the Welsh Principality. At length Lord Powis,
prompted by avarice, or hatred of Lollardism, discovering his hiding-place,
betrayed him to his pursuers. The brave old man was not to be taken without
resistance.[8] In the scuffle his leg was
broken, and, thus maimed, he was laid upon a home-litter, carried to London, and
consigned to his former abode in the Tower.[9] The Parliament happened to
be at that time sitting in London, and its records tell us the sequel. "On
Tuesday, the 14th day of December (1417), and the 29th day of said Parliament,
Sir John Oldcastle, of Cowling, in the county of Kent, knight [Lord Cobham],
being outlawed (as is before mentioned) in the King's Bench, and excommunicated
before by the Archbishop of Canterbury for heresy, was brought before the Lords,
and having heard his said convictions, answered not thereto in his excuse. Upon
which record and process it was judged that he should be taken, as a traitor to
the king and the realm; that he should be carried to the Tower of London, and
from thence down through London, unto the new gallows in St. Giles without
Temple Bar, and there be hanged, and burned hanging."[10]
When the day came
for the execution of this sentence, Lord Cobham was brought out, his hands
pinioned behind his back, but his face lighted up with an air of cheerfulness.[11] By this time Lollardism
had been made treason by Parliament, and the usual marks of ignominy which
accompany the death of the traitor were, in Lord Cobham's case, added to the
punishment of which he was judged worthy as a heretic. He was placed on a
hurdle, and drawn through the streets of London to St.
Giles-in-the-Fields.
On arriving at the place of execution he was
assisted to alight, and, falling on his knees, he offered a prayer for the
forgiveness of his enemies. He then stood up, and turning to the multitude, he
exhorted them earnestly to follow the laws of God as written in the Scriptures;
and especially to beware of those teachers whose immoral lives showed that
neither had they the spirit of Christ nor loved his doctrine. A new gallows had
been erected, and now began the horrible tragedy. Iron chains were put round his
waist, · he was raised aloft, suspended over the fire, and subjected to the
double torture of hanging and burning. He maintained his constancy and joy amid
his cruel sufferings; "consuming alive in the fire," says Bale, "and praising
the name of the Lord so long as his life lasted." The priests and friars stood
by the while, forbidding the people to pray for one who, as he was departing
"not in the obedience of their Pope," was about to be plunged into fiercer
flames than those in which they beheld him consuming.
The martyr, now
near his end, lifting up his voice for the last time, commended his soul into
the hands of God, and "so departed hence most Christianly."[12] "Thus," adds the
chronicler, "rested this valiant Christian knight, Sir John Oldcastle, under the
Altar of God, which is Jesus Christ; among that godly company which, in the
kingdom of patience, suffered great tribulation, with the death of their bodies,
for his faithful word and testimony; abiding there with them the fulfilling of
their whole number, and the full restoration of his elect.[13]
"Chains, gallows,
and fire," as Bale remarks, are no pleasant things, and death by their means is
not precious in the eyes of men; and yet some of the noblest spirits that have
ever lived have endured these thine–have worn the chain, mounted the gallows,
stood at the stake; and in that ignominious guise, arrayed in the garb and
enduring the doom of felons, have achieved victories, than which there are none
grander or so fruitful in the records of the world. 'What better are we at this
hour that Henry V. won Agincourt? To what purpose was that sea of blood–English
and French–poured out on the plains of France? To set the trumpet of idle fame
a-sounding?–to furnish matter for a ballad?–to blazon a page in history? That is
about all when we reckon it up. But the blood of Cobham is yielding its fruits
at this day. Had Sawtre, Badby, and Cobham been careful of their name, their
honor, their lives; had they blushed to stand before tribunals which they knew
were prepared to condemn them as traitors; had they declined to become a
gazing-stock to mobs, who waited to scoff at and insult them as heretics; had
they shrunk from the cruel torture and the bitter death of the stake–where would
have been the Protestantism of England? and, without its Protestantism, where
would have been its liberty? –still unborn. It was not the valor of Henry V., it
was the grander heroism of Lord Cobham and his fellow-martys that awoke the soul
of England, when it was sleeping a dead sleep, and fired it to pluck the bandage
of a seven-fold darkness from its eyes, and to break the yoke of a seven-fold
slavery from its neck. These are the stars that illuminate England's sky; the
heroes whose exploits glorify her annals; the kings whose spirits rule from
their thrones, which are their stakes, the hearts and souls of her noblest sons.
The multitude lays its homage at the feet of those for whom the world has done
much; whose path it has made smooth with riches; whose head it has lifted up
with honors; and for whom, while living, it provided a stately palace; and when
dead, a marble tomb. Let us go aside from the crowd: let us seek out, not the
men for whom the world has done much, but the men who have done much for the
world; and let us pay our homage, not indeed to them, but to Him who made them
what they were. And where shall we find these men? In kings' houses? in schools
and camps?–not oft. In jails, or at the bar of a tyrannical tribunal, or before
a bench of Pharisees, or on a scaffold, around which mobs hoot, while the
executioner stands by to do his office. These are not pleasant places; and yet
it is precisely there that those great examples have been exhibited which have
instructed the world, and those mighty services rendered which have ennobled and
blessed the race. It was amid such humiliations and sufferings that the Lollards
sowed, all through the fifteenth century, the living seed, which the gracious
spring-time of the sixteenth quickened into growth; which the following
centuries, not unmingled with conflict and the blood of martyrdom, helped to
ripen; and the fully matured harvest of which it remains for the generations to
come to carry home.
CHAPTER 8
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LOLLARDISM UNDER HENRY V. AND HENRY
VI.
Thomas Arundel succeeded by Henry Chicheley – The New Primate
pursues the Policy of his Predecessor – Parliament at Leicester – More Stringent
Ordinances against the Lollards – Appropriation of Ecclesiastical Possessions –
Archbishop Chicheley Staves off the Proposal – Diverts the King's Mind to a War
with France – Speech of the Archbishop – Henry V. falls into the Snare –
Prepares an Expedition – Invades France – Agincourt – Second Descent on France –
Henry becomes Master of Normandy – Returns to England – Third Invasion of France
– Henry's Death – Dying Protestation – His Magnificent Funeral – His Character –
Lollardism – More Martyrs – Claydon – New Edict against the Lollards – Henry VI.
– Maltyrs in his Reign – William Taylor – William White – John Huss –
Recantations.
THE martyrdom of Lord Cobham has carried us a little
way beyond the point to which we had come in tracing the footprints faint and
intermittent– of Protestantism in England during the fifteenth century. We saw
Arundel carried from the halls of Lambeth to be laid in the sepulchral vaults of
Canterbury. His master, Henry IV., had preceded him to the grave by only a few
months. More lately Sir Roger Acton and others had expired at the stake which
Arundel's policy had planted for them; and, last of all, he went to render his
own account to God.
Arundel was succeeded in the primacy by Henry
Chicheley. Chicheley continued in the chair of St. Anselm the same policy which
his predecessor had pursued. His predecessor's influence at court he did not
wield, at least to the same extent, for neither was Chicheley so astute as
Arundel, nor was Henry V. so facile as his father; but he inherited Arundel's
hatred of Lollardism, and resolved to use all the powers of his high office for
its suppression. The persecution, therefore, still went on. The "Constitutions
of Arundel," passed in the previous reign, had spread the net so wide that
scarcely was it possible for any one who had imbibed the opinions of John
Wicliffe to avoid being caught in its meshes. Besides, under the reign of Henry
V., new and more stringent ordinances were framed to oppress the Lollards. In a
Parliament held at Leicester (1414), it was enacted "that whoever should read
the Scriptures in English, which was then called 'Wicliffe's Learning,' should
forfeit land, cattle, goods, and life, and be condemned as heretics to God,
enemies to the crown, and traitors to the kingdom; that they should not have the
benefit of any sanctuary, though this was a privilege then granted to the most
notorious malefactors; and that, if they continued obstinate, or relapsed after
pardon, they should first be hanged for treason against the king, and then
burned for heresy against God."[1]
While the
Parliament stretched out one hand to persecute the Lollards, it put forth the
other to despoil the clergy. Their wealth was enormous; but only the smallest
fraction of it was given for the public service. The complaints on this head
were growing louder every year. At this same Parliament of Leicester a storm was
like to have burst out, had not the wit and policy of Henry Chicheley arrested
the danger. The Commons reminded the king of the demand which had twice before
been made in Parliament–first in Richard II.'S time (1394), and next in Henry
IV.'s (1410)–relative to converting the lands and possessions of the clergy to
the service of the State. "This bill," says Hall, "made the fat abbots to sweat;
the proud priors to frown; the poor priors to curse; the silly nuns to weep; and
indeed all her merchants to fear that Babel would down."
Though Henry had
lent the clergy his power to burn Lollards, they were far from sure that he
might not be equally ready to lend the Parliament his authority to rob the
Church. He was active, bold, fond of display, lavish in his habits; and the
wealth of the hierarchy offered a ready and tempting means of maintaining his
magnificence, which Henry might not have virtue to resist. They thought of
binding the king to their interests by offering him a wealthy gift; but the
wiser heads disapproved the policy: it would be accounted a bribe, and might be
deemed scarce decent on the part of men in sacred office. The Archbishop of
Canterbury hit on a more likely expedient, and one that fell in with the genius
of the king, and the aspirations of the nation.
The most effectual
course, said the archbishop, in a synod at London, of averting the impending
storm, is to find the king some other business to employ his courage. We must
turn his thoughts to war; we must rouse his ambition by reminding him of the
crown of France, descended to him from Edward III. He must be urged to demand
the French crown, as the undoubted heir; and if refused, he must attempt the
recovery of it by arms. To cause these counsels to prevail, the clergy agreed to
offer a great sum of money to defray the expenses of the war. They further
resolved to give up all the alien priories [2] in the kingdom, to the
number of 110, the lands of which would considerably increase the revenues of
the crown.[3]
This policy, being
approved by the synod at London, was vigorously advocated by the primate in the
Parliament at Leicester. The archbishop, rising in the House, addressed the king
as follows:–"You administer justice to your people with a noble equity; you are
illustrious in the arts of a peaceful government: but the glory of a great king
consists not so much in a reign of serenity and plenty, in great treasures, in
magnificent palaces, in populous and fair cities, as in the enlargement of his
dominions; especially when the assertion of his right calls him out to war, and
justice, not ambition, authorizes all his conquests. Your Highness ought to wear
the crown of France, by right descended to you from Edward III., your
illustrious predecesssor." The speaker went on, at great length, to trace the
title, and to establish its validity, to the satisfaction, doubtless, of the
audience which he addressed; and he wound up his oration by a reference to the
unprecedentedly large sum which the liberality of the clergy had placed at the
service of the king, to enable him to make good his title to the crown of
France.
The primate added, "Since therefore your right to the realm of
France is so clear and unquestionable; since 'tis supported by the laws both of
God and man; 'tis now your Highness' part to assert your title, to pull the
crown from the heads of the French usurpers, and to pursue the revolt of that
nation with fire and sword. 'Tis your Highness' interest to maintain the ancient
honor of the English nation, and not, by a tame overlooking of injurious
treatment, give your posterity an occasion to reproach your memory."[4] No one present whispered
into the speakds ear the conjuration which our great national poet puts into the
mouth of King Henry–
The project met with the approval
of the king.
To place the fair realm of
France under his sceptre; to unite it with England and Scotland–for the king's
uncle, the Duke of Exeter, suggested that he who would conquer Scotland must
begin with France–in one monarchy; to transfer, in due time, the seat of
government to Paris, and make his throne the first in Christendom, was an
enterprise grand enough to fire the spirit of a monarch less ambitious and
valorous than Henry V. Instantly the king set about making preparations on a
vast scale. Soldiers were levied from all parts of England; ships were hired
from Holland and Flanders for the transport of men and ammunition. Money,
provisions, horses, carriages, tents, boats covered with skins for crossing
rivers–everything, in fine, requisite for the success of such an enterprise was
provided; and the expedition was now ready to be launched.
But before
striking the blow a feint was made at negotiation with France. This was
conducted by Archbishop Chicheley, the very man with whom war was a foregone
conclusion; and, as might have been foreseen, the attempts at conciliation came
to nothing, and hostilities were now commenced. The king, crossing the Channel
with an army of 30,000 men, landed on the coast of France.[6] Towns were besieged and
taken; battles were fought; but sickness setting in among the soldiers, and
winter coming on, the king deemed it advisable, in order to preserve the remnant
of his army, to retreat to Calais for winter quarters. On his march he
encountered the French host, which four times outnumbered his own, now reduced
to 10,000. He had to fight the terrible battle of Agincourt. He conquered on
this bloody field, on which, stretched out in death, lay the flower of the
French nobility. Leaving the vultures to give them burial, Henry resumed his
march, and held on his way to England,[7] where, tidings of his
victory having preceded him, he was welcomed with acclamations. Archbishop
Chicheley had succeeded in diverting the mind of the king and Parliament from
their projected attempt on the possessions of the clergy; but at what a
price!
Neither England nor France had yet seen the end of this sad and
very sanguinary affair. The English king, now on fire, was not the man to let
the enterprise drop half achieved; and the policy of the primate was destined to
develop into yet other tragedies, and yet more oceans of French and English
blood. Henry made a second descent upon France (1417), the mutual hate and
fierce contentions of the French factions opening the gates of the kingdom for
his entrance. He passed on through the land, marking in blood the line of his
march. Towns besieged, provinces wasted, and their inhabitants subjected to the
horrors of famine, of rapine and slaughter, were the scenes which presented
themselves around his steps. He made himself master of Normandy, married the
king's youngest daughter, and after a time returned once more to his own land.[8]
Soon affairs called
King Henry again to France. This time he made a public entry into Paris,
accompanied by his queen, Catherine,[9] on purpose to show the
Parisians their future sovereign. France was no nearer recognising his alleged
right to reign over it; and Henry began, as before, to besiege its towns and
slaughter its children, in order to compel a submission which it was clear would
not be voluntarily given. He was thus occupied when an event took place which
put an end to his enterprise for ever; he felt that the hand of death was upon
him, and he retired from Cosne, which he was besieging, to Vincennes, near
Paris. The Dukes of Bedford and Gloucester, and the Earls of Salisbury and
Warwick, when his end approached, came to his bedside to receive his
instructions. He addressed them, protesting that "neither the ambitious desire
of enlarging his dominions, nor of winning vain renown and worldly fame, had
moved him to engage in these wars, but only the prosecution of his just title;
that he might in the end attain to a perfect peace, and come to enjoy those
parts of his inheritance which to him of right belonged; and that, before the
beginning of the same wars, he was fully persuaded by men both wise and of great
holiness of life, that upon such intent he might and ought both begin the same
wars, and follow them till he had brought them to an end justly and rightly, and
that without all danger of God's displeasure or peril of soul."[10] After making a few
necessary arrangements respecting the government of England and France, he
recited the seven penitential psalms, received the Sacrament, and so he died,
August 31st, 1422.
The magnificence of his funeral is thus described by
the chronicler:–"His body, embalmed and enclosed in lead, was laid in a chariot
royal, richly appareled with cloth of gold. Upon his coffin was laid a
representation of his person, adorned with robes, diadem, scepter, and ball,
like a king; the which chariot six horses drew, richly trapped, with several
appointments: the first with the arms of St. George, the second with the arms of
Normandy, the third of King Arthur, the fourth of St. Edward, the fifth of
France, and the sixth with the arms of England and France. On this same chariot
gave attendance James, King of Scots, the principal mourner; King Henry's uncle,
Thomas, Duke of Exeter; Richard, Earl of Warwick; " and nine other lords and
knights. Other lords carried banners and standards.
"The hatchments were
carried only by captains, to the number of twelve; and round about the chariot
rode 500 men-at-arms, all in black armor, their horses barbed black, and they
with the butt-ends of their spears upwards."
"The conduct of this
dolorous funeral was committed to Sir William Philip, Treasurer of the King's
household, and to Sir William Porter, his chief carver, and others. Besides
this, on every side of his chariot went 300 persons, holding long torches, and
lords bearing banners, bannerds, and pennons. With this funeral appointment was
he conveyed from Bets de Vincennes to Paris, and so to Rouen, to Abbeville, to
Calais, to Dover; from thence through London to Westminster, where he was
interred with such solemn ceremonies, mourning of lords, prayer of priests, and
such lamenting of commons, as never before then the like was seen in England,"[11] Tapers were kept burning
day and night on his tomb, till the Reformation came to put them
out.
Henry V. had not a few great qualities which, in other
circumstances, would have enabled him to render services of great value and
lasting benefit to his nation. His strength of character was attested by his
conquest over his youthful passions and habits when he came to the throne. He
was gentle in disposition, frank in manners, and courageous in spirit, he was a
lover of justice, and showed a desire to have it purely administered. He ate
temperately, passed but few hours in bed, and in field exercises displayed the
strength of an athlete. His good sense made him valuable in council; but it was
in marshalling an army for battle that his genius especially shone.
Had
these talents and energies been exercised at home, what blessings might they not
have conferred upon his subjects? But the fatal counsel of the archbishop and
the clergy diverted them all into a channel in which they were productive of
terrible mischiefs to the country of which he was the rightful lord, and to that
other which he aspired to rule, but the crown of which riot all his valor and
toil were able to place upon his head. He went down into the grave in the flower
of his age, in the very prime of his manhood, after a reign of ten years, "and
all his mighty projects vanished into smoke."[12] He left his throne to his
son, an infant only a few months old, bequeathing to him along with the crown a
legacy of complications at home and wars abroad, for which a "hundred
Agincourts" would not have compensated. This episode of Henry and his wars with
France belongs to the history of Protestantism, springing as it does directly
out of the policy which was framed for arresting it.
While these
armaments and battles were going forward, how fared it, we return to ask, with
the new opinions and their disciples in England? Did these great storms root
out, or did they shelter, the seed which Wicliffe had sowed, and which the blood
of the martyrs who came after him had watered and caused to spring up? They were
a protection, we are disposed to think, on the whole, to the infant
Protestantism of England. Its adherents were a humble, unorganised company of
men, who shunned rather than courted observation. Still we trace their presence
in the nation, as we light, in the ecclesiastical records of their age, at brief
intervals of time, upon a stake, and a Lollard sealing his testimony
thereat.
OnAugust 17, 1415, John Claydon, a currier in London, was
brought before Henry, Archbishop of Canterbury. In former years, Claydon had
been in the prison of the Fleet on a charge of heresy. He was set free on
abjuring his opinions. On this his second apprehension, he boldly confessed the
faith he had denied aforetime. One of the main charges against him was his
having in his house many books written in English, and in especial one book,
called the Lanthorn of Light. This book was produced against him by the Mayor of
London, who had taken possession of it, along with others, when he apprehended
him. It was bound in red leather, written on parchment, in a good English hand,
and Claydon confessed that it had been made at his own cost and charges, and
that he often read in it, for he found it "good and healthful for his soul." The
mayor said that the books he found in the house of Claydon "were, in his
judgment, the worst and most perverse he ever did read or see." He was sentenced
as a relapsed heretic, and delivered to the secular power. Committed to the fire
at Smithfield, "he was there meekly," says Fox, "made a burnt-offering to the
Lord." He is said by some to have had a companion at the stake, George Gurmyn,
with whom, as it came out on his examination, he had often communed about the
matters of their common faith.[13]
The year after the
martyrdom of Claydon, the growth of Lollardism was borne testimony to by
Archbishop Chicheley, in a new edict which he issued, in addition to those that
his predecessor, Arundel, had enacted. The archbishop's edict had been preceded
by the Act of Parliament, passed in 1414, soon after the midnight meeting at St.
Giles-in-the-Fields, which made it one and the same thing to be a Lollard and to
be a traitor. The preamble of the Act of Parliament set forth that "there had
been great congregations and insurrections, as well by them of the sect of
heresy commonly called Lollardy, as by others of their confederacy, to the
intent to annul, destroy, and subvert the Christian faith, and also to destroy
our Sorereign Lord the King, and all other manner of Estates of the Realm of
England, as well spiritual as temporal, and also all manner of policy, and
finally the laws of the land." These simple men, who read the Scriptures,
believed what they taught, and assembled in secret places to worship God, are
painted in the Act as the most dangerous of conspirators–as men aiming at the
destruction of society itself, and so are to be hunted out and exterminated.
Accordingly, the Act goes on to enjoin that all judges, justices, and
magistrates shall take an oath to make inquisition for Lollards, and that they
shall issue warrants for their apprehension, and delivery to the ecclesiastical
judges, that they may "be acquit or convict by the laws of holy Church."[14]
This paved the way
for the edict of the primate, which enjoined on his suffragan bishops and their
commissaries a similar pursuit of heretics and heresy. In pointing out whom he
would have apprehended, the archbishop undesignedly gives us the true character
of the men whom Parliament had branded as conspirators, busy plotting the
destruction of the Christian religion, and the entire subversion and ruin of the
commonwealth of England. And who are they? Men of immoral life, who prowl about
with arms in their hands, and make themselves, by their lawless and violent
courses, the terror of the neighborhood in which they live? No. The men on whose
track the primate sets his inquisitors are the men who "frequent conventicles,
or else differ in life and manners from the common conversation of other
Catholic men, or else that hold any either heresies or errors, or else that have
any suspected books in the English tongue"– "Wicliffe's learning" for example–in
short, "those heretics who, like foxes, lurk and hide themselves in the Lord's
vineyard." The personal search of the bishop and archdeacon, or their
commissaries, was not, the archbishop judged, enough; they were to supplement
their own diligence by calling to their aid certain of the "honestest men, to
take their oath upon the holy evangelists, that if they shall know or understand
any such" they should report them "to our suffragans, or archdeacons, or to
their commissaries."[15]
These edicts raise
the curtain, and show us how numerous were the followers of Wicliffe in England
in the fifteenth century, and how deep his teaching had gone into the hearts of
the English people. It is only the choice spirits of the party who come into
view at the stake. The greater part hid their Lollardism under the veil of an
outward conformity, or of an almost entire seclsion from the world; or, if
apprehended on a charge of heresy, they quailed before the terrible alternative
offered them, and preferred submission to the Church to burning. We may be
permitted to draw a covering over their weakness, and to pass on to those whose
stronger faith doomed them indeed to the fire, but won for them a place by the
side of the ancient "worthies" on the great roll of renown.[16]
The first martyr
under Henry VI. was William Taylor. He was a priest of the province of
Canterbury. Accused of heresy before Archbishop Arundel, he abjure!, and
appeared at Lambeth to receive absolution at the hands of the primate. "Laying
aside his cloak, his cap, and stripped to his doublet, he kneeled at the feet of
the archbishop, who then, standing up, and having a rod in his hand, began the
'Miserere.'"[17] The prescribed forms of
penance having been duly gone through, Taylor received absolution. In 1419 he
was again charged with heretical teaching, and brought before Archbishop
Chicheley. On a profession of penitence, he was let free on bail. Little more
than a year only elapsed when he was a third time arraigned. Twice had he
fallen; but he will not be guilty of a third relapse. Refusing to abjure, he was
delivered to the secular power, a form of words consigning him to burning in
Smithfield.
Before being led to the stake he was degraded. He was
deprived of priesthood by taking from him the chalice and paten; of deaconship,
by taking from him the gospel-book and tunicle; of sub-deaconship, by taking
from him the epistle-book and tunicle; of acolyteship, by taking from him the
cruet and candlestick; of the office of exorcist, by taking from him the book of
exorcisms or gradual; of sextonship, by taking from him the church-door key and
surplice. On the 1st of March, 1422, after long imprisonment, he was brought to
Smithfield, and there, "with Christian constancy, consumated his martyrdom."[18]
Two years
afterwards (1424), William White, a priest, whose many virtues and continual
labors had won him the esteem of all good men in Norfolk, was burned at
Norwich.He had previously renounced his priesthood, married, and become a
Lollard evangelist. In 1424 he was attached at Canterbury for the following
articles: 1. That men should seek for the forgiveness of their sins only at the
hand of God. 2. That men ought not to worship images and other idolatrous
painting. 3. That men ought not to worship the holy men who are dead. 4. That
the Romish Church is the fig-tree which the Lord Jesus Christ hath accursed,
seeing it hath brought forth no fruit of the true belief. 5. That such as wear
cowls, or be anointed or shorn, are the lance-knights or soldiers of Lucifer,
and that they all, because their lamps are not burning, shall be shut out when
the Lord shall come.
At Canterbury he "lost courage and strength," and
abjured. But "afterwards," says the martyrologist, "he became much stouter and
stronger in Jesus Christ, and confessed his error and offense." He exerted
himself more zealously than ever in writing and preaching. At last he was
apprehended, and, being convicted of thirty articles, he was condemned by the
Bishop of Nextrich to be burned.[19] As he stood at the stake,
he essayed to speak to the people, and to exhort them to steadfastness in the
doctrine which he had taught them; but a servant of the bishop struck him on the
mouth, and forced him to keep silence. The utterance of the tongue might be
suppressed, but the eloquence of his death it was impossible to suppress. In
1430, William Hoveden, a wool-spinner and citizen of London, having imbibed the
opinions of Wicliffe, "could by no means be plucked back," says Fox, "and was
burned hard by the Tower of London." In 1431, Thomas Bagley, Vicar of Monenden,
near Malden, "a valiant disciple and adherent of Wicliffe," was condemned for
heresy, and burned in Smithfield.
Only one other martyr of the' fifteenth
century shall we name–John Huss; "for England," says Fox, "has also its John
Huss as well as Bohemia." Being condemned, he was delivered to one of the
sheriffs to see him burned in the afternoon. The sheriff, being a merciful man,
took him to his own house, and began to exhort him to renounce his errors. The
confessor thanked him, but intimated that he was well assured of that for which
he was about to die: one thing, however, would he beg of him–a little food, for
he was hungry and faint. His wish was gladly complied with, and the martyr sat
down and dined composedly, remarking to those that stood by that "he had made a
good and competent meal, seeing he should pass through a sharp shower ere he
went to supper." Having given thanks, he rose from table, and requested that he
might shortly be led to the place where he should yield up his spirit unto
God.
"It is to be noted," says Fox, "that since the time of King Richard
II., there is no reign of any king in which some good man or other has not
suffered the pains of fire for the religion and true testimony of Christ
Jesus."[20]
It were truly
tedious to relate the number of apprehensions and trials for heresy that took
place in those days. No spectacle was then more common than that of men and
women, at church doors and market crosses, in a garb meant to humiliate and
degrade them, their feet and limbs naked, their head bare, with tapers in their
hands, making abjuration of their Protestantism. "Within the space of three or
four years," says Fox, "that is from 1428 to 1431, about the number of 120 men
and women were cast into prison, and sustained great vexation for the profession
of the Christian faith, in the dioceses of Norfolk and Suffolk.[21] These were the proofs at
once of their numbers and their weakness; and for the latter the martyrologist
thus finely pleads their excuse: "These soldiers of Christ," says he, "being
much beaten with the cares and troubles of those days, were constrained to
protest otherwise with their tongues than their hearts did think, partly through
correction and partly through infirmity, being as yet but new-trained soldiers
in God's field."[22] These confessors attained
not the first rank, yet were they soldiers in the army of the Reformed faith,
and contributed their moiety of help towards that great victory which ultimately
crowned their cause, and the fruits of which we are reaping at this
day.
CHAPTER 9
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ROME'S ATTEMPT TO REGAIN DOMINANCY IN
ENGLAND.
Henry VI. – His Infancy – Distractions of the Nation – The
Romish Church becomes more Intolerant – New Festival – St. Dunstan's and St.
George's Days – Indulgences at the Shrine of St. Edmund, etc. – Fresh Attempts
by Rome to Regain Dominancy in England – What Led to these – Statutes of
Provisors and Praemunire Denounced – Archbishop Chicheley Reprimanded for
Permitting these Statutes to Exist – The Pope's Letter.
HENRY V., overtaken by death in the midst of his wars
in a foreign land, left his throne, as we have seen, to his son, then only a few
months old. England now experienced, in amplest measure, the woe predicted of
the land whose king is a child. During the long minority, many evil fruits grew
out of the counsel tendered to the king by the clergy. If ever a country needed
a firm will and a strong hand, it was England at the era that saw this infant
placed on its throne. There were factions to be repressed; turbulent nobles to
be curbed; conspirators, though the Lollards were not of the number, to be
hunted out and punished; and, above all, there was the rising spirit of reform
to be guided into the channel of peaceful progress, that so it might rectify
institutions without destroying them. But the power, the enlightenment, and the
patriotism necessary for this were lacking, and all these elements of conflict,
unregulated and uncontrolled, broke out, and strove together in the now
distracted and miserable country.
The natural tendency of corruptions,
when first approached by the pruning-knife, is to strengthen themselves–to shoot
up in new and ranker luxuriance–the better to resist the attacking forces. So
was it with the Church of Rome at this era in England. On the one side
Lollardism had begun to question the truth of its doctrines, on the other the
lay power was assailing the utility of its vast possessions, and the Roman
hierarchy, which had not made up its mind to yield to the call for reformation
now addressed to it, had no alternative but to fortify itself against both the
Lollards without and the cry for reform within. It became instantly more
exacting in its homage and more stringent in its beliefs. Aforetime a very
considerable measure of freedom had been allowed to friend and foe on both
points. If one was disposed to be witty, or satirical, or humorous at the
expense of the Church or her servants, he might be so without running any great
risk of being branded as a heretic. Witness the stinging diatribes and biting
satires of Petrarch, written, we may say, under the very roof of the Popes at
Avignon. But now the wind set in from another quarter, and if one spoke
irreverently of saint, or indulged in a quiet laugh at monk, or hinted a doubt
of any miracle or mystery of "Holy Church," he drew upon himself the suspicion
of heresy, and was fortunate indeed if he escaped the penalties thereto annexed.
Some there were who aimed only at being wits, who found to their dismay that
they were near becoming martyrs.
Protestantism, which has only one object
of worship, has only one great Festival–that DAY which stands in majesty
unapproachable among the other days. But the fetes and festivals of Rome crowded
the calendar, and if more should be added to the list, it would be almost
necessary that more days should be added to the year. Yet now there came a great
addition to these days of unholy idleness. The previous century had entrenched
the Romish ceremonial with "All Souls," the "Conception of the Blessed Virgin,"
and "Corpus Christi." To these Boniface IX. had added the Salutation of Mary and
Elizabeth, "cram-full of indulgences," as Walsingham says, for those who should
duly honor the feast. Treading in the footsteps of the Pontiff, although at a
becoming distance, Archbishop Arundel contributed his share to this department
of the nation's piety by raising, cum permissu, St. Dunstan's and St. George's
days to the rank of the greater festivals. Next came the monks of Bury in this
pious work of enriching England with sacred days and holy places. They procured
special indulgences for the shrine of St. Edmund. Nor were the monks of Ely and
Norwich behind their brethren of Bury. They were enabled to offer full
absolution to all who should come and confess themselves in their churches in
Trinity week. Even the bloody field of Agincourt was made to do its part in
augmenting the nation's spiritual wealth: from October 25th, this day began to
be observed as a greater festival. And, not to multiply instances, the canons of
St. Bartholomew, hard by Smithfield, where the fires of martyrdom were blazing,
were diligently exercising their new privilege of pardoning all sorts of persons
all manner of sins, one sin only excepted, the unpardonable one of heresy. The
staple of the trade now being so industriously driven was pardon; the material
cost nothing, the demand was extensive, the price was good, and the profits were
correspondingly large. This multiplication of festivals was Rome's remedy for
the growing irreverence of the age. It was the only means she knew of
heightening the spirit of devotion among her members, and strengthening the
national religion.
It was at this time that Pope Martin V., of the
haughty house of Colonna, who was elevated to the Papal chair by the Council of
Constance, which place he soon thereafter left for Rome in a blaze of
magnificence,[1] turned his eyes on
England, thinking to put it as completely under his feet as it had been under
those of Innocent III., in the days of King John. The statutes of Provisors and
Praemunire, passed in the reigns of Edward III. and Richard II., were heavy
blows to the Papal power in England. The Popes had never acquiesced in this
state of matters, nor relinquished the hope of being able to compel Parliament
to cancel these "execrable statutes." But the calamities of the Popedom, and
more especially the schism, which lasted forty years, delayed the prosecution of
the fixed determination of the Papal See. Now, however, the schism was healed, a
prince, immature in years and weak in mind, occupied the throne of England, the
nation had a war with France upon its hands, factions and conspiracies were
weakening the country at home, and success was ceasing to gild its arms abroad,
and so the Pope thought the time ripe for advancing anew his claim for supremacy
over England. His demand was, in short, that the statutes of Provisors and
Praemunire, which had shut out his briefs and bulls, his bishops and legates,
and had cut off the outflow of English gold, so much prized at Rome, should be
repealed.
This request Pope Martin did not send directly to the king or
the regent. The Vatican in such cases commonly acts through its spiritual
machinery. In the first place, the Pontiff is too exalted above other monarchs
to make suit in person to them; and in the second place, he is too politic to do
so. It lessens the humiliation of a rebuff that it be given to the servant and
not the master. Pope Martin wrote to Archbishop Chicheley, frowning right
pontitfically upon him for a state of things which Chicheley could no more
prevent than Martin himself could.[2]
"Martin, Bishop,
servant of the servants of God," began the Pontiff–it is the usual Papal
phraseology, especially when some arrogant demand is to follow– to his reverend
brother, the Archbishop of Canterbury, greeting, and apostolic benediction." So
far well, but the sweetness exhales in the first sentence; the brotherly
kindness of Papal benediction is soon exhausted, and then comes the Papal
displeasure. Pope Martin goes on to accuse his "reverend brother" of forgetting
what "a strict account he had to give to Almighty God of the flock committed to
his care." He upbraids him as "sleepy and negligent," otherwise he would have
opposed to the utmost of his power "those who had made a sacrilegious invasion
upon the privileges settled by our Savior upon the Roman Church "–the statutes
of Provisors and Praemunire, to wit. While Archbishop Chicheley was slumbering,
"his flock, alas!" the Pope tells him, "were running down a precipice before his
face." The flock in the act of hurling themselves over a precipice are seen, in
the next sentence, feeding quietly beside their shepherd; for the Pope
immediately continues, "You suffer them to feed upon dangerous plants, without
warning; and, which is horribly surprising, you seem to put poison in their
mouths with your own hands." He had forgotten that Archbishop Chicheley's hands
were at that moment folded in sleep, and that he was now uttering a cry to
awaken him. But again the scene suddenly shifts, and the Papal pencil displays a
new picture to our bewildered sight; for, adds the writer, "you can look on and
see the wolves scatter and pull them in pieces, and, like a dumb dog, not so
much as bark upon the occasion."
After the rhetoric comes a little
business. "What abominable violence has been let loose upon your province, I
leave it to yourself to consider. Pray peruse that royal law" the Pope now comes
to the point–" if there is anything that is either law or royal belonging to it.
For how can that be called a statute which repeals the laws of God and the
Church? I desire to know, reverend brother, whether you, who are a Catholic
bishop, can think it reasonable such an Act as this should be in force in a
Christian country?" Not content with having exhibited the statute of Praemunire
under the three similitudes of a "precipice," "poison," and "wolves," Pope
Martin goes on thus:–
" Under color of this execrable statute, the King
of England reaches into the spiritual jurisdiction, and governs so fully in
ecclesiastical matters, as if our Savior had constituted him His Vicar. He makes
laws for the Church, as if the keys of the kingdom of heaven were put into his
hands.
"Besides this hideous encroachment, he has enacted," continues the
Pope, "several terrible penalties against the clergy."
This "rigor,"
worse, the Pope calls it, than any to which "Jew" or "Turk" was subjected, was
the exclusion from the kingdom of those Italians and others whom the Pope had
nominated to English livings without the king's consent, and in defiance of the
statute.
"Was ever," asks the Pope, "such iniquity as this passed into a
law? Can that be styled a Catholic kingdom where such profane laws are made and
practised? where St. Peter's successor is not allowed to execute our Savior's
commission? For this Act will not allow St. Peter's See to proceed in the
functions of government, nor make provisions suitable to the necessities of the
Church."
"Is this," asks the Pope, in fine, "a Catholic statute, or can
it be endured without dishonor to our Savior, without a breach upon the laws of
the Gospel, and the ruin of people's souls? Why, therefore, did you not cry
aloud? why did you not lift up your voice like a trumpet? Show your people their
transgressions, and the house of Jacob their sins, that their blood may not be
required at your hands."[3]
Such were the terms
in which Pope Martin deemed it becoming to speak of the Act by which the
Parliament prohibited foreigners–many of whom did not know our tongue, and some
of whom, too lazy to come in person, sent their cooks or butlers to do duty for
them–holding livings in England. He rates the Senate of a great nation as if it
were a chapter of friars or a corps of Papal pensioners, who dared not meet till
he had given them leave, nor transact the least piece of business till they had
first ascertained whether it was agreeable to his Pontifical pleasure. And the
primate, the very man who at that moment was enacting new edicts against heresy,
deeming the old not severe enough, and was burning Lollards for the "greater
glory" of the Church, he indecently scolds as: grossly and traitorously
negligent of the interests of the Papal See. This sharp reprimand was followed
by an order to the archbishop, under pain of excommunication, instantly to
repair to the Privy Council, and exert his utmost influence to have the statute
repealed; and he was further enjoined, as soon as Parliament should sit, to
apply to it for the same purpose, and to tell the Lords and Commons of England
from the Pope, "that all who obeyed that statute were under excommunication."
The primate was further required to charge all the clergy to preach the same
doctrine. And, lastly, he was ordered to take two grave personages with him to
attest his diligence, and to certify the Pope of the result of the matter.[4]
CHAPTER
10 Back to
Top
RESISTANCE TO PAPAL
ENCROACHMENTS.
Embroilment of the Papaey – Why Angry with Archbishop
Chicheley – A Former Offence – Advlses the King not to Receive a Legate-a-Latere
– Powers of the Legate – Promise exacted of Legate Beaufort – Pope's Displeasure
– -Holds the Statutes Void – Commands the Archbishop to Disobey them – Pope's
Letter to Duke of Bedford – Chicheley advises Parliament to Repeal the Act –
Parliament Refuses – The Pope resumes his Encroachments – Two Currents in
England in the Fifteenth Century – Both Radically Protestant – The Evangelic
Principle the Master-spring of all Activities then beginning in
Society.
WHY this explosion of Papal wrath against the Primate
of England? Why this torrent of abusive epithets and violent acusations? Even
granting the Act of Praemunire to have been the atrociously wicked thing the
Pope held it to be–the very acme of rebellion against God, against St. Peter,
and against one whom the Pope seemed to think greater than either–himself– could
Archbishop Chicheley have prevented the passing of it? It was passed before his
time. And why, we may ask, was this tempest reserved for the head of Arctibishop
Chicheley? Why was not the See of Canterbury taxed with cowardice and
prevarication before now? Why were not Courtney and Arundel reprimanded upon the
same score? Why had the Pope held his peace till this time? The flock in England
for half a century had been suffering the treble scourge of being driven over a
precipice, of being poisoned, and of being torn by wolves, and yet the Pontiff
had not broken silence or uttered a cry of warning all that time. The chief
shepherd had been slumbering as well as the under-shepherd, and ought first to
have made confession of his own faults before so sharply calling others to a
reckoning for theirs. Why was this?
We have already hinted at the
reasons. The affairs of the Papal See were in great confusion. The schism was in
its vigor. There were at times three claimants of St. Peter's chair. While
matters were so embroiled, it would have been the height of imprudence to have
ruffled the English bishops; it might have sent them over to a rival interest.
But now Martin had borne down all competitors, he had climbed to the sole
occupancy of the Papal throne, and he will let both the English Parliament and
the English Primate know that he is Pope.
But Chicheley had offended in
another point, and though the Pope does not mention it, it is possible that it
wounded his pride just as deeply as the other. The archbishop, in his first
Convocation, moved the annulling of Papal exemptions in favor of those under
age. "This he did," says Walsingham, "to show his spirit."[1] This was an act of
boldness which the court of Rome was not likely to pardon. But, further, the
archbishop brought himself into yet deeper disfavor by counselling Henry V. to
refuse admission to the Bishop of Winchester [2] as legate-a-latere. The
Pope could not but deem this a special affront. Chicheley showed the king that
"this commission of legate-a-latere might prove of dangerous consequence to the
realm; that it appeared from history and ancient records that no
legates-a-latere had been sent into England unless upon very great occasions;
that before they were admitted they were brought under articles, and limited in
the exercise of their character. Their commission likewise determined within a
year at farthest, whereas the Bishop of Winchester's was granted for life."[3]
Still further to
convince the king of the danger of freely admitting such a functionary, he
showed from canon law the vast jurisdiction with which he was vested; that from
the moment the legate entered, he, Henry, would be but half a king; that the
legate-a-latere was the Pope in all but the name; that he would bring with him
the Pope's power in all but its plenitude; that the chair of the legate would
eclipse the throne of the king; that the courts of the legate would override the
courts of Westminster Hall; that the legate would assume the administration of
all the Church property in the kingdom; that he would claim the right of
adjudicating upon all causes in which, by any pretext, it could be made appear
that the Church had interest; in short, that the legate-a-latere would, divide
the allegiance of the subjects between the English crown and the Roman tiara,
reserving the lion's share to his master.
Henry V. was not the man to
fill the place of lieutenant while another was master in his kingdom. Winchester
had to give way; as the representative of Rome's majesty the Pope's other
self–he must not tread the English sod while Henry lived. But in the next reign,
after a visit to Rome, the bishop returned in the full investiture of the
legatine power (1428). He intimated his commission to the young king and the
Duke of Gloucester, who was regent, but he did not find the way so smooth as he
hoped.
Richard Caudray, being named the king's deputy, met him with a
protest in form, that no legate from the Pope could enter the realm without the
king's consent, that the kings of England had long enjoyed this privilege, and
that if Winchester intended to stretch his legatine authority to the breach of
this ancient custom, and enter of his own right, it was at his peril. The
cardinal, finding the king firm, gave his solemn promise that he would do
nothing to the prejudice of the prerogatives of the crown, and the rights and
privileges of the kingdom,[4] The spirited and patriotic
conduct of Archbishop Chicheley, in advising that the legate-a-latere should not
be recognised, was the more honorable to him inasmuch as the man who in this
case bore the legatine commission was an Englishman, and of the blood royal. It
was rare indeed that any but an Italian was appointed to an office that came so
near equality, in its influence and dignity, with the Papal chair itself.[5]
The primate's
conduct in the matter was, doubtless, reported at Rome. It must have been
specially offensive to a court which held it as a maxim that to love one's
country is to hate one's Church. But the Vatican could not show its displeasure
or venture on resenting the indignity while the warlike Henry V. occupied the
throne. Now, however, the silent aisles of Westminster had received him. The
offense was remembered, and the kingdom from whom it had come must be taught how
heinous it is to humiliate the See of Rome, or encroach upon the regaltries of
St. Peter. The affair of the legate-a-latere was but one in a long series of
affronts. To avenge it was not enough; the Pope must go further back and deeper
down, and get at the root of that spirit of rebellion which had actuated England
from the days of Edward III., and which had come to a head in the Statutes of
Provisors and Praemunire.[6]
We have seen the
primate commanded to go to the Privy Council, and also to Parliament, and demand
the repeal of these statutes. Excommunication was to be the penalty of refusal.
But the Pope went further. In virtue of his own supremacy he made void these
laws. He wrote to the Archbishops of York and Canterbury–for the Pope names York
before Canterbury, as if he meant to modify the latter–commanding them to give
no obedience to the Statutes of Provisors and Praemunire–that is, to offer no
resistance to English causes being carried for adjudication to the courts of
Rome, or to the appointment of foreigners to English livings, and the transport
beyond sea of their revenues–and declaring that should they themselves, or any
others, submit to these laws, they would ipso facto be excommunicated, and
denied absolution, except at the point of death and from the Pope himself.[7] About the same time the
Pope pronounced a censure upon the archbishop, and it serves to illustrate the
jealousy with which the encroachments of the Vatican were watched by the English
sovereign and his council, to find the primate complaining to the Pope that he
could not be informed of the sentence in the regular way, that he knew it only
by report, "for he had not so much as opened the bulls that contained the
censure, because he was commanded by the king to bring these instruments, with
the seals whole, and lodge them in the paper-office till the Parliament sat."[8]
The Pope did not
rest with enjoining the clergy to hold the obnoxious statutes null and void; he
took the extraordinary step of writing four letters–two to the king, one to the
Parliament, and another to the Duke of Bedford, then Regent of France–urging and
commanding them, as they valued the salvation of their souls, to repeal the Act
of Praemunire.
The Pope's letter to the Duke of Bedford is a specimen of
the spirit that animated the Popedom under Martin V. It is fair to state,
however, that the Pope at that moment had received a special provocation which
explains so far, if it does not excuse, the heat of his language. His nuncio had
been lately imprisoned in England for delivering his briefs and letters. It may
be supposed, although the bull does not acknowledge it, that they contained
matter prejudicial to the crown. The Pope, in his letter to the Duke of Bedford,
appears to strike only at the Act of Praemunire, but he does so with all his
might. He calls it "an execrable statute," that was contrary to all reason and
religion; that in pursuance of this Act the law of nations and the privilege of
ambassadors were violated, and his nuncios much more coarsely used in a
Christian country than those of that character among Saracens and Turks; that it
was a hideous reproach to the English to fall thus short of infidels in justice
and humanity; and that, without speedy reformation, it was to be feared some
heavy judgment would be drawn down upon them. He concludes by desiring the Duke
of Bedford to use his interest to wipe off the imputation from the Government,
to retrieve the honor of the Church, and "chain up the rigor of these
persecuting statutes." It is an old trick of Rome to raise the cry of
"persecution," and to demand "justice," whenever England has withstood her
encroachments, and tried to bind up her hands from meddling with the gold or
violating the laws of the nation.
When Parliament assembled, the two
archbishops, Canterbury and York, accompanied by several bishops and abbots,
presented themselves in the Refectory of the Abbey of Westminster, where the
Commons were sitting, and, premising that they intended nothing to the prejudice
of the king's prerogative or the integrity of the Constitution, they craved
Parliament to satisfy the Pope by repealing the Act of Praemunire. Chicheley had
begun to quail before the storm gathering at Rome. Happily the Commons were more
jealous of the nation's honor and independence than the hierarchy. Rejecting the
archbishops' advice to "serve two masters," they refused to repeal the Act.[9]
The Pope,
notwithstanding that he had been balked in his attempts to bend the Parliament
of England to his will, continued his aggressions upon the privileges of the
English Church. He sustained himself its chief bishop, and conducted himself as
if the Act of Praemunire did not exist. Paying no respect to the right of the
chapters to elect, and the power of the king to grant his conge d'elire, he
issued his provisors appointing to vacant livings, not on the ground of piety or
learning, but of riches and interest. The highest price in the market of Rome
commanded the benefice. Pope Martin V., on the termination of the Council of
Constance, promoted not less than fourteen persons to various bishoprics in the
province of Canterbury alone. The Pope empowered his favorites to hold sees in
commendam, that is, to draw their temporalities, while another discharged the
duty, or professed to do so. Pope Eugene IV. (1438)gave the bishopric of Ely in
cornmendam to the Archbishop of Rouen, and after some resistance this Frenchman
was allowed to enjoy the revenues.[10] He ventured on other
stretches of his supremacy in the matter of pluralities, of non-residence, and
of exemptions in favor of minors, as the holders of ecclesiastical livings. We
find the Pope, further, issuing bulls empowering his nuncios to impose taxes
upon the clergy, and collect money. We trace, in short, in the ecclesiastical
annals of the time, a steady and persistent effort on the one side to encroach,
and a tolerably steady and continuous effort on the other to repel. The Ven.
Henry Edward Manning, Archdeacon of Chichester,[11] with strict historical
truth, says: "If any man will look down along the line of early English history,
he will see a standing contest between the rulers of this land and the Bishops
of Rome. The Crown and Church of England with a steady opposition resisted the
entrance and encroachment of the secularised power of the Pope in England."[12] From the days of King John
the shadow of the Vatican had begun to go back on England; it was still
shortening in the fifteenth century, and its lessening line gave promise of a
time, for the advent of which the good Lord Cobham had expressed an ardent wish,
when that ominous penumbra, terminating at Calais, would no longer be projected
across the sea to the English shore.
While the English monarchs were
fighting against the Papal supremacy with the one hand, they were persecuting
Lollardism with the other. At the very time that they were framing such Acts as
those of Provisors and Praemunire, to defend the canons of the Church, and the
constitution of the State, from the utter demolition with which both were
threatened by a foreign tyranny, they were enacting edicts for the conviction of
Lollards, and planting stakes to burn them. This does not surprise us. It is
ever so in the earliest stage of a great reform. The good which has begun to
stir in the quiet depths below, sends the evil to the surface in quickened
activity.
Hence such contradictions as that before us. To a casual eye,
matters appear to be getting worse; whereas the very effervescence and violence
of the old powers is a sign that the new are not far off, and that a reformation
has already set in. The Jews have a proverb to this effect–"When the tale of
bricks is doubled, then Moses will come," which saying, however, if it were more
exactly to express the truth of the fact and the law of the Divine working,
should run–The tale of bricks has been doubled, therefore Moses is
come.
We trace in the England of the fifteenth century two powerful
currents, and both are, in a sense, Protestant.
Lollardism, basing itself
upon the Word of God and the rights of conscience, was essentially and wholly
Protestant. The fight against the Roman supremacy, basing itself upon the canons
of the Church and the laws of the kingdom, was also so far Protestant. It was a
protest against a power that was lifting its seat above all law, and crushing
every right. And what, we ask, engendered this spirit of opposition? Little did
the party who were fighting against the supremacy dream whence their movement
drew its existence. They would have been ashamed to own it, even if made aware
of it. And yet it is true that the very Lollardism which they were seeking to
trample out had originated the spirit that was now shown in defense of national
independence and against Papal encroachments. The Lollard, or Protestant, or
Christian principle–for it matters not by which one of these three names we
designate it–had all along through the Dark Ages been present in the bosom of
European Christendom, preserving to the conscience some measure of action and
power, to the intellect some degree of energy and expansion, and to the soul the
desire and the hope of liberty. Ordinarily this principle attested its presence
by the piety with which it nourished the heart, and the charity and purity with
which it enriched the lives of individual men and women, scattered up and down
in monasteries, or in cathedral chapters, or in rural vicarages, or in hidden
places where history passed them by. At other times it forced itself to the
surface, and revealed its power on a large scale, as in the Albigensan revival.
But the powers of evil were then too strong, to permit of its keeping the
footing it had momentarily obtained. Beaten down, it again became torpid. But in
the great spring-time which came along with Wicliffe it was effectually roused
never again to shunber. Taking now its place in the front, it found itself
supported by a host of agencies, of which itself was the real although the
indirect creator. For it was the Lollard or Christian spirit, never, amid all
the barbarism and strifes and superstitions that overlaid Mediaeval society,
eliminated or purged out, that hailed letters in that early morning, that tasted
their sweetness, that prompted to the cultivation of them, that panted for a
wider sphere, for a greater liberty, for a purer state of society, and never
rested till it had achieved it. This despised principle–for in the fifteenth
century it is seen at the bar of tribunals, in prisons, at stakes, in the guise
of a felon–was in truth the originator of these activities; it communicated to
them the first impulse. Without it they never would have been: night, not
morning, would have succeeded the Dark Ages. It was the day-spring to
Christendom. And this is certified to us when, tracing the course of the two
contemporary currents which we find flowing in England in the century under
review, we see them, at a point a little way only in advance of that at which we
are now arrived, uniting their streams, and forming one combined movement, known
as the English Reformation.
But before that point could be reached
England had to pass through a terrible conflict.
CHAPTER
11 Back to
Top
INFLUENCE OF THE WARS OF THE
FIFTEENTH CENTURY ON THE PROGRESS OF PROTESTANTISM.
Convulsions of
the Fifteenth Century – Fall of Constantinople – Wars in Bohemia – in Italy – in
Spain – in Switzerland – Wars of the Papal Schism – Was it Peace or War which
the Popes gave to Christendom? – Wars originated by the Popes: the Crusades; the
War of Investitures; the Albigensian and Waldensian Crusades; the Wars in
Naples, Poland, etc.; the Feuds in Italy; the Hussite Campaigns, etc. – Wars of
the Roses – Traced to the Council of Archbishop Chicheley – Providential End of
the Wars of the Fifteenth Century – The Nobility Weakened – The Throne made
Powerful – Why? – Hussitism and Lollardism.
THE Day that was hastening towards the world sent
terrible tempests before it as the heralds of its approach. Than the middle of
the fifteenth century there is, perhaps, no point in modern history that
presents a scene of more universal turmoil and calamity, if we except the period
that witnessed the fall of the Western Empire. Nowhere is there stability or
rest. All around, as far as the eye can reach, appears a sea whose waters,
swollen into huge billows by the force of the mighty winds, are assailng the
very foundations of the earth. The Christian of that day, when he cast his eyes
around on a world rocked and tossed by these great tempests, must have
despaired, had he not remembered that there is One who "sits King upon the
floods."
The armies of the Turk were gathering round Constantinople, and
the Queen of the East was about to bow her head and sink in a tempest of
pillage, of rapine, and of slaughter. The land of Bohemia, watered, as with a
plenteous rain, once, again, and a third time, with German blood, was gloomy and
silent. Germany had sufered far more than she had inflicted.
From the
Rhine to the Elbe, from the Black Forest to the Baltic, her nations were
lamenting their youth slaughtered in the ill-fated campaigns into which Rome had
drawn them against the Hussites. Italy, split up into principalities, was
ceaselessly torn by the ambitions and feuds of its petty rulers, and if for a
moment the din of these intestine strifes was hushed, it was in presence of some
foreign invader whom the beauty of that land had drawn with his armies across
the Alps. The magnificent cities of Spain, adorned by the art and enriched by
the industry of the Moors, were being emptied of their inhabitants by the
crusades of bigotry; the Moslem flag was being torn down on the walls of
Granada, and the race which had converted the Vega around the Moorish capital
into a garden, watering it with the icy torrents of the Sierra Nevada, and
clothing it with corn-fields and orange-groves, were fleeing across the Straits
to form new seats on the northern shores of Africa. The Swiss, who had looked
for centuries with almost uninterrupted indifference on the wars and convulsions
that distracted the nations that dwelt at the feet of their mountains, finding
in their great hills an impregnable fortress against invasion, now saw
themselves menaced in their valleys with a foreign sword, and had to fight for
their immemorial independence. They were assailed by the two powerful kingdoms
on each side of them; for Austria and France, in their desire to enlarge their
territories, had become forgetful that in leveling the Alps of the Swiss, they
but effaced the barrier between themselves, which prevented the two nations
mingling their blood on fierce and frequent battle-fields.
As if the
antipathies of race, and the ambition of princes, were not enough to afflict an
unhappy age, another element of contention was imported into the strife by the
Papal schism. The rival Popes and their supporters brought their cause into the
battle-field, and torrents of Christian blood were shed to determine the
question which was the true Vicar.' The arguments from piety, from wisdom, from
learning were but dust in the balance against the unanswerable argument of the
sword, and the gospel of peace was converted into the tocsin of war. The evils
flowing from the schism, and which for so many years afflicted Christendom,
cannot but raise the question in every dispassionate mind how far the Popes have
fulfilled the office assigned them as the "Fathers of Christendom" and the
Peacemakers of the World?, Leaving out of view their adulators on the one side,
and their incriminaters on the other, let us put to history the question, How
many are the years of peace, and how many are the years of war, which have come
out of the Papal chair, and what proportion does the one bear to the
other?
To put, then, a few plain questions touching matters of fact, let
us ask, from whom came the crusades which for two centuries continued to waste
the treasure and the blood of both Europe and Asia? History answers, from the
Popes. Monks preached the crusades, monks enlisted soldiers to fight them and
when the host was marshalled and all was ready, monks placed themselves at their
head, and led them onward, their track marked by devastation, to the shores of
Syria, where their furious fanaticism exploded in scenes of yet greater
devastation and horror. In these expeditions the Popes were always the chiefs;
the crossed emperors and kings were enlisted under their banner, and put under
the command of their legates; at the Popes' mandate it was that they went forth
to slay and to be slain. In the absence of these princes the Popes took into
their hands the government of their kingdoms; the persons and goods of all the
crusaders were declared under their protection; in their behalf they caused
every process, civil and criminal, to be suspended; they made a lavish
distribution of indulgences and dispensations, to keep alive fanatical fervor
and sanguinary zeal; they sometimes enjoined as a command, and sometimes as a
penance, service in the crusades; their nuncios and legates received the alms
and legacies bequeathed for maintaining these wars; and when, after two dismal
centuries, they came to an end, it was found that none save the Popes were the
gainers thereby. While the authority of the Papal See was vastly strengthened,
the secular princes were in the same proportion weakened and impoverished; the
sway of Rome was confirmed, for the nations, broken and bowed down, suffered a
yoke to be rivetted upon their necks that could not be broken for ages.[1]
We ask further,
from whom came the contest between the mitre and the Empire–the war of
investitures,–which divided and ravaged Christendom for a full century and a
half? History answers, from the Pope–Gregory VII. From whom came the Albigensian
crusades, which swept in successive tempests of fire and blood across the south
of France?
History answers, from the Pope–Innocent III. Whence came those
armies of assassins, which times without number penetrated into the Waldensian
valleys, carrying the torch into dwelling and sanctuary, and inflicting on the
unoffending inhabitants barbarities and cruelties of so horrible a nature that
they never can be known, because they never dare be told? History answers, from
the Pope. Who made donations of kingdoms–Naples, Sicily, Aragon, Poland, and
others–knowing that those to whom they had gifted them could possess them only
by fighting for them? History answers, the Popes.
Who deposed sovereigns,
and sanctioned insurrection and war between them and their subjects? The Popes.
Who so often tempted the Swiss from their mountains to shed their blood on the
plains of Italy? The Bishop of Sion, acting as the legate of the Pope. Who was
it that, the better to maintain the predominance of their own sway, kept Italy
divided, at the cost of almost ceaseless intestine feuds and wars, and the
leaving the gates of the country unguarded, or purposely open, for the entrance
of foreign hordes? History answers, the Popes. Who was it that, having entered
into war with France, threw aside the mitre for the helmet, and, passing over a
bridge on the Tiber, is said to have thrown the keys of St. Peter into the
river, seeing they had served him so ill, and called for the sword of St. Paul?
Pope Julius II. Who organised the successive campaigns waged against the
Hussites, and on two several occasions sent his legate-a-latere to lead the
crusaders? History answers, the Pope.
We stop at the era of the
Reformation. We put no questions to history touching the wars in Germany, the
wars in France, the wars in the Low Countries, the wars in Hungary, and in other
lands; in which, too, the blood of the scaffold was largely mingled with the
blood of the battle-field. We restrict our examples to those ages when Rome was
not only a power, but the power in Christendom. Kings were then her vassals, and
she had only to speak to be obeyed. Why then did she not summon them to her bar,
and command them to sheathe their swords? Why did she not bind them in the chain
of her excommunications, and compel them to be at peace till she had arbitrated
in their quarrels, and so prevent this great effusion of human blood? Here are
the Pope's exploits on the field of war. Why has history forgotten to chronicle
his labors and sacrifices in the blessed work of peace? True, we do find a few
outstanding instances of the Popes enjoining peace among Christian princes. We
find the Council of Lyons (1245) ordaining a general cessation of arms among the
Western sovereigns, with power to prelates to proceed by censures against those
who refused to acquiesce; but for what end? in order that the crusade which had
been projected might be carried out with greater unanimity and vigor.[2] We find Gregory X. sending
his nuncio to compel observance of this decree of the Council on Philip III. of
France and the King of Castile, knowing that these two sovereigns were about to
decide a certain difference by arms, because he needed their swords to fight his
own battles. We find, further, Boniface VIII. enjoining all sovereigns to
terminate all wars and differences at home, that, they might be in circumstances
to prosecute more vigorously the holy wars of the Church.
These, and a
few similar instances, are all that we have on the one side to set over against
the long roll of melancholy facts on the other. History's verdict is, that with
the ascent of the Popes to supremacy came not peace but war to the nations of
Christendom. The noon of the Papal power was illustrated, not by its calm
splendors and its tranquil joys, but by tempest and battle and
destruction.
We return from this digression to the picture of Europe in
the middle of the fifteenth century. To the distractions that were rife in every
quarter, in the east, in the south, and in the center of Christendom, we have to
add those that raged in the north. The King of England had proclaimed war
against France. Mighty armaments were setting sail from–
the man who led them being forgetful that nature had
ordained the sea around England to be at once the limit of her seat and the
rampart of her power, and that by extending he was imperiling his dominions.
This ill-starred expedition, out of which came so many calamities to both
countries, was planned, we have seen, by the Romish clergy, for the purpose of
finding work for the active-minded Henry V., and especially of diverting his eye
from their own possessions to a more tempting prize, the crown of France. The
mischiefs and woes to which this advice opened the door did not exhaust
themselves till the century was drawing to a close.
The armies of England
smote not merely the northern coasts of France, they penetrated to the center of
the kingdom, marking the line of their march by cities sacked and provinces
devastated and partially depopulated. This calamity fell heavily on the upper
ranks of French society. On the fatal field of Agincourt perished the flower of
their nobility; moanings and lamentations resounded in their chateaux and royal
residences; for there were few indeed of the great families that had not cause
to mourn the counsel of Archbishop Chicheley to Henry V., which had directed
this destructive tempest against their country.
At last the Cloud of
calamity returned northward (1450), and discharged its last and heaviest
contents on England itself. The long and melancholy train of events which now
began to run their course at home took its rise in the war with France. The
premature death of Henry V.; [4] the factions and intrigues
that strove around the throne of his infant son; the conspiracies that spread
disquiet and distraction over the kingdom; and, finally, the outbreak of the
Wars of the Roses, which, like a fearful conflagration, consumed all the great
families of the kingdom, the royal house included; all these tragedies and
crimes connect themselves with, and can be traced up to, the fateful counsel of
the clergy, so eagerly adopted and acted upon by the king. Nor was the blood
sprit on the battle-field the only evil that darkened that unhappy period. In
the wake of fierce civil war came a relaxation of law, and a suspension of
industry. The consequence of the former was that the country was defiled by
crime and outrage; and of the latter, that frequent famines and pestilences
decimated the population.[5]
The contest which
opened in 1452 between the White Rose of York and the Red Rose of Lancaster, it
is the province of the civil historian to narrate. We notice it here only so far
as it bears on the history of Protestantism. The war was not finished in less
than thirty years; it was signalised by twelve pitched battles; it is computed
to have cost the lives of eighty princes of the blood, and almost entirely
annihilated the ancient nobility of England.[6] The kingdom had seemed as
a stricken land ever since the De Hoeretico Comburendo law was placed upon its
statute-book, but the Wars of the Roses filled up its cup of misery.[7]
The rival hosts
were inflamed with the rancorous hate peculiar to civil conflicts, and seldom
have more sanguinary battles been fought than those which now deluged the soil
of England with the blood of its own children. Sometimes the House of York was
victorious, and then the Lancastrians were mercilessly slaughtered; at other
times it was the House of Lancaster that triumphed, and then the adherents of
York had to expiate in the hour of defeat the barbarities they had inflicted in
the day of victory. The land mourned its many woes. The passage of armies to and
fro over it was marked by castles, churches, and dwellings burned, and fields
wasted.[8] In these calamities passed
the greater part of the second half of the fifteenth century. The reign of the
Plantagenets, who had so long governed England, came to an end on the bloody
field of Bosworth (1485), and the House of Tudor, in the person of Henry VII.,
mounted the throne.
If these troubles were so far a shield to the
Wicliffites, by giving the King of England and his nobles other things to think
of than hunting for Lollards, they rendered any revival of their cause
impossible. The work of doing to death those who professed and preached the
Reformed faith, though hindered by the causes before alluded to, did not
actually cease.
From time to time during this period, some were called,
to use the words of Fox, "to consummate their testimony in the fire." "The
intimidated Lollards," says D'Aubigne, "were compelled to hide themselves in the
humblest ranks of the people, and to hold their meetings in secret. The work of
redemption was proceeding noiselessly among the elect of God.
Of these
Lollards there were many who had been redeemed by Jesus Christ, but in general
they knew not, to the same extent as the Protestant Christians of the sixteenth
century, the quickening and justifying power of faith. They were plain, meek,
and often timid folk, attracted by the Word of God, affected by the condemnation
it pronounces against the errors of Rome, and desirous of living according to
its commandments. God had assigned them a part–and an important part too–in the
great transformation of Christianity. Their humble piety, their passive
resistance, the shameful treatment which they bore with resignation, the
penitent's robes with which they were covered, the tapers they were compelled to
hold at the church door–all these things betrayed the pride of the priests, and
filled the most generous mind with doubts and vague desires. By a baptism of
suffering, God was then preparing the way to a glorious Reformation." [9]
Looking only at the
causes acting on the surface, surveying the condition and working of established
institutions, especially the "Church," which was every day mounting higher in
power, and at the same time plunging deeper into error; which had laid its hand
upon the throne and made its occupant simply its lieutenant–upon the
statute-book, and had made it little better than the register of its intolerant
edicts–upon the magistracy, and left it hardly any higher function than the
humble one of executing its sentences–looking at all this, one would have
expected nothing else than that the darkness would grow yet deeper, and that the
storms now afflicting the world would rage with even greater fury. And yet the
dawn had already come. There was light on the horizon. Nay, these furious blasts
were bearing on their wings blessings to the nations. Constantinople was
falling, that the treasures of ancient literature might be scattered over the
Western world, and the human mind quickened. The nobility of France and England
was being weakened on the battlefield, that the throne might rise into power,
and be able to govern.
It was needful that an institution, the weakness
of which had invited the lawlessness of the nobles, and the arrogance of the
hierarchy, should be lifted up and made strong. This was one of the first steps
towards the emancipation of society from the spiritual bondage into which it had
fallen.
Ever since the days of Gregory VII., monarchy had been in
subordination to priesthood. The policy of the Popes, pursued through four
centuries, was to centralise their power, and place it at the summit. One of the
means adopted for this end was to make the nobles a poise to the kings, and by
weakening both parties, to make the Pope the most powerful of the three. This
policy had been successful. The Popes had grown to be more than a match for the
petty sovereigns of the fifteenth century. Nothing but a system of strong
monarchies could now cope with that chair of combined spiritual and temporal
power which had established itself at Rome, and grown to be so strong that it
made kings their tools, and through them scourged their
subjects.
Accordingly we see at last emerging from the tempests that
raged all through the century under review, three powerful thrones – that of
England, that of France, and that of Spain. The undivided power of Christendom
was no longer in one hand, and that hand the holder of the tiara. The three
powerful sovereigns who had risen up could keep their nobles in check, could
spurn the dictation of the hierarchy, and so could meet on equal terms the
sovereign of the Vatican. With that sovereign their interests were sometimes in
accordance, and sometimes in opposition, and this poise between Popedom and
monarchy constituted a shield for that great expansion of the Protestant
movement which was about to take place.
Before leaving England in the
fifteenth century, it is necessary to remember that during this century the
great movement which had been originated by the instrumentality of Wicliffe in
the previous one, was parted into two; the one branch having its seat in the
west, and the other in the east of Christendom.
Further, that movement
was known under two names–Hussitism in Bohemia, and Lollardism in England. When
the famous Protest was given in by the German princes in 1529 it dropped both
appellatives, and received henceforward that one designation by which it has
been known these three centuries. The day will come when it will drop in turn
the name it now bears–that of Protestantism–and will resume that more ancient,
more catholic, and more venerable one, given it eighteen centuries ago in
Antioch, where the disciples were first called – Christians.
Although
there was one spirit in both branches of the movement, yet was there diversity
of operations. The power of Protestantism was shown in Bohemia in converting a
nation into heroes, in England it was shown in making martyrs. In the one
country its history leads us to camps and battlefields, in the other it conducts
us to prisons and stakes. The latter reveals the nobler champions, and the more
glorious conflict. Yet do we not blame the Hussites. Unlike the Lollards, they
were a nation. Their country was invaded, their consciences were threatened; and
they violated no principle of Christianity that we are acquainted with, when
they girded on the sword in defense of their hearths and their altars. And
surely we do not err when we say that Providence set the seal of its approval
upon their patriotic resistance, in that marvellous success that crowned their
arms, and which continued to flow in a tide that knew not a moment's ebb till
that fatal day when they entered into compact with Rome. In the Great Roll we
find the names of those who "waxed valiant in fight, turned to flight the armies
of the aliens" as well as that of those who "were stoned, were sawn asunder,
were tortured, were slain with the sword, not accepting deliverance, that they
might obtain a better resurrection."
Still, it must be confessed that the
stake of the Lollard showed itself in the end a more powerful weapon for
defending Protestantism than the sword of the Hussite. The arms of the Bohemians
merely extinguished enemies, the stakes of the Lollards created disciples. In
their deaths they sowed the seed of the Gospel; that seed remained in the soil,
and while "the battle of the warrior, with its confused noise and garments
rolled in blood," was swaying to and fro over the face of England, it continued
to germinate in silence, awaiting the sixteenth century, with its mollient air,
for the time of springing.
Book 8 Index
FOOTNOTES
VOLUME FIRST
BOOK SEVENTH
VOLUME FIRST- BOOK SEVENTH- CHAPTER 1
[1] Fox, pp. 229, 230; Lond. 1838.
[2] These included the condemnation of transubstantiation; exorcisms; the blessing of bread, oil, wax, water, etc.; the union of spiritual and temporal offices; clerical celibacy; prayers for the dead; the worship of saints and images; pilgrimages; auricular confession; indulgences; conventual vows, etc. etc. (Collier, Eccles. Hist., vol. 1, pp. 597, 598; Lond., 1708.)
[3] Walsingham, Hist. Anglae, p. 328; Camdeni Anglica, Frankfort, 1603. Lewis, Wiclif, p. 337. Fox, Acts and Mon., bk. 1, p. 662; Lond., 1641.
[4] Fox, bk. 1, p. 664.
[5] Instit., pax. 3, cap. 5, fol. 39. Collier, Eccles. Hist., vol 1, pp. 614, 615.
[6] Fox, bk. 1, p. 675. This statute is known as 2 Henry IV., cap. 15. Cotton remarks "that the printed statute differs greatly from the record, not only in form, but much more in matter, in order to maintain ecclesiastical tyranny." His publisher, Prynne, has this note upon it: "This was the first statute and butcherly knife that the impeaching prelates procured or had against the poor preachers of Christ's Gospel." (Cobbett,. Parliament. Hist., vol. 1, p. 287; Lond., 1806.) The "Statute of Heresy" was passed in the previous reign–Richard II., 1382. It is entitled "An Act to commission sheriffs to apprehend preachers of heresy, and their abettors, reciting the enormities ensuing the preaching of heretics." It was surreptitiously obtained by the clergy and enrolled without the consent of the Commons. On the complaint of that body this Act was repealed, but by a second artifice of the priests the Act of repeal was suppressed, and prosecutions carried on in virtue of the "Act of Heresy." (See Cobbett, Parliament. Hist., vol. 1, p. 177.) Sir Edward Coke (Instit., par. 3, cap. 5, fol. 39) gives the same account of the matter. He says that the 6th of Richard II., which repealed the statute of the previous year (5th Richard II.), was not proclaimed, thus leaving the latter in force. Collier (Eccles. Hist., vol. 1, p. 606) argues against this view of the case. The manner of proclaiming laws, printing being then unknown, was to send a copy on parchment, in Latin or French, to each sheriff, who proclaimed them in his county; and had the 6th of Richard II., which repealed the previous Act, been omitted in the proclamation, it would, Collier thinks, have been known to the Commons.
[7] Fox, bk. 1, p. 675. Collier, Eccles. Hist., vol. 1, p 618.
[8] Fox, bk. 1, p. 674.
[9] Collier,. Eccles. Hist., 1, 618. Burnet, Hist. Ref., 1:24.
[10] There is some ground to think that Sawtrey was not the first to be put to death for religion in England. "A chronicle of London," says the writer of the Preface to Bale's Brefe Chronycle, "mentions one of the Albigenses burned A.D. 1210." And Camden, it is thought, alludes to this when he says: "In the reign of John, Christians began to be put to death in the flames by Christians amongst us." (Bale, Preface 2)
[11] Fox, bk. 5, p. 266.
[12] Ibid. p. 267.
[13] Collier. Eccles. Hist., vol. 1, p. 629. Fox, bk. 5, p. 266.
[14] Walsingham, Hist. Angliae, p. 570; Camdeni Anglica, Frankfort, 1603. Holinshed, Chronicles, vol. 3, pp. 48, 49; Lond., 1808. Holinshed says the prince "promised him not only life, but also three pence a day so long as he lived, to be paid out of the king's coffers." Cobbett, in his Parliamentary History, tells us that the wages of a thresher were at that time twopence per day.
[15] Fox, bk. 5, pp. 266, 267; Lond., 1838.
VOLUME FIRST- BOOK SEVENTH- CHAPTER 2
[1] Fox, bk. 5, p. 268.
[2] This account of Thorpe's examination is from Fox greatly abridged. Our aim has been to bring out his doctrinal views, seeing they may be accepted as a good general representation of the Lollard theology of his day. The threats and contumelious epithets addressed to him by the primate, we have all but entirely suppressed.
[3] There were clearly but two courses open to him–retractation or condemnation. We agree with Fox in thinking that he was not likely to retract.
[4] Collier, vol. 1, bk. 7, p. 625.
[5] Collier, 1, bk. 7, p. 626.
[6] Ibid.
VOLUME FIRST- BOOK SEVENTH- CHAPTER 3
[1] See ante, bk.2, chap.10.
[2] Ibid., p.628.
[3] Collier, vol. 1, p. 628.
[4] Walsingham, Hist. Angliae, p. 569; Camdeni Anglica, Frankfort, 1603.
[5] Ibid., p. 570.
[6] Collier, vol 1, bk. 7, pp. 628, 629.
[7] Collier, vol. 1, bk. 7, p. 629. Concil. Lab. at Cossar., tom. 10, pars. 2, col. 2126.
[8] Ibid., col. 2131.
[9] See ante, bk. 3, chap. 4.
[10] Collier, vol. 1, bk. 7, p. 630.
[11] This bull was afterwards voided by Sixtus IV. Wood, Hist. Univ.; Oxon, 205. Cotton's Abridgment, p. 480. Collier, vol. 1, bk. 7, p. 630.
[12] The university seal, it is believed, was surreptitiously obtained; but the occurrence proves that among the professors at Oxford were not a few who thought with Wicliffe.
[13] Fox, bk. 5, p. 282; Lond., 1838.
[14] Collier, vol. 1, bk. 7, p. 631.
[15] Fox, bk. 5, p. 280.
[16] Fox, bk. 5., p. 280.
[17] Ibid.
[18] Ibid.
[19] Ibid.
VOLUME FIRST- BOOK SEVENTH- CHAPTER 4
[1] Holinshed, vol. 3, p. 30. Cobbett, vol. 1, cols. 295, 296. Collier, vol. 1, bk. 7, p. 620.
[2] Walsingham, pp. 371, 372. Collier, vol. 1, bk. 7, pp.620, 621.
[3] Holinshed, vol. 3, p. 48. Walsingham, p. 379. Collier, vol. 1, bk. 7, p. 629.
[4] Walsingham, pp. 360, 361. This vial, the chronicler tells us, had lain for many years, neglected, locked up in a chest in the Tower of London.
[5] The chronicler, Holinshed, records a curious interview between the prince and his father, in the latter days of Henry. The prince heard that he had been slandered to the king, and went to court with a numerous train, to clear himself. "He was appareled," says Holinshed, "in a gown of blue satin and full of small owlet holes, at every hole the needle hanging by a silk thread with which it was sewed." Falling on his knees, he pulled out a dagger, and presenting it to the king, he bade him plunge it into his breast, protesting that he did not wish to live a single day under his father's suspicions. The king, casting away the dagger, kissed the prince, and was reconciled to him. (Chron., vol. 3, p. 54.)
[6] Collier, vol. 1, bk. 7, p. 632. Holinshed, vol. 3, p. 57.
[7] Holinshed, Vol 3, p.58.
VOLUME FIRST- BOOK SEVENTH- CHAPTER 5
[1] "A sore, ruggie, and tempestuous day, with wind, snow, and sleet, that men greatly marvelled thereat, making diverse interpretations what the same might signifie." (Holinshed, vol. 3, p. 61.)
[2] Fox, bk. 5, p. 282.
[3] Walsingham, p. 382.
[4] Hume, chap. 19.
[5] Holinshed, vol. 3, p. 62.
[6] See Dugdale, Baronetage.
[7] Walsingham, p. 382.
[8] Collier, vol. 1, bk. 7, p. 632.
[9] Bale, Brefe Chron., p. 13; Lond., 1729.
[10] Ibid.
[11] Collier, vol 1, bk. 7, p. 632.
[12] Bale, p. 23. Holinshed, vol 3, p. 62.
[13] Bale, pp. 24, 25. Fox. bk. 5, p. 282.
[14] Bale, pp. 25-28. Collier, 7, 633. Fox, 5, 282.
[15] The document is given in full by Bale and Fox.
[16] Bale, p. 35.
[17] Bale. pp. 50, 51. Fox. bk. 5, p. 284.
[18] "Iniquitatis et tenebrarum filius." (Walsingham, Hist. Ang., p. 385.)
[19] "Affabiliter et suaviter recitavit excommunicationem, flebili vultu." (Rymer, Federa, vol. 5, p. 50. Walsingham, p. 384.)
[20] We give this account of Lord Cobham's (Sir John Oldcastle) examination, slightly abridged, from Bale's Brefe Chronycle, pp. 49-73. Walsingham gives substantially, though more briefly, the same account of the matter (pp. 383, 384). See also Collier, vol 1, bk. 7, p. 634. "Lingard's commentary on the trial," says M'Crie (Am. Eng. Presb., 51), "is in the true spirit of the religion which doomed the martyr to the stake with crocodile tears: ' The prisoner's conduct was as arrogant and insulting as that of his judge was mild and dignified! '" (Hist. Eng., vol. 5, p. 5.)
[21] Walsingham, p. 385.
[22] Bale, pp. 83-38. Fox, bk. 5, p. 288.
[23] Fox, bk. 5, p.287.
[24] Ibid, bk. 5, p.288.
VOLUME FIRST- BOOK SEVENTH- CHAPTER 6
[1] Bale, p. 90.
[2] Bale, p. 16.
[3] Collier, vol. 1, bk. 7, p. 634.
[4] Holinshed, vol. 3, p. 63.
[5] The allegation of conspiracy, advanced beforehand by the priests, was of course entered on the records of King's Bench as the ground of proceedings, but it stands altogether unsupported by proof or probability. No papers containing the plan of revolution were ever discovered. No confession of such a thing was made by any of those who were seized and executed. Even Walsingham can only say, "The king heard they intended to destroy him and the monasteries," etc., and "Many were taken who were said to have conspired" (qui dicebantur conspirasse)– Hist. Ang., p. 386. When four years afterwards Lord Cobham was taken and condemned, his judges did not dare to confront him with the charge of conspiracy, but simply outlawry, passed upon him when he fled. As an instance of the wild rumors then propagated against the Lollards, Walden, the king's confessor, and Polydore Virgil, the Pope's collector of Peter's pence in England, in their letters to Martin V., give vivid descriptions of terrible insurrections in England, wherein, as Bale remarks, "never a man was hurt;" and Walden, in his first preface to his fourth book against the Wicliffites, says that Sir John Oldcastle conspired against King Henry V. in the first year of his reign, and offered a golden noble for every head of monk, canon, friar, or priest that should be brought to him; while in his Fasciculus Zizaniorum Wiclevi, he tells us that Sir John was at that very time a prisoner in the Tower (Bale, p. 101). Fox, the martyrologist, charges the Papists with not only inventing the plot, but forging the records which accuse Sir John Oldcastle of complicity in it; and though Collier has attempted to reply to Fox, it is with no great success. All dispassionate men will now grant that the meeting was a voluntary one for worship, or a trap laid for the Lollards by their enemies.
[6] Ezra 4, 12-15.
VOLUME FIRST- BOOK SEVENTH- CHAPTER 7
[1] Bale, p. 10.
[2] Fox, bk. 5, p. 288.
[3] Holinshed, vol. 3, p. 63.
[4] Holinshed, vol. 3, p. 64.
[5] Bale, p. 92.
[6] Collier, vol. 1, p. 635.
[7] Bale, p. 95.
[8] Walsingham, p. 399.
[9] Collier, vol. 1, bk. 7, p. 645.
[10] Fox, bk. 5, p. 323. Collier, vol. 1, bk. 7, p. 645. Walsingham (p. 399) says that he ran out into a long address on the duty of man to forgive, and leave the punishment of offenses in the hands of the Almighty; and, on being stopped, and asked by the court to speak to the charge of outlawry, he began a second sermon on the same text. Walsingham has been followed in this by Collier, Cotton, and Lingard. "There is nothing more in the records," says the younger M'Crie, speaking from a personal examination of them, "than a simple appeal to mercy." (Ann. Eng. Presb., p. 54.)
[11] Bale, p. 96.
[12] Holinshed, vol. 3, p. 94. Bale, pp. 96, 97.
[13] Bale, pp. 98, 99. Fox, bk. 5, p. 323. The monks and friars who wrote our early plays, and acted our dumb shows, did not let slip the opportunity this gave them of vilifying, lampooning, and caricaturing the first English peer who had died a Protestant martyr. Having burned him, they never could forgive him. He was handed down, "from fair to fair, and from inn-yard to inn-yard," as a braggart, a debauchee, and a poltroon. From them the martyr came to figure in the same character on Shakespeare's stage. But the great dramatist came to discover how the matter really stood, and then he struck out the name "Oldcastle," and inserted instead "Falstaff." Not only so; as if he wished to make yet greater reparation for the injustice he had unwittingly done him, he proclaimed that Lord Cobham "died a martyr." This indicates that Shakespeare himself had undergone some great change. "The point is curious," says Mr. Hepworth Dixon. "It is not the change of a name, but of a state of mind. For Shakespeare is not content with striking out the name of Oldcastle and writing down that of Falstaff. He does more–much more–something beyond example in his works: he makes a confession of his faith. In his own person, as a poet and as a man, he proclaims from the stage, 'Oldcastle died a martyr.'. . . . Shakespeare changed his way of looking at the old heroes of English thought." The play–The First Part of the True and Honourable History of the Life of Sir John Oldcastle, the Good Lord Cobham–is a protest against the wrong which had been done to Oldcastle on the stage. The prologue said–
- "It is no pampered glutton we present,
Nor aged councillor to youthful sin;
But one whose virtue shone above the rest,
A valiant martyr and a virtuous peer.""These lines," says Mr. Dixon, "are thought to be Shakespeare's own. They are in his vein, and they repeat the declaration which he had already made: 'Oldcastle died a martyr!' The man who wrote this confession in the days of Archbishop Whitgift was a Puritan in faith." (Her Majesty's Tower pp. 100-102; Lond., 1869.)
VOLUME FIRST- BOOK SEVENTH- CHAPTER 8
[1] Bale, pp. 91, 92. Cobbett, vol. 1, pp. 323, 324.
[2] These alien priories were most of them cells to monasteries in France. "'Twas argued," says Collier, "that these monks, being foreigners, and depending upon superiors in another kingdom, could not be true to the interest of the English nation: that their being planted here gave them an opportunity of maintaining correspondence with the enemy, besides their transporting money and other commodities was no ordinary damage." (Vol. 1, p. 650.)
[3] Bale, p. 91. Collier, vol. 1, p. 636. Fox, vol. 1, p. 775. Cobbet, vol. 1, p. 324.
[4] Collier, vol. 1, p. 638.
[5] Shakspeare, Henry V., act 1.
[6] Holinshed, vol. 3, p. 68.
[7] Ibid., pp. 79-83. Collier, vol. 1., p. 641. Hume, chap. 20.
[8] Holinshed, vol. 3, pp. 90-114. Cobbett, vol. 1, col. 338.
[9] This is that Catherine who, after the death of her husband, Henry V., married Sir Owen Tudor, a Welsh gentleman, whose descendants afterwards mounted the throne of England.
[10] Holinshed, vol. 3, pp. 132, 133.
[11] Holmshed, vol 3, p. 134.
[12] Hume, chap. 19.
[13] Fox, bk. 5, pp. 319, 320.
[14] Collier, vol. 1, p. 639.
[15] Fox, bk. 5, pp. 320, 321.
[16] Hebrews 11.
[17] Fox, bk. 6, p. 339.
[18] Holinshed, 3, p. 135. Collier, 7, p. 650. Fox, p. 339.
[19] Fox, bk. 6, p. 341
[20] Ibid, p. 361.
[21] Ibid, p. 340
[22] Ibid, p. 340
VOLUME FIRST- BOOK SEVENTH- CHAPTER 9
[1] See ante, bk. 3, chap. 13.
[2] We may here quote the statute of Praemunire, as passed in the 16th of Richard II. After a preambulatory remonstrance against the encroachments of the Pope in the way of translating English prelates to other sees in England, or in foreign countries, in appointing foreigners to English sees, and in sending his bulls of excommunication against bishops refusing to carry into effect his appointments, and in withdrawing persons, causes, and revenues from the jurisdiction of the king, and after the engagement of the Three Estates to stand by the crown against these assumptions of the Pope, the enacting part of the statute follows:–
- "Whereupon our said Lord the King, by the assent aforesaid, and at the request of his said Commons, hath ordained and established, that if any purchase or pursue, or cause to be purchased or pursued, in the court of Rome or elsewhere [the Papal court was at times at Avignon], any such translations, processes, or sentences of excommunication, bulls, instruments, or any other things whatsoever, which touch the King, against him, his crown, or his regalty, or his realm as is aforesaid; and they which bring within the realm, or them receive, or make thereof notification, or any other execution whatsoever within the same realm, or without, that they, their notaries, procurators, maintainers, abettors, ranters, and counsellors, shall be put out of the King's protection, and their lands and tenements, goods and chattels, forfeit to our Lord the King. And that they be attached by their bodies, and if they may be, found, and brought before the King and his Council, there to answer to the cases aforesaid, or that processes be made against them by Praemunire facias, in manner as it is ordained in other statutes of Provisors. And other which do sue in any other court in derogation of the regalty of our Lord the King."
Sir Edward Coke observes that this statute is more comprehensive and strict than that of 27th Edward III. Thus provision was made, as is expressed in the preamble, against the throne and nation of England being reduced to servitude to the Papal chair.
- "The crown ot England, which has always been so free and independent as not to have any earthly sovereign, but to be immediately subject to God in all things touching the prerogatives and royalty of the said crown, should be made subject to the Pope, and the laws and statutes of the realm defeated and set aside by him at pleasure, to the utter destruction of the sovereignty of our Lord the King, his crown, and royalty, and whole kingdom, which God forbid." (Collier, vol. 1, bk. 7 pp. 594- 596.)
[3] Collier, vol. 1, pp. 653, 654.
[4] Ibid., p. 654.
VOLUME FIRST- BOOK SEVENTH- CHAPTER 10
[1] "Ut manifestaret bilem suam"–his bile or choler. The word chosen shows that the chronicler did not quite approve of such a display of independence. (Walsingham, p. 387.)
[2] This was the same Henry Beaufort, Bishop of Winchester–a son of John of Gaunt–to whom the Pope gave a commission to raise a new crusade against the Bohemians. In this way the Pope hoped, doubtless, to draw in the English to take part in those expeditions which had already cost the German nations so much treasure and blood. In fact the legate came empowered by the Pope to levy a tax of a tenth upon the English clergy for the war in Bohemia. This, however, was refused. (Collier, vol. 1, p. 658.) See ante, bk. 3, chap. 17.
[3] Collier, vol. 1, bk. 7, p. 655.
[4] Duck, in Vit. Chichely, p. 37; apud. Collier, vol. 1,bk. 7, p. 657.
[5] In the petition given in to Henry VI. by the Duke of Gloucester (1441) against the Cardinal of Winchester, legate-a-latere, we find the duke saying, "My lord, your father would as leif see him set his crown beside him as see him wear a cardinal's hat. . . . His intent was never to do so great derogation to the Church of Canterbury, as to make them that were his suffragans sit above their ordinary and metropolitan. . . . Item, it is not unknown to you, how through your lands it is noised that the said cardinal and the Archbishop of York had and have the governance of you, and of all your land, the which none of your true liege men ought to usurp or take upon them." (Holinshed, vol. 3, p. 199.) For this honest advice the Duke of Gloucester had in after-years (1447) to pay the penalty of his life. Henry Beaufort, the rich cardinal as he was styled, died in 1447. "He was," says Holinshed, "more noble in blood than notable in learning; haughty in stomach and high of countenance; rich above measure, but not very liberal; disdainful to his kin, and dreadful to his lovers; preferring money to friendship; many things beginning and few performing, save in malice and mischief." (Vol. 3, p. 112.) He was succeeded in his bishopric by William Waynflete, a prelate of wisdom and learning, who was made Chancellor of England, and was the founder of Magdalen College, Oxford.
[6] It may be viewed, perhaps, as collateral evidence of the reviving power of Christianity in England, that about this time it was enacted that fairs and markets should not be held in cathedrals and churches, save twice in the year (Collier); that no commodities or victuals should be exposed for sale in London on Sabbath, and that artificers and handicraftsmen should not carry home their wares to their employers on the sacred day. "But this ordinance was too good," says the author from whom Holinshed quotes, "for so bad an age, and therefore died within a short time after the magistrate had given it life." (Vol. 3, p. 206.)
[7] Collier, vol 1, bk. 7, p. 655. The letter is dated 8th December, the tenth year of his Popedom. Collier supposes that this is a mistake for the eleventh year of Martin's Pontificate, which would make the year 1427.
[8] Burnet, Hist. Reform., vol. 1, p. 111. Collier, vol. 1, p. 656.
[9] Burner, Collection of Records, vol. 1, p. 100; apud Collier, vol. 1, p. 656. In 1438, Charles VII. established the Pragmatic Sanction in his Parliament at Bourges. The Pragmatic Sanction was very much in France what the Act of Praemunire was in England.
[10] Collier, Vol. 1, bk. 7, p. 666.
[11] Created a Cardinal of the Church of Rome, March, 1875.
[12] The Unity of the Church, p. 361; Lond., 1842.
VOLUME FIRST- BOOK SEVENTH- CHAPTER 11
[1] In proof of this summary view of the origin and effects of the crusades, the author begs to refer his readers to Baron., Ann., 1096; Gibbon, chap. 58, 59; Moreri, Le Grand Dict. Hist., tom. 3; Innet, Origines Anglicance, vol. 2; Sismondi, Hist., etc. etc. The author speaks, of course, of the direct and immediate effects which flowed from the crusades; there were remote and indirect results of a beneficent kind evolved from them, but this was the doing of an overruling Providence, and was neither foreseen nor intended by their authors.
[2] Hardouin, Acta Concil., tom. 7, p; 395; Parisiis, 1714.
[3] Shakespeare, King John, act 2, scene 1.
[4] "God suddenly touched him, unbodying his soul in the flower of his youth, and the glory of his conquest."–Speech of Duke of York to Parliament, 1460. (Holinshed, vol 3, p. 264.) While the duke was asserting his title to the crown in the Upper House, there happened, says the chronicler, "a strange chance in the very same instant among the Commons in the Nether House. A crown, which did hang in the middle of the same, to garnish a branch to set lights upon, without touch of man, or blast of wind, suddenly fell down. About the same time also fell down the crown which stood on the top of Dover Castle. Soon after the duke was slain on the battlefield, and with him 2,800, mostly young gentlemen, heirs of great families. His head, with a crown of paper, stuck on a pole, was presented to the queen. Some write," says the chronicler, "that he was taken alive, made to stand on a mole-hill, with a garland of bulrushes instead of a crown, and his captors, kneeling before him in derision, said, 'Hail, king without rule!-hail, king without heritage!–hail, duke and prince without people and possessions!'" and then struck off his head.
[5] "This year, 1477," says Holinshed (vol. 3, p. 346),"happened so fierce and quick a pestilence that the previous fifteen years consumed not the third part of the people that only four months miserably and pitifully dispatched and brought to their graves."
[6] Hume, Hist. Eng. chap. 29.
[7] Rumors of prodigies and portents helped to augment the prevalent foreboding and alarm of the people. Of these the following may be taken as a sample, the more that there is a touch of the dramatic about it:–"In November, 1457, in the isle of Portland, not far from the town of Weymouth, was seen a cock coming out of the sea, having a great crest upon his head, and a great red beard, and legs half a yard long. He stood on the water and crowed three times, and every time turned him about, and beckoned with his head, toward the north, the south, and the west, and was in color like a pheasant, and when he had crowed three times he vanished away." (Holinshed, vol. 3, p. 244.) We read of "a rain of blood" in Bedfordshire, "which spotted clothes hung out to dry."
[8] The Romish clergy were careful, in the midst of this general destruction of life and substance, that their possessions should not come by loss. The following award was made at Westminster, 23rd March, 1458:– " That at the costs, charges, and expenses of the Duke of York, the Earls of Warwick and Salisbury, forty-five pounds of yearly rent should be assured by way of mortisement for ever, unto the monastery of St. Albans, for suffrages and obits to be kept, and alms to be employed for the souls of Edmund, late Duke of Somerset; Henry, late Earl of Northumberland; and Thomas, late Lord Clifford, lately slain in the battle of St. Albans, and buried in the Abbey church, and also for the souls of all others slain in the same battle." (Holinshed, vol. 3, p. 247.)
[9] D'Aubigne, vol. 5, p. 148.