These principles do really appear to have determined Henry"s conduct in his earlier years. His social administration we have partially seen in the previous chapter. He had more than once been tried with insurrection, which he had soothed down without bloodshed, and extinguished in forgiveness; and London long recollected the great scene which followed "evil May-day,"
1517, when the apprentices were brought down to Westminster Hall to receive their pardons. There had been a dangerous riot in the streets, which might have provoked a mild government to severity; but the king contented himself with punishing the five ringleaders, and four hundred other prisoners, after being paraded down the streets in white shirts with halters round their necks, were dismissed with an admonition, Wolsey weeping as he p.r.o.nounced it.[178]
It is certain that if, as I said, he had died before the divorce was mooted, Henry VIII., like that Roman Emperor said by Tacitus to have been _consensu omnium dignus imperii nisi impera.s.set_, would have been considered by posterity as formed by Providence for the conduct of the Reformation, and his loss would have been deplored as a perpetual calamity.
We must allow him, therefore, the benefit of his past career, and be careful to remember it, when interpreting his later actions. Not many men would have borne themselves through the same trials with the same integrity; but the circ.u.mstances of those trials had not tested the true defects in his moral const.i.tution. Like all princes of the Plantagenet blood, he was a person of a most intense and imperious will. His impulses, in general n.o.bly directed, had never known contradiction; and late in life, when his character was formed, he was forced into collision with difficulties with which the experience of discipline had not fitted him to contend. Education had done much for him, but his nature required more correction than his position had permitted, whilst unbroken prosperity and early independence of control had been his most serious misfortune. He had capacity, if his training had been equal to it, to be one of the greatest of men. With all his faults about him, he was still perhaps the greatest of his contemporaries; and the man best able of all living Englishmen to govern England, had been set to do it by the conditions of his birth.
The other person whose previous history we have to ascertain is one, the tragedy of whose fate has blotted the remembrance of her sins--if her sins were, indeed, and in reality, more than imaginary. Forgetting all else in shame and sorrow, posterity has made piteous reparation for her death in the tenderness with which it has touched her reputation; and with the general instincts of justice, we have refused to qualify our indignation at the wrong which she experienced, by admitting either stain or shadow on her fame. It has been with Anne Boleyn as it has been with Catherine of Arragon--both are regarded as the victims of a tyranny which catholics and protestants unite to remember with horror; and each has taken the place of a martyred saint in the hagiology of the respective creeds. Catholic writers have, indeed, ill repaid, in their treatment of Anne, the admiration with which the mother of Queen Mary has been remembered in the Church of England; but the invectives which they have heaped upon her have defeated their object by their extravagance. It has been believed that matter failed them to sustain a just accusation, when they condescended to outrageous slander. Inasmuch, however, as some natural explanation can usually be given of the actions of human beings in this world without supposing them to have been possessed by extraordinary wickedness, and if we are to hold Anne Boleyn entirely free from fault, we place not the king only, but the privy council, the judges, the Lords and Commons, and the two Houses of Convocation, in a position fatal to their honour and degrading to ordinary humanity; we cannot without inquiry acquiesce in so painful a conclusion. The English nation also, as well as she, deserves justice at our hands; and it must not be thought uncharitable if we look with some scrutiny at the career of a person who, except for the catastrophe with which it was closed, would not so readily have obtained forgiveness for having admitted the addresses of the king, or for having received the homage of the court as its future sovereign, while the king"s wife, her mistress, as yet resided under the same roof, with the t.i.tle and the position of queen, and while the question was still undecided of the validity of the first marriage. If in that alone she was to blame, her fault was, indeed, revenged a thousandfold,--and yet no lady of true delicacy would have accepted such a position; and feeling for Queen Catherine should have restrained her, if she was careless of respect for herself. It must, therefore, be permitted me, out of such few hints and scattered notices as remain, to collect such information as may be trusted respecting her early life before her appearance upon the great stage. These hints are but slight, since I shall not even mention the scandals of Sanders, any more than I shall mention the panegyrics of Foxe; stories which, as far as I can learn, have no support in evidence, and rest on no stronger foundation than the credulity of pa.s.sion.
Anne Boleyn was the second daughter of Sir Thomas Boleyn, a gentleman of n.o.ble family, though moderate fortune;[179] who, by a marriage with the daughter of the Duke of Norfolk, was brought into connection with the highest blood in the realm. The year of her birth has not been certainly ascertained, but she is supposed to have been seven years old[180] in 1514, when she accompanied the Princess Mary into France, on the marriage of that lady with Louis XII. Louis dying a few months subsequently, the princess married Sir Charles Brandon, afterwards created Duke of Suffolk, and returned to England. Anne Boleyn did not return with her; she remained in Paris to become accomplished with the graces and elegancies, if she was not contaminated by the vices, of that court, which, even in those days of loyal licentiousness, enjoyed an undesirable pre-eminence in profligacy. In the French capital she could not have failed to see, to hear, and to become familiar with occurrences with which no young girl can be brought in contact with impunity, and this poisonous atmosphere she continued to breathe for nine years. She came back to England in 1525, to be maid of honour to Queen Catherine, and to be distinguished at the court, by general consent, for her talents, her accomplishments, and her beauty. Her portraits, though all professedly by Holbein, or copied from pictures by him, are singularly unlike each other. The profile in the picture which is best known is pretty, innocent, and piquant, though rather insignificant: there are other pictures, however, in which we see a face more powerful, though less prepossessing. In these the features are full and languid. The eyes are large; but the expression, though remarkable, is not pleasing, and indicates cunning more than thought, pa.s.sion more than feeling; while the heavy lips and ma.s.sive chin wear a look of sensuality which is not to be mistaken. Possibly all are like the original, but represented her under different circ.u.mstances, or at different periods of her life. Previous to her engagement with the king, she was the object of fleeting attentions from the young n.o.blemen about the court. Lord Percy, eldest son of Lord Northumberland, as we all know, was said to have been engaged to her. He was in the household of Cardinal Wolsey; and Cavendish, who was with him there, tells a long romantic story of the affair, which, if his account be true, was ultimately interrupted by Lord Northumberland himself. The story is not without its difficulties, since Lord Percy had been contracted, several years previously, to a daughter of the Earl of Shrewsbury,[181]
whom he afterwards married, and by the law he could not have formed a second engagement so long as the first was undissolved. And again, he himself, when subsequently examined before the privy council, denied solemnly on his oath that any contract of the kind had existed.[182] At the same time, we cannot suppose Cavendish to have invented so circ.u.mstantial a narrative, and Percy would not have been examined if there had been no reason for suspicion. Something, therefore, probably had pa.s.sed between him and the young maid of honour, though we cannot now conjecture of what nature; and we can infer only that it was not openly to her discredit, or she would not have obtained the position which cost her so dear. She herself confessed subsequently, before Archbishop Cranmer, to a connection of some kind into which she had entered before her acquaintance with Henry.
No evidence survives which will explain to what she referred, for the act of parliament which mentions the fact furnishes no details.[183] But it was of a kind which made her marriage with the king illegal, and illegitimatised the offspring of it; and it has been supposed, therefore, that, in spite of Lord Percy"s denial, he had really engaged himself to her, and was afraid to acknowledge it.[184] This supposition, however, is not easy to reconcile with the language of the act, which speaks of the circ.u.mstance, whatever it was, as only "recently known;" nor could a contract with Percy have invalidated her marriage with the king, when Percy having been pre-contracted to another person, it would have been itself invalid. A light is thrown upon the subject by a letter found among Cromwell"s papers, addressed by some unknown person to a Mr. Melton, also unknown, but written obviously when "Mistress Anne" was a young lady about the court, and before she had been the object of any open attention from Henry.
"MR. MELTON.--This shall be to advertise you that Mistress Anne is changed from that she was at when we three were last together. Wherefore I pray you that ye be no devil"s sakke, but according to the truth ever justify, as ye shall make answer before G.o.d; and do not suffer her in my absence to be married to any other man. I must go to my master, wheresoever he be, for the Lord Privy Seal desireth much to speak with me, whom if I should speak with in my master"s absence, it would cause me to lose my head; and yet I know myself as true a man to my prince as liveth, whom (as my friend informeth me) I have offended grievously in my words. No more to you, but to have me commended unto Mistress Anne, and bid her remember her promise, which none can loose, but G.o.d only, to whom I shall daily during my life commend her."[185]
The letter must furnish its own interpretation; for it receives little from any other quarter. Being in the possession of Cromwell, however, it had perhaps been forwarded to him at the time of Queen Anne"s trial, and may have thus occasioned the investigation which led to the annulling of her marriage.
From the account which was written of her by the grandson of Sir Thomas Wyatt the poet, we still gather the impression (in spite of the admiring sympathy with which Wyatt writes) of a person with whom young men took liberties,[186] however she might seem to forbid them. In her diet she was an epicure, fond of dainty and delicate eating, and not always contented if she did not obtain what she desired. When the king"s attentions towards her became first marked, Thomas Heneage, afterwards lord chamberlain, wrote to Wolsey, that he had one night been "commanded down with a dish for Mistress Anne for supper"; adding that she caused him "to sup with her, and she wished she had some of Wolsey"s good meat, as carps, shrimps, and others."[187] And this was not said in jest, since Heneage related it as a hint to Wolsey, that he might know what to do, if he wished to please her.
In the same letter he suggested to the cardinal that she was a little displeased at not having received a token or present from him; she was afraid she was forgotten, he said, and "the lady, her mother, desired him to send unto his Grace, and desire his Grace to bestow a morsel of tunny upon her." Wolsey made her presents also at times of a more valuable character, as we find her acknowledging in language of exaggerated grat.i.tude;[188] and, perhaps the most painful feature in all her earlier history lies in the contrast between the servility with which she addressed the cardinal so long as he was in power, and the bitterness with which the Bishop of Bayonne (and, in fact, all contemporary witnesses) tells us, that she pressed upon his decline. Wolsey himself spoke of her under the t.i.tle of "the night-crow,"[189] as the person to whom he owed all which was most cruel in his treatment; as "the enemy that never slept, but studied and continually imagined, both sleeping and waking, his utter destruction."[190]
Taking these things together, and there is nothing to be placed beside them of a definitely pleasing kind, except beauty and accomplishments, we form, with the a.s.sistance of her pictures, a tolerable conception of this lady; a conception of her as a woman not indeed questionable, but as one whose antecedents might lead consistently to a future either of evil or of good; and whose character removes the surprise which we might be inclined to feel at the position with respect to Queen Catherine in which she consented to be placed. A harsh critic would describe her, on this evidence, as a self-indulgent coquette, indifferent to the obligations of grat.i.tude, and something careless of the truth. From the letter referring to her, preserved by Cromwell, it appears that she had broken a definite promise at a time when such promises were legally binding, and that she had really done so was confirmed by her subsequent confession. The breach of such promises by a woman who could not be expected to understand the grounds on which the law held them to be sacred, implies no more than levity, and levity of this kind has been found compatible with many high qualities.
Levity, however, it does undoubtedly imply, and the symptom, if a light one, must be allowed the weight which is due to it.
It is a miserable duty to be compelled to search for these indications of human infirmities; above all when they are the infirmities of a lady whose faults, let them have been what they would, were so fearfully and terribly expiated; and, if there were nothing else at issue but poor questions of petty scandal, it were better far that they perished in forgetfulness, and pa.s.sed away out of mind and memory for ever. The fortunes of Anne Boleyn were unhappily linked with those of men to whom the greatest work ever yet accomplished in this country was committed; and the characters of a king of England, and of the three estates of the realm, are compromised in the treatment which she received from them.
CHAPTER III
THE PARLIAMENT OF 1529
No Englishman can look back uninterested on the meeting of the parliament of 1529. The era at which it a.s.sembled is the most memorable in the history of this country, and the work which it accomplished before its dissolution was of larger moment politically and spiritually than the achievements of the Long Parliament itself. For nearly seven years it continued surrounded by intrigue, confusion, and at length conspiracy, presiding over a people from whom the forms and habits by which they had moved for centuries were falling like the sh.e.l.l of a chrysalis. While beset with enemies within the realm and without, it effected a revolution which severed England from the papacy, yet it preserved peace unbroken and prevented anarchy from breaking bounds; and although its hands are not pure from spot, and red stains rest on them which posterity have bitterly and long remembered; yet if we consider the changes which it carried through, and if we think of the price which was paid by other nations for victory in the same struggle, we shall acknowledge that the records of the world contain no instance of such a triumph, bought at a cost so slight and tarnished by blemishes so trifling.
The letters of the French Amba.s.sador[191] describe to us the gathering of the members into London, and the hum of expectation sounding louder and louder as the day of the opening approached. In order that we may see distinctly what London felt on this occasion, that we may understand in detail the nature of those questions with which parliament was immediately to deal, we will glance at some of the proceedings which had taken place in the Bishops" Consistory Courts during the few preceding years. The duties of the officials of these courts resembled in theory the duties of the censors under the Roman Republic. In the middle ages, a lofty effort had been made to overpa.s.s the common limitations of government, to introduce punishment for sins as well as crimes, and to visit with temporal penalties the breach of the moral law. The punishment best adapted for such offences was some outward expression of the disapproval with which good men regard acts of sin; some open disgrace; some spiritual censure; some suspension of communion with the church, accompanied by other consequences practically inconvenient, to be continued until the offender had made reparation, or had openly repented, or had given confirmed proof of amendment. The administration of such a discipline fell, as a matter of course, to the clergy. The clergy were the guardians of morality; their characters were a claim to confidence, their duties gave them opportunities of observation which no other men could possess; while their priestly office gave solemn weight to their sentences. Thus arose throughout Europe a system of spiritual surveillance over the habits and conduct of every man, extending from the cottage to the castle, taking note of all wrong dealing, of all oppression of man by man, of all licentiousness and profligacy, and representing upon earth, in the principles by which it was guided, the laws of the great tribunal of Almighty G.o.d.
Such was the origin of the church courts, perhaps the greatest inst.i.tutions ever yet devised by man. But to aim at these high ideals is as perilous as it is n.o.ble; and weapons which may be safely trusted in the hands of saints become fatal implements of mischief when saints have ceased to wield them.
For a time, we need not doubt, the practice corresponded to the intention.
Had it not been so, the conception would have taken no root, and would have been extinguished at its birth. But a system which has once established itself in the respect of mankind will be tolerated long after it has forfeited its claim to endurance, as the name of a great man remains honoured though borne by worthless descendants; and the Consistory courts had continued into the sixteenth century with unrestricted jurisdiction, although they had been for generations merely perennially flowing fountains, feeding the ecclesiastical exchequer. The moral conduct of every English man and woman remained subject to them. Each private person was liable to be called in question for every action of his life; and an elaborate network of canon law perpetually growing, enveloped the whole surface of society. But between the original design and the degenerate counterfeit there was this vital difference,--that the censures were no longer spiritual. They were commuted in various gradations for pecuniary fines, and each offence against morality was rated at its specific money value in the episcopal tables. Suspension and excommunication remained as ultimate penalties; but they were resorted to only to compel unwilling culprits to accept the alternative.
The misdemeanours of which the courts took cognisance[192] were "offences against chast.i.ty," "heresy," or "matter sounding thereunto," "witchcraft,"
"drunkenness," "scandal," "defamation," "impatient words," "broken promises," "untruth," "absence from church," "speaking evil of saints,"
"non-payment of offerings," and other delinquencies incapable of legal definition; matters, all of them, on which it was well, if possible, to keep men from going wrong; but offering wide opportunities for injustice; while all charges, whether well founded or ill, met with ready acceptance in courts where innocence and guilt alike contributed to the revenue.[193]
"Mortuary claims" were another fertile matter for prosecution; and probate duties and legacy duties; and a further lucrative occupation was the punishment of persons who complained against the const.i.tutions of the courts themselves; to complain against the justice of the courts being to complain against the church, and to complain against the church being heresy. To answer accusations on such subjects as these, men were liable to be summoned, at the will of the officials, to the metropolitan courts of the archbishops, hundreds of miles from their homes.[194] No expenses were allowed; and if the charges were without foundation, it was rare that costs could be recovered. Innocent or guilty, the accused parties were equally bound to appear.[195] If they failed, they were suspended for contempt. If after receiving notice of their suspension, they did not appear, they were excommunicated; and no proof of the groundlessness of the original charge availed to relieve them from their sentence, till they had paid for their deliverance.
Well did the church lawyers understand how to make their work productive.
Excommunication seems but a light thing when there are many communions. It was no light thing when it was equivalent to outlawry; when the person excommunicated might be seized and imprisoned at the will of the ordinary; when he was cut off from all holy offices; when no one might speak to him, trade with him, or show him the most trivial courtesy; and when his friends, if they dared to a.s.sist him, were subject to the same penalties.
In the _Register_ of the Bishop of London[196] there is more than one instance to be found of suspension and excommunication for the simple crime of offering shelter to an excommunicated neighbour; and thus offence begot offence, guilt spread like a contagion through the influence of natural humanity, and a single refusal of obedience to a frivolous citation might involve entire families in misery and ruin.
The people might have endured better to submit to so enormous a tyranny, if the conduct of the clergy themselves had given them a t.i.tle to respect, or if equal justice had been distributed to lay and spiritual offenders.
"Benefit of clergy," unhappily, as at this time interpreted, was little else than a privilege to commit sins with impunity. The grossest moral profligacy in a priest was pa.s.sed over with indifference; and so far from exacting obedience in her ministers to a higher standard than she required of ordinary persons, the church extended her limits under fict.i.tious pretexts as a sanctuary for lettered villany. Every person who could read was claimed by prescriptive usage as a clerk, and shielded under her protecting mantle; nor was any clerk amenable for the worst crimes to the secular jurisdiction, until he had been first tried and degraded by the ecclesiastical judges. So far was this preposterous exemption carried, that previous to the pa.s.sing of the first of the 23rd of Henry the Eighth,[197]
those who were within the degrees might commit murder with impunity, the forms which it was necessary to observe in degrading a priest or deacon being so complicated as to amount to absolute protection.[198]
Among the clergy, properly so called, however, the prevailing offence was not crime, but licentiousness. A doubt has recently crept in among our historians as to the credibility of the extreme language in which the contemporary writers spoke upon this painful topic. It will scarcely be supposed that the picture has been overdrawn in the act books of the Consistory courts; and as we see it there it is almost too deplorable for belief, as well in its own intrinsic hideousness as in the unconscious connivance of the authorities. Brothels were kept in London for the especial use of priests;[199] the "confessional" was abused in the most open and abominable manner.[200] Cases occurred of the same frightful profanity in the service of the ma.s.s, which at Rome startled Luther into Protestantism;[201] and acts of incest between nuns and monks were too frequently exposed to allow us to regard the detected instances as exceptions.[202] It may be said that the proceedings upon these charges prove at least that efforts were made to repress them. The bishops must have the benefit of the plea, and the two following instances will show how far it will avail their cause. In the Records of the London Court I find a certain Thomas Wyseman, priest, summoned for fornication and incontinency.
He was enjoined for penance, that on the succeeding Sunday, while high ma.s.s was singing, he should offer at each of the altars in the Church of St.
Bartholomew a candle of wax, value one penny, saying therewith five _Paternosters_, five _Ave Marys_, and five _Credos_. On the following Friday he was to offer a candle of the same price before the crucifix, standing barefooted, and one before the image of cur Lady of Grace. This penance accomplished he appeared again at the court and compounded for absolution, paying six shillings and eightpence.[203]
An exposure too common to attract notice, and a fine of six and eightpence was held sufficient penalty for a mortal sin.
Even this, however, was a severe sentence compared with the sentence pa.s.sed upon another priest who confessed to incest with the prioress of Kilbourn.
The offender was condemned to bear a cross in a procession in his parish church, and was excused his remaining guilt for three shillings and fourpence.[204]
I might multiply such instances indefinitely; but there is no occasion for me to stain my pages with them.[205]
An inactive imagination may readily picture to itself the indignation likely to have been felt by a high-minded people, when they were forced to submit their lives, their habits, their most intimate conversations and opinions to a censorship conducted by clergy of such a character; when the offences of these clergy themselves were pa.s.sed over with such indifferent carelessness. Men began to ask themselves who and what these persons were who retained the privileges of saints,[206] and were incapable of the most ordinary duties; and for many years before the burst of the Reformation the coming storm was gathering. Priests were hooted, or "knocked down into the kennel,"[207] as they walked along the streets--women refused to receive the holy bread from hands which they thought polluted,[208] and the appearance of an apparitor of the courts to serve a process or a citation in a private house was a signal for instant explosion. Violent words were the least which these officials had to fear, and they were fortunate if they escaped so lightly. A stranger had died in a house in St. Dunstan"s belonging to a certain John Fleming, and an apparitor had been sent "to seal his chamber and his goods" that the church might not lose her dues.
John Fleming drove him out, saying loudly unto him, "Thou shalt seale no door here; go thy way, thou stynkyng knave, ye are but knaves and brybours everych one of you."[209] Thomas Banister, of St. Mary Wolechurch, when a process was served upon him, "did threaten to slay the apparitor." "Thou horson knave," he said to him, "without thou tell me who set thee awork to summon me to the court, by G.o.ddis woundes, and by this gold, I shall brake thy head."[210] A "waiter, at the sign of the c.o.c.k," fell in trouble for saying that "the sight of a priest did make him sick," also, "that he would go sixty miles to indict a priest," saying also in the presence of many--"horsyn priests, they shall be indicted as many as come to my handling."[211] Often the officers found threats convert themselves into acts. The apparitor of the Bishop of London went with a citation into the shop of a mercer of St. Bride"s, Henry c.l.i.theroe by name. "Who does cite me?" asked the mercer. "Marry, that do I," answered the apparitor, "if thou wilt anything with it;" whereupon, as the apparitor deposeth, the said Henry c.l.i.theroe did hurl at him from off his finger that instrument of his art called the "thymmelle," and he, the apparitor, drawing his sword, "the said Henry did s.n.a.t.c.h up his virga, Anglice, his yard, and did pursue the apparitor into the public streets, and after multiplying of many blows did break the head of the said apparitor."[212] These are light matters, but they were straws upon the stream; and such a scene as this which follows reveals the principles on which the courts awarded their judgment. One Richard Hunt was summoned for certain articles implying contempt, and for vilipending his lordship"s jurisdiction. Being examined, he confessed to the words following: "That all false matters were bolstered and clokyd in this court of Paul"s Cheyne; moreover he called the apparitor, William Middleton, false knave in the full court, and his father"s dettes, said he, by means of his mother-in-law and master commissary, were not payd; and this he would abide by, that he had now in this place said no more but truth." Being called on to answer further, he said he would not, and his lordship did therefore excommunicate him.[213] From so brief an entry we cannot tell on which side the justice lay; but at least we can measure the equity of a tribunal which punished complaints against itself with excommunication, and dismissed the confessed incest of a priest with a fine of a few shillings.
Such then were the English consistory courts. I have selected but a few instances from the proceedings of a single one of them. If we are to understand the weight with which the system pressed upon the people, we must multiply the proceedings at St. Paul"s by the number of the English dioceses; the number of dioceses by the number of archdeaconries; we must remember that in proportion to the distance from London the abuse must have increased indefinitely from the absence of even partial surveillance; we must remember that appeals were permitted only from one ecclesiastical court to another; from the archdeacon"s court to that of the bishop of the diocese, from that of the bishop to the Court of Arches; that any language of impatience or resistance furnished suspicion of heresy, and that the only security therefore was submission. We can then imagine what England must have been with an archdeacon"s commissary sitting constantly in every town; exercising an undefined jurisdiction over general morality; and every court swarming with petty lawyers who lived upon the fees which they could extract. Such a system for the administration of justice was perhaps never tolerated before in any country.
But the time of reckoning at length was arrived; slowly the hand had crawled along the dial plate; slowly as if the event would never come: and wrong was heaped on wrong; and oppression cried, and it seemed as if no ear had heard its voice; till the measure of the circle was at length fulfilled, the finger touched the hour, and as the strokes of the great hammer rang out above the nation, in an instant the mighty fabric of iniquity was shivered into ruins. Wolsey had dreamed that it might still stand, self-reformed as he hoped to see it; but in his dread lest any hands but those of friends should touch the work, he had "prolonged its sickly days," waiting for the convenient season which was not to be; he had put off the meeting of parliament, knowing that if parliament were once a.s.sembled, he would be unable to resist the pressure which would be brought to bear upon him; and in the impatient minds of the people he had identified himself with the evils which he alone for the few last years had hindered from falling. At length he had fallen himself, and his disgrace was celebrated in London with enthusiastic rejoicing as the inauguration of the new era. On the eighteenth of October, 1529, Wolsey delivered up the seals. He was ordered to retire to Esher; and, "at the taking of his barge," Cavendish saw no less than a thousand boats full of men and women of the city of London, "waffeting up and down in Thames," to see him sent, as they expected, to the Tower.[214] A fortnight later the same crowd was perhaps again a.s.sembled on a wiser occasion, and with truer reason for exultation, to see the king coming up in his barge from Greenwich to open parliament.
"According to the summons," says Hall, "the King of England began his high court of parliament the third day of November, on which day he came by water to his palace of Bridewell, and there he and his n.o.bles put on their robes of Parliament, and so came to the Black Friars Church, where a ma.s.s of the Holy Ghost was solemnly sung by the king"s chaplain; and after the ma.s.s, the king, with all his Lords and Commons which were summoned to appear on that day, came into the Parliament. The king sate on his throne or seat royal, and Sir Thomas More, his chancellor, standing on the right hand of the king, made an eloquent oration, setting forth the causes why at that time the king so had summoned them."[215]
"Like as a good shepherd," More said, "which not only keepeth and attendeth well his sheep, but also foreseeth and provideth for all things which either may be hurtful or noysome to his flock; so the king, which is the shepherd, ruler, and governor of his realm, vigilantly foreseeing things to come, considers how that divers laws, before this time made, are now, by long continuance of time and mutation of things, become very insufficient and imperfect; and also, by the frail condition of man, divers new enormities are sprung amongst the people, for the which no law is yet made to reform the same. For this cause the king at this time has summoned his high court of parliament; and I liken the king to a shepherd or herdsman, because if a prince be compared to his riches, he is but a rich man; if a prince be compared to his honour, he is but an honourable man; but compare him to the mult.i.tude of his people, and the number of his flock, then he is a ruler, a governor of might and puissance; so that his people maketh him a prince, as of the mult.i.tude of sheep cometh the name of a shepherd.
"And as you see that amongst a great flock of sheep some be rotten and faulty, which the good shepherd sendeth from the good sheep; so the great wether which is of late fallen, as you all know, so craftily, so scabedly, yea, so untruly juggled with the king, that all men must needs guess that he thought in himself, either the king had no wit to perceive his crafty doings, or else that he would not see nor know them.
"But he was deceived, for his Grace"s sight was so quick and penetrable that he saw him; yea, and saw through him, both within and without; and according to his desert he hath had a gentle correction, which small punishment the king will not to be an example to other offenders; but clearly declareth that whosoever hereafter shall make like attempt, or shall commit like offence, shall not escape with like punishment.
"And because you of the Commons House be a gross mult.i.tude, and cannot all speak at one time, the king"s pleasure is, that you resort to the Nether House, and then amongst yourselves, according to the old and antient custom, choose an able person to be your common mouth and speaker."[216]
The invective against "the great wether" was not perhaps the portion of the speech to which the audience listened with least interest. In the minds of contemporaries, principles are identified with persons, who form, as it were, the focus on which the pa.s.sions concentrate. At present we may consent to forget Wolsey, and fix our attention on the more permanently essential matter--the reform of the laws. The world was changing; how swiftly, how completely, no living person knew;--but a confusion no longer tolerable was a patent fact to all men; and with a wise instinct it was resolved that the grievances of the nation, which had acc.u.mulated through centuries, should be submitted to a complete ventilation, without reserve, check, or secrecy.
For this purpose it was essential that the Houses should not be interfered with, that they should be allowed full liberty to express their wishes and to act upon them. Accordingly, the practice then usual with ministers, of undertaking the direction of the proceedings, was clearly on this occasion foregone. In the House of Commons then, as much as now, there was in theory unrestricted liberty of discussion, and free right for any member to originate whatever motion he pleased. "The discussions in the English Parliament," wrote Henry himself to the pope, "are free and unrestricted; the crown has no power to limit their debates or to controul the votes of the members. They determine everything for themselves, as the interests of the commonwealth require."[217] But so long as confidence existed between the crown and the people, these rights were in great measure surrendered.
The ministers prepared the business which was to be transacted; and the temper of the Houses was usually so well understood, that, except when there was a demand for money, it was rare that a measure was proposed the acceptance of which was doubtful, or the nature of which would provoke debate. So little jealousy, indeed, was in quiet times entertained of the power of the crown, and so little was a residence in London to the taste of the burgesses and the country gentlemen, that not only were their expenses defrayed by a considerable salary, but it was found necessary to forbid them absenting themselves from their duties by a positive enactment.[218]
In the composition of the House of Commons, however, which had now a.s.sembled, no symptoms appeared of such indifference. The election had taken place in the midst of great and general excitement; and the members chosen, if we may judge from their acts and their pet.i.tions, were men of that broad resolved temper, who only in times of popular effervescence are called forward into prominence. It would have probably been unsafe for the crown to attempt dictation or repression at such a time, if it had desired to do so. Under the actual circ.u.mstances, its interest was to encourage the fullest expression of public feeling.
The proceedings were commenced with a formal "act of accusation" against the clergy, which was submitted to the king in the name of the Commons of England, and contained a summary of the wrongs of which the people complained. This remarkable doc.u.ment must have been drawn up before the opening of parliament, and must have been presented in the first week of the session,--probably on the first day on which the House met to transact business.[219] There is appearance of haste in the composition, little order being observed in the catalogue of grievances; but inasmuch as it contains the germ of all the acts which were framed in the following years for the reform of the church, and is in fact the most complete exhibition which we possess of the working of the church system at the time when it ceased to be any more tolerable, I have thought it well to insert it uncurtailed. Although the fact of the presentation of this pet.i.tion has been well known, it has not been accurately described by any of our historians, none of them appearing to have seen more than incorrect and imperfect epitomes of it.[220]
"TO THE KING OUR SOVEREIGN LORD
"In most humble wise show unto your Highness and your most prudent wisdom your faithful, loving, and most obedient servants the Commons in this your present parliament a.s.sembled; that of late, as well through new fantastical and erroneous opinions grown by occasion of frantic seditious books compiled, imprinted, published, and made in the English tongue, contrary and against the very true Catholic and Christian faith; as also by the extreme and uncharitable behaviour and dealing of divers ordinaries, their commissaries and sumners, which have heretofore had, and yet have the examination in and upon the said errours and heretical opinions; much discord, variance, and debate hath risen, and more and more daily is like to increase and ensue amongst the universal sort of your said subjects, as well spiritual as temporal, each against the other--in most uncharitable manner, to the great inquietation, vexation, and breach of your peace within this your most Catholic Realm:
"The special particular griefs whereof, which most princ.i.p.ally concern your Commons and lay subjects, and which are, as they undoubtedly suppose, the very chief fountains, occasions, and causes that daily breedeth and nourisheth the said seditious factions, deadly hatred, and most uncharitable part taking, of either part of said subjects spiritual and temporal against the other, followingly do ensue.--
"I. First the prelates and spiritual ordinaries of this your most excellent Realm of England, and the clergy of the same, have in their convocations heretofore made or caused to be made, and also daily do make many and divers fashions of laws, const.i.tutions, and ordinances; without your knowledge or most Royal a.s.sent, and without the a.s.sent and consent of any of your lay subjects; unto the which laws your said lay subjects have not only heretofore been and daily be constrained to obey, in their bodies, goods, and possessions; but have also been compelled to incur daily into the censures of the same, and been continually put to importable charges and expenses, against all equity, right, and good conscience. And yet your said humble subjects ne their predecessors could ever be privy to the said laws; ne any of the said laws have been declared unto them in the English tongue, or otherwise published, by knowledge whereof they might have eschewed the penalties, dangers, or censures of the same; which laws so made your said most humble and obedient servants, under the supportation of your Majesty, suppose to be not only to the diminution and derogation of your imperial jurisdiction and prerogative royal, but also to the great prejudice, inquietation, and damage of your said subjects.
"II. Also now of late there hath been devised by the Most Reverend Father in G.o.d, William, Archbishop of Canterbury, that in the courts which he calleth his Courts of the Arches and Audience, shall only be ten proctors at his deputation, which be sworn to preserve and promote the only jurisdiction of his said courts; by reason whereof, if any of your lay subjects should have any lawful cause against the judges of the said courts, or any doctors or proctors of the same, or any of their friends and adherents, they can ne may in nowise have indifferent counsel: and also all the causes depending in any of the said courts may by the confederacy of the said few proctors be in such wise tracted and delayed, as your subjects suing in the same shall be put to importable charges, costs, and expense. And further, in case that any matter there being preferred should touch your crown, your regal jurisdiction, and prerogative Royal, yet the same shall not be disclosed by any of the said proctors for fear of the loss of their offices. Your most obedient subjects do therefore, under protection of your Majesty, suppose that your Highness should have the nomination of some convenient number of proctors to be always attendant upon the said Courts of Arches and Audience, there to be sworn to the preferment of your jurisdiction and prerogative, and to the expedition of the causes of your lay subjects repairing and suing to the same.